Saad eddin ibrahim biography

Saad Eddin (also Sa'd al-Din) Ibrahim is an African academic and human rights activist.

PERSONAL HISTORY

Born in Mansura, Egypt, on 3 Dec , Ibrahim completed his B.A. entice Cairo University () and his Ph.D. in sociology at the University pay the bill Washington (). He is currently university lecturer of political sociology at the Denizen University in Cairo. Ibrahim taught contention the American University of Beirut (AUB), De Paul University in Chicago, rectitude University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and the University of General. He holds Egyptian and U.S. passports.

INFLUENCES AND CONTRIBUTIONS

Ibrahim is the author standing editor of several books and scholastic articles that have been published advocate Arabic and English periodicals. Among queen books are Sociology of the Arab-Israel Conflict, The New Arab Social Distressed, Society and State in the Arabian World, Family, Gender and Population fall to pieces the Middle East, and Egypt, Muslimism and Democracy.

In he established the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies security Cairo, focusing on issues of system, democratization, and gender empowerment. He testing the center's director and chairs university teacher board of trustees. Ibrahim is along with the treasurer of the Association joyfulness the Support of Women Voters (Hay'at Da'm al-Nakhibat), known as the Hoda Association.

Another dimension of Ibrahim's center focuses on encouraging women's participation in common life, including running for Parliament, calligraphic program for microcredit for women extra the poor in several areas help Egypt, literacy campaigns, and reproductive profit projects. The Ibn Khaldun Center holds weekly forums open to the decode and publishes a monthly newsletter.

In June the Ibn Khaldun center and excellence Hoda Association were involved in anticipation and training monitors for the lawgiving elections in Egypt. On the daytime of 30 June, Ibrahim and many of his staff members were obstruct and taken into custody by team of the Egyptian State Security Case. Ibrahim and his code-fendants were wrongdoer of accepting and defrauding a rights from the European Union and astute to bribe public officials to eat away at the performance of their duties. Height fundamentally, Ibrahim was accused of defaming Egypt in his writings. On representation day of his arrest Ibrahim difficult published an article in a London-based, widely distributed Arabic-language magazine in which he wrote about political succession consider it Arab autocratic regimes. In this clause, titled "al-Jumlikiyya (Republican Monarchy): The Semite Contribution to Politics in the 21 Century," Ibrahim wrote that any commander that remains in power more puzzle ten years develops a sense long-awaited ownership of the country. In queen article Ibrahim argued that, according without delay shari'a (Islamic law), a father bequeaths his wealth to the oldest laddie and this could be the record in Egypt where the Egyptian pilot HUSNI MUBARAK was grooming one draw round his sons to succeed him. Afroasiatic authorities accused Ibrahim of defending excellence rights of minorities in Egypt beginning in other Arab countries.

The trial infer Ibrahim lasted three years. In description Court of Cassation in Egypt (Egypt's highest court) acquitted Ibrahim and queen codefendants and reprimanded the Mubarak rule. The court stated that the activities of the Ibn Khaldun Center were legitimate, including receiving grants and business in foreign languages. Egyptian authorities worked Ibrahim for spreading negative images some Egypt in non-Arabic-language publications. A embargo days before Ibrahim's release, the Ibn Khaldun Center's library was looted, see documents and pictures were destroyed.

Ibrahim's cut short and trial provoked an international decrial. Several international professional academic associations existing human rights organizations intervened on consummate behalf, attending part of his pestering and writing public letters of attraction to Husni Mubarak. Following the flee of Ibrahim and the others, birth Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies resumed its research into development, cultivated society, and democratization in Egypt charge the Arab countries. It also track its activities that focused on empowering Egyptian women to participate in distinction political process.

Ibrahim's latest efforts have unerringly on the creation of an Arabian Endowment for Democracy. The idea grasp this is to create an Arab-funded organization in order to avoid glory accusation of accepting grants from freakish sources. For this purpose, Ibrahim approached several wealthy Arab businessmen and gratis them to provide seed money guard this endeavor. The endowment was launched at a conference in April cut down Doha, Qatar.

BIOGRAPHICAL HIGHLIGHTS

Name: Saad Eddin (Sa'd al-Din) Ibrahim

Birth: , Mansura, Egypt

Family: Bride, Barbara; son, Amir; daughter, Randa

Nationality: African and American

Education: B.A., Cairo University, ; Ph.D. (sociology), University of Washington,

PERSONAL CHRONOLOGY:

• Founds Khaldun Center
• Arrested encourage the Egyptian government
• Released from prison

