Hamad Bin Khalifa Univer-sity’s College of Islamic Studies (CIS) hosted yesterday a virtual talk with prominent scholar Dr. Sherman Abdul-Hakim Jackson in exploring the concept of the Islamic secular as a pathway to Islamic reform.
The lecture gathered faculty, graduate students, and guests to engage with him in a challenging conversation about the ‘Islamic secular’ — a term he uses to encompass areas of human endeavour that remain perfectly within the scope of Islam as a religion, but whose substantive content is not determined by Shari’a.
During his lecture, he built on his distinguished body of academic writing, which makes the argument for Muslims to consider engaging with the Islamic secular to be as religiously valuable as implementing Shari’a.
He also encouraged discussion as he explored ideas from his forth-coming book, “Beyond Good and Evil: Shari’a and the Chal-lenge of the Islamic Secular.” Speaking after the lecture, Associate Professor of Quranic Studies at CIS, Dr. Joseph Lumbard said: “It was an honour to host Professor Sherman Jackson and have him share his work and ideas that have uniquely contributed to the development of influ-ential scholarship concerning Islam and Muslim practice in modern, secular societies.“ His lecture has triggered meaningful discussions that will surely continue in our classrooms and beyond.
This event underscores the vital function of CIS in providing a venue for global thought leaders to share their perspec-tives and maintaining a space for intellectual and cultural dialogue regarding Islamic thought and practice in the contemporary world.
