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This workshop brings together scholars whose works explore the relationships between Islamic law, governance, and socioeconomic development in early modern and modern settings. In this general vein, the event will focus on two interrelated topics.Law and Governance: This theme includes a set of issues that combine jurisprudence, legal practice, and politics. The presentations explore the ways in which legal structures and political factors influenced one another in different contexts. Central to this general orientation are the jurisprudential interpretations of political authority and how Islamic governments have interpreted the law to justify political objectives. Also relevant to the theme are the limits of change in Islamic law to address novel concerns, the appropriation of Western-style constitutional principles, and the accommodation of human and animal rights principles. The presentations and discussions in the workshop will explore how such attempts have fared in the past, what contemporary formulations involve, and the possibilities for the future.Law and Development: This theme concerns the relationship between Islamic law, its various context-based articulations, and socioeconomic development. In particular, the workshop will address the relationship between jurisprudential interpretations and specific economic institutions and/or practices. Relevant to this topic is how the question of economic development in Muslim-majority settings might be treated from a legally informed perspective. In the context of this discussion, the workshop will also explore the scope of and limits to legal improvisation in response to socioeconomic pressures and the ways in which new legal concepts, interpretations, and institutions have been constructed to support economic development.&#160;The workshop will be composed of five thematic panels and one open-theme panel over two days.http://agakhanbrown.org/Friday, April 48:30 a.m.: Coffee and Registration8:45 – 9:00 a.m.: Welcoming RemarksBeshara Doumani, Director, Middle East Studies, Brown University9:00 – 10:30 a.m.: Jurisprudence and SovereigntyPanel chair:Nathan BrownParticipants:Brinkley Messick: TBAMohammad Fadel: Agency, Representation and the Sunni Conception of GovernanceMartha Mundy: Against ‘Islamic Law’: Imagining Normativity Outside Modern Sovereignty10:30 – 11:00 am: Coffee Break11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.:  Legal Interpretation and Practice in the Ottoman EmpirePanel chair:Palmira BrummettParticipants:Guy Burak: The Ottoman Introduction of Kanun to the Arabic-Speaking Middle EastBoğaç Ergene: Law and Legal Practice in a Period of Flux in Ottoman History (17th and 18th Centuries)William Smiley: Legitimation, Legal Advice, and Statecraft: The Şeyhülislam and the Ottoman Law of Rebellion, 1769-183012:30 – 1:30 p.m. Lunch at Kim Koo Library (for hosts and participants)1:30 – 3:00 p.m.: Approaches to Waqf from Different PerspectivesPanel chair:Faiz AhmedParticipants:Beshara Doumani: The Waqf as a Family CharterTimur Kuran: Institutional Roots of Authoritarian Rule in the Middle East: Political Legacies of the Islamic WaqfKristin Diwan: Islamic Development and Islamist Politics: The Revival of Awqaf in Kuwait3:00 – 3:30 p.m. Coffee Break3:30 – 5:00 p.m.: Economic Rights, Social Justice, and InnovationPanel Chair:Martha MundyParticipants:Maya Shatzmiller: Women’s Property Rights in Islamic Law and Society – Significance and ImpactMahmoud El-Gamal: Bread (Rawls) + Freedom (Sen) = Social Justice? Religion and Economics in the Egyptian SpringRuth Miller: Bacterial, Computational, and Cloned Life?  The Ottoman-Islamic Law and Politics of Nonhuman Vitality6:30 p.m.: Dinner at Faculty Club (for hosts and participants)Saturday, April 58:00 a.m.: Coffee8:15 – 9:45 a.m.: Law-Making and Constitutional ProcessesPanel Chair:Maya ShatzmillerParticipants:Faiz Ahmed: Sharia as Rule of Law in Afghanistan? The Case of Shah Amanullah’s Nizamnama Codes, 1919-1926Nathan Brown: The Fate of Islamic Inflation after the Arab Uprisings of 2011Kristen Stilt: Constitutionalizing Animals in Egypt9: 45 – 10:15 a.m.: Coffee Break10:15 – 11:45 a.m.:  Open-Theme DiscussionDiscussion Leader:Beshara Doumani11:45 a.m.: Lunch in South Common Room (for hosts and participants)