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...course, no “Gate of Ijtihad” to be closed, and nobody had the authority to close the gate even if one had existed. The metaphor, however, highlighted the contrast between the cultivation of diversity in the first three centuries of Sharia and the stalemate and rigidity of the study of Islamic law since then. The “silver lining” of ISIS is that it is forcing...

...Open University's Law courses. Why would we need a theory to understand jury decision making? To answer this, it helps to think about why we might be interested in understanding juries in the first place. One plausible reason is that we might want to reassure ourselves that they are making reliable decisions. Or, to put it differently, to see where any shortcomings in...

...Open University academics Sara de Jong, Umut Erel and Olga Jurasz. Olga: Alia what inspired you to make On a Wing and a Prayer? Alia: I had been asked by Goldsmiths’ Methods Lab to respond to John Berger’s book A Seventh Man, which is a portrait of guest workers in the European Union in the late ‘60s and ‘70s. There is a point in the book where Berger describes...

...Open University's History and Social Sciences Courses [Nicola Parker]The railway has been an integral part of my life since I was a baby, as my mother joined the railway in July 1989. Seeing the changes over the years is what has inspired this article. Conditions for the working mothers of Scotrail have changed dramatically from 1989 to the current day. These changes and...

...course not just apply to Brexit and Conservative party politicians but across all parties, and does by no means suggest that all politicians have high levels of Machiavellianism, narcissism or psychopathy or that they are unintelligent. There are clearly intelligent, principled and competent politicians in the houses of parliament and even intelligent people can act in...

...Open University co-production Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960) was a socialist feminist. She played an important part in the women’s suffrage movement, in socialist and revolutionary politics and was a pioneering force in developing an understanding of imperialism, racism and fascism. During the suffrage campaign she not only braved the horrors of hunger striking and...