Few books in Islamic studies have been as eagerly awaited or intensely debated prior to publication as Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na`im's…
Secularism and the paradoxes of Muslim politics
Islam and the Secular State
In his new book, Abdullahi an-Na`im argues that Muslims need a secular state to live their religious lives. Alongside his immensely informative account of modern developments, he makes a sustained argument against state enforcement of Islam along two major lines. First, it makes no religious sense for a state to force Muslims to follow God’s will, because Muslims should act from conviction and choice. An-Na`im makes a second argument that is parallel to the first: not only is it futile and religiously counter-productive to enforce Islamic piety, but doing so also distorts and impoverishes religion.
Continue reading John Bowen’s essay that begins the series here.
Islam and authority
In his new book, Abdullahi an-Na`im argues that Muslims need a secular state to live their religious lives. Alongside his…
A man with a mission
Abdullahi An-Na'im is a man with a mission. As the expatriate Sudanese law professor told The New Yorker writer George…
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…
Misrepresenting Islam
Suggestions that Presidential candidate Barack Obama was a Muslim seemed to have subsided when his controversial pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright,…
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…
Liberating shari’a
Sometimes, context is everything. For much of the twentieth century, at least since the 1920s in Egypt and the 1900s…
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…
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.…
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,…