09. October 2013

SERIES EDITOR'S PREFACE This new volume in the Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History by an accomplished and gifted scholar of the Islamic tradition makes an integral and urgent contribution to the growing body of scholarship focusing on Muslim minorities in the West. One can hardly imagine a topic more germane to the ongoing debates about the future of Muslim minorities in the West and the role that they could play in a world full of paradoxical dualities. On the one hand, we...

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...

01. July 2005

By Khaled Abou El Fadl Since the early 1980’s commentators have been arguing that Islam is suffering a crisis of identity, and that the crumbling of the Islamic civilization in the modern age has left Muslims with a profound sense of alienation and injury. Challenges confronting Muslim nations such as the failure of development projects, the entrenchment of authoritarian regimes, and the inability to respond effectively to Israeli belligerence have induced deep-seated feelings of frustration...

01. May 1999

This paper focuses on the balance between functionalism and moralism in the pre-modern juristic discourses on the rules which apply to killing at war. Classical Muslim jurists distinguish between what they call harb al-bugha and harb al-kufar (war against Muslims and war against unbelievers). The rules which apply to fighting Muslims are different from the limitations set upon the conduct of warfare against non-Muslims.

01. June 1996

Khaled Abou El Fadl* Islam embodies a comprehensive view for the Herein and Hereafter. It is often stated that Islamic theology and law regulates every aspect of a Muslim's life.[1] Islamic law is comprehensive and sacred; yet, it is not irrational. Islamic law was not created through an irrational process of divine revelation; rather, it was deduced from principles and moral rules extracted from texts believed to be divine. The process seeks to discover the will of God in this life and the...