Adnan Zulfiqar

Adnan A. Zulfiqar specializes in criminal law, Islamic law, and laws of war. He previously drafted penal codes for the Maldives and Somalia, and currently researches legal obligation and revolutionary law. He regularly provides expert media commentary for various outlets, is proficient in multiple languages, and has spent over a decade in the Middle East, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. Adnan Zulfiqar's scholarship employs an interdisciplinary approach to better understanding the theoretical and practical dimensions of legal change, domestically and internationally. His primary fields of inquiry are criminal law and Islamic law. In criminal law, his work explores questions relating to police powers, overcriminalization, and codification. In Islamic law, he focuses on the formulation, evolution, and application of Islamic legal concepts, with particular emphasis on the idea of legal obligation.

Professor Zulfiqar joined the faculty at Rutgers Law School as an assistant professor in 2017. Prior to that, he was a Sharswood Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, a Harry F. Guggenheim Fellow, and a CASA Fellow (Damascus, Syria). He previously helped draft and implement new penal codes and commentaries for the Republic of the Maldives and the Federal Republic of Somalia under the auspices of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), respectively. He also worked as an associate in the investigations, white collar and fraud group at Hogan Lovells, LLP (Washington, D.C.) and was a legislative staffer for U.S. Senator Max Cleland (D-GA).

Currently, he is a Fellow at the Truman National Security Project, an editor for SHARIASource at Harvard Law School, and on the editorial board of the Arab Law Quarterly. He is also chair of the Islamic law section of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) for 2019-2020. Professor Zulfiqar earned his J.D. and Ph.D. in Near Eastern languages and civilizations (NELC) from the University of Pennsylvania. He also has an M.L.S. (international affairs) from Georgetown University, an M.A. (NELC) from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. (religion and anthropology) from Emory University.