ID#: 1384 Sep 27 : Houston : What's the Matter with Kansas

1) What's the Matter with Kansas? Shariah's Place in the West

 

 

Shariah Law has become a charged word in the United States, with Kansas signing an"anti-Shariah" bill into law in 2012, joining several states who have already passed or have mulled passing this bill.

 

Shariah literally means "the path to water." Just as we need water to sustain our existence, so too do we need guidance on how to conduct our daily activities in light of Prophetic teachings. Though we live in a different time and place than where Islamic code originated, Shariah remains as relevant and timeless today as it did during the time of our Prophet Muhammad (s).

Questions we will explore include:

 

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ABOUT THE TEACHERS
 

JONATHAN BROWN is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies and Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. He received his BA in History from Georgetown University in 2000 and his doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 2006. Dr. Brown has studied and conducted research in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Indonesia, India and Iran, and he is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His book publications include The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunni Hadith Canon (Brill, 2007), Hadith: Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World (Oneworld, 2009) and Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011). He has published articles in the fields of Hadith, Islamic law, Sufism, Arabic lexical theory and Pre-Islamic poetry and is the editor in chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Islamic Law. Dr. Brown's current research interests include the history of forgery and historical criticism in Islamic civilization, comparison with the Western tradition; and modern conflicts between Late Sunni Traditionalism and Salafism in Islamic thought.

 

MAIRAJ SYED is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of California in Davis. His research interests are in Islamic law, ethics, and political thought, Islamic social and political history from the seventh till the 10th centuries, and more generally, accounts on the proper role of religion in political life and discourse. Previously at Bard College, he taught courses on gender and Islam, as well as introduction to Islam. Dr. Syed holds a B.S. in business administration, with an emphasis in information systems, from University of Texas at Austin, as well as a Ph.D. in Religion from Princeton University. He is currently working on a book project that explores how duress was handled in Islamic legal and moral thought.