17. July 2018
Law And Ethics in the Islamic Normative Tradition The Encyclopedia of Islamic Bioethics, Oxford University Online by Khaled Abou El Fadl Introduction There is a wide range of jurisprudential and ethical prescriptions, under the broad rubric of Sharīʿah that apply to ever expanding issues raised by the field of bioethics. The Sharīʿah consists of ethical and legal normative duties and obligations binding to each Muslim individually and to Muslims collectively. The Islamic classical legal...
14. August 2017
The question of how the law becomes known has occupied the minds of Muslim scholars for a long time. In the early centuries, the heated debates, and at times even hostilities, centered around the place and role of ethical principles and reason in the development of the religious tradition. Numerous reports in the Islamic tradition described the very mission of the Prophet Muhammad as part and parcel of an ethical project—a project that builds upon and develops people’s natural ethical...
30. January 2017
Dear Dr. Abou El Fadl, First I'd like to thank you for your efforts and thoughts, which I very much appreciate. I wanted to reach out to you however for a personal Enquiry or rather a spiritual crisis as you once called it. I have seen your fatwa on Hijab, thinking it will relieve my struggle but I'm still unsure of which way to go. I have been wearing the headscarf for 24 years (since I was 16) out of strong urge by sheikhs and the belief that it is mandatory, and the strong fear that I'd be...
16. January 2017
The Epistemology of the Truth in Modern Islam By Khaled Abou El Fadl[1] Abstract: There is a serious problem with arguing that God intended to lock the epistemology of the seventh century into the immutable text of the Qur’an, and then intended to hold Muslims hostage to this epistemological framework for all ages to come. Among other things, this would limit the dynamism and effectiveness of Divine text because the Qur’an would be forever locked within a knowledge paradigm that is very...
01. October 2016
Respected Sir, I am a christian by birth from India. Sir, I wanted to know about what can I call myself, I started learning about Islam in 2010 and found plenty of things correct to my heart and so I started following it from heart, while learning about it in one of the site it was said that if u read the kalma from heart you are a muslim from that time onwards and I did read it with accepting the meaning. As I was reading quran an english version I found plenty of it resembling bible which...
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...
01. November 2014
By Khaled Abou El Fadl Years ago, purely out of curiosity, I bought a group of cassettes that would change my life. Normally, whatever money I had, or even did not have, was spent on books. My whole childhood could be summed up by an endless quest for books, and the never-ending chase for money that could be spent on books. For reasons that never became clear to me, this one time I managed to save some money but did not feel like buying more books, and instead, on an impulse bought a set of...
17. October 2014
By Khaled Abou El Fadl There are those who seem to live blissfully confident of their own moral salvation. They covet whatever they covet, and might wrestle with their resolve, but they have this undaunted, deeply entrenched belief in their own absolution. What will save or absolve them? It does not matter; it could be anything. It could be God, church, or country, or their flag, or perhaps their constitution, their forefathers and heritage, or their prized books or movies, or even nothing more...
09. December 2008
Chapter 9: Islamic authority By Khaled Abou El Fadl In formulating Islamic law, it has become common in the modern age to use the authority of the Author (God) to justify the despotism of the reader. In effect, by claiming that the only relevant consideration is the Will of the Author, the reader is able to displace the Author and set himself as the sole voice of authority: the reader becomes God, as it were. The replacement of God’s authority with that of the reader is an act of despotism...
21. February 2007
By: Khaled Abou El Fadl* Between Internationalism and Particularism When we consider the dynamics between international law and the paradigms of cultural and moral uniqueness or particularity, we ought to think about two distinct aspects of this relationship or dynamic. On the one hand, there is the issue of whether international law ought to care about unique and particular manifestations of culture and morality. This is especially so when we talk about the relationship of international law to...