The Afghan Diaspora, the Taliban, and Rule of Law:
A Panel Discussion with Afghan Scholars

Free and open to the public
Online over Zoom
Registration required

In this panel, three Afghanistan specialists will discuss critical topics in contemporary Afghanistan, including the Taliban and modernity, the rule of law in the Muslim context, and the Afghan diaspora.

This event is a collaboration between the Jackson School and MESA Global Academy, which awards competitive scholarships to social science and humanities scholars from the MENA region to join interdisciplinary research collaborations at North American universities addressing specific thematic research clusters. The project also promotes reconfiguring the careers of individual researchers whose academic trajectory has been adversely impacted by developments in their home contexts.

Panelists
Sayed Akhlaq, Marymount University
Sharif Hozoori, Cornell University
Haroun Rahimi, American University of Afghanistan

Moderator
Arzoo Osanloo
Director, Middle East Center, and Professor, Law, Societies & Justice

About the panelists

Sayed Akhlaq
Marymount University, VA
Sayed works on Islamic governance, human rights, rule of law, and inter-religious studies. He is particularly interested in obstacles to the rule of law in Muslim countries such as Afghanistan. Other areas of interest include the relationship between the secular and the sacred, inter and intra-religious studies, dialogue among civilizations, human rights in minority Muslim countries, and good governance. His article on nation-building and the missed critical element of a unifying ideology in Afghanistan is forthcoming from the Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. 

Sharif Hozoori
Cornell University
Sharif works in the areas of cultural studies, foreign policy, and conflict resolution. His 2019 PhD dissertation looked at the role of political elites in foreign policy decisions in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2014. He is currently researching the causes for the recent government collapse in Afghanistan, focusing on corruption, a lack of transparency, inefficiency, and nepotism.

Haroun Rahimi
American University of Afghanistan
Haroun has three interrelated research areas. First, he conceptualizes laws as institutions and draws on new institutional theory to explore the problem of lawmaking and enforcing laws in developing countries. By doing so, he seeks to understand how law can be used to create efficient economic institutions and promote growth. Secondly, he works on the history of law in Muslim-majority countries, especially the way shari’a is negotiated and incorporated into the state law system. Haroun is also interested in the transplantation of European laws (particularly French and German civil laws) into the Arab world through the work of scholars such as the Arabic jurist Abdul Razzaq Al-Sanhuri. Finally, he is interested in diverging conceptions of rule of law and authorities in western and Muslim thought.