È professore musulmano di legge all'UCLA School of Law in California, esperto di storia delle religioni. Nel 2007 ha ricevuto lo "University of Oslo Human Rights Award" e il "Leo and Lisl Eitinger Prize". È stato nominato da George W. Bush membro della "U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom" e nel "Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch". Collabora con diverse organizzazioni per i diritti umani come Amnesty International e Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.
Opere principali Rebellion and violence in Islamic law, Cambridge-New York, Cambridge University Press, 2001 And God knows the soldiers: the authoritative and authoritarian in Islamic discourses, Lanham, Md., University Press of America, 2001 Speaking in God's name: Islamic law, authority and women, Oxford, Oneworld, 2001 Reasoning with God : rationality and thought in Islam, Oxford, Oneworld, 2001 The place of tolerance in Islam, Boston, Beacon Press, 2002 Jihad: struggle and war in islam, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ Press, 2003 Islam and the challenge of democracy, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2004 The great theft: wrestling Islam from the extremists, New York, HarperSanFrancisco, 2005 The search for beauty in Islam: a conference of the books, Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield, 2006
Collegamenti esterni