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Workshops from the CCAS Outreach Program
Zeina Azzam Seikaly
Published in 2005
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Recent events have thrust Islam to the forefront of study and analysis in the United States. With over 1.2 billion followers worldwide, Islam is understood—and misunderstood—on many levels; indeed, myths and stereotypes about the religion persist in American society. As a result, educators find it increasingly difficult to teach in a balanced and effective manner about the history, beliefs, and social and political institutions of Islam.
In November, the Center’s outreach program conducted the fall seminar for educators titled, “Law and Politics in Islam.” The day-long program brought 27 teachers from local schools together with four experts to examine and learn about these topics.
Georgetown is the first American university to hire a full-time Muslim chaplain, and he was the first speaker. Imam Yahya Hendi also serves as a member and spokesperson of the Islamic Jurisprudence Council of North America. He explained the fundamentals of Islamic law as safeguarding the religion, scholarship, right to accumulate wealth, land, and dignity of the citizens of the state. He defined the Shari‘a (the revealed, or canonical, law of Islam) as the true “path” of how Muslims should live in order to achieve peace with themselves, their fellow human beings, and their creator; this involves teachings regarding spirituality, morality, and the physical world. Imam Hendi discussed the concept of the Fatwa, or a nonbinding ruling by a council of Qur’anic scholars, and commented on the misinterpretation of the texts by individuals like Osama Bin Laden, who use Islam to legitimize their intentions and goals.
Barbara Stowasser, Professor of Arabic at Georgetown, explored “Islamic Law and the Challenges of Modernity.” She explained the four sources of law in Islam as the Qur’an, the Sunna (as codified in the Hadith), Qiyas (analogy), and Ijma‘ (consensus) and gave a brief introduction to the four orthodox madhahib, or law schools–the Maliki, Hanafi, Shafi’i, and Hanbali. Dr. Stowasser said that the influence of Western codes of law is significant in Muslim countries, and this is the result of the European colonial experience and post-independence pressure from the West to modify Islamic laws. Ijtihad, or independent judgment based on interpretation of law, is currently a dynamic field in Muslim societies; scholars, she said, are re-reading the Qur’an in new ways, and questions of gender relations continue to be hotly debated.
“Islam, Reformism, and Democracy” was the presentation by Peter Mandaville, Director of the Center for Global Studies and Assistant Professor of Government at George Mason University. Describing Islam as encompassing “a dynamic intellectual tradition,” he said that the historical formulation of Islamic law had a rich and strong civil society impulse. Dr. Mandaville offered a history of the reformist movements in Islam, starting in the late 18th and 19th centuries until the present day, citing influential figures like Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, and Muhammad Abduh. He touched on the subjects of revivalist and pan-Islamic movements, the encounter of secularism and Islam, the “hyper-secularism” that is unfolding in Turkey, and the “progressive Islam” of Western-trained thinkers who are trying to rethink and “re-imagine” the religion.
Michael Sells, Professor of Religion at Haverford College, lectured on “Islamist Terrorism: The Real Enemy?” This part of the seminar was open to the general public (an additional 50 attendees joined the teacher audience). He said that the real threats to world harmony are extremist ideologies, and not human beings themselves. Dr. Sells discussed Huntington’s theory of the clash of civilizations, which pits East against West and reduces entire civilizations so that they view each other from a locked-in, delimited perspective; “naming the enemy can be the same as constructing the enemy,” he continued, and when posed irresponsibly, the premise of the civilizational clash can help create the clash itself. Modalities of violence occur in all religious traditions, he explained, and urged the discussion of these issues in a comparative context. Dr. Sells also discussed the role of the media in framing these discourses and asked the teachers to offer their own views and experiences regarding the influence of the media on their students.
The seminar ended with a Middle Eastern lunch, during which teachers and speakers had the opportunity to talk in depth about the presentations. Everyone received a packet of resources with background materials and articles for further reading. The program was sponsored by CCAS and by the National Resource Center on the Middle East at Georgetown.
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