Omar Farahat

 
 

Read: Selected writings on Academia.edu

Focus Law | Droit Fall 2017: Crossing Borders - Interview with Omar Farahat

Biography

Omar Farahat’s areas of interest include legal theory, comparative law, theoretical and theological ethics, and religious forms of regulation relative to modern legal systems. His current research focuses on Islamic legal and moral theories, centered on the analysis of key concepts in Islamic legal theory in conversation with similar debates in contemporary jurisprudence.

His newly published book, The Foundation of Norms in Islamic Jurisprudence and Theology (CUP, 2019) explores the role of divine commands as a normative source in Islamic theology and legal theory. His work on Islamic legal theory and ethics has appeared in the Journal of Law and Religion and the Journal of Religious Ethics.

He has presented his research for the Middle East Studies Association, the British Association for Islamic Studies, the Society for the Study of Muslim Ethics, among other venues. He has research forthcoming in The Routledge Handbook of Islamic Law and in Oriens.

Omar Farahat completed his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 2016, after which he worked as a Research Fellow at Yale Law School. Prior to that, he obtained a dual law degree from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Cairo University in 2004, an LL.M. from Harvard Law School in 2007, and an interdisciplinary M.A. in the humanities from New York University in 2010. He has practiced law in Cairo, New York, and Paris.

Education

• Ph.D., Columbia University, 2016
• M.A., New York University, 2010
• LL.M., Harvard Law School, 2007
• Maîtrise, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2004
• Licence, Cairo University, 2004

Employment

• Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University, 2017-
• Research Fellow, Yale Law School, 2016-2017

Areas of Interest

Law and religion, theistic law and ethics, Islamic law, comparative law, legal theory, ethics.

Professor Farahat is always interested in supervising graduate work in these areas.