Omar Sadr and Ahmet Kuru discuss the role of ulama in reinforcing authoritarianism in the Muslim world, the complex and often ambivalent relationship between religious scholars and state, models for governance in the religious sphere, and alternatives for state-ulama relations in modern Muslim societies.

Kuru is the director of the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies and professor of political science at San Diego State University. He is the author of Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey and co-editor (with Alfred Stepan) of Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey. His most recent book is Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

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Omar Sadr and Anna Larson discuss Power and Authority in Afghanistan.

Published by I.B. Tauris in 2025, "Power and Authority in Afghanistan: Rethinking Politics, Intervention, and Rule" tackles some of the most compelling questions about politics in Afghanistan.

The book is available here

Anna Larson is a writer and researcher who has worked in Afghanistan since 2004. She has taught at SOAS, the University of London, and Tufts University. Her PhD explored concepts and forms of democratization in Afghanistan.

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Omar Sadr and Adam Baczko discuss the Taliban courts and how the group's legal outlook provided them a breakthrough in the conflict. Originally published in French and recently translated into English by Oxford University Press in 2023, "The Taliban Courts in Afghanistan" tackles some of the most compelling questions about justice and authority in conflict zones, particularly Afghanistan.

Baczko, a Research Associate Professor at the Center for International Studies, Sciences Po Paris, delves deep into the complex relationship between judicial power and political legitimacy. At the heart of his research lie two crucial questions: How does an armed movement convince a population that its judicial decisions are legitimate rather than purely political? And how did Taliban judges, who simultaneously embodied both judicial and militant roles, establish their authority within communities? Connect with us! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Google⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Anchor⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@negotiateideas⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@OmarSadr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Website: https://negotiatingideas.com/ Email: negotiatingidea@gmail.com

Abdullahi An-Naim and Omar Sadr discuss why and how Muslims should embrace universal values of human rights and constitutionalism. They also talk about how a secular state creates a neutral public space where multiple religious and philosophical perspectives can coexist peacefully. This model prevents religious tyranny by ensuring that no single religious group can use and misuse the state to marginalize or oppress others. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im is an Emeritus Professor of Law at Emory Law and senior fellow of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. An internationally recognized scholar of Islam and human rights and human rights in cross-cultural perspectives, An-Na’im teaches courses in international law, comparative law, human rights, and Islamic law. His research interests include constitutionalism in Islamic and African countries, secularism, and Islam and politics. You can visit his website at https://evolutionofsharia.org/

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Samuel Moyn and Omar Sadr discuss failures of Cold War liberalism and the challenges of contemporary liberalism.

Samuel Moyn is the Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University. Trained in modern European intellectual history, he works on political and legal thought in modern times and on constitutional and international law in historical and current perspective.

Readings

Liberalism against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times (Yale University Press, 2023) The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Harvard University Press, 2010)

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Omar Sadr discusses how refugee academics navigated the American academia with Halil Yenigun and Alfred Babo.

Alfred is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Fairfield University, Connecticut.

Halil is the Associate Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University.

Reading:

Alfred Babo. 38 Paradise Road, Being an African Francophone Refugee Scholar in American Academia, Journal of International Mobility 2021

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Omar Sadr discusses the status of Afghanistan's academia under the Taliban with Haroon Mutasem and Qasim Wafayezada.

Haroon Mutasem is a Philip Schwartz Initiative fellow at the Law School of Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. Qasim Wafayezada is a specially appointed professor of peace and conflict studies at Kanazawa University, Japan.

Readings:

Haroon Mutasem, PhD Dissertation and Legal Education in Afghanistan

Qasim Wafayezada Google Scholar

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Omar Sadr discusses the status of scholars in exile with Dr Mirwais Balkhi and Dr Bashir Mobasher.

As we are getting close to the second anniversary of the Negotiating Ideas Podcast in July and the third anniversary of the return of the totalitarian Taliban in Afghanistan, the podcast aims to initiate a second season with a focus on the state of Afghanistan in-exile scholars in the US. Since the fall of the Republic of Afghanistan, numerous academics have fled the country in fear of persecution. Most of these scholars are welcomed in the US academia in the framework of a two-year fellowship funded by either the Scholars Rescue Fund or Scholars at Risk or independent initiatives of universities. In a new academic environment, they not only find opportunities but also several challenges in terms of their career. The second season of the podcast will provide them the opportunity to speak about academic persecution in Afghanistan and their status in the US academia.

Mirwais Balkhi is a Wilson Center fellow. He is a former Afghanistan minister of education, a former Afghanistan diplomat, and a scholar of international relations. He was a Visiting Scholar of International Relations and Middle Eastern Studies at Georgetown University-Qatar.

Dr. Bashir Mobasher is a postdoctoral fellow at the American University (DC), an adjunct at the American University of Afghanistan, and an affiliate with EBS Universität. He is the President of the Afghanistan Law and Political Science Association (in-exile) and leads its online education programs for female students in Afghanistan. Bashir is an expert in constitutional design in divided societies and human rights. He has authored, reviewed, and supervised numerous research projects on constitutional law, electoral systems, and identity politics. His recent research projects are centered around decentralization, social justice, and orientalism. Bashir obtained his B.A. (2007) from the School of Law and Political Science at Kabul University and his LLM (2010) and PhD (2017) from the University of Washington School of Law.

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