Michael Cook, Women as Jurists: The Case of Kasani’s Wife

Michael Cook, Women as Jurists: The Case of Kasani’s Wife Monday Majlis Online on the 23rd of February 2026 Bio: Michael Cook joined the Near Eastern Studies Department at Princeton in 1986 after teaching for twenty years at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. His longest book is A history of the Muslim world (Princeton University Press, 2024), and one of his shortest is The Koran: A very short introduction (Oxford University Press, 2000). He retired in 2025. https://nes.princeton.edu/people/mich... Abstract: In his biographical dictionary of Hanafi scholars, Ibn Abi ’l-Wafa’ al-Qurashi (d. 1373) devotes a few pages to women as jurists. One of these women—the only one about whom he has a lot to say—was the wife of the well-known jurist Kasani (d. 1191). Combined with other sources, the information he provides sheds an interesting light on male attitudes to this woman in particular, and on the larger question of the role of women as jurists. In the spirit of the label ‘Majlis’ and also to make the talks even more interesting, our speakers present the topic discussed as embedded in their own journey. You can watch the previous Majlises here    • Monday Majlis series (Centre for the Study...  . However, we don’t record the Q&A in order to keep the discussion free. Please come and enjoy the talks and the discussions : ) If you’d like to be included in the CSI (Centre for the Study of Islam, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter) mailing list, please write to me ([email protected]). We’ll be happy to welcome you! István T Kristó-Nagy https://experts.exeter.ac.uk/4333-ist...