Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Integrative Research Institute Law & Society (LSI)

Prof. Mark Fathi Massoud will discuss his book, Shari'a, Inshallah: Finding God in Somali Legal Politics (Cambridge University Press), which is the recent recipient of seven book awards in fields including political science, religion, sociology, law and society, international relations, and Middle East studies. Based on historical research, ethnographic fieldwork, and interviews in the Horn of Africa, Shari'a, Inshallah documents nearly 150 years of historic attempts by the Somali people to use shari'a to strengthen human rights and the rule of law — including attempts by contemporary women's rights activists to push for gender equality by invoking shari'a. Massoud upends the conventional account of secular legal progress and demonstrates instead how faith in a higher power guides people toward the rule of law. In a space where secular human rights interventions have largely failed, Massoud shows how future progress in human rights and the rule of law is still possible under shari'a.

 

Prof. Mark Fathi Massoud is the Spring 2024 Ellen Maria Gorrissen Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He is a professor of politics and legal studies, and the director of legal studies, at the University of California, Santa Cruz (USA) and a visiting professor at the University of Oxford Faculty of Law (UK). Massoud is the author of two books, Law's Fragile State: Colonial, Authoritarian, and Humanitarian Legacies in Sudan (Cambridge University Press) and Shari'a, Inshallah: Finding God in Somali Legal Politics (Cambridge University Press), and the co-editor of Out of Place: Fieldwork and Positionality in Law and Society (Cambridge University Press).