19. February 2014
By Khaled Abou El Fadl ABSTRACT In this article, I set forth conceptions of happiness (sa‘ada) from the Islamic tradition, and against this background, I discuss the failure to attain happiness in the modern age. The cumulative Islamic tradition attests to the importance of happiness to faith in God, and to the importance of faith to happiness. While the themes of knowledge, enlightenment, balance, peace, and knowing the other are central to the Islamic theology of happiness, the failure of...
08. November 2013
Introduction Part of the unavoidable challenge of providing an adequate account of the Islamic legal tradition is not just its sheer magnitude and expanse, but that the Islamic legal system continues to be the subject of profound political upheavals in the contemporary age and its legacy is highly contested and grossly understudied at the same time. The Islamic legal system consists of legal institutions, determinations, and practices that span a period of over fourteen hundred years arising...
08. January 2013
Series Preface for Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought By Khaled Abou El Fadl This is the first edited collection of scholarly studies to be published in the Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History. It is a volume that I take great pride in introducing to the readers of the series. This single volume includes articles studies by some of the most prominent scholars in the field of Islamic Studies covering a broad array of topics on Islamic theology, philosophy, law, and...
16. August 2012
THE ISLAMIC LEGAL TRADITION Encyclopedia Entry for the Cambridge Companion to Comparative Law By Khaled Abou El Fadl Table of Contents Introduction The Difference between Islamic Law and Muslim Law The Sources of Islamic Law The Nature and Purpose of Islamic Law The Difference between Shari’a and Fiqh: The Sacred and Profane in Islamic Law The Rights of God and the Rights of Humans Modernity and the Deterioration of Islamic Law Introduction The Islamic legal system consists of legal...
15. March 2012
When I was invited to become the editor of the Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History, I sought to find works that are not just interesting but compelling—works that can be described as publishing events. I sought to find works that leave an indelible mark on the field that neither the conscientious scholar nor student can rightly ignore. The present book by Ahmad Atif Ahmad, an already accomplished scholar in his own right, is without a doubt an event in the history of Islamic...
24. January 2012
The Centrality of Sharī‘ah to Government and Constitutionalism in Islam Khaled Abou El Fadl* 1. INTRODUCTION Constitutionalism reflects embedded normative values that arise from evolved historical practices that are not easily transplanted outside their natural habitat. In many ways, constitutionalism must be practiced and not theorized.[1] Therefore, it is doubtful whether it is helpful to abstract the doctrines of constitutionalism from their remarkably diverse cultural and social...
01. January 2012
Reading the Signs: The Moral Compass of Transcendent Engagement[1] Khaled Abou El Fadl God is too infinite, too grand, and too limitless for any human being to presume to know or to possess the one and only way of unlocking the secrets of our moral universe. This is part of the objective of creation, and it is part of the very idea that, “We have made you nations and tribes.” (Q 49:13) It is in the very nature of things that each of us searches for a way, that each group of people that...
01. January 2012
CONCEPTUALIZING SHARI‘A IN THE MODERN STATE[1] Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl This Article addresses the animated and evolving role that Shari‘a, i.e., the system of Islamic jurisprudence collectively or generally, and Shari‘a conceptions play in the contemporary world. There are various manifestations of this evolving role in the often dynamic, subtle, highly negotiated, and far from formalistic ways that Shari‘a is animated in today’s world. There are three main points that I will address...
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...
04. June 2011
Keynote Lecture, Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl Inspire Conference London, June 4, 2011 The Conference of the Books: The Search for Beauty in Islam[1] is very dear to my heart. I often tell my students that this is the one book that I want buried with me so that I can hold it in my defense in the Hereafter. The Conference of the Books invites the reader to share with me what can only be described as truly intimate and metaphysical and transcendental moments that scholars are often not honest enough to...