September 29, 2009

Islam, Human Rights, and the Secular: A Conversation with Talal Asad and Abdullahi An-Naim

Can one ground universal human rights in the Islamic tradition? How do secular notions of human rights -- and those derived from other religious traditions -- compare with Islamic perspectives? Does the secular and democratic state pose a threat to Islam? Or might it in fact provide the best possible gurantee of the rights of Muslim citizens?. Two leading Muslim scholars, Talal Asad and Abdullahi An-Naim, discussed these questions with Jose Casanova, Professor of Sociology and Senior Fellow in the Berkley Center. This event was co-sponsored by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im is a Visiting Professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for the fall 2009 semester. He is on leave from his position as Charles Howard Chandler Professor of Law at Emory University, where he focuses on cross-cultural human rights issues, with an emphasis on Islam. A native of Sudan and human rights activist, An-Na'im places the Qur'an and the development of the Islamic tradition in its historical context and examines their implications for our contemporary thinking about justice and the state. He is the author of Toward an Islamic Reformation (1990) and Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari‘a (2008). At Emory, he directs projects on Women and Land in Africa and Islamic Family Law, and a Fellowship Program in Islam and Human Rights. An-Na'im holds LL.B. degrees from the University of Khartoum and the University of Cambridge, and earned his Ph.D. in Law from the University of Edinburgh.

Talal Asad's work has redefined how we think about religion and secular in modernity. Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York Graduate Center, he has published widely on religion and social and political theory, with a particular focus on Islam. His recent books include Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, On Suicide Bombing; and Genealogies of Religion: Disciplines and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Among Asad's current projects are an exploration of the origins of modern human rights discourse and a study of the transformation of religious law in 19th and 20th century Egypt.

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