Data:
Thursday, 28 April, 2016 – 17:30 to 19:30
Programme:
17.30-19.30
Lecturer:
Professor Emeritus Werner Menski, SOAS, University of London
Location:
Aula piccola | Fondazione Bruno Kessler | Via S. Croce, 77 – 38122 Trento
Contacts:
segreteria.isr@fbk.eu
phone: +39 0461 314238/232
Description:
Within presently dominant secular structures of governance and the management of diversities, religion has not lost its relevance, but re-appears in different forms and reacts evefrywhere to changing circumstances. The recent radicalisation of some Muslims relates as much to insecurities and challenges inherent in the diverse Islamic methods and patterns of bringing one’s life under the will of God as it does to the impact of modern life conditions that may be perceived as hostile and intolerable.
The presentation, built on extensive interaction with Muslims in different jurisdictions, will identify such challenging situations and hopes to show some ways forward to avoid complete antagonisation.
***
Werner Menski, MA PhD, is Emeritus Professor of South Asian Laws at SOAS, University of London. After studying Islamic law with Professor Noel Coulson in the 1980s he published (with David Pearl) Muslim Family Law (3rd ed. London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1998). He taught short courses in Pakistan every year between 1990 and 2001 and took part in several judicial training seminars in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, as well as in Europe. Since 2010, he has delivered a succession of Community Leadership Programmes, in which young Muslim leaders were the majority of participants, with the last course, in 2014, focused exclusively on Somali leadership training. Apart from 200 academic articles on South Asian laws, comparative law and ethnic minority legal issues, his major books are Comparative Law in a Global Context: The Legal Systems of Asia and Africa (2nd ed. Cambridge: CUP 2006) and Hindu Law. Beyond Tradition and Modernity (New Delhi: OUP 2003). He continues to edit South Asia Research (New Delhi: SAGE) and maintains an active research programme.
