Professor Abdou Filali Ansary
AKU-ISMC

This lecture will examine lessons learned from recent controversies concerning ‘orientalism’. It will look at the unquestioned assumption that there is a ‘special relationship’ between Islam and History and examine the challenge of historicism and what it means for Muslims. The lecture also discusses some strategies which have been adopted to face the challenge of historicism: including reformism, neo-Zahirism (and/or neo-Sufism) and humanism.

Date: Wednesday October 19th 2011
Time: 5:30 - 7:00pm
Venue: AKU-ISMC Lecture Room 2.3, 210 Euston Road
London NW1 2DA

Professor Abdou Filali Ansary was the founding director of the Aga Khan University - Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (2002-2009) and of the King Abdul-Aziz Foundation for Islamic Studies and Human Sciences in Casablanca, Morocco (1984-2001). Professor Filali Ansary has contributed to the academic discourse on Islam and modernity and on democratization and civil society in the Muslim World and has written books and articles on trends of thought in contemporary Muslim contexts. His works include: Is Islam Hostile to Secularism?; Reforming Islam: An Introduction to Contemporary Debates; and a translation into French of Ali Abdel-Raziq's landmark book Islam and the Foundations of Political Power. In 1993 he co-founded the bilingual Arabic-French journal Prologues: revue maghrébine du livre and served as its editor until 2005.

www.aku.edu/ismc