In December, we celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Adopted by the United Nations General…
Rehabilitating religious rights talk
secularity
Justice and theism
The central claim of Nicholas Wolsterstorff's Justice: Rights and Wrongs is that justice is based on natural human rights that inhere…
The magic ballot
I regret that we are forced to catch the special aura of this election without a deep and serious space…
The ruse of “secular humanism”
Discussions of the secular can often be peculiarly remote. Whenever secularism is imagined as unbelief, or political neutrality, or an…
The challenge of creating change
Abdullahi An-Na‘im's Islam and the Secular State has rightfully received a great deal of attention and commentary. A prominent Muslim…
Preaching to the converted
Islam and The Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari`a is avowedly didactic, aiming to persuade Muslims in public debate…
On Turkish laicism
In a somewhat surprising move, Turkey's Constitutional Court announced today in a very close vote its decision to not ban…
“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,…