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Abdullahi An-Na'im, a native of Sudan, is a critic of hard-line Islam. He says he is not a secularist but wants to transform ''religion's relation to public life.''
By JEANNE MALMGREN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 26, 2002
Because of his stand on human rights, Abdullahi An-Na'im was imprisoned for 18 months and separated from his family for six years. He has not seen his homeland, Sudan, since 1985.
A heavy price to pay, but the cause is worth it, said An-Na'im.
"My work is in the field of human rights . . . to emphasize our shared vulnerability as human beings everywhere and the need to protect human dignity everywhere."
An-Na'im, an Emory University law professor, will speak at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, as part of the college's presidential inauguration lecture series. His talk is titled "Islam and Human Rights."
Even though he is an expert in Islamic justice, An-Na'im said he wants to speak about the commonality of human experience and the value of diversity within that commonality.
"I like to quote Albie Sachs. He is a South African jurist. He says that human rights are about the right to be the same and the right to be different. It's as if you say, 'I want to be treated like everybody else, but I also want to be treated as myself.' "
An-Na'im, 55, the eldest of eight children, was reared in a Sudanese village down the Nile River from Khartoum. He earned law degrees from the University of Khartoum, Cambridge University and Edinburgh University.
In the 1970s he joined a reformist movement in Sudan called the Republican Brothers. The group fought for the country's political independence from Britain (which Sudan achieved in 1956) and then became a social movement calling for reform of Islam.
"We advocated equality for women and non-Muslims," An-Na'im said. "We didn't want secularism, but transforming religion's relation to public life."
The group's modernist thinking and outspokenness against hard-line Islam proved dangerous in a country where the ruling dictator was about to impose shari'a, or Islamic law, by decree.
In 1983, 50 members of the Republican Brothers, including An-Na'im, were imprisoned. There were no formal charges, no trials. An-Na'im remained in jail for 18 months.
Soon after he and the others were released, their leader, Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, was executed. Three months later An-Na'im left Sudan, in early 1985.
He began a new life as a scholar, teaching at universities in New York, California, Canada and Sweden. He spent three years as executive director of Human Rights Watch/Africa. In 1995, after finally being reunited with his wife and five children, he went to Atlanta. At Emory he holds the Charles Howard Candler chair at the School of Law. He teaches courses in human rights, religion, Islamic law and politics.
An-Na'im is the author of Toward an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights and International Law (Syracuse University Press, 1990), which has been translated into Arabic, Indonesian and Russian. He also translated a book Taha wrote, called The Second Message of Islam. "It is this notion of the transformation of shari'a," An-Na'im said.
As the world focuses on Islam in the wake of Sept. 11, An-Na'im emphasizes that there are historical and cultural reasons to explain the conservatism of Muslim regimes around the world. But increasing globalization will create more interdependence, a greater need to understand differences.
The notion of jihad, or a holy war, can be applied not only to Islamic fighters, An-Na'im said. The United States was propelled by its own jihad, of sorts, on Oct. 7, the day bombing started in Afghanistan.
"Sept. 11 was a horrendous crime against humanity, committed by a band of criminals who should be held accountable for their crimes," An-Na'im said. "But that does not justify, in my mind, for a superpower to engage in such a massive, unilateral and unaccountable attack on the weakest and most wretched country and people of the world. The American retaliation has the moral and political and legal implications of Islamic jihad."
A better response to the terrorist attacks, according to An-Na'im, would have been to bring the perpetrators to justice.
"The proper response to terrorism is maintaining legality. What is problematic about jihad is the vigilante justice element, the unregulated use of force in pursuit of your own perceptions of injustice. I have been critical of Islamic jihad for that very reason, for decades now."
An-Na'im said he could go back to Sudan now, but it would be dangerous because he probably would not be allowed to leave the country. Opposition to conservative Islamic law still is punishable by death.
"I really consider myself fortunate that I'm able to continue to live and work, that I have personal freedom and security that many of my colleagues in the movement (in Sudan) don't have. I am able to speak out."