values and women's rights. He would like to return to the "Golden Age of Islam" where "numerous traditions" emphasized that the "pursuit of knowledge is an act of permanent worship" and to abandon the current state of affairs where "rampant apologetics" of Muslim thinkers has "produced a culture that eschews self-critical and introspective insight and embraces projection of blame and a fantasy-like level of confidence and arrogance." Awards and appointments Abou el Fadl was awarded the University of Oslo Human Rights Award, the Leo and Lisl Eitinger Prize in 2007, and named a Carnegie Scholar in Islamic Law in 2005. He has served on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch. He continues to serve on the Advisory Board of Middle East Watch (part of Human Rights Watch) and works with human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights (Human Rights First) in cases involving human rights, terrorism, political asylum, and international and commercial law. In 2005, he was listed as one of LawDragon's Top 500 Lawyers in the Nation. He has been listed in the Arabian Business Power 500 List of the World's Most Influential Arabs (2011, 2012). He is the founding Advisory Board Member of the UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law (JINEL), and an Editorial Board Member for Political Theology, the Journal of Religious Ethics, the Journal of Islamic Law and Society, the Journal of Islamic Law and Culture, and Hawa: Journal of Women of Middle East and the Islamic World. He also serves as an Advisory Board member for the University of Adelaide Research Unit for the Study of Society, Law and Religion (RUSSLR) in Australia; the Carnegie Corporation of New York's Islam Initiative Publications Project; the Harvard Press Series on Islamic Law; and the Journal of Islamic Studies (Islamabad). Publications His recent works focus on authority, human rights, democracy and beauty in Islam and Islamic law. His book, The Great Theft, delineated key differences between moderate and extremist Muslims, and was named one of the Top 100 Books of the year by Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail. Books Reasoning with God: Reclaiming Shari'ah in the Modern Age (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, Release Date: October 2014) The Search for Beauty in Islam: Conference of the Books (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2006) The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from