15. September 2011

There is a growing number of academic studies on contemporary Islamic thought published in the West each year. Yet despite the sharp increase in books that portend to study the works of modern Muslim theologians and jurists, only a few of these studies manage to offer original insights on the normative assumptions and choices made by the internal participants to the current Muslim discourse. Fewer still are successful in analytically engaging the internal debates of contemporary Muslims on...

16. May 2011

Despite its popularity among some intellectuals today, the "clash of civilizations" thesis is sufficiently fraught with methodological problems that it ought to be considered a serious hindrance to developing a genuine understanding of the contemporary Islamic realities. I do not contest the possibility that the idea of civilization could be a distinctive, and even at times helpful, concept. For the sake of argument, I assume that particular values and norms might be sufficiently distinctive...

25. April 2011

HARVARD INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL ARTICLE SERIES: Online APRIL 2011 Volume 52 The Language of the Age: Shari’a and Natural Justice in the Egyptian Revolution Download the PDF here An article in the series on the aftermath of Egypt’s February 2011 Revolution and the possibilities for legal and constitutional reform. Khaled Abou El Fadl I. INTRODUCTION One of the most memorable images of the Egyptian Revolution is that of hundreds of people lined up for Islamic prayer in Tahrir Square in...

15. March 2011

This is the third book in the Palgrave Series on Islamic Law and Theology, and it is a book that I take special pride in introducing. The source of my pride is not only the friendship and intellectual bond that I share with its author but more significantly, it is an awe-inspiring volume from which I learned a great deal about the challenge of constitutionalist governance and the largely unknown efforts by prominent Muslim jurists to wrestle with the role and function of Islamic law in the wake...

15. November 2010

This book is the first volume of a new series on Islamic law and theology that will publish original studies that clearly raise the bar for rigorous scholarship in the field of Islamic Studies. The volumes of this series are chosen not only for their disciplined methodology, exhaustive research, or academic authoritativeness. As importantly, these volumes make critical interventions in the process of understanding the world of Islam as it was, is, and is likely to become. In other words, the...