A woman emerges from a failed relationship of two years' duration. Despondent over the relationship's demise, she laments that family,…
Relationships and recognition
law and religion
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…
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.…
Promoting marriage and Christianity in America
Following the recent California Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, National Public Radio offered a report on “the…
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…
Reforming culture
What exactly was wrong with the Yearning for Zion ranch---home to a group identified with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus…
Liberating shari’a
Sometimes, context is everything. For much of the twentieth century, at least since the 1920s in Egypt and the 1900s…