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Qudsia Mirza

Senior Lecturer

Department of Law & Criminology , Royal Docks School Of Business And Law

Qudsia Mirza is Senior Lecturer in Law, and qualified as a solicitor before entering academic life. She has extensive teaching and research experience both in the UK and in the US. She has held positions at Birkbeck, University of London, and in the US, at Albany Law School, New York, where she was the Kate Stoneman Professor of Law and Democracy, and at the University of Cincinnati, where she was Visiting Professor of Law.

Areas Of Interest

  • Islamic Law
  • Islamic Law and Gender
  • Islamic Feminism
  • Islamic Law and Human Rights
  • Legal Pluralism
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OVERVIEW

Qudsia has held a number of research positions which include the Francis Lewis Scholar in Residence at Washington and Lee University, Visiting Scholar at the Department of Gender and Women's Studies, University of California Berkeley, Visiting fellow in the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School, and Visiting Fellow at Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Spain.

After working in the healthcare industry in the US and gaining valuable industry experience, Qudsia has recently returned to full-time academic life in the UK.

Qudsia has been appointed to executive and advisory positions for a number of organisations which range from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants in the UK, to the Contemporary Arab and Muslim Cultural Studies Institute, University of North Texas in the US. She has been a member of the governance committee of the International Law and Society Association, and held editorial board positions at Social and Legal Studies and the Muslim World Journal of Human Rights. She sits on the Policy Council, and the Executive Committee, of Liberty, the UK's leading human rights organisation.
 

CURRENT RESEARCH

Qudsia's research and publications are in the area of Islamic Law. Her focus is on two main areas: feminist/reformist perspectives of Islamic Law; and the development of Islamic legal cultures by diasporic Muslim communities and their relationship with official legal systems.

Her current research projects are:
Law, Religion and Social Progress in the Age of COVID-19 (Co-director with Susanne Scholz, Southern Methodist University, USA),  Islamic Feminism, Human Rights and Women's Activism in Pakistan.

She is currently editing a collection of essays Islam, Feminism and Legal Cultures.  

Qudsia has been the recipient of two British Academy Research Grants.

PUBLICATIONS

  • Muslim Women in the British Labour Market and Intersectionality in Routledge Companion to Intersectionality Jennifer Nash and Samantha Pinto (eds) (Routledge, 2022)
  • Interrogating the Intersection of Human Rights Cinema and Law ed (with Barry Collins) Special issue of Studies in Law Politics and Society (forthcoming)
  • The Ideological Use of Human Rights Cinema in Pakistan in Interrogating the Intersection of Human Rights Cinema and Law Special issue of Studies in Law Politics and Society (forthcoming)
  • Locating Hajar in Islam: Female Bible Characters From A Feminist Muslim Stance in A Retrospective of Feminist Hebrew Bible Exegesis: Contexts & Ideologies (eds) Rachel Magdalene and Susanne Scholz (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2014)
  • Law, Justice and Gender Equality in Islamic Feminism in God Loves Diversity & Justice: Progressive Scholars Speak about Faith, Politics, and the World (ed) Susanne Scholz (Lanham MD: Lexington Books 2013)
  • British Muslims, Minority Rights, and Gender in Law and Rights: Global Perspectives on Constitutionalism and Governance (eds) Penelope E. Andrews and Susan Bazilli (Lake Mary, FL: Vandeplas Publishing 2008)
  • Islamic Feminism and Gender Equality (Leiden: ISIM Review, Spring 2008) 30
  • The Orientalism of Holman Hunt's 'The Lantern Maker's Courtship (London: Tate Britain, 2008)
  • Islamic Law and Gender Islam 21 (London: International Forum for Islamic Dialogue, 2004)
  • Women, Gender and Access to the Legal System: Western Europe in Encyclopaedia of Women and Islamic Cultures Volume II (Lieden: Brill, 2004)
  • Sacred and Secular Blasphemies in Griffith Law Review Special Issue on Law and Postcolonialism (2003) 12 (2) 336
  • Islamic Feminism, Possibilities and Limitations in Law After Ground Zero (ed) John Strawson (London: Cavendish 2002) reprinted in the Reader Women and Islam: Critical Concepts in Sociology (ed) Haideh Moghissi (New York: Routledge, 2004) 
  • In the House of Law, Empowering Women An Alternative Strategy from Rural India and Widows in India, Social Neglect and Public Action (2002) 10 Feminist Legal Studies
  • Islamic Feminism and the Exemplary Past in Feminist Perspectives on Law and Theory (eds) Janice Richardson and Ralph Sandland (London: Cavendish, 2000).
  • Islam, Hybridity and the Laws of Marriage (2000) 14 Australian Feminist Law Journal 1
  • Colonial Fantasies (2000) 23 (2) Women's Studies International Forum
  • Patricia Williams: Inflecting Critical Race Theory (interview with Patricia Williams) (1999) 7 (2) Feminist Legal Studies
  • Race Relations in the Workplace (London: Institute of Employment Rights, 1995)

MODULES

Legal skills - Module Leader