Dr. Samy Ayoub

Biography

Samy Ayoub specializes in Islamic law, modern Middle East law, and the interaction of law with religion in contemporary Muslim societies. His training encompasses Islamic Studies in Egypt, Scotland, and the United States. Ayoub was a Fellow in the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World at Harvard Law School in Fall 2021 and completed a fellowship at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in 2018-2019. He served as President of the Islamic Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools in 2018-2019 and is a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Law and the Middle East and LexisNexis's Arab Law Quarterly. Ayoub authored the book "Law, Empire, Sultan: Ottoman Imperial Authority and Late Ḥanafī Jurisprudence" (Oxford University Press, 2020), which won the Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award in 2015. His ongoing book project, "Erasure: Law and Legal Modernity in Colonial Egypt, 1800-1950," explores the state regulation of legal practice in Egypt during that period. He earned his PhD in Islamic law from the University of Arizona, an MSc in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies from the University of Edinburgh, and a BA in Islamic jurisprudence from Al-Azhar University.

Research Interests

Courses