Law, Culture, and Human Rights Islamic Perspectives in the Contemporary World 20-21 Jumada al Awwal 1414/5-6 November 1993 Yale Law School, New Haven, CT

Abstract

This conference, unfortunately, lacked focus and direction. The
conference brochure and posters were the first indication that distressing
leaps of association were going to be made. One wondered why, for
example, Malcolm X, Yasser Arafat, and Saddam Hussein were pictured
on the brochure when their actions and ideas were in no way related to
anything disclls.5ed in the conference. And why was a picture of a jubilant
Hanan Ashrawi set beside a miserable looking woman in a black chador?
This crass visual melange of "Islamic" figures would not have been so
significant if the conference had been more focused, but this was not the
case. Still, there were a number of interesting debates and discussions.
The inclusion of a panel of medievalists was one strange feature of
the conference. While Joseph van Ess's paper on the role of the individual
in medieval Islamic culture was intensting, it was anachronistic in
a conference on contemporary human rights. As I listened to Michael
cook's talk on "al 'Amr bi al Ma'ruf and Human Rights" (from a
medieval perspective), I recalled a statement by an Exeter scholar that
orientalists mlize fundamentalists' wildest dreams when they leap back
a thousand years to explain current events. It is hard enough to deal with
Muslims who want to reinstate a medieval political order without having
Cook offer a few of his own suggestions ...