Running like a geological fault beneath Turkey is a long-standing split between the popularly elected government and the state. The…
Turkey’s coup by court
Islam
“Call it X”
I am grateful for the kind and thoughtful comments posted at The Immanent Frame about Islam and the Secular State.…
Does tolerance require struggle?
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im's erudite and thought-provoking book Islam and The Secular State provides a clear-sighted argument made from within the…
Arguing with An-Na`im
What is interesting about An-Na`im's arguments is that they ground the case for the secular state not in the Quran,…
Disentangling Islam and the post-colonial state
The separation---and combination---of religion and state have created almost as many configurations as there are states in the world today.…
Islamic politics and human rights
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im's expressed goal in Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari'a is to convince Muslims…
Liberating shari’a
Sometimes, context is everything. For much of the twentieth century, at least since the 1920s in Egypt and the 1900s…
A secular state must deliver
It is hard to disagree with the main arguments of Abdullahi an-Na'im's impeccable book: a healthy religious life requires a…
Misrepresenting Islam
Suggestions that Presidential candidate Barack Obama was a Muslim seemed to have subsided when his controversial pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright,…
An Islamic case for a secular state
If the state is going to enforce any principle from Islamic sources, according to Abdullahi An-Na‘im, then it should implement…