Congrès Mondial des Études sur le Moyen-Orient et l'Afrique du Nord

Barcelone du 19 au 24 Juillet 2010

· NOT_DEFINED institution: Al-Azhar University and American University in Cairo (Egypt)

· NOT_DEFINED organizer: Sanaa Makhlouf

· NOT_DEFINED sponsor: The World Association for Al-Azhar Graduates

· NOT_DEFINED language: English

· NOT_DEFINED description: Chair: Prof. Khaled Abou El-Fadl, University of California, Los Angele

Paper presenter: Mahmoud Azab (Université Al Azhar), “Comparative Study of Minority Status and Rights in the Judeo-Biblical Tradition and the Islamic Tradition”
Minority rights in Islam has become a prism through which the Muslim religion and civilization has been evaluated. Modern Western secular values have often been the implicit standard by which this examination takes place regardless of their own historicity and tense relation to the Judeo-Christian traditions. This presentation offers a comparative study of minority status in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic tradition in hope of a more balanced approach to the problematics involved.

Paper presenter: Ayman Shabana, University of California, Los Angeles
“Human Rights Discourses in the Muslim World between Religious Norms and Secular Values: Towards a Typology”
The term human rights has become increasingly elusive. It may denote a particular philosophical construction, ethical stance, political ideology, body of literature, or a set of United Nations documents or instruments. The term human rights culture usually refers to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the subsequent documents, treaties, and discussions that are associated with it. Despite its inherent elusiveness, human rights discourse has become an integral part of ethical discussions in the modern period. This close affinity of human rights discourses with systems of ethics and morality explains their interconnectedness with religion in general and religion’s place in the modern public sphere in particular. Given Islam’s concern not only with private beliefs but also with how these beliefs inform the behavior of believers in public on many levels, the question of compatibility of human rights discourses with Islam has been subject to heated debates. Ever since the rise of the modern nation state with its implied secular biases, the public manifestations of Islam (or any other religion for that matter) have been put into question. These public manifestations are often seen through the prism of the modern human rights discourse. But the issue of human rights can not be studied in isolation of other social, political, and cultural dimensions of modernity. With alack of consensus over the guiding principles that inspire these discussions, a multiplicity of discourses was inevitable, each with its own forms of authority and legitimacy. This multiplicity can be shown on a continuum that represents the relationship between Islam and human rights. Such a continuum would encompass complete and unreserved acceptance on one end and outright rejection on the other with different forms of accommodation in between. This paper seeks to demonstrate this multiplicity through the various constructions of the two central themes of freedom and equality. I argue that this multiplicity is attributable, more than anything else, to the normative foundations that the different participants of these discourses consider most authoritative. Central to my presentation is a discussion of two main problems that are referred to as the problems of definition and historical (re)interpretation.

Paper presenter: Nadia M Nader, UC Santa Barbara, Department of History
“The Mihna Nostalgic and the Reform Project”
In 218/833, the theological controversy between traditional Hadith-oriented Ulama and rationalist theologians over the createdness of the Qur’an was institutionalized by the Abbasid state into an organized procedure known as the Mihna. The Mihna was a monumental period. It led to killing, imprisoning and alienation of a group of Muslim scholars because of their theological orientations. It opened the door to a severe intellectual rift between Muslims scholars which still characterizes the entire Muslim world today, and has affected all aspects of the Islamic life: from mundane daily activities to the reform project. In the past century, conventional (western) scholarship has focused on studying the motives of the Abbasid Caliph, al-Ma’mn (813-833. Legal historians, in particular, have always privileged the Hanbali narrative, ignoring the Hanafis entirely, and to a great extent, other versions of the story. My paper challenges those paradigms and has also a strong ethical which contributes to more relevant issues relating to contemporary debates of law reform and morality in Islam. My paper demonstrates how dogmatic theology impacted the development of Islamic legal institutions and doctrines, and how this development impacted Muslims? normative system of belief and their understanding of the ethical foundation of Islamic law. My paper asks the following questions: why is the story of the Mihna, in particular, relevant to modern discussions of Islamic law reform’ Can the traditionalist versus Mu’tazili theological debate of the ninth century be transformed to symbolize the debate of secularism versus Islamism in the twenty-first century? (I am not suggesting that Mu’tazilism is an origin of secularism-far from it). Does the failure of the Mu’tazilis symbolize a failure of rationalist thought in the modern age? And does the triumph of ninth century Hadith-oriented scholars indicate a triumph of Islamism? Are contemporary Muslims states living through a Mihna? Is believing in the doctrine of the created Qur’an critical to reforming Islamic Jurisprudence? I argue, in this paper, that reviving (Mu’tazili) ethical theology is essential to the reform project. At the crux of the reform debate is the literal-versus-metaphorical-discussion of the interpretation of the Qur’an. Therefore, understanding the dynamics of the rejection of metaphorical interpretations of the Qur’an and believing in its createdness and its ethical message is urgent to reforming Islamic law and the integration of ethics (and hence Human Rights) into the Islamic legal discourse.

Paper presenter: Ayman Fouad Sayyed Emara (Director of the Center for Editing Texts, Al -Azhar University), “Re-examination du concept de Tolerance base sur les pragmatiques de l ‘histoire des Fatimides et des Ayyubides”
L État fatimide tirait sa force de sa capacité à pouvoir profiter de toutes les communautés sociales et ethniques qui composaient le people égyptien, comme cela n’avait jamais été réalise auparavant. Les fatimides profitèrent des éléments étrangers surtout maghrébins, tures, daylamites, ainsi que des arméniens, de même comptaient-ils sur les non-musulmans et les coptes en leur confiant la direction des affaires administratives et financiers, ainsi que les fonctions principales du gouvernent. Les Sunnites furent écartes de ces fonctions.
C’est ainsi que les fatimides en Egypte restèrent minoritaires, sépares de la masse du people, a cause de leurs idées religieuses. Ceci les priva du soutien de la vraie population du pays. Mais, ils s’assurèrent leur allégeance ou du moins n’ont pas subi de révoltes, ceci était du a l épanouissement économique et a la prospérité dont jouissait l ‘Egypte sous les Fatimides, grâce a une politique bien menée.
Les Fatimides ont réalise après quelques décennies de propagande intense, que lísma ‘ilisme n avait pas réellement pris racine en Afrique du Nord, bien que le milieu fut favorable. De même l ‘Egypte, avec ses chrétiens et ses musulmans Sunnites, ne sera pas une terre fertile pour la conversion. En fait, al-Mu ‘izz et ses successeurs n ‘ont propage la Da‘wa en Egypte que dans les limites restreintes, en verra rarement des tentatives destinées a oblige les Egyptiens a adopter la doctrine ismaïlienne. Il se contentèrent d ‘attribuer quelques postes administratifs a ceux qui embrassaient l ‘ismailisme et, par conséquent, après ce deux siècles au pouvoir les Fatimides n ‘avaient rallie que les éléments les plus fideles au régime.
De même, les Fatimides avaient adopte une politique de tolérance religieuse a l égard des non-musulmanes. Et, a l ‘exception de la persécution qu‘il le subirent sous le califat d ‘al-Hakim, les non-musulmans connurent sous les Fatimides une époque de prospérité et de large indulgence. Les musulmans Sunnites égyptiens ne bénéficièrent pas, pour leur part, d ‘une telle attitude.