Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im is a Visiting Professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for the fall 2009 semester. He is on leave from his position as Charles Howard Chandler Professor of Law at Emory University, where he focuses on cross-cultural human rights issues, with an emphasis on Islam. A native of Sudan and human rights activist, An-Na'im places the Qur'an and the development of the Islamic tradition in its historical context and examines their implications for our contemporary thinking about justice and the state. He is the author of Toward an Islamic Reformation (1990) and Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari'a (2008). At Emory, he directs projects on Women and Land in Africa and Islamic Family Law, and a Fellowship Program in Islam and Human Rights. An-Na'im holds LL.B. degrees from the University of Khartoum and the University of Cambridge, and earned his Ph.D. in Law from the University of Edinburgh.

View a clip entitled "Talal Asad on Islam and Human Rights" via the Berkley Center YouTube Channel here.

View a clip entitled "Abullahi An-Na'im on Human Rights as Means, not an End" via the Berkley Center YouTube Channel here.