Khaled Abou El Fadl on contemporary Islamic legal thought

Week 3: Contemporary Discourse

• Khaled Abou El Fadl ('el-Fadl') currently at UCLA school of Law.
• Very unique- he is trained in the classical tradition (around 15 years of study)
• According to Mona he is a real systematic theologian of Islam.

Slide 2

• His 2001 publication Speaking in God's Name reviews the ethical foundations of the Islamic legal system, suggesting that an authoritarian reading of scripture often has negative consequences for parts of Islamic society, particularly women.
• el-Fadl is a professor at UCLA school of law.
• He believes the Usuli tradition 'naturally leads Islam' to ethical humanism and ideas about justice that help achieve God's will.
• He would like to return to 'the Golden Age' of Islam (c8th-13th) when the Islamic world was ruled by various caliphates and flourished scientifically, economically and culturally.

Slide 3

• Firstly, let's define 'fatwa':
• A ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a recognized authority.
• In classical Islamic law, rule making was open. It was a process in the search for God.
• It resisted codification and was meant to be fluid and constantly changing.
• Muslims today have lost the open, discursive approach.
• Islamic law has become exactly what the classical jurists didn't want it to become.

Slide 4

• Classical jurists thought difference/diversity of opinion was a good thing- 'Ikhtilaf'.
• When Islamic law is overly limited, the divine is also limited.
• Humans can only interpret Shari'ah- therefore mistakes are to be expected.

Slide 5

• el-Fadl presents a range of different fatwas- is it permissible for women to wear bras?