Khaled Abou El Fadl

Khaled Abou el Fadl (خالد أبو الفضل, ) (born October 23, 1963) is the Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law where he has taught courses on International Human Rights, Islamic jurisprudence, National Security Law, Law and Terrorism, Islam and Human Rights, Political Asylum, and Political Crimes and Legal Systems.

He is also the founder of the Usuli Institute, a non-profit public charity dedicated to research and education to promote humanistic interpretations of Islam, as well as the Chair of the Islamic Studies Program at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Abou El Fadl has described the terrorism of September 11 attacks as the logical conclusion of "a puritanical and ethically oblivious form of Islam [that] has predominated since the 1970s" and been promoted by religious authorities in Saudi Arabia and other countries, including the U.S. and Europe.

He supports religious and cultural pluralism, democratic values and women's rights.

He would like to return to the "Golden Age of Islam" where "numerous traditions" emphasized that the "pursuit of knowledge is an act of permanent worship" and to abandon the current state of affairs where "rampant apologetics" of Muslim thinkers has "produced a culture that eschews self-critical and introspective insight and embraces projection of blame and a fantasy-like level of confidence and arrogance."

He has criticised a "culture of ugliness in modern Islam".

He is a vocal supporter of Palestine.

Amidst the 2024 Israel-Hamas war, Abou el Fadl was captured on video spreading misinformation during a Friday sermon, claiming that "Indian Hindu nationalists" were volunteering to join the Israeli army, and that some of the some of the worst massacres in Gaza were committed by them.

By Israeli law, only Israeli citizens are eligible for service in the Israeli military, and the only non-Israeli people eligible for citizenship are the Jewish diaspora.

Abou el Fadl was awarded the University of Oslo Human Rights Award,

He has lectured on and taught Islamic law in the United States and Europe in academic and non-academic environments since approximately 1990.

Abou El Fadl is the author of numerous books and articles on topics in Islam and Islamic law.

He has appeared on national and international television and radio, and published in such publications as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Review.

His work has been translated into several languages including Arabic, Persian, Indonesian, French, Norwegian, Dutch, Russian, Vietnamese and Japanese.

Abou El Fadl holds a B.A. in Political Science from Yale University, a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Islamic law from Princeton University.

Abou El Fadl also has 13 years of instruction in Islamic jurisprudence, grammar and rhetoric in Egypt and Kuwait.

After law school, he clerked for Arizona Supreme Court Justice James Moeller, and practiced immigration and investment law in the U.S. and the Middle East.

He previously taught Islamic law at the University of Texas School of Law at Austin, Yale Law School and Princeton University.

Abou El Fadl believes that the usuli tradition "naturally leads Islam" to an ethical humanism, or a set of ideas about justice and beauty that help to achieve God's will.

He has criticized puritanical and Wahhabi Islam for, among other things, its lack of interest in morality, which the Wahhabis argue "shouldn't affect the implementation of Koranic law."

He has strongly criticised the Saudi Arabian government and has accused them of systematic torture, murder, and failing to either understand or properly implement Islamic teachings.

In 2005, he was listed as one of LawDragon's Top 500 Lawyers in the Nation.

the Leo and Lisl Eitinger Prize in 2007, and named a Carnegie Scholar in Islamic Law in 2005.

He has served on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch.

He continues to serve on the Advisory Board of Middle East Watch (part of Human Rights Watch) and works with human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights (Human Rights First) in cases involving human rights, terrorism, political asylum, and international and commercial law.

He has been listed in the Arabian Business Power 500 List of the World's Most Influential Arabs (2011, 2012).

His recent works focus on authority, human rights, democracy and beauty in Islam and Islamic law.

His book, The Great Theft, delineated key differences between moderate and extremist Muslims, and was named one of the Top 100 Books of the year by Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail.