This talk addresses contemporary debates within the Islamic tradition and focuses on disagreements among Muslims regarding how to understand key Islamic concepts, as well the role that Islam should play in individual worship, in society and public space, and in the political sphere.

Jonathan Brown is the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and director of the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Brown’s most recent book is Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenges and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet’s Legacy (2014). Other publications include Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction (2011) and Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World (2009). He has published articles in the fields of Hadith, Islamic law, Salafism, Sufism, Arabic lexical theory and pre-Islamic poetry and is the editor in chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Law.