On Monday November 17th Pacifica Institute of Los Angeles had the honor of hosting the illustrious Dr. Khalid M. Abou El Fadl as a guest speaker for our luncheon lecture. Dr. Khalid is one the world’s leading authorities on Islamic Law and Islam. He is a prominent scholar in the field of human rights and the Omar Azmeralda Alfi distinguished Professor in Islamic Law at UCLA School of Law where he teaches a series of classes including International Human Rights, Islamic Jurisprudence, National Security Law, and Law and Terrorism.
Authoring many revolutionary books such as The Great Theft, and The Search for Beauty in Islam: A Conference of the Books, Dr.Khalid has shed an insightful view of Islam. His most recent publication, and the topic of the lecture, entitled Reasoning with God, explains to readers the meaning of Shari’ah and how it can revitalize and re engage contemporary Islam.
This book is the product of ten years of thinking and research constructed by weaving in and out of personal antidotes complemented with broader global examples. The book works through a legacy of jurisprudence, theology, and the personal engagement of the conciseness and how it deals and interacts with the world of thought and scholarly research. In this book Dr. Khalid Abou EL Fadl talks about being able to make sense the world surrounding us encompassing all other beings through reasoning with God, even when we can’t properly articulate what we feel in our hearts. In doing so the question of the Devine’s will has to be raised. During the lecture he asked, “What is it that I understand that God want from me as a human being, as a Muslim? What does God want from Muslims? Of humanity?” But to answer these questions, Dr. Khaled said, we can’t just deal with them in a vacuum in which we fail to think or analyze God’s other creations.
To find a true answer we must remember that we are in fact not the only creations of God and that every question about our past, present, and future comes with a profound implication of everyone and everything else. “Theologically part of what I reasoned with was what is Shari’ah? Can you have Islam without Shari’ah? As an abstract and practical matter can it be sliced off or amputated from Islam? What would be the consequences?” Shari’ah is an Arabic word that engages thinkers that have had a relationship with God for centuries. Shari’ah talks about the duties of God and men and their relationship to each other. This concept, Dr. Khalid said is one that has been in discourse for many years and can even be traced back to the Jewish philosopher Philo who spoke about the duties of men and God. Dr. Khalid said, by knowing yourself, you know the lord, because this is an all-inclusive system in which the Devine and the profane are directly connected and understanding one leads to understanding the other.
After a quick breakdown of the chapters within the book on topics that go as far as talking about the relationship between Shari’ah and classical music Dr. Khaled gave a quick explanation of the art displayed on his cover composed by Koichi Faud Honda, a Japanese convert to Islam. The ocean depicted on the cover, he stated is a clear representation of the Qur’an. The ocean represents an endless supply of ink to the wisdom of the lord. The closing message of the lecture was that the primary and essential law of God is the path that leads to the exploration and realization of our moral goals; it is a path to self in God and God in self.
A brief Q&A and book signing preceded the lecture. Pacifica Institute would like to thank Dr. Khalid M. Abou El Fadl for his presentation on his book Reasoning with God and our audience members for participating in our Lecture Series.