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Ash'arism has been widely perceived in the West as  Islam's theological orthodoxy.  And for decades, the standard view in the Western academy ––and beyond –– has been that Ash'arites held human reason to be incapable of knowing good and bad independent of revelation.  As one Western authority put it, according to Ash'arism, "All values are determined by the will of God, who decides what shall be good and so forth."  This ultimately converts scripture into a totalizing entity that tells us 'everything', leaving no room for any other modes or sources of deliberation in Islam.  The Islamic Secular proceeds, however, on the premise that scripture-cum-sharī‘ah is not totalizing and that there are plenty of things that we can and must know beyond what the data of scripture provides.  This lecture will re-examine the standard view of Ash'arite ethics and plumb the implications of this reassessment for the status, meaning and function of the Islamic Secular.

Sherman A. Jackson is the King Faisal Chair of Islamic Thought and Culture and Professor of Religion and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. Jackson was formerly the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Near Eastern Studies, visiting professor of law and professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Michigan.

Jackson received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and has taught at the University of Texas at Austin, Indiana University, Wayne State University and the University of Michigan. From 1987 to 1989, he served as executive director of the Center of Arabic Study Abroad in Cairo, Egypt.

His research spans classical Islamic studies—law, theology, and intellectual history—while engaging modern Islam in the West, particularly Muslim communities in America. “This implicates issues of race, immigration, liberalism, democracy, religion in the modern world, pluralism, constitutionalism, Muslim radicalism, and related areas of inquiry, all in conversation with the classical and post-classical legacies of Islam,” he wrote in his USC staff bio.

Jackson is dedicated to placing the classical Islamic tradition in meaningful dialogue with contemporary Muslim challenges. He has authored numerous articles on Islamic law, theology, history, and Islam in modern America. Recognized among the top 10 experts on Islam in America by Religion Newswriters Foundation’s ReligionLink, he has also been named multiple times among the world’s 500 most influential Muslims.

His books include Islamic Law and the State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī; On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam; Islam and the Blackamerican; Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering; Sufism for Non-Sufis; and Initiative to Stop the Violence. His latest work, The Islamic Secular, was published by Oxford University Press in 2024. Among his proudest moments was delivering the eulogy at Muhammad Ali’s funeral.