12.08.2006

Abdullahi An-Na'im on Shari'a Law

This week, Abdullahi An-Na'im came to AUC to deliver a few lectures. He points out some interesting possibilities in the political sphere for forwarding emancipatory religious and human rights agendas in the Muslim World. Far from being an advocate of a Bush/Rice vision for the Middle East (which could go unstated if only they'd stop invoking human rights), he criticizes both the imposed colonial discourse and the post-colonial Islamist discourse on these matters. Since I don't feel competent to sum up his work, I'll put a few links up.

Take a look at An-Na'im's project, The Future of Shari'a Law, and his own website at Emory University in Atlanta, USA, which features several downloads of his work.

An-Na'im left Sudan after his mentor, the Islamic reformer Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, was executed by the Sudanese government in 1985. You can read about the Republican Brothers and their interest in Shari'a reform, among other projects, in several places, including:

New Perspectives Quarterly
Alfikra - The Republican Thought

World Peoples' Blog
The Sudanese Thinker

1 comment:

K8 said...

This man guest lectured in a class I TA'ed at Emory. Stunningly brilliant mind and a warm heart. Rock on!