Heather Laird

Looking forward to returning to the Midwest soon and participating in the Usuli conference.

Feeling Lost? Find Light at The Usuli Institute Conference In a time of darkness, we gather for light, to regroup, re-energize and reignite our spirits. Join us for the 2nd Annual Usuli Conference in Columbus, OH, Oc...

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Check out my latest musings.

Not All Board Service is Equal. Coming off the heels of a historic moment in our Board’s history passing a policy that dares to give a voice to those less heard, I felt moved to write about how and why not all board service is equal. While traveling across the country and returning home from our quarterly board meeting of the Am...

So happy to see this is out and published. I am so happy for us as a community to have access to this knowledge. https://a.co/d/9GAn7cb

The basic point of the secular in the modern West is to "liberate" certain pursuits--the state, the economy, science--from the authority of religion. This is also assumed to be the goal and meaning of "secular" in Islam. Sherman Jackson argues, however, that that assumption is wrong. In Islam the "secular" was neither outside "religion" nor a rival to it. "Religion," in Islam was not identical to Islam's "sacred law," or "shari'ah." Nor did classical Muslim jurists see shari'ah as the all-encompassing, exclusive means of determining what is "Islamic." In fact, while, as religion, Islam's jurisdiction was unlimited, shari'ah's jurisdiction, as a sacred law, was limited. In other words, while everything remained within the purview of the divine gaze of the God of Islam, not everything could be determined by shari'ah or on the basis of its revelatory sources.

The Islamic Secular The Islamic Secular