{"id":72195,"date":"2022-03-16T03:30:33","date_gmt":"2022-03-16T07:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/?p=72195"},"modified":"2022-03-17T08:28:35","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T12:28:35","slug":"islamic-studies-lecture-to-discuss-middle-east-authoritarians-reshaping-islam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/03_16_2022\/islamic-studies-lecture-to-discuss-middle-east-authoritarians-reshaping-islam","title":{"rendered":"Islamic Studies Lecture to Discuss Middle East Authoritarians Reshaping Islam"},"content":{"rendered":"

The community is invited to a free lecture by an Islamic studies scholar at The University of Toledo about U.S. support for authoritarian governments in the Middle East and how it is suppressing the democratic and reformist interpretations of Islam that had taken shape in the 20th century and making the region dangerous for the whole world.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy\u00a0lecture\u00a0will offer how the global civil society can help save not only Islam but also democracy by protecting institutions and forums of free inquiry,\u201d said Dr. Ovamir Anjum, UToledo Imam Khattab Endowed Chair of Islamic Studies.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Presented by the UToledo Center for Religious Understanding, the event, which is titled \u201cAmerica\u2019s Meatgrinders: How Authoritarians are Reshaping Islam in the Middle East,\u201d is 7 p.m. Monday, March 21, in the McQuade Law Auditorium.<\/p>\n

\u201cScholars once referred to Saudi Arabia, our oldest ally in the region and the staple of our oil-addicted economy, as \u2018America\u2019s Kingdom\u2019; today, that kingdom has become America\u2019s \u2018meatgrinder,\u2019 and is now being used to butcher journalists, countless reformist clerics and citizens,\u201d Anjum said. \u201cThe counter-revolution, or the long winter after the brief Arab Spring of 2011, seems to be here to stay as ruthless autocrats like the crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman of Saudi Arabi and Mohammad bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates have perfected the formula to use the War on Terror to suppress any dissent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Addressing how that is altering Islamic doctrine, Anjum\u2019s talk will focus on a particular case, the governance of the Prophet Mohammad in Medina, which was once interpreted to provide justification for constitutional limits on the rulers\u2019 power and citizens\u2019 rights but is now employed \u2014 by the clerics authorized by the autocrats \u2014 to justify unquestionable power to the ruler.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhereas Muhammad had declared \u2018speaking truth to power\u2019 the highest form of religious action, even peaceful protests and moderately critical tweets are now deemed religiously prohibited and met with indefinite imprisonment and worse,\u201d Anjum said.<\/p>\n

The event is part of the UToledo Center for Religious Understanding\u2019s annual lecture series. The center promotes a deeper understanding of religion on campus and throughout greater Toledo.<\/p>\n

For more information about the lecture, visit the event\u2019s calendar listing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>

Presented by the UToledo Center for Religious Understanding, the lecture, \u201cAmerica\u2019s Meatgrinders: How Authoritarians are Reshaping Islam in the Middle East,\u201d is 7 p.m. Monday in the McQuade Law Auditorium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":878,"featured_media":72197,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,60,5,1,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72195"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/878"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72195"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72198,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72195\/revisions\/72198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}