Professor Benhalim's research focuses on the intersection of law and religion, principally in the context of secular legal systems. My scholarship spans the fields of legal pluralism, comparative law, private law, and religious law. Utilizing comparative law theory and methodology, her work analyzes the American, Jewish, and Islamic legal systems, their respective interpretive schemes, and the interplay between law and cultural paradigms. Her scholarship also examines how Islamic and Jewish law navigate, influence, and are impacted by secular legal norms, especially in the areas of contracts and reproductive rights. This scholarship is especially pertinent as Judaism and Islam are the two largest minority religions in the United States, and Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. This work disputes antisemitic and Islamophobic tropes that present Jewish and Islamic law as monolithic, outdated, and antithetical to American legal values.
keywords
Islamic Law, Sharia, Jewish Law, Halakha, Religion and the Law
