What are the views of the American Muslim community about its role within American society and the Muslim world in general? What are its views of the relationship between Islam and democracy? What unique experiences and perspectives can American Muslims living within a democratic society offer to the diversity of views within the wider Muslim world? What does the tradition of Islamic political thought and jurisprudence have to say to American Muslims at this juncture? These important questions have all come to the fore since the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

The Ethics and Public Policy Center has launched a series of seminars and conversations through which distinguished American Muslim leaders, as well as Muslim leaders from abroad, can have an opportunity to present and explore their reflections on these subjects with their fellow non-Muslim American colleagues. The second speaker in this series is Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl, The Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Fellow in Islamic Law at UCLA School of Law. A native of Egypt and an expert on Islamic law and theology, Dr. Abou El Fadl is the author of the recent books: Conference of the Books: The Search for Beauty in Islam, And God Knows the Soldiers: The Authoritative and Authoritarian in Islamic Discourses, and Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic law, Authority, and Women. Dr. Abou El Fadl has been described as the leading figure of a new generation of American Muslim thinkers ("Islamic Studies’ Young Turks," The Chronicle of Higher Education). Within the American Muslim community itself his views have attracted enormous attention as well as controversy.