A champion of secular Islam looks to harness 'heresy'

It was billed as the first-ever "Muslim Heretics Conference." Provocative? To be sure. But when Sudanese-American scholar Abdullahi An-Naim organized it in Atlanta this April, what he really wanted to do was ignite some innovative thinking – brainstorm the predicament of traditional Islam in the modern world. "I deliberately wanted to shock people into seeing `heresy' as a creative force," he laughs.

Naim may describe himself as a Muslim heretic (his conservative critics certainly do), but his peers in academia prefer the rather more admiring designation of public intellectual. Either way, the Emory University law professor has become famous throughout the Muslim world for championing the concept of secular Islam. The case he makes for it is simple but, given the political tenor of the times, paradigm-changing. To wit: Human rights are universal and trump religious dictates. The state must be secular because neutrality protects all religions. Faith belongs in the private, not the public, domain. [TheStar.com] Read more