Secularism, Fundamentalism, and the Struggle for the Meaning of Islam

Sadik Jalal al-Azm is an internationally respected scholar and political commentator who has offeredinnovative, often controversial challenges to conventional narratives on issues surrounding Islam andthe West, secularism, Orientalism, and the Israel-Palestine issue. He is recognised as a principleddefender of human rights and has been the main ethical reference for the Syrian revolution.Professor al-Azm was educated at the American University Beirut, and at Yale in modern Europeanphilosophy and has taught at Damascus, Harvard, Princeton, Brandeis, Oslo, Antwerp, Hamburg, andBerlin, his academic specialization being Immanuel Kant and the critique of religious thought.He has been the recipient of the Dr. Leopold-Lucas Prize 2004, the Erasmus Prize 2004, and inMarch 2013 the Mahmoud Darwish Award for Freedom and Creativity.