Lena Salaymeh

Biography

Lena Salaymeh is Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) at Tel Aviv Law. She researches and teaches Islamic and Jewish jurisprudence in both historical and contemporary legal systems. Her book, The Beginnings of Islamic Law: Late Antique Islamicate Legal Traditions (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores how critical historiography can illuminate Islamic legal beginnings. She has published in Law and History Review, Law & Social Inquiry, Islamic Law & Society, Journal of Legal Education, UC Irvine Law Review, Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, and The Immanent Frame. Salaymeh also writes and speaks on the politics of knowledge production in Islamic studies. Salaymeh earned her PhD in Legal and Middle Eastern History from UC Berkeley and her JD from Harvard Law School. She is a member of the California Bar. (Her publications can be downloaded at http://telaviv.academia.edu/LenaSalaymeh/)

Research Interest

Islamic jurisprudence and legal history; Jewish jurisprudence and legal history; legal historiography; law, “religion,” and secularism; law in the contemporary “Middle East” and North Africa; contemporary Islamic law