Rethinking Islamic Law In Non-Muslim Polity: Dr. Said Hassan at MESS

PLEASE NOTE NEW LOCATION FOR THIS TALK: 223 MacKinnon

Our first Middle East Scholars Society event this semester will be on Thursday January 23 at 5pm in 223 MacKinnon:

Dr. Said Fares Hassan: “Citizen Ahmad: Rethinking Islamic Law In Non-Muslim Polity” Dr. Hassan is Assistant Professor at Al-Azhar University in Cairo and author of Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat: History, Development, and Progress published by Macmillan.

abstract: The consecutive waves of Muslim migration to modern western liberal democracies during the twentieth century gradually challenged their traditional convention towards the position and the meaning of Shari`h in their lives. Dr. Hassan will attempt to examine this transformation and how it led to creating a discourse of legitimacy not only of Muslims' living in a non-Muslim polity but also of assuming western citizenship. A collection of contemporary fatwas on citizenship will be drawn upon to demonstrate how fatwa discourse on citizenship went from being illegal to conditionally permissible to legally required. Fatwas have transformed the sinner Muslims who "converted" to a non-Muslim nationality to a "moral" Muslim who fulfills the objective of shari`ah on earth. Dr. Hassan also explores to what extent this question of citizenship changes the Muslim's own perception of the self and of his understanding of Islamic law. He investigates how the production of a new category of Fiqh is relevant to the process of modernization and identity? How is this production connected with the process of (re)defining Islam for, or in other words Islamicizing, Muslim communities living in a non-Muslim polity?

The lecture is free and open to the public. All welcome! Get the flyer .pdf