The Faculty of Law’s Prof. Anver Emon has received a Canada Research Chair in Religion, Pluralism and the Rule of Law, one of 137 new and renewed CRCs announced today to recognize cutting-edge scholarship at 34 Canadian institutions.
Minister of State (Science and Technology) Ed Holder announced the CRCs at the University of Toronto and says the $118 million investment, together with $7.9 million in additional infrastructure support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, “will help promote innovation and support top-tier talent at Canadian postsecondary institutions.”
“It’s an honour to be awarded this chair,” says Emon. “It’s a privilege to have my work recognized, supported, and encouraged in this way. It certainly gives new impetus to me as I pursue novel research trajectories that speak to our very troubled times."
"Since he began teaching at the Faculty of Law in 2005, Anver Emon has been intensely prolific and wide-ranging in his scholarship, while establishing himself as an internationally recognized authority on Islamic law and Islamic legal history," says Interim Dean Jutta Brunnée. "I am delighted that Professor Emon's work has been recognized through a Canada Research Chair. It will be a wonderful platform for him to push his contributions to new levels and to contribute to the crucially important debates surrounding Islamic law and the Rule of Law."
Emon is a globally recognized leader in Islamic legal history and governance, with separate doctorates in law and in history. He is a pre-modern Islamic legal historian, lawyer and legal theorist, keenly engaged in interdisciplinary studies and committed to public service. His research interests include the role of Shari'a both inside and outside the Muslim world.
“Though Islamic law is rooted in the distant past, it remains a source of both value and concern in our contemporary world,” states Emon.
He has worked at the intersection of religion, equality, and social justice with stakeholders across society, such as government agencies, NGOs and other groups. At the NATO School in Oberammergau, Germany, he has given lectures to military lawyers; in Italy, he has advised human rights lawyers; he has supported initiatives in the Maldives to further its institutional capacity; and he has led intensive seminars for human rights, government and military lawyers on Islamic studies, Islamic law, and international law.
In 2014, he was named a Guggenheim Fellow in the field of law.
The author of numerous articles, Emon wrote Islamic Natural Law Theories (Oxford University Press, 2010), and Religious Pluralism and Islamic Law: Dhimmis and Others in the Empire of Law (Oxford University Press, 2012). In addition, he’s the co-editor of Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law: Searching for Common Ground? (Oxford University Press, 2012)
There are more than 1,700 Canada Research Chairs working in the natural sciences, engineering, health, social sciences and humanities, at more than 70 postsecondary institutions across the country, including 54 new chairs in Ontario.
As of July 21, 2014, the University of Toronto is home to 222 Canada Research Chairs and two Canada Excellence Research Chairs.
