UCLA Islamic Law Expert Threatened

Khaled Abou El Fadl tells the Los Angeles Times that false information about him and threats, relayed earlier this month by a local newspaper, amount to a 'solicitation of murder.' He also recounts a close call in April.

UCLA Professor of Law Khaled Abou El Fadl, an expert in Islamic legal thinking and a well-known critic of what he calls its "puritanical" branch, is taking the latest death threats (http: //www.dailyindia.com/show/55091.php/UCLA-Islamic-law-professor-threatened) against him seriously, according to an article (http: //www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fadl27aug27,0,2916852.story?coll=la-home-local) in the Aug. 27 edition of the Los Angeles Times. Abou El Fadl says that the Anaheim-based newspaper Al Watan and other Arabic-language media this month have circulated a report "that Iranian extremists had declared it permissible to spill his blood," according to the Times. The report also grossly misrepresented his view of the 33-day conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, he says, and fabricated a role for him in its prolongation.

Abou El Fadl spoke at UCLA in November on his book The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists (http: //www.harpercollins.com/book/index.aspx?isbn=9780060563394) (2005).

Corrected: An earlier version of this note incorrectly stated that Al Watan, the Anaheim-based newspaper, was published in Saudi Arabia.

Published: Monday, August 28, 2006

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UCLA Islamic Law Expert Threatened

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Khaled Abou El Fadl tells the Los Angeles Times that false information about him and threats, relayed earlier this month by a local newspaper, amount to a 'solicitation of murder.' He also recounts a close call in April.