About the Author: Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im

Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na`im is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at Emory University. Prior to joining Emory in 1995, he was Executive Director of Human Rights Watch/Africa. In February 2009, An-Na`im received an Honorary Doctorate from the Universite catholique de Louvain (UCL, Louvain-la-Neuve) and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U. Leuven, Leuven), Belgium. He also served as Global Legal Scholar at the Law School, University of Warwick, UK (until August 2010); and Extraordinary Professor at the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria (until December 2010). An-Na`im has published more than 60 articles and book chapters on human rights, constitutionalism, Islamic law and politics. As a 2009 Carnegie Scholar, he is working on a book manuscript for Oxford University Press, tentatively entitled: “What is an  American Muslim,” in which he is applying the thesis presented in his 2008 book, Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari`a.  This book is available for download free of charge in eight languages of Islamic societies at (http://sharia.law.emory.edu).

Selected Publications by This Author

• What Is an American Muslim? Embracing Faith and Citizenship, Oxford University Press, 2014 
• Keynote
  "A Democratic State Cannot be Islamic"
  Social Justice in Egypt: Theory, Research, Practice
  American University in Cairo, Egypt
  May 2011
• "A Theory of Islam, State and Society" in New Directions in Islamic Thought: Exploring Reform and Muslim Tradition
• African Constitutionalism and the Role of Islam, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006
• Public Lecture
  "American Muslims and Citizenship"
  The Boulder Public Library
  Boulder, Colorado
  March 2011
• "An Akan Perspective on Human Rights" in Human Rights in Africa: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, The Brookings Institution, 1990
• Panel Speaker
  "Association of American Law Schools Section on Comparative Law - A Dialogue on Comparative Law in the Curriculum"
  The XVIIIth International Congress of Comparative Law, Ritz Carlton Hotel
  Washington, D.C.
  July 2010
• Lecture
  "Beyond Minority Politics: American Muslims and Citizenship"
  Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs, Boston University
  Boston, Massachusetts
  March 2011
• Public Lecture
  "Can Islamic Law be Reformed? How is the Question Relevant?"
  American University of Beirut
  Beirut, Lebanon
  December 2009
• "Central Asia and the Caucasus" in Islamic Family Law in a Changing World: A Global Resource Book, Zed Books, 2002
• "Civil Rights in the Islamic Constitutional Traditions: Shared Ideals and Divergent Regimes," The John Marshall Law Review, Vol. 25 (1992): 267-293
• Plenary Panel Speaker
  "Comparative Constitutional Law and Religion"
  The XVIIIth International Congress of Comparative Law, Georgetown Law Center
  Washington, D.C.
  July 2010
• "Competing Visions of History in Internal Islamic Discourse and Islamic-Western Dialogue" in Time and History: The Variety of Cultures
• Seminar
  "Contemporary Islamic Thought on Islam, Democracy and Human Rights"
  IAIN (State Institute of Islamic Studies) Suan Ampel
  Surabaya, Indonesia
  July 2010
• Paper Presentation
  "Coping with Shared Human Vulnerabilities: The Cultural Mediation of Resentment and Retaliation"
  Istanbul Seminars 2011: Overcoming the Trap of Resentment, Istanbul Bilgi University – Santral Campus
  Turkey
  May 2011
• Cultural Transformation and Human Rights in Africa, Zed Books, 2002
• "Cultural Transformation and Normative Consensus on the Best Interest of the Child," International Journal of Law and the Family, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1994): 62-81
• "East and Central Africa" in Islamic Family Law in a Changing World: A Global Resource Book, Zed Books, 2002
• "Emory International Law Review," Emory International Law Review, Vol. 25, No. 2 (2011)
• "Experiences in Freedom of Religion in the African Context"
  The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences
  Vatican City
  April 2011
• The Margolis Lecture
  "Faith in Peace: the ICC and the Dar Fur Crisis"
  The Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies
  University of California, Irvine
  Irvine, CA
  May 2009
• Public Lecture
  "Feed the Donkey First: Freedom of Religion and the Geopolitics of Human Rights"
  Hudson Institute, the Center for Religious Freedom
  Washington, D.C.
  November 2009
• Keynote
  "For Sustainable Peace: From Religious Responsibility to Legal Accountability"
  Regional Conference, Peacekeeping in West Africa: Faith Communities and their Role in Conflict,”
  Freetown, Sierra Leone
  December 2010
• "Global Citizenship and Human Rights: From Muslims in Europe to European Muslims" in Religious Pluralism and Human Rights in Europe: Where to Draw the Line?
