Mohamed M. Keshavjee | |
---|---|
Born | Pretoria, South Africa | June 15, 1945
Nationality | Canadian |
Alma mater | Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn London: LLB Queen's University Canada. Barrister at Law PhD School of Oriental and African Studies, London University Faculty of Law. |
Years active | 1965–present |
Known for | Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), Contemporary Muslim Thought. Author, Historian |
Spouse | Amina Jindani (m. 1977) |
Relatives | Shaf Keshavjee, Ameer M Keshavjee, Ali Velshi |
Mohamed Manjee Keshavjee is an international cross-cultural specialist on mediation, with a focus on Islamic Law [1] and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). [2] [3]
Keshavjee was born in Pretoria, South Africa in 1945, to Indian parents, father Nazarali Manjee Keshavjee, and mother Koolsam Kanji Kana. [4] Due to increasing political unrest and segregation in South Africa [5] his family felt pressured to leave Pretoria for Kenya in 1962, searching for a better life. At first, conditions were better in Kenya, but that eventually changed with Idi Amin [6] and, after returning to Kenya from England where he had obtained his law degree in 1969, Keshavjee found himself restricted from employment, even without pay. [7] In 1972 his family then relocated to Canada. In his book, "Into That Heaven of Freedom" [7] (with a foreword by Ahmed Kathrada, the second longest-serving political prisoner in the world after Nelson Mandela, [8] [ circular reference ] Keshavjee describes the history of Indian migration to Africa in the 19th century and their struggles under Apartheid, using his own family's story as a backdrop, highlighting the early racial struggle of Mohandas Gandhi years before he gained the honorific of Mahatma [9]
In 2016, Dr Keshavjee was awarded the Gandhi, King, Ikeda Peace Award by the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia, for his work on mediation, peace and human rights education. Keshavjee was the first Canadian and also the first Asian from Africa to be awarded this prize. [10] At his acceptance of this prize, Keshavjee gave the speech, "Cosmopolitan Ethics: How we treat each other in today’s globalized world". [11] He lectures on mediation [12] methods needed in the face of major upheavals due to rapid globalization, accelerated technological growth, and massive climate change. [13] [14] [15] His book, Islam, Sharia and Alternative Dispute Resolution, deals with how Muslims engage with sharia customary practices and the laws of the United Kingdom. [16] He has spoken on ADR at conferences in Europe, North America and Asia, and has trained family mediators in the EU countries and imams and pastors in mosque and church conflicts in the UK and the US, respectively. [13] [17]
Dr Keshavjee has practised law in Kenya, Canada and the United Kingdom. [18] He has spent three decades working with the secretariat of the Aga Khan in France on programs aimed at improving the quality of life of people in some of the poorest areas of the world through the Ismaili Imamat and the Aga Khan Development Network. [10]
He has written books and articles on the Indian diaspora in Africa. In London, he helped to process the immigration files of East African Asians and has interviewed refugees from Uganda and other countries. [19] In 2021, he was invited by the Pan African Bar Association of South Africa (PABASA) to train members of the judiciary in mediation with a team of some 20 trainers from six countries. [20] Albie Sachs, the founding member of the Constitutional Court of South Africa opened the conference with a keynote presentation. In 2022, he led an international team to South Africa and was received by Ela Gandhi at the Phoenix settlement where Mahatma Gandhi started his first printing press 1890s.
In 2021, Dr. Keshavjee was appointed on the BUA 50 Steering Committee [21] where he played an educational role in shaping the programme. This included a major programme with the National Archives of the U.K. He contributed an article on the Ugandan expulsion of 1972 to Awaaz publication of Kenya, which did a 50-year retrospect, conceptualised and moderated a programme for the Ismaili Tariqah and Religious Education Board [22] capturing the Ismaili experience of the expulsion and resettlement, and presented a lecture in Durban South Africa highlighting the expulsion. This lecture was attended by both Ela Gandhi and Navanethem Pillay, former UN Commissioner for Human Rights. [23]
In 2022, he spoke as a keynote with Albie Sachs as cameo at the ADRBC on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on what Canada could do to make effective reparations to the indigenous people due to the residential schools' episode [24]
On November 15, 2022, he spoke on the Ugandan Expulsion of 1972 at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. [25]
1969 Honourable Society of Gray's Inn London: Barrister at Law; 1970 Admitted as Advocate of the High Court of Kenya in Nairobi; 1976 LLB from Queen's University, Kingston, Canada; 1977 Admitted as Barrister and Solicitor and Member of The Law Society of Upper Canada at Osgoode Hall, Toronto; 2000 LLM (honours) and 2009 PhD School of Oriental and African Studies, London University Faculty of Law: Thesis "Alternative Dispute Resolution in a Diasporic Muslim Community in the United Kingdom". [26] Attended certification courses at The Hague Academy of Public International Law, Harvard Program in Mediation (under Frank Sander), Berghof Foundation in Berlin, and Child Focus in Belgium where he lectured to EU Hague Mediation Trainees.