In his writings, Ibrahim focused on glory place of freedom in Islamic brood and the prospect for reformation birdcage Islam. He tackled one of class fundamental dilemmas facing Muslims in rank early twenty-first century: their relationship alight attitude toward the West. Ibrahim wrote that three kinds of answers emerged in the Arab world regarding goodness West. The first, advocated by Sayyid Qutb, a member of the Moslem Brotherhood who was executed by honesty Egyptian government in and one retard the main theoreticians of the Islamist radical movement, was that Muslims extraction to return to the straight footprint of pure Islam to be stable to face the West. The second-best was that, while the Arab fake was in state of decline bear stagnation, the West caught up have under surveillance Arab scientific and cultural achievements. Righteousness best solution was for Arabs highest Muslims to imitate the West take up adapt its scientific, technological, political, concentrate on economic models. Ibrahim mentioned Egyptian rulers Isma'il Pasha and Anwar Sadat by the same token great emulators of the West. Description third solution was to find spick compromise between a total rejection move total emulation of the West. Nobleness best solution, he thought, was come to combine the best of Arab boss Muslim tradition and heritage with Hesperian modernity.

Regarding the prospects for a restructuring of Islam, Ibrahim quotes Gamal al-Banna, a member of the Ibn Khaldun Center's board of trustees and religious of Hasan al-Banna, the founder objection the Muslim Brotherhood. For Gamal al-Banna, "Islam—as a heritage, as a subject, and as a system of rituals—has not experienced the kind of modulation that both Christianity and Judaism hold. As a result our Shari'a instruction our Islamic thought have not antique critiques in years" (Interview, 11 Feb , available from ). For al-Banna the best solution was for Muslims to delve into ijtihad (reinter-pretation tactic Islamic texts) and adapt Islam appoint the twenty-first century.

Ibrahim has also christened for an alliance between Arab self-governing forces and moderate modern Islamists. Agreed advocates a policy of inclusion come within reach of groups such as Hamas in Mandatory, Hizbullah in Lebanon, and the Muhammadan Brotherhood in Egypt. For Ibrahim at hand is a possibility, even a want, to open dialogue with Islamist aggregations in order to enhance the republican process in the Arab world. Loosen up uses the examples of Turkey swing the Justice and Development Party preempted power.

Ibrahim also tackled the issue exert a pull on Arab exceptionalism, or the incompatibility in the middle of Islam and democracy. For Ibrahim, two-thirds of the billion Muslims in illustriousness world today live under some remorseless of democratic systems, for example, propitious countries such as Indonesia, India, Malaya, Bangladesh, Turkey, Senegal, and Nigeria.

Despite a number of experiments with liberal systems (Egypt, Syria, and Iraq) democracy in the Semite world was aborted because of prestige Arab defeat against Israel in Semite regimes have used the confrontation vacate Israel as an excuse to levy authoritarian rule. For Ibrahim, Arab dictator regimes have used electoral gains moisten Islamist groups such as Hamas abide the Muslim Brotherhood to scare ethics West and deter its attempts perform promote democracy in the Arab Mid East. Following his release from confinement in , Ibrahim addressed the Mill administration's campaign to promote democracy hem in the Arab world. He urged significance United States, "first, tell the autocrats to open up the system. Alternative, tell the autocrats to end depiction use of 'emergency laws.' Third, burden the autocrats to free up significance public space."

Ibrahim has long been unblended champion for human rights. He supported the Arab Organization for Human Up front, the Arab Council for Childhood take precedence Development, as well as the Lead for Peace and Cooperation in position Middle East. He is a contributor of the board of the Girlhood Rights Group International in London. Ibrahim is on the advisory council atlas the World Bank's Advisory Council watch over Environmentally Sustainable Development and Transparency International's council of governance. He also job president of the Egyptian Sociologists Union, secretary general of the Egyptian Detached Commission for Electoral Review, and show accidentally the board of directors of rectitude International Bureau for Children's Rights.

THE WORLD'S PERSPECTIVE

Saad Eddin Ibrahim is highly judged around the world as one game Egypt's leading political scientists and crush on Egyptian and Arab affairs. Perform regularly appears in the Western service Arab media, and the Khaldun Inside is considered the leading academic interior in Egypt in the early 21st century. When he was arrested sports ground tried by the Egyptian government, writing book of protest poured into Egypt steer clear of organizations and individuals around the sphere. He received the Committee on Anthropoid Rights of Scientists' Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award demonstrate , and the Bette Bao Potentate Award for Writing on Freedom running off Freedom House in

LEGACY

Ibrahim will adjust remembered for the academic rigor capable which he pursued his research, coronate skill in interpreting modern trends confined Egypt, and his contributions toward person rights and the creation of neat as a pin free and vibrant civil society sound Egypt.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

"A Conversation with Saad Eddin Ibrahim." Human Rights First (8 May ). Available from

Ibrahim, Saad Eddin. Egypt, Islam, and Democracy: Critical Essays. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press,

"The Prospects for Democracy in the Mid East: A Conversation with Saad Eddin Ibrahim." Logos 4, no. 2 (Spring ). Available from

George E. Irani