• "Globalization and Jurisprudence: An Islamic Perspective," Emory Law Journal, Vol. 54, No. Special Edition (2005): 25-51
• "Horn of Africa" in Islamic Family Law in a Changing World: A Global Resource Book, Zed Books, 2002
• Human Rights and Religious Values: An Uneasy Relationship?, Rodopi, 1995
• "Human Rights and the Imperative of Cross-Cultural Dialogue: An Islamic Perspective"
• Human Rights in Africa: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, The Brookings Institution, 1990
• "Human Rights in the Arab World: A Regional Perspective," Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 23 (2001): 701-732
• "Human Rights in the Muslim World: Socio-Political Conditions and Scriptural Imperatives - A Preliminary Inquiry," Harvard Human Rights Journal, Vol. 3 (1990): 13-52
• Public Lecture
  "Human Rights, Universality and Sovereignty in African and Islamic Perspectives"
  Rothko Chapel
  Houston, Texas
  March 2011
• Public Lecture
  "Human Rights, Universality and Sovereignty: The Relevance and Irrelevance of Islamic Law"
  Washington and Lee University School of Law and the Transnational Law Institute
  April 2011
• Presentation
  "Human Rights, Universality and Sovereignty: The Relevance and Irrelevance of Shari’a"
  Conference on Human Rights in Islam: The Politics of Cultural Transformation, Duke University
  Durham, North Carolina
  February 2011
• Inter-religious Marriages Among Muslims: Negotiating Religious and Social Identity in Family and Community, Global Media Publications, 2005
• "Interreligious Marriage: Three Muslim Case Studies," March 28, 2003
• "Introduction" in Human Rights in Africa: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, The Brookings Institution, 1990
• "Introduction" in Inter-religious Marriages Among Muslims: Negotiating Religious and Social Identity in Family and Community, Global Media Publications, 2005
• "Introduction" in Cultural Transformation and Human Rights in Africa, Zed Books, 2002
• "Introduction" in Cultural Transformation and Human Rights in Africa, Zed Books, 2002
• "Introduction" in Proselytization and Communal Self-Determination in Africa, Orbis Books, 1999
• Islam and Human Rights, Collected Essays in Law, Ashgate, 2010
• Islam and Human Rights: Advocacy for Social Change in Local Contexts, Global Media Publications, 2006
• Presentation
  "Islam and Human Rights: Framing and Reframing the Inquiry"
  International Conference, Human Rights Today: Foundations and Politics, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main
  Frankfurt, Germany
  June 2010
• "Islam and the Secular State: Framework for Christian-Muslim Relations," Islamochristiana, Pontifico Instituto di Studi Arabi e D’Islamica (PISA), , Vol. 35 (2009): 157-169
• Public Lecture
  "Islam and the Secular State: Implications for Christian-Muslim Relations"
  PISAI Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies
  Rome, Italy
  May 2009
• Public Lecture
  "Islam and the Secular State: Implications for Christian-Muslim Relations"
  PISAI Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies
  Rome, Italy
  May 2009
• Public Lecture
  "Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Sharia"
  University of Windsor
  Windsor, Canada
  October 2009
• Public Lecture
  "Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Sharia"
  University of Windsor
  Windsor, Canada
  October 2009
• Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari`a, Harvard University Press, 2008
• Lecture
  "Islam, Modernity and Freedom: Mediating Competing Claims of Freedoms of Speech and Religion"
  Building Bridges Seminar: Christian and Muslim Perspectives on Tradition and Modernity, Georgetown University
  Washington, D.C.
