The goal of the corporation’s new emphasis on Islam is to encourage the development and expansion of the study of Islam within the U.S. and to stimulate research that helps build a body of thoughtful and original scholarship. The corporation is concentrating the Carnegie Scholars Program on Islam during the next few years to make the field more central to American research and instruction, significantly expanding the breadth of knowledge necessary to build leadership and guide national and foreign policy.

“The corporation has decided to focus the Scholars Program on one specific area of vital importance: Islam,” said Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corporation. “Our overall aim is to expand the range of scholarship in order to promote knowledge and understanding about Islam as a religion and about the cultures and communities of Muslim societies both in the United States and abroad.”

Hashmi’s research explores the current status of Islamic international law in light of the formal accession of Muslim states to public international law. Classical Islamic civilization developed a rich body of laws intended to govern the Islamic state’s relations with Muslims and non-Muslims. The theory behind these laws was based on two opposing spheres: dar al-Islam, practiced in Islamic states and grounded in interpretations of Islamic texts and precedents, and dar al-harb, which included non-Muslim legal systems from states and political entities that were conjoined to the Islamic empire as it expanded. Today, these aspects are debated by those who argue that Muslim states should abide by Islamic principles, in effect, a Muslim alliance formed as a subset within the broader global community. Others, the majority, generally accept prevailing international norms in theory and practice.

Hashmi proposes that Islamic values provide a normative framework, which informs Muslim political culture and shapes domestic and international politics, and that Islam’s fundamental moralistic principles may be invoked for the consolidation and support of positive international laws, with the goal of achieving justice and promoting humanity throughout the world. By analyzing how the universal precepts of international law correlate to Muslim concepts and values, Hashmi is expected to break new ground in understanding parallels between Islamic international law and public international law.

Carnegie Scholars receive up to $100,000 over a two-year period to pursue research. The 2005 class of scholars reflects a diversity of professional, ethnic, and geographical backgrounds. Notably, half of them are young, having received a doctorate in or after 1994; one-third are women; and several have lived in Muslim societies around the world. The range of their professional fields includes Islamic studies, law, religion, history, international relations, politics, anthropology, and English and comparative literature.