August 23, 2023Do Islamic-law wills contravene the common-law prohibitions against delegation of testamentary powers and incorporation by reference?
Former Visiting Fellow Fatima Essop discusses whether standard Islamic Wills, in which testators delegate their testamentary powers to Ulama bodies to determine their Islamic law heirs, contravene certain common law rules, in her latest article published by the South African Law Journal.
Former Visiting Fellow Fatima Essop published an article in the South African Law Journal, which she wrote during her time with the Program on Law & Society in the Muslim World, entitled “Do Islamic-law wills contravene the common-law prohibitions against delegation of testamentary powers and incorporation by reference?”
Fatima also wrote an analytical piece on the status of legislation to recognize and regulate Muslim marriages in South Africa in the June edition of Muslim Views.
In Summer 2023, Fatima presented a paper entitled “Balancing the Right to Equality with the Right to Religious Freedom in the Context of Islamic Inheritance – A South African Case Study” at the Annual Meeting of Law and Society in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and took part in the Young Scholars Fellowship on Religion and the Rule of Law at Christ Church, Oxford.
In Spring 2023, Fatima gave a seminar at Harvard Law School titled “South Africa: Navigating Religious Rights in a Constitutional Democracy” and co-presented a guest lecture at the University of Nevada, Department of Anthropology, titled “Islam, Gender and Legal Pluralism in Ghana and South Africa.”