Sherman Jackson

Sherman Abdal-Hakim Jackson (b. 1376 AH / 1956 CE) is an American Muslim scholar and King Faisal Chair in Islamic Thought and Culture and Professor of Religion and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California (USC). He is one of the most significant Muslim academics in the United States, combining rigorous engagement with traditional Islamic legal scholarship and critical analysis of the American Muslim experience.

Dr. Jackson earned his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and has specialized in Islamic law (fiqh and usul al-fiqh), Islamic theology, and the intersection of Islamic thought with American culture and African-American identity. His work draws on deep familiarity with classical Arabic legal and theological texts as well as Western social theory.

His major works include Islamic Law and the State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shihab al-Din al-Qarafi, a scholarly study of the constitutional thought of the Maliki jurist al-Qarafi; On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's Faysal al-Tafriqa, a translation and analysis of al-Ghazali's important work on the limits of takfir; and Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Toward the Third Resurrection, which examines the history of Islam among African Americans and argues for a distinctive African-American Muslim tradition that must engage with the Black experience in America.

Dr. Jackson is known for his sophisticated engagement with Islamic legal methodology and his argument that the Western Muslim community needs to develop jurisprudential approaches suited to their specific context without abandoning the classical tradition. He has been an important voice for Sunni orthodoxy in the American academic context and a bridge between traditional Islamic scholarship and Western intellectual discourse.