Professor Dr. Havva Guney Ruebenacker

Biography

Havva Guney-Ruebenacker is a Lecturer at Harvard Law School, specializing in Comparative Family Law. She focuses on American family law, Islamic law, and comparative law, offering consulting services as an expert witness in divorce litigation involving spousal support, marital property, and child custody issues. Her doctoral research at Harvard, S.J.D., emphasized classical Islamic law and modern legal reforms, exploring themes such as slavery, family law modernization, and the economic implications of no-fault divorce. Guney-Ruebenacker's forthcoming book manuscript, "Islamic Legal Realism: Rethinking Slavery, Marriage, and Divorce in Islamic Law," aims to challenge traditional interpretations of Islamic law regarding women's rights and slavery. Her academic experience includes roles as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Boston University Law School and Graduate Fellow at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies. Furthermore, she served as a Visiting Fellow in the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School and as an Associate Research Scholar at Yale Law School, focusing on the significant schools of Islamic law and receiving her B.A. in Law from the University of Tehran. Guney-Ruebenacker also holds an LLM in European Union law from the University of Cambridge and is fluent in Turkish, Arabic, and Farsi.

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