by Michelle Jeanne C. Caracut, OPI
Dr. Azizah Al-Hibri, Founder of KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights and professor emerita at the T.C. Williams School of Law at the University of Richmond, will visit MSU-IIT on August 16, 2016 to give a lecture at the CASSalida Theatre, College of Arts and Social Sciences and a roundtable discussion at the Institute for Peace and Development in Mindanao (IPDM).
Al-Hibri began her career as a professor of philosophy and is the co-editor of Technology and Human Affairs, and founding editor of Hypatia, a journal of feminist philosophy. She obtained her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1985 and worked as a corporate law associate on Wall Street before focusing her efforts on human rights and Islamic jurisprudence.
The first Muslim woman law professor in the US in 1992, Al-Hibri has written extensively on women’s issues, democracy, and human rights from an Islamic perspective. Her current work is completing the second volume of her recent publication, Islamic Worldview: Islamic Jurisprudence, An American Muslim Perspective, Vol. 1. This second volume revisits traditional Islamic jurisprudence in order to develop a modern enlightened understanding of Islam with respect to gender, marriage, family, and democratic governance.
On Tuesday, the American Muslim lawyer will talk on “The Islamic worldview and its consequences” to invited faculty, college and law students, religious leaders, sharia lawyers, and judges.
The event is hosted by the US Embassy in partnership with the departments of English, Sociology, Political Science, the IPDM and OPI.