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Khaled Abou El Fadl is a classically-trained Islamic jurist, an American lawyer and law professor, and one of the most important Islamic thinkers today. In this updated and expanded edition of The Search for Beauty in Islam, Abou El Fadl offers eye-opening and enlightening insights into the contemporary realities of the current state of Islam and the West. Through a 'conference of the books,' an imagined conference of Muslim intellects from centuries past, Abou El Fadl examines the ugliness that has come to plague Muslim realities and attempts to reclaim what he maintains is a core moral value in Islam-the value of beauty. Does Islamic law allow, or even call for, the gruesome acts of ugline...
As the second-largest religion in the world, more than a billion Muslims turn to Islam for serenity and spiritual peace, as well as moral and ethical guidance. While the West sees extremists as the most visible adherents of Islam, moderates constitute the majority of Muslims worldwide. In The Great Theft, leading Islamic scholar Khaled Abou El Fadl argues that Islam is currently passing through a transformative moment no less dramatic than the Protestant Reformation. Two completely opposed worldviews within Islam are competing to define this great world religion, and the future of the Muslim world hangs in the balance. The Great Theft is an impassioned defense of Islam against the encroachin...
Drawing on both religious and secular sources, this challenging book argues that divinely ordained law is frequently misinterpreted by Muslim authorities at the expense of certain groups, including women. Khaled Abou El Fadl cites a series of injustices in Islamic society and ultimately proposes a return to the original ethics at the heart of the Muslim legal system.
Khaled Abou El Fadl's book represents the first systematic examination of the idea and treatment of political resistance and rebellion in Islamic law. Pre-modern jurists produced an extensive and sophisticated discourse on the legality of rebellion and the treatment due to rebels under Islamic law. The book examines the emergence and development of these discourses from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries and considers juristic responses to the various terror-inducing strategies employed by rebels including assassination, stealth attacks and rape. The study demonstrates how Muslim jurists went about restructuring several competing doctrinal sources in order to construct a highly technical discourse on rebellion. Indeed many of these rulings may have a profound influence on contemporary practices. This is an important and challenging book which sheds light on the complexities of Islamic law and pre-modern attitudes to dissidence and rebellion.
Despite President George W. Bush's assurances that Islam is a peaceful religion and that all good Muslims hunger for democracy, confusion persists and far too many Westerners remain convinced that Muslims and terrorists are synonymous. In the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11, the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the recent bombings in London, an unprecedented amount of attention has been directed toward Islam and the Muslim world. Yet, even with this increased scrutiny, most of the public discourse regarding Islam revolves around the actions of extremist factions such as the Wahhabis and al-Qa'ida. But what of the Islam we don't hear about? As the second-largest and fastest-growi...
Praise for The Prophet's Pulpit: Commentaries on the State of Islam, The Trilogy "Dictators and apologists for authoritarianism and imperialism will hate these books; supporters of freedom, human rights, democracy, and Islamic reform will embrace these magisterial tomes." Nader Hashemi, Director, Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. "A sublime read, but also an urgent one...Abou El Fadl reclaims an Islam that is, at once, a source of spiritual nourishment, a template of justice, and a roadmap for redemption." Khaled A. Beydoun, law professor and author American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear. "The Prophet's Pulpit trilogy offers a...
In this collection of twenty-two Islamic sermons, Khaled Abou El Fadl, distinguished law professor and classically trained Islamic jurist, delivers incisive commentaries on the current state of Islam and the Muslim world from the symbolic pulpit of the Prophet of Islam. Part Qur'anic exegesis and part socio-ethical commentary, this volume showcases the knowledge, enlightenment, and dedication to justice that once propelled the Islamic civilization to great heights of human achievement. It attempts to illuminate the spiritual and ethical path forward for Muslims amid the challenges of injustice, oppression, and the rising tide of Islamophobia in our world.
This volume examines comparatively the views and principles of seven prominent ethical traditions on one of the most pressing issues of modern politics - the making and unmaking of state and national boundaries. The traditions represented are Judaism, Christianity, Islam, natural law, Confucianism, liberalism and international law. Each contributor, an expert within one of these traditions, shows how that tradition can handle the five dominant methods of altering state and national boundaries: conquest, settlement, purchase, inheritance and secession. Written by a distinguished group of international specialists this volume is unique in providing both in-depth normative and comparative perspectives on a troubling question that will offer readers real insight into inter-tradition conflict. Those readers will range from upper-level undergraduates to scholars in such fields as philosophy, political science, international relations and comparative religion.
This is a substantially expanded edition of the author's seminal work The Authoritative and Authoritarian in Islamic Discourses: A Contemporary Case Study. Beginning with the case study of a Muslim basketball player who refused to stand up while the American national anthem was playing, the author documents the disintegration of the Islamic juristic tradition, and the prevalence of authoritarianism in contemporary Muslim discourses. The author analyzes the rise of what he describes as puritan and despotic trends in modern Islam, and asserts that such trends nullify the richness and diversity of the Islamic tradition. By declaring themselves the true soldiers of God and the defenders of relig...
This book presents an intellectual history of today’s Muslim world, surveying contemporary Muslim thinking in its various manifestations, addressing a variety of themes that impact on the lives of present-day Muslims. Focusing on the period from roughly the late 1960s to the first decade of the twenty-first century, the book is global in its approach and offers an overview of different strands of thought and trends in the development of new ideas, distinguishing between traditional, reactionary, and progressive approaches. It presents a variety of themes and issues including: The continuing relevance of the legacy of traditional Islamic learning as well as the use of reason; the centrality...