Conference of the Books The Search for Beauty in Islam

by Abou El Fadl, Khaled M.

• ISBN13: 9780761819493
• ISBN10: 0761819495
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-02-21
• Publisher: UPA

Summary

Based on actual cases, these original essays present an honest and critical evaluation of the problems and challenges that confront Muslims in the Contemporary world. Using the Muslim experience in the United States as a lens, the author examines what he identifies as a pervasive alienation suffered by Muslims over their place in history, source of identity, and moral foundations. The author imagines himself sitting in a conference of Islamic books- the Conference convening to examine the contemporary Muslim condition. Various influential intellectual trends are represented in this Conference, but the author is not a passive observer, he is an active participant who reacts to the Conference with introspection and critical moral insight. The author positions himself on a bridge between the intellectual heritage of Islam and the oppressive Muslim present, arguing that the salvation of one is intricately linked to the other. This book attempts to reclaim what the author maintains is a core moral value in Islam- the value of beauty.

Author Biography

Professor Khaled M. Abou El Fadl is the Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Fellow in Islamic Law at the UCLA School of Law

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	iv
Preface	xiii
The Conference of Books: The First Admission	1	(6)
The Night's Visitor	7	(4)
The Pirates of the Intellect	11	(6)
The Terror of Bigotry	17	(2)
The Civilization of the Book	19	(6)
The Interminable Conference	25	(4)
On Betrayal	29	(4)
A Prayer	33	(4)
Donkeys Carrying Books	37	(4)
To Murder the Soul	41	(4)
A One More Knowing	45	(4)
Women As an `Awra	49	(4)
The Authoritative and the Authoritarian	53	(4)
On Obedience	57	(4)
To Suffer the Children	61	(4)
On Forms of Terror	65	(4)
Dial-a-Fatwa	69	(4)
On Knowledge	73	(4)
NYC Bombing	77	(4)
Umm Ahmad and the Judge	81	(4)
The Book Massacres	85	(4)
To Kill Parenthood	89	(4)
Killing Flies	93	(4)
Attending Jum`a	97	(4)
Burdens of a Generation	101	(4)
The Dialectics of an Apology	105	(4)
The Essential Individual	109	(4)
The Search for Beauty	113	(4)
Hegemony and Terrorism	117	(4)
Longing for Brotherhood	121	(4)
The Culture of the Mamnu`	125	(4)
On Being in Love	129	(4)
Lecturing on the Ugly	133	(4)
A Night With the Qalam	137	(4)
A Homily for Ibn Rushd	141	(6)
The Sunna of the Beloved	147	(4)
Colonizing Women	151	(4)
The Page	155	(4)
My Friend	159	(4)
The Truth of Silence	163	(4)
On the Beating of Wives	167	(10)
The Beating of Wives Revisited	177	(12)
In Praise of the Marginal	189	(4)
A Love Song	193	(4)
Migrating to the Shaykhs	197	(6)
On Revising Bigotry	203	(8)
An Encounter With the Shaykh (On the Delusions of the Fog)	211	(6)
Finding the Shaykh	217	(8)
The Book of Suspended Judgment	225	(8)
Dreaming of the Prophet	233	(10)
Women as a Colony	243	(6)
In the Footsteps of the Beloved	249	(4)
The State Between Two States (A Partnership With God)	253	(12)
The Pearls of Beauty (On Re-Finding Our Lost Civilization)	265	(14)
The Intellectual Refugee	279	(6)
When the Devil Speaks	285	(4)
Corrupting God's Book	289	(14)
The Remembrance	303	(22)
The Scholar's Road	325	(14)
Muhammad, the Child	339	(4)
Notes of the Night	343	(4)
Notes of Transformation (Conclusion)	347	(6)
Glossary of Terms	353	(26)
Selected Biographies	379	(1)
Index	379