The Middle East Institute, in conjunction with the Conflict Management Program at SAIS, is pleased to welcome Dr. Ahmad Atif Ahmad, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Dr. Jonathan A. Brown, Associate Professor of Islam and Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, for a discussion about the thinking and strategy of Islamist actors in Egypt in the wake of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi's ouster. As the Muslim Brotherhood continues to call for defiance of the transitional Egyptian government, while the key Salafist Al Nour party nominally backs it, how are shifting political dynamics for Egypt's Islamist actors re-shaping their role and influence in Egyptian politics and society? Did the recent anti-Morsi protests reflect growing disillusionment with political Islam or have subsequent political developments renewed Egyptian sympathy for Islamist actors? Ahmad and Brown will analyze recent trends, as well as assess the impact and influence of Muslim Brotherhood rule over the past year. Bios:Dr. Ahmad Atif Ahmad, professor of Religious Studies at the University of California in Santa Barbara, studies Islamic law and modern Egyptian law. His research has focused on adjudication, political writings and their connections with law, war, and political crimes such as insurrection and apostasy. His publications include a book length study (in Arabic) of the theory of two-degree adjudication in medieval Islamic law and its application in Egypt, and three books in English, including The Fatigue of the Shari'a (Palgrave Macmillan), Islam, Modernity, Violence, and Everyday Life (Palgrave Macmillan), and The Evolution of an Islamic Just War Theory (American Foreign Policy Interests, 2006). Mr. Ahmad has a Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Harvard University and has taught at Macalester College and the University of California at Santa Barbara. Dr. Jonathan A. Brown is associate professor of Islam and Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service. He has studied and conducted research in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Indonesia and Iran, and he is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His book publications include The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunni Hadith Canon (Brill 2007), Hadith: Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World (Oneworld 2009), and Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011). He has published articles in the fields of Hadith, Islamic law, Sufism, Arabic lexical theory and pre-Islamic poetry and is the editor-in-chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Islamic Law. Dr. Brown's current research interests include the history of forgery and historical criticism in Islamic civilization, comparison with the Western tradition; and modern conflicts between Late Sunni Traditionalism and Salafism in Islamic thought.Daniel Serwer is a senior research professor of Conflict Management, as well as a senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Formerly vice president for centers of peacebuilding innovation at the United States Institute of Peace (2009-10), he led teams there working on rule of law, religion, economics, media, technology, security sector governance and gender. He was also vice president for peace and stability operations at USIP (1998-2009), where he led its peacebuilding work in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and the Balkans and served as executive director of the Hamilton/Baker Iraq Study Group. Serwer has worked on preventing inter-ethnic and sectarian conflict in Iraq and has facilitated dialogue between Serbs and Albanians in the Balkans. Serwer is also a scholar at the Middle East Institute.
Mon, 8/5/2013 10:00 am to 11:30 am SAIS Rome Auditorium1619 Massachusetts Ave. NW