Jonathan Brown - Is Sharia Law Barbaric?

Jonathan BrownFebruary 26, 20200 comments

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Comparative Law Islamic History Islamic Law Sharia Hudud Fiqh Ottoman Empire Human Rights

About this lecture

In this wide-ranging lecture, Professor Jonathan Brown provides a comprehensive introduction to Islamic law and the Sharia in the modern world, covering foundational concepts such as Haqq Allah (the rights of God) and Huquq al-'Ibad (human rights), the structure of Islamic courts, the logic behind hudud punishments and their near-impossibility of implementation, and the process of legal modernization in the Ottoman Empire and Muslim-majority countries. Drawing on historical sources and comparative legal history, Brown argues that classical Islamic jurisprudence contains sophisticated, nuanced systems of rights, criminal deterrence, and judicial procedure that parallel and in some cases predate Western legal developments.

Jonathan AC Brown is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies in the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He received his BA in History from Georgetown University in 2000 and his doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 2006. Dr. Brown has studied and conducted research in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Indonesia and Iran, and he is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His book publications include The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunni Hadith Canon (Brill, 2007), Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World (Oneworld, 2009) and Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011). He has published articles in the fields of Hadith, Islamic law, Sufism, Arabic lexical theory and Pre-Islamic poetry and is the editor in chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Islamic Law. Dr. Brown’s current research interests include the history of forgery and historical criticism in Islamic civilization, comparison with the Western tradition; and modern conflicts between Late Sunni Traditionalism and Salafism in Islamic thought.

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