19. July 2018
In attempting to publish his opinion, "On the Tariq Ramadan Affair", Dr. Abou El Fadl submitted the piece to eight media organizations. The only outlet that agreed to publish it was OpenDemocracy.net on 17 July 2018, after which it was circulated widely. After only one day, on 18 July 2018, OpenDemocracy.net substantially censored the article without Dr. Abou El Fadl's knowledge or permission. As a result, Dr. Abou El Fadl asked for his piece to be removed from the OpenDemocracy.net site. The...
13. March 2017
Assalamualaikum, Dear honorable Prof Khaled Abou El Fadl A Muslim and Islamic Scholar that I respect greatly, I wrote to you to ask for your time, generosity and wisdom, as I'm greatly saddened by the situation in my country, that have turned my Muslim brothers and sisters against each other. And the questions that have turned my Muslim brothers and sister against each other is, "Does Islam allows Muslim to vote for non-Muslim to be in the position of governor, in a Muslim majority country? "...
01. December 2014
By Khaled Abou El Fadl It is fair to say that no one is exactly sure what defines an Islamic state. There is no question that the Prophet Muhammad founded a city-state in Mecca and Medina and their vicinity. Many Islamic activists imagine that the Prophet's city-state can be transplanted into the context of the nation-state without any substantial difficulty. This, however, is an illusion. The challenges posed by the modern nation-state have led to a wide range of portrayals of the nature and...
23. July 2013
By Khaled Abou El Fadl To engage in jihad means to strive or exert oneself in a struggle to achieve a morally laudable or just aim. For all the sensationalism stirred by the term jihad, this is its indisputable definition in Islamic theology and law. The meaning of jihad is both this straightforward and simple and also this complex and indeterminate. Jihad could be in the form of armed struggle, but (as explained below) the use of violence could also be considered as a most serious and grave...
09. April 2013
The Praetorian State in the Arab Spring[1] Khaled Abou El Fadl First, I have to say that it’s always emotional to come back to the place where you studied. I graduated from Penn Law School and although a lot has changed in the school since then, my years at Penn were amazing. I actually joined UCLA when the dean of UCLA Law School was from Penn as well. So Penn graduates, law school graduates, perhaps there is a future career for you in teaching law. But, moving along from the...
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...
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...
01. June 2006
By Khaled Abou El Fadl Not much time has passed between the first edition of Shattered Illusions and this substantially revised second edition, and yet in this relatively short time, so much that is de-stabilizing, deconstructive, demoralizing, and in fact down-right shattering, has taken place. At the most fundamental and basic level, so many lives have been destroyed and so many others have been denied liberty, physically assaulted and tortured that one struggles with the feeling that it is...
01. December 2003
Islam and the Challenge of Democratic Commitment By: Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl* The question I deal with here is whether concurrent and simultaneous moral and normative commitments to Islam and to a democratic form of government are reconcilable or are they mutually exclusive. I will argue in this article that it is indeed possible to reconcile Islam with a commitment in favor of democracy. In this article, I will present a systematic exploration of Islamic theology and law as it relates to a...