Rebuilding the Rule of Law with Religion
Thursday, February 10, 202211:30 AM - 1:00 PM (Pacific)
Online, via Zoom.
About the Seminar: Mark Fathi Massoud will discuss his new book, Shari‘a, Inshallah: Finding God in Somali Legal Politics (Cambridge University Press 2021). Based on historical research, ethnographic fieldwork, and interviews in the Horn of Africa, Shari‘a, Inshallah documents nearly 150 years of historic attempts by the Somali people to use shari‘a to strengthen human rights and the rule of law — including attempts by contemporary women's rights activists to push for gender equality by invoking shari‘a. Massoud upends the conventional account of secular legal progress and demonstrates instead how faith in a higher power guides people toward the rule of law. In a space where secular human rights interventions have largely failed, Massoud shows how future progress in human rights and the rule of law is still possible under shari'a.
About the Speaker:
Mark Fathi Massoud is a professor of politics at UC Santa Cruz, where he directs the Legal Studies Program. Massoud is also Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Oxford. He is a former CDDRL postdoctoral fellow (2008–09). Most recently, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship.