Event Summary
Perhaps no word in today’s political and multicultural lexicon is as explosive and fraught with meaning as shari’a. Many equate the term with terrorism and religious tyranny, while others view it as the only key to justice and rule of law in the Muslim world. Few can argue, however, that the rise of political Islam and calls for the establishment of an Islamic state pose a challenge for the United States and the West. What then is shari’a, and does it have a place in a modern and democratic world?
Event Information
When
Thursday, May 29, 2008
12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Where
Stein Room
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map
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On May 29th, the Saban Center hosted Noah Feldman, Professor of Law at Harvard University, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, former senior constitutional adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and author of the new book, The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State; and Lama Abu-Odeh, Professor of Law at Georgetown University and a renowned authority on Islamic history and law.
Feldman began by arguing that the classical Islamic constitutional order accorded very closely to the modern understanding of the rule of law. He highlighted the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the early-20th century, when law was codified and the traditional role of the ulemaa as a check on the government disappeared, as the beginning of the Arab (and broader Muslim) world’s descent into authoritarianism. Finally, he argued that the rising call for shari’a by Islamist groups is not a call for theocracy and a return to the 7th century, but rather for democratization and a constitutional system that uses the classical Islamic constitutional order as its primary source. Essentially, he concluded, the rising appeal for a return to shari’a is in fact a call for the re-emergence of the rule of law. It is this difference in interpretation, he argued, that is lost on many in the West
Abu-Odeh began her lively critique by situating Feldman in what she called the “liberal, multicultural center” of Islamic law scholarship, whereas she placed herself in the “secular, nationalist left.” She then argued that the rise of authoritarianism in the Muslim world cannot be easily explained away by the erosion of the influence of the ulemaa, as it implies a causality that ignores several historical, economic and cultural factors. She went on to argue that she sees an inherent contradiction between Feldman’s claim that the demise of the ulemaa led to the demise of the Islamic identity, while simultaneously encouraging readers to pay attention to the contemporary Islamists as a source of Islamic identity.
Transcript
NOAH FELDMAN: I shall speak extremely briefly and just put out a kind of brief account of the central arguments that I make in the book in the hopes that the conversation will be a more exciting part of our lunch. In particular, I have enormous respect for Lama's work, and one of the reasons I am so pleased that she is able to make time for this event is that she and I often do not agree about things and I think we disagree in ways that are I hope productive and sometimes even maybe interesting for people other than the two of us as I know that the two of us might find these things very interesting.
The book has three central claims and one recommendation. Let me just say what those three claims are, and I will go in reverse order. I will start with the past and make my way to the present in these three claims. The first claim is that the classical Islamic constitutional order which is a phrase that I am using to incorporate governments that range in size from global empires to city-states, so there is a lot of variety there but which I claim were encompassed by a single constitutional theory, that the classic Islamic constitutional order accorded very closely to what we today would call the rule of law. What I mean by rule of law, and that is a term that is itself deeply disagreed about and deeply contested, is in this context that the classic Islamic constitutional order made everybody in the society up to and including the ruler subject to the law.
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Participants
Participants
Noah Feldman
Professor of Law, Harvard University
Lama Abu-Odeh
Professor of Law, Georgetown University