درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

An underlying theoretical point of this paper has been that if fundamental commitments and the questions of cultural identity that they bring with them (What is an X?) are understood in terms of functional analyses of the kind I have tried to give in the case of Islamic identity today, then there is scope to see these commitments as susceptible to various criticisms in the particular context of a conflict in which they might figure.  All this seems to me to offer far more scope and interest to moral philosophy than Williams allows it, even after granting to Williams the validity of the central role he gives to the idea of fundamental commitment and the validity of his critique of traditional moral philosophy. <br />  The paper has studied the question "What is a Muslim?" in the dialectic of a conflict arising out of a concern for Islamic Reform.  The conflict is one that arises because of moderate Muslims' fundamental commitment to a doctrine which contains features that are often effectively invoked by the absolutists whom moderate Muslims fundamentally oppose.  If a full analysis of the commitment reveals its defensive function which have disabled Muslims from a creative and powerful opposition to the absolutists, and if, moreover, this function of the commitment is diagnosed as itself based on a deep but common philosophical fallacy, it should be possible then for moderate Muslims to think there way out of this conflict and to transform the nature of their commitment to Islam, so that it is not disabling in that way. <br />The question of identity, "What is a Muslim?", then, will get very different answers before and after this dialectic about reform has played itself out.   The dialectic, thus, preserves the negotiability of the concept of identity and the methodological points I began with, at the same time as it situates and explains the urgency and fascination that such questions hold for us.

There has been a great deal written about the relationship between sharia law and international human rights law, particularly with regards to the treatment of women.  The tensions between sharia law and international law norms of equality and non-discrimination have been well documented, and the possibilities for interpreting sharia law in a manner that accords with international human rights law have been insightfully explored by scholars of human rights and Islamic law. It has been shown that Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance, justice and equality.  It has been said that the Qur’anic passages describing the role of women should be understood in the context in which they were written, which was a time in history in which women were seen as vastly inferior to men in almost every society throughout the world, particularly in the Arabian peninsula.  Read in this context, it is argued, Islam must be seen as an advocate for gender equality, and should thus be interpreted as standing for gender equality today. This paper argues that, while this may indeed be the preferred interpretation of Islam, this is of little assistance to women in countries such as Sudan whose national legislation enshrines and enforces the most discriminatory aspects of sharia law.