About Khaled Abou el Fadl

Khaled Abou el Fadl is a professor
at the School of Law at the University of California and a prominent
Islamic jurist and intellectual. He has been a member of the U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom since December 2003 and
serves on the board of directors of Human Rights Watch. He trained in
Islamic law in Egypt and Kuwait and is a high-ranking sheikh. Since
openly attacking Wahabism, he has received regular death threats and is
now protected by the FBI. All his books have been banned in Saudi
Arabia.

Well, how nice for him to be protected by the FBI.

That is far more protection than Ayan Hirsi Ali has , who, despite promis...

About Khaled Abou el Fadl

Khaled Abou el Fadl is a professor
at the School of Law at the University of California and a prominent
Islamic jurist and intellectual. He has been a member of the U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom since December 2003 and
serves on the board of directors of Human Rights Watch. He trained in
Islamic law in Egypt and Kuwait and is a high-ranking sheikh. Since
openly attacking Wahabism, he has received regular death threats and is
now protected by the FBI. All his books have been banned in Saudi
Arabia.

Well, how nice for him to be protected by the FBI.

That is far more protection than Ayan Hirsi Ali has , who, despite promises by the Dutch Goverrnment to keep her protected (they broke them) --has to now rely on the good will/donations of fellow writers, friends and fans. I am grateful to be counted amongst them.

Thanks for lifting the lid on El-Fadl's view of Sharia (insofar as his view is conveyed by the above article). It appears also to me that there is a need of clarification.
For a start, we should pay attention to the whole context given by the article:

The pivotal point of Abou el Fadl's theory – that the Sharia, the divine law, is not a moral code – is controversial. In his opinion, the Sharia is a divine guide containing methods and principles that attempt to turn the divine ideal into reality.
[Note: I can't see a difference between viewing the divine law as a "moral code" and viewing it as "methods and principles that attempt to turn the divine ideal into reality". J.]

[...

Thanks for lifting the lid on El-Fadl's view of Sharia (insofar as his view is conveyed by the above article). It appears also to me that there is a need of clarification.
For a start, we should pay attention to the whole context given by the article:

The pivotal point of Abou el Fadl's theory – that the Sharia, the divine law, is not a moral code – is controversial. In his opinion, the Sharia is a divine guide containing methods and principles that attempt to turn the divine ideal into reality.
[Note: I can't see a difference between viewing the divine law as a "moral code" and viewing it as "methods and principles that attempt to turn the divine ideal into reality". J.]

[…] "If […] we adopt a law and the state implements it, we cannot assume that it represents God's will. If, on the other hand, we give the state the power to represent God, that is not a democracy, but a form of ideology. This contradicts Islamic theology, because God does not have an equal partner."
This is why the divine law should only cover questions of faith and should not be subject to the state. It is not the job of the state to regulate the relationship between God and the faithful.

[Emphases added by me, J.]

The relation in which Sharia and public (i.e. also political) Muslim life should, according to El-Fadl, be seen is not obvious to me. But El-Fadl doesn't give rise to any doubts that he has to be assigned to the theoreticians of a secularism-orientated reform of Islamic thinking and living. He brings forward the (Islamically founded) argument that the state should be secular (he rejects theocratic concepts) and that (the matters of) faith and (the matters of) state must be separated.
Well, that's at least something, isn't it?
And, as for the contents of the "divine law" and for the way Muslims combine the divine and the secular in their thoughts and life, I am glad about all non-Wahhabismlike and all non-Khomeinismlike views!

I use to feel alarmed when law is talked about in the terminology of religion and when a statutory religion is asserted to be law-grounding.
As a Lutheran Christian, I believe in the freedom of a Christian: We are freed from the "voice of the law" in the sense of a detailed religious behaviour code, which to be observed is meant by terrifying (instead of raising hope), by humbling (without exalting), by wounding (without binding up), by striking (instead of healing), by killing (instead of making alive), by bringing down to hell (without bringing back). The "voice of the law" does neither heal nor hallow. It's the "word of grace" that...

I use to feel alarmed when law is talked about in the terminology of religion and when a statutory religion is asserted to be law-grounding.
As a Lutheran Christian, I believe in the freedom of a Christian: We are freed from the "voice of the law" in the sense of a detailed religious behaviour code, which to be observed is meant by terrifying (instead of raising hope), by humbling (without exalting), by wounding (without binding up), by striking (instead of healing), by killing (instead of making alive), by bringing down to hell (without bringing back). The "voice of the law" does neither heal nor hallow. It's the "word of grace" that heals and hallows; and the Christians' answer to God's "word of grace" is that they freely and willingly - not for fear of punishment, neither for the sake of an advantage - serve God and their neighbours.
Such living religiousness may of course have political implications because it radiates into public life. I appreciate these implications as they are a religious contribution to cultivating the community of free, equal, and brotherly people.
But if pressed into statutes, religiosity will get hollowed out and become a potentially dangerous, because enslaving and aggressive, ideology. The agencies of a statutory religion tend to quasi usurp the omnipotence of its god(s) and to project its statutes and pretensions to power onto the whole world. Such politicization of religion, which is a theocratic and antidemocratic movement, is a scourge for mankind.

And now, please, one (or two) should be so kind as to consider El-Fadls views again and stop thinking in terms of one-dimensional judgments and sheerly antireligious jaundices.