The Rethinking Islamic Reform conference, originally held May 26, 2010, features two of the world's foremost Muslim intellectuals as they provide guidance in the ever polemical topic of reform in Islam.
Oxford University Islamic Society is honoured to have hosted Sheikh Hamza Yusuf Hanson (Zaytuna Institute, USA) and Professor Tariq Ramadan (Oxford University, UK) to participate at this ground-breaking conference.
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I am finding this interesting so far (36 minutes in).
One of the introducers mentiones how the hat that graduates wear is from Muslim tradition - Graduates from Madrassahs would tie the qur'an to their head and this has over time changed into the graduate hats.
The robes are also what the students would wear in the madrassahs.
Onto Hamza Yusuf... he says:
"... the QUr'an and the hadith are written like constitutional law and not like statute law..."
"...the fatwa was known and understood to be specific to a time and place... The hanafi school believes ... others don't ... that the place affects the ruling... so if you are in england... there are certain rulings that may not be permissible in another place..."
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
On the issue of Integration, Hamza Yusuf finds the new moves in the UK to create a cohesive single society as weird. He says Multiculturalism is the norm and its funny when British politicians mention the US as a unique model of integration: "America has always been a multicultural society... There are 7th generation chinese there in chinatown who do not speak english"
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.