About Adnan Zulfiqar

Adnan Zulfiqar is an interdisciplinary scholar in the fields of law, history and religion whose research focuses on critically examining the frameworks underlying legal discourses in both domestic and global contexts. His primary fields of inquiry are criminal law & procedure, Islamic jurisprudence, and rule of law in the Global South.

His most recent work centers on studying how Muslim jurists conceive of and utilize legal obligations, particularly in the context of revolution and war; rethinking approaches to the diffusion of human rights norms; and, exploring questions relating to police discretion in the United States. His scholarship has appeared in a number of publications, including the Yale Journal of International Law, Journal of Comparative Law (U.K.), West Virginia Law Review, NYU Journal of International Law & Politics and the Journal of Islamic Law [Harvard].

Professor Zulfiqar is a Regional Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania's Middle East Center, Editor at Harvard Law School's SHARIASource and faculty affiliate at the Rutgers Center for Transnational Law and the Center for Security, Race & Rights. 

During the 2022-23 academic year, Professor Zulfiqar was an External Faculty Fellow in residence at the Stanford Humanities Center.

He earned his J.D. (law), M.A. and Ph.D. (Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations) from the University of Pennsylvania, his M.L.S. (International Affairs) from Georgetown University and a B.A. (Religion and Anthropology) from Emory University. He is proficient in multiple languages and has spent over a decade in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.