  May 2010
• "Islamic Ambivalence to Political Violence: Islamic Law and International Terrorism," German Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 31 (1988): 307-336
• Islamic Family Law in a Changing World: A Global Resource Book, Zed Books, 2002
• "Islamic Foundations of Religious Human Rights" in Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Religious Perspectives, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1996
• Keynote
  "Islamic Law and Secular Societies"
  International Summer School, Rethinking Rights in a Plural Society, Alta Scuola Societa Economia Teologia
  Venice, Italy
  September 2010
• Private Lecture
  "Islamic Law and the Secular State"
  UK Parliament, House of Commons, Committee Room 16
  London, United Kingdom
  June 2009
• "Islamic Law and The Secular State"
  Committee Room 16, House of Commons, UK Parliament, Ian Stewart MP and the Henry Jackson Society
  June 2009
• "Middle East" in Islamic Family Law in a Changing World: A Global Resource Book, Zed Books, 2002
• Misrepresenting Islam
• Muslim dan Keadilan Global, IMR Press, 2013
• Muslims and Global Justice, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011
• Public Lecture
  "Muslims in the USA: A Case Study"
  Muslims of the West: Negotiating Citizenship
  International Workshop at the University of Warwick School of Law
  London, United Kingdom
  June 2009
• Muslims of the West: Negotiating Citizenship, International Workshop
  "Muslims in the USA: A Case Study"
  University of Warwick School of Law
  Coventry, UK
  June 2009
• Public Lecture
  "Negotiating the Future of Sharia in the Secular State"
  American University of Beirut
  Beirut, Lebanon
  December 2009
• Panel Presentation
  "Normative and Legal Pluralism and the Limitations of 'access to justice' paradigm"
  Beyond Apology and Utopia: Critical Engagements with Good Governance in the Arab World
  University of Windsor
  Windsor, Canada
  October 2009
• Panel Presentation
  "Normative and Legal Pluralism and the Limitations of ‘access to justice’ paradigm"
  Beyond Apology and Utopia: Critical Engagements with Good Governance in the Arab World
  University of Windsor
  Windsor, Canada
  October 2009
• Public Lecture
  "Normative Pluralism and State Legal Systems"
  University of Warwick Law School
  UK
  October 2010
• "North Africa" in Islamic Family Law in a Changing World: A Global Resource Book, Zed Books, 2002
• The Diane Markowicz Memorial Lecture on Gender and Human Rights
  "Polygamy and Gender Justice in the 21st Century: Reflections on Basic Principles"
  Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law Project
  Brandeis University
  November 2010
• "Problems of Universal Cultural Legitimacy for Human Rights" in Human Rights in Africa: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, The Brookings Institution, 1990
• Keynote Presentation
  "Promoting Pluralism through Civic Reason? Rethinking Secularism"
  Humanist University, Kosmoplis Institute, HIVOS, Utrecht, the Netherlands
  May 2009
• Proselytization and Communal Self-Determination in Africa, Orbis Books, 1999
• "Q & A with the Experts: Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im"
• Public Lecture
  "Re-imagining International Law for a New Politics of Human Rights"
  UCLA
  Los Angeles, CA
  May 2009
• Public Lecture
  "Re-imagining International Law for a New Politics of Human Rights"
  University of California, Santa Barbara
  Santa Barbara, CA
  May 2009
• Public Lecture
  "Re-imagining International Law for a New Politics of Human Rights"
  The Interdisciplinary Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality, University of California, Irvine
  Irvine, CA
  May 2009
• "Religion and Global Civil Society: Inherent Incompatibility of Synergy and Interdependence?" in Global Civil Society
• "Religion, Family Law, and Recognition of Identity in Nigeria ," Emory International Law Review, Vol. 25, No. 2 (2011): 945-966
• "Religion, the State and Constitutionalism in Islamic and Comparative Perspectives," Drake Law Review, Vol. 57, No. 4 (2009): 829-50
• Speaker
  "Renewing Moral Norms"
  Of Heaven and Earth: Religion, Belief and Women’s Rights, The Carter Center
  Atlanta, Georgia
  April 2011
• Conversation with Patrick Well
  "Secularism and Liberty of Conscience"
  The Center for the Humanities, The Graduate Center
  CUNY
  New York, NY
  October 2009
• Conversation with Patrick Weil
  "Secularism and Liberty of Conscience"
  The Center for the Humanities, The Graduate Center, CUNY
  New York City, NY
  October 2009
• "Shari'a and Islamic Family Law: Transition and Transformation" in Islamic Family Law in a Changing World: A Global Resource Book, Zed Books, 2002
• "Shari'a in the Secular State: A Paradox of Separation and Conflation" in The Law Applied: Contextualizing the Islamic Shari'a
• Public Lecture
  "Sharia and the Secular State in the Middle East and Europe"
  Third Carl Heinrich Becker Lecture
  Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
  Berlin, Germany
  May 2009
• Third Carl Heinrich Becker Lecture
  "Sharia and the Secular State in the Middle East and Europe"
  Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
  Berlin, Germany
  May 2009
• Sharia and the Secular State in the Middle East and Europe, 2009
• Keynote
  "Sharia, National Law, Rule of Law and Human Rights"
  Conference on Sharia Incorporated: Legal Systems in the Muslim World – Recent Development, Center for the Study of Islam and Society
  Leiden University, the Netherlands
  June 2010
• Keynote
  "Sharia, State Law and Freedom of Religion in Oklahoma"
  Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
  Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
  March 2011
• "South Asia" in Islamic Family Law in a Changing World: A Global Resource Book, Zed Books, 2002
• "Southeast Asia" in Islamic Family Law in a Changing World: A Global Resource Book, , 2002
• "Southern Africa" in Islamic Family Law in a Changing World: A Global Resource Book, Zed Books, 2002
• "State Responsibility Under International Human Rights Law to Change Religious and Customary Law" in Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives, 1994
• "The 'Law of Morality' of Human Rights in Islamic Societies," October 26, 2007
• "The 2011 Dale Somers Memorial Lecture, “Human Rights in Africa: The Post-colonial and Post-Post-Colonial.”"
