God's Law: When Religious Faith Builds Peace, Protects Human Rights and Promotes the Rule of Law

In this talk, Mark Fathi Massoud will discuss his new book Shari‘a, Inshallah: Finding God in Somali Legal Politics (Cambridge University Press 2021). 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 (commonly translated as Islamic law). Mark 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, Mark shows how future progress in human rights and the rule of law is still possible under shari'a.

Mark Fathi Massoud is a Professor of Politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Law's Fragile State, which received the Herbert Jacob Award from the Law and Society Association, and Shari‘a, Inshallah: Finding God in Somali Legal Politics, a 2022 PROSE Award Finalist. You can learn more about Mark's research interests and work at markmassoud.com