Nahda Shehada, Ph.D. in Development Studies

Dr. Nahda Shehada is Senior Lecturer and convener of the Women, Gender and Development program at the International Institute of Social Studies in the Hague. In 2007-08 and 2008-09, she taught a course on Islam, Modernity and Multiculturalism in Contemporary Debates. She is also currently coordinating a three-year research project entitled ‘Islamic Family Law in Palestine: Text and Context’ in cooperation with Zurich and Bern Universities/Switzerland. Between 2005 and 2006, she was a researcher at the Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) in Leiden. She is an associate researcher at Birzeit University/Palestine and chercheure associée at the Laboratoire d'anthropologie urbaine (CNRS, CityIvry-sur-Seine, France). Among her recent publications are Justice without Drama (2005), ‘Le paradoxe du mariage precoce a Gaza’ (2005), ‘Women’s Experience in the Shari‘a Court of Gaza City’ (2005), ‘Religious Mediators in Palestine’ (2006), ‘Equity vs. Predictability in Islamic Law’ (2008, co-authored with E. Conte), 'Negotiating Custody Rights in Islamic Family Law’ (2009), and ‘Flexibility vs. Rigidity in the Practice of Islamic Family Law’ (2009). Her book on the practice of Islamic family law in Gaza (in Arabic) will be published by Muatin at the end of 2009.

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