The International Institute of Islamic Thought Intellectual Panels

The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) held a series of panels atthe 41st annual convention of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) inBaltimore, MD, on Sunday, May 29, 2016.The first panel, “Maqāṣid al-Sharī‘ah as a Philosophy of Islamic Law,”featured Jasser Auda (Al-Shatibi Chair of Maqasid Studies, the InternationalPeace College, South Africa) and Ebrahim Rasool (Distinguished Scholar inResidence at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School for ForeignService and former ambassador of South Africa to the U.S.), with ErminSinanović (director, Research and Academic Programs, IIIT) as moderator.Sinanović began by introducing IIIT to the diverse audience. He explainedthat the institute is devoted to the revival of Islamic traditions and the reformof Muslim societies. In addition to affirming that our sources and principlesare unchangeable, he positioned IIIT as the institution dedicated to making our intellectual legacy the core of the solution to our current malaise, for it is the“answer to the crisis of the ummah,” a crisis that is largely intellectual in nature:our inability to translate our eternal message as per our time and space ...