ʿAbd Allāh Aḥmad Naʿīm

Bio: ʿAbd Allāh Aḥmad Naʿīm is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Human rights & International human rights law. The author has an hindex of 3, co-authored 3 publications receiving 142 citations.

Islamic family law in a changing world : a global resource book

Abstract: * Introduction: Shari'a and Islamic Family Law: Transition and Transformation - Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im * PART I: CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS * 1. Social, Cultural and Historical Background * PART II EAST AND CENTRAL AFRICA * 1. Social, Cultural and Historical Background * 2. Legal Profiles * KENYA, Republic of - TANZANIA, United Republic of * PART III HORN OF AFRICA * 1. Social, Cultural and Historical Background * 2. Legal Profiles * ETHIOPIA, Federal Democratic Republic of - SOMALIA - SUDAN, Republic of * PART IV MIDDLE EAST * 1. Social, Cultural and Historical Background * 2. Legal Profiles * BAHRAIN, State of - IRAN, Islamic Republic of - IRAQ, Republic of - ISRAEL, State of - JORDAN, Hashemite Kingdom of - KUWAIT, State of - LEBANON, (Lebanese Republic) - OMAN, Sultanate of PALESTINE, Palestinian Territories of West Bank and Gaza Strip - QATAR, State of - SAUDI ARABIA, Kingdom of - SYRIA (Syrian Arab Republic) - UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - YEMEN, Republic of * PART V NORTH AFRICA * 1. Social, Cultural and Historical Background * 2. Legal Profiles * ALGERIA, Democratic and Popular Republic of - EGYPT, Arab Republic of - (LIBYA) Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya - MOROCCO, Kingdom of (and Western Sahara) - TUNISIA, Republic of * PART VI SOUTHERN AFRICA * 1. Social, Cultural and Historical Background * PART VII SOUTH ASIA * 1. Social, Cultural and Historical Background * 2. Legal Profiles * BANGLADESH, People's Republic of - INDIA, Republic of - MALDIVES, Republic of - PAKISTAN, Islamic Republic of - SRI LANKA, Democratic Socialist Republic of * PART VIII SOUTHEAST ASIA * 1. Social, Cultural and Historical Background * 2. Legal Profiles * BRUNEI (Negara Brunei Darussalam) - INDONESIA, Republic of - MALAYSIA - PHILIPPINES, Republic of the - SINGAPORE, Republic of * PART IX WEST AFRICA * 1. Social, Cultural and Historical Background * 2. Legal Profiles * GAMBIA, Republic of - GHANA, Republic of - NIGERIA, Federal Republic - SENEGAL, Republic of

Human rights in cross-cultural perspectives : a quest for consensus

Abstract: The essays in this collection examine particular cultural and ideological traditions and reinterpretations which aim to assist in overcoming the tensions and conflicts between those traditions and current international standards of human rights. Other essays present the views and priorities of specific indigenous perspectives in relation to national and international human rights regimes. The text is designed to enhance the credibility of national and international human rights standards by developing more effective approaches to their promotion and implementation.

Human rights under African constitutions : realizing the promise for ourselves

Abstract: Some of the most massive and persistent violations of human rights occur in African nations. In Human Rights Under African Constitutions: Realizing the Promise for Ourselves, scholars from a wide range of fields present a sober, systematic assessment of the prospects for legal protection of human rights in Africa. In a series of detailed and highly contextual studies of Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, and Uganda, experts seek to balance the socioeconomic and political diversity of these nations while using the same theoretical framework of legal analysis for each case study. Standards for human rights protection can be realized only through direct and strong support from a nation's legal and political institutions. The contributors to this volume uniformly conclude that a well-informed and motivated citizenry is the most powerful force for creating the political will necessary to effect change at the national level. In addition to a critical evaluation of the current state of human rights protection in each of these African nations, the contributors outline existing national resources available for protecting human rights and provide recommendations for more effective and practical use of these resources.

Constructing a Global Law‐Violence against Women and the Human Rights System

Abstract: This ethnographic analysis of one of the core human rights conventions suggests that despite the lack of enforceability of this convention and its operation within the framework of state sovereignty, it is similar to state law. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, or CEDAW, the major UN convention on the status of women, articulates a vision of women's equal protection from discrimination and addresses gender-based violence as a form of discrimination. It had been ratified by 171 nation states as of mid-2003. Its implementation relies on a complex process of periodic reporting to a global body meeting in New York and a symbiotic if sometimes contentious relationship between government representatives and international and domestic NGOs. Like state law, it serves to articulate and name problems and delineate solutions. It provides a resource for activists endeavoring to address problems of women's status and turns the international gaze on resisting nations. Its regulatory strength depends on the cultural legitimacy of the international process of consensus building and related social movements to define social justice in these terms. Thus, like state law, its impact depends on its cultural legitimacy and its embodiment in local cultures and legal consciousness. This examination of CEDAW as quasi law extends our understanding of law as a plural and a symbolic system rooted in a particular historical moment of globalization.

Human Rights and the Triumph of the Individual in World Culture

Abstract: Despite ongoing attention to the subject, cultural accounts of the globalization of human rights are surprisingly scarce. Most accounts describe this phenomenon either as a function of evolutionary progress or the rational/strategic action of states and social movement organizations. As a result, they have difficulty explaining both the moral impulse to act on behalf of human rights and the tremendous expansion of the ideology itself. Borrowing insights from global cultural analysis, I argue that the increasing concern for, and elaboration of, human rights points to a world-cultural environment where the individual is increasingly regarded as sacred and inviolable. To demonstrate this, I explore how human rights have developed historically as a `cult of the individual' and present new data on their recent worldwide expansion.

Systematic Gender Violence and the Rule of Law: Aboriginal Communities in Australia and Post-War Liberia

Abstract: The gender-agenda is borderless. Arguably, legal justice for Indigenous girls and women survivors of violence is unfair, inequitable, and sometimes arbitrary. Systematic violence against girls and women pervades cultures and societies; operates at three main levels: institution and state, structural and cultural, and community and individual; and manifests in myriad shapes, forms and categories. Systematic violence in this research comprises historical, colonial and contemporary aspects of violence and its impact on Indigenous girls and women. Unlike comparative studies, this research is founded on heuristic arguments derived from validating the formation, establishment and continuity of the voices of Indigenous peoples in Liberia and Australia. While many studies isolate ‘gender-based violence’ and the ‘rule of law’ in separate contexts, none has explored the extent to which the Western concept of the rule of law impacts systematic violence against Indigenous girls and women in Australia and post-war Liberia. The research assesses the efficacy of the ‘rule of law’ in dispensing justice to Indigenous girls and women who have suffered systematic gender-based violence. The scope of the research demands a comprehensive and complex systematic empirical approach that draws on the principles of phenomenology, community-based participatory research, and feminist and Indigenous methods. The study adopts an interdisciplinary mixed-methods approach informed by theories of decolonization, feminist jurisprudence, intersectionality, critical legal/race studies, and social determinants of health. Data is drawn from case law, secondary data, empirical evidence, textual/content analysis, electronic mailing and informal participant observation. Over a period of two years, a survey of 231 social service providers working with Indigenous girls and women; in-depth interviews with 29 Indigenous Women Advocates; and 22 informal email exchanges with male colleagues were conducted in both Australia and Liberia. Statistical analyses were carried out on records of 127 708 convicts to Australia; 14 996 former slave returnees to Liberia; 2701 sexual and gender-based violence cases reported to the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection in Liberia; seven case files from the Sexual and Gender-based Crimes Unit in Liberia; and 1200 interview entries from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children in Australia. This analysis of historical documents, jurisprudence and case studies triangulates a philosophical inquiry intended to migrate issues of violence against Indigenous girls and women from the margins of complex socio-legal structures towards the core of Western-centric perspectives, such as the rule of law. Situated between dominant academic conventions and resistance, the research provokes readers to consider ontological, epistemological and ethical arguments regarding access to justice outcomes for Indigenous girls and women. Contrary to the research hypothesis and despite socioeconomic differences between Australia and Liberia, findings show that: although the principle of the rule of law is an emancipatory tool for justice and redress generally, it can also be an apparatus for persistent systematic violence against Indigenous girls and women. Furthermore, the intersection of colonial history, race, gender, class and social status exacerbates the ongoing perpetration of institutional/state, structural/cultural and interpersonal/community violence against Indigenous girls and women. In conclusion, the research recommends adopting a holistic approach to educating girls and women and encouraging boys and men to participate equally in the gender justice agenda, to ensure justice for Indigenous girls and women. The research also suggests incorporating diverse and comprehensive conceptual and methodological frameworks into further research. Finally, throughout the work, this dissertation attempts to give agency to Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing justice.

Resources, Family Organization, and Domestic Violence against Married Women in Minya, Egypt.

Abstract: I evaluate the influence of household wealth, women's socioeconomic dependence, status inconsistency, and family organization on physical abuse in the prior year and attitudes about wife abuse and divorce among 2,522 married women in Minya, Egypt. Household wealth is negatively associated with physical abuse. Women who are dependent on marriage because they have sons and less schooling than their husbands are more likely to have experienced physical abuse and to report marginally more tolerance for such abuse. Women who are isolated from natal or biological kin and living with marital relatives are more likely to have experienced physical abuse. Findings underscore the role of women's dependence and social isolation in enabling physical abuse among women of all economic classes.

Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age: Religious Authority and Internal Criticism

Abstract: Among traditionally educated scholars in the Islamic world there is much disagreement on the crises that afflict modern Muslim societies and how best to deal with them, and the debates have grown more urgent since 9/11. Through an analysis of the work of Muhammad Rashid Rida and Yusuf al-Qaradawi in the Arab Middle East and a number of scholars belonging to the Deobandi orientation in colonial and contemporary South Asia, this book examines some of the most important issues facing the Muslim world since the late nineteenth century. These include the challenges to the binding claims of a long-established scholarly consensus, evolving conceptions of the common good, and discourses on religious education, the legal rights of women, social and economic justice and violence and terrorism. This wide-ranging study by a leading scholar provides the depth and the comparative perspective necessary for an understanding of the ferment that characterizes contemporary Islam.