American Academy in Berlin Lecture at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

The Theology of the Rule of Law

Mark Fathi Massoud discusses his critically acclaimed book Sharia, Inshallah: Finding God in Somali Legal Politics. Based on historical research, ethnographic fieldwork, and interviews in the Horn of Africa, the book documents nearly 150 years of attempts by the Somali people to use sharia to strengthen human rights and the rule of law — including attempts by contemporary women’s rights activists to push for gender equality. Massoud upends the conventional account of secular legal progress and demonstrates instead how faith in a higher power can guide people toward the rule of law. In a space in which secular appeals for human rights have largely failed, Massoud argues that progress in human rights and the rule of law actually can strengthen under sharia’s influence.

In cooperation with the Integrative Research Institute Law and Society, Faculty of Law, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin