American Muslims have tragically erred by putting an imbalanced focus on demanding rights for themselves instead of living out their Islamically-rooted commitment to the common good. In doing so they've obscured the truth & good of Islam & contributed to the secularization & polarization of America.

The founder of Atheist Republic, Armin Navabi, was kind enough to have me on his show to discuss belief in God, atheism, extremism, and so on. 

In this talk with some youth I discuss my journey from atheism to belief.

To what extent should a sentence reflect the characteristics of the criminal and not merely the crime? An example of how classical Islamic jurists addressed this question is found in the work of jurists of the Maliki madhab concerning the crime of hirabah.

The source of Muslims’ predicament in the United States is their profound anxiety over being accepted as “real” Americans, and the tendency of this anxiety to overcome their confidence in the truth of their religious principles.

American Muslims must seek to preserve the American constitutional settlement against encroachments by totalitarian secularism because doing so means preserving what remains of a civilizational order that proceeds from belief in God.

Most Muslims today live in political systems that operate on a nation state model. By contrast, classical Islamic jurisprudence developed in the context of empire and a robust and relatively independent scholarly class. Is there something about the nation state that makes “Islamization” unworkable? In what contexts might "Islamization" be most successful? Is there a role for classical Islamic law in Pakistan, and, more generally, for Muslims living within the framework of modernity? This event, hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars and the Religious Freedom Institute, addressed these questions and more.

Abstract:  Section 295-C of Pakistan’s penal code prohibits insulting the Prophet and carries a mandatory death penalty. This law was passed based on a claim of ijma‘ (consensus among Islamic scholars) that such an offense is subject to a hadd (divinely fixed) punishment. Nearly half of those charged under this statute crimes of hadd are Christians, who make up only about four percent of Pakistan’s population. Yet there is no consensus among Islamic scholars on the death penalty for non-Muslims who insult the Prophet. Some early Islamic scholars held there was no punishment at all in such cases, and most said it was a ta‘zir offense, i.e., subject to discretionary punishment or none at all. Under Islamic law, whether and how ta‘zir punishment is applied depends on the interests of the common good (maslaha). Pakistan’s application of Section 295-C to non-Muslims promotes harm: mob violence, disrespect for the law, oppression of minorities and the poor, and damage to Islam’s reputation. Moreover, such cases are adjudicated by judges who have no expertise in Islamic law or the interpretive tools of Islamic jurisprudence needed to mitigate the statute’s harm. Therefore, applying this section to non-Muslims contradicts Islamic law. Under Islamic law and from a policy perspective, the only relevant question is whether enforcing Section 295-C against non-Muslims promotes the common good. Because it clearly does not, the government of Pakistan should immediately stop doing so and pardon those accused or convicted under it. Muslim religious leaders should make it clear that Islam does not require the death of non-Muslims who insult the Prophet and that the true way to show love for him is not mob violence, but dignified behavior, patience, and wisdom.