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Humantrustees.org aims to foster understanding and cooperation between Muslims and Christians so as to empower them to live up to their God-given calling as “trustees of the earth.” This Christian initiative seeks to accomplish this goal through scholarship, teaching, news commentary, and networking between scholars, members of both communities, and with anyone else who is passionate about peace and human flourishing.
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05 April 2016

The Impossible Islamic State? (2)

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Jocelyne Cesari discusses her new book, "The Awakening of Muslim Democracy: Religion, Modernity, and the State" in the CGIS South on Tuesday (photo by Shunella Grace Lumas). She is Professor of Religion and Politics at the University of Birmingham, UK, Senior research fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center on Religion, Peace and World Affairs. She teaches on contemporary Islam at the Harvard Divinity School and directs the Harvard interfaculty program “Islam in the West” hosted at the Alwaleed Islamic Studies Program.
In the first installment of this blog we looked at Wael Hallaq’s The Impossible State (2013) and in following the assessment of two reviewers, Lama Abu-Odeh and Andrew March, we felt Hallaq helpfully highlighted some of the challenges of pressing traditional Islamic legal norms into the service of a modern nation-state. On the other hand, his rather rigid and dogmatic…
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16 March 2016

The Impossible Islamic State? (1)

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Wael Hallaq’s The Impossible Islamic State: Islam, Politics, and Morality’s Moral Predicament (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).
Translating Ghannouchi’s book (“The Public Freedoms in the Islamic State”), as I stated before, has forced me to delve into political theory. Keep in mind that if you want to get a handle on the contemporary islamist movement in all its variety, you will have to think about issues related to the modern nation-state and democracy. My title here comes…
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04 January 2016

Comparative Politics: From Juntas to Democracy

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From an article (9/1/15): “A New Year in Egypt: The Significance of President Sisi’s Speech.” Sisi was addressing the leading Islamic scholars at the al-Azhar University in Cairo, calling for an “Islamic revolution.” At one point he said, “It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!”
Now using the 2008 edition of Ghannouchi’s book (The Public Freedoms in the Islamic State, Damascus), I’m behind in my translation (plenty of changes, plus new material), but I’m still close to three quarters done. Also, it’s plunged me into political theory – hence this blog! Keep reading – this is more fascinating than you might think. I’m using a…
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02 November 2015

Ghannouchi: Shari'a, Trusteeship, and Human Rights

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“Sheikh Rachid Ghannouchi on Balancing Democracy and Security in North Africa”
Two events have taken place since I wrote the second installment of this trilogy of blogs on Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi. The first one has global implications: the Oslo Nobel committee, to everyone’s surprise, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the Tunisian Quartet, four civil society groups who had banded together to pull the country back from the brink of civil…
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Recent Blog Entries

Books

  • Muslims and Christians Debate Justice and Love
    Muslims and Christians Debate Justice and Love

    This book is now published and available as an ebook. Unfortunately, with the current COVID-19 pandemic, the publisher cannot send out the actual physical books. Read a summary for each of the 6 chapters and buy it on the publisher's page. Here's the abstract, or précis:

     

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  • Earth, Empire and Sacred Text
    Earth, Empire and Sacred Text

    This book seeks to construct a Muslim-Christian theological discourse on creation and humanity, which could help adherents of both faiths work together to preserve our planet, bring justice to its most needy inhabitants and contribute to peacebuilding in areas of conflict. For more information or to purchase (now also in paperback!)

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