14. April 2017
Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl delivers a powerful lecture on the notion of reasoning with God and the forgotten role and importance of reason in the Islamic tradition. He discusses his latest book, Reasoning with God: Reclaiming Shari'ah in the Modern Age, and how Muslims need to reclaim the beauty of their tradition in which reason and reasonableness are central to leading a life of Godliness as opposed to Godlessness. Enlightening, powerful and pertinent to the challenges facing Muslims in...
15. March 2017
ASA Dr. Abou El Fadl, I need to understand why Allah would give men inheritance rights that are superior to women. I believe Allah is Just and I am not understanding the text. Recently, my father in law passed away and the estate was dissolved and funds transferred to the family members. My husband and his brother received much more than their sisters and I don’t understand the wisdom behind this. Help! [Name Withheld for Privacy] ********************* Al-salamu ‘alaykum, Thank you for...
01. November 2014
Submitting to Infinite Divinity One way of approaching this issue is to re-consider the idea of submission to God. It is well known that the word Islam means submission, and the basic Islamic demand is that human beings submit themselves to God, and to no one else and nothing else. Human beings should struggle to defeat their weaknesses, control their urges, and gain mastery over themselves. Only by gaining mastery over the self can that self be meaningfully submitted to God. If the self is...
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...