  Georgia State University
  April 2011
• Paper Presentation
  "The Compatability Dialectic: Mediating the legitimate co-existince of Islamic Law and State Law"
  Re-imagining the Sharia: Theory Practice and Muslim Pluralism at Large
  Warwick University School of Law, Warwick in Venice
  Venice, Italy
  September 2009
• "The Compatibility Dialectic: Mediating the Legitimate Coexistence of Islamic Law and State Law," Modern Law Review, Vol. 73, No. 1 (2010): 1-29
• Paper Presentation
  "The Compatibility Dialectic: Mediating the legitimate coexistence of Islamic Law and State Law, Re-imagining the Sharia: Theory, Practice and Muslim Pluralism at Large"
  Warwick University School of Law
  Venice, Italy
  September 2009
• Chorley Lecture 2009
  "The Compatibility of Islamic Law and State Law"
  London School of Economics
  London, United Kingdom
  June 2009
• Chorley Lecture 2009
  "The Compatibility of Islamic Law and State Law"
  London School of Economics
  London, UK
  June 2009
• Public Lecture
  "The Compatibility of Islamic Law and State Law"
  Duke Islamic Studies Center and the Center for International and Comparative Law, Duke Law School
  Durham, NC
  April 2010
• Public Lecture
  "The Compatibility of Islamic Law and State Law"
  Duke Islamic Studies Center and the Center for International and Comparative Law, Duke Law School
  April 2010
• "The Contingent Universality of Human Rights: The Case of Freedom of Expression in African and Islamic Contexts," Emory International Law Review, Vol. 11 (1997): 29-66
• Paper Presentation
  "The Cross-Cultural Coherence of Intellectual History: The Case of the Second Message of Islam from Sudan"
  Conceptual History and Global Translations: The Euro-Asian and African Semantics of the Social and the Economic, University of Helsinki
  Finland
  May 2011
• "The Future of Shari'a: Secularism from an Islamic Perspective," January 29, 2007
• "The Future of Shari'ah and the Debate in Northern Nigeria" in Comparative Perspectives on Shari'ah in Nigeria
• Lecture
  "The Idea of Cosmopolitanism and Religion"
  New York University Abu Dhabi, at New York University
  New York City
  April 2010
• Lecture
  "The Idea of Cosmopolitanism and Religion"
  New York University Abu Dhabi, at New York University
  April 2010
• "The Incremental Success of African Constitutionalism and the Challenges of Consolidation and Maturity" in Derechos Humanos, Relaciones Internacionales y Globalizacion
• "The Interdependence of Religion, Secularism, and Human Rights," Common Knowledge, Vol. 11, No. 1 (2005): 56-80
• Presentation
  "The Interdependence of the Religious and Secular: The Religious Fallacy of Fundamentalism"
  International Workshop on Retreat of the Secular, Challenges of Religious Fundamentalism
  York University
  Toronto, Canada
  May 2009
• "The Politics of Religion and Morality of Globalization" in Religion and Global Civil Society, 2005
• Presentation
  "Tolerance and Freedom: Sustainability of Toleration in Public Discourse"
  Conference on Toleration and Freedom: The American Experience in Context, Institute for Philosophy & Religion, Boston University
  Boston, Massachusetts
  March 2011
• "Toward an Islamic Hermeneutics for Human Rights" in Human Rights and Religious Values: An Uneasy Relationship?, Rodopi, 1995
• Toward an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights and International Law, Syracuse University Press, 1990
• Tanner Lectures on Human Values
  "Transcending Imperialism: Human Values and Global Citizenship"
  University of California, Berkeley
  Berkeley, CA
  March 2010
• Presentation
  "Universality of Human Rights"
  Conference on the Universality of Human Rights in a Changing World, The Advisory Council on International Affairs on the Netherlands
  Senate Building
  The Hague, Netherlands
  December 2009
• Presentation
  "Universality of Human Rights"
  Conference on the Universality of Human Rights in a Changing World, The Advisory Council on International Affairs on the Netherlands, The Hague, Senate Building
  December 2009
• "Universality of Human Rights: An Islamic Perspective" in Japan and International Law: Past, Present and Future
• "Universality of Human Rights: Mediating Paradox to Enhance Practice" in Human Rights Today – 60 Years of the Universal Declaration
• "West Africa" in Islamic Family Law in a Changing World: A Global Resource Book, Zed Books, 2002
• Public Debate
  "Why Muslims Need a Secular State and Western Politics Should Not Interfere"
  Kosmoplis Institute
  Utrecht, Netherlands
  May 2009
• Public Debate
  "Why Muslims Need a Secular State and Western Politics should not Interfere"
  Kosmoplis Institute
  Utrecht, the Netherlands
  May 2009