Talal Asad and Abdullahi An-Na’im in conversation

> Talal Asad" href="http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/author/asad/" target=_self>Talal Asad and > Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im" href="http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/author/annaim/" target=_self>Abdullahi An-Na’im both stand at the forefront of the challenging and constructive exchange taking place today between European and Islamic traditions of political, legal, and religious thought. At a recent event organized by Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, the two scholars traded questions and criticisms concerning the concept of human rights. Moderated by > José Casanova" href="http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/author/casanova/" target=_self>José Casanova, the discussion addressed the intrinsic limitations and historical failures of the language of human rights, as well as its formidable capacity to challenge autocratic and state-centric distributions of power, creating openings for democratic contestation and political self-determination. The following is a short excerpt of the conversation, which is available for download in its entirety here (pdf). You can see video from the event at here & there.