Contributed chapters to:
Book Reviews:
In 1977, Keshavjee married Dr (now Professor) Amina Jindani [41] [42] in Toronto, Canada. [7] Dr Jindani's life's work has been conducting clinical trials aimed at decreasing the length of time required to treat tuberculosis. [43] [44] [45] [46]
Sharia is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith. In Arabic, the term sharīʿah refers to God's immutable divine law and is contrasted with fiqh, which refers to its human scholarly interpretations. Over time, legal schools have emerged, reflecting the preferences of particular societies and governments, as well as islamic scholars or imams through their work on the theoretical (usul) and practical application (füru'/Fatwa) of laws and regulations. However, sharia has never been the sole valid legal system in Islam, and has always been used alongside urf from the beginning. Although sharia is presented as a form of government in addition to its other aspects, especially by the contemporary Islamist understanding, some researchers see the early history of Islam, which was also modelled and exalted by most Muslims; not a period when the understanding of sharia was dominant, but a kind of "secular Arabic expansion".
Shah Karim al-Husayni, known by the religious title Mawlānā Hazar Imam by his Ismaili followers and elsewhere as Aga Khan IV, is the 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailis. He has held the position of imam and the title of Aga Khan since 11 July 1957, when, at the age of 20, he succeeded his grandfather, Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III. The Aga Khan claims direct lineal descent from the Islamic prophet Muhammad through Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, Ali, who is considered an imam by Nizari Ismailis, and Ali's wife Fatima, Muhammad's daughter from his first marriage.
The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS) is a research institute in London, United Kingdom. It aims to promote the study of Muslim cultures and societies, both historical and contemporary, in order to foster a greater understanding of their relationships with other societies and faiths. It also functions as a gathering point for the Ismaili community as it endeavors to understand its own history and thought, including the often neglected fields of esoteric Islam and Shi‘ism.
Islam constitutes the third largest religion in Singapore, with Muslims accounting for approximately 15.6% of the population, as indicated by the 2020 census. Predominantly, Singaporean Muslims are Sunni Muslims adhering to either the Shafi‘i or Hanafi schools of thought. The majority of the Muslim population, about 80%, are ethnic Malays, while 13% are of Indian descent. The remaining fraction comprises local Chinese, Eurasian, and Arab communities, in addition to foreign migrants. Buddhism and Christianity are the two larger religious affiliations in the country.
The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) is an international arbitration institution established in 1966 for legal dispute resolution and conciliation between international investors and States. ICSID is part of and funded by the World Bank Group, headquartered in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It is an autonomous, multilateral specialized institution to encourage international flow of investment and mitigate non-commercial risks by a treaty drafted by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development's executive directors and signed by member countries. As of May 2016, 153 contracting member states agreed to enforce and uphold arbitral awards in accordance with the ICSID Convention.
Albert "Albie" Louis Sachs is a South African lawyer, activist, writer, and former judge appointed to the first Constitutional Court of South Africa by Nelson Mandela.
In early August 1972, the President of Uganda Idi Amin ordered the expulsion of his country's Indian minority giving them 90 days to leave the country. At the time, South Asians in East Africa were simply known as "Asians". They had come to dominate trade under British colonial policies.
The Global Centre for Pluralism is an international centre for research, education and exchange about the values, practices and policies that underpin pluralist societies. Based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, the Centre seeks to assist the creation of successful societies.
The Indian diaspora in Southeast Africa consists of approximately 3 million people of Indian origin. Some of this diaspora in Southeast Africa arrived in the 19th century from British India as indentured labourers, many of them to work on the Kenya–Uganda railway. Others had arrived earlier by sea as traders.
The population of Shias in Africa is composed of several communities:
There is a sizable community of people of Indian origin living in Uganda. In 2003, there were an estimated 20,000 people of Asian descent (majority of Indians and Pakistanis living in Uganda, compared to approximately 100,000 before they were expelled by the dictator Idi Amin in 1972.
Alternative dispute resolution (ADR), or external dispute resolution (EDR), typically denotes a wide range of dispute resolution processes and techniques that parties can use to settle disputes with the help of a third party. They are used for disagreeing parties who cannot come to an agreement short of litigation. However, ADR is also increasingly being adopted as a tool to help settle disputes within the court system.
Wahbah Mustafa al-Zuhayli born in Dair Atiah, Syria was a Syrian professor and Islamic scholar specializing in Islamic law and legal philosophy. He was also a preacher at Badr Mosque in Dair Atiah. He was the author of scores of books on Islamic and secular law, many of which have been translated to English. He was chairman of Islamic jurisprudence in the College of Sharia at Damascus University, and a signatory to the Amman Message and A Common Word documents.
Hizbul Islam, also known as Hizbul Islaami, Hisbi Islam, or Hezb-ul Islam, was a Somali Islamist group formed after four Islamist groups merged to oppose the new Somali government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed. The four groups were: Hassan Aweys' the ARS-A, Jabhatul Islamiya, Hassan Abdullah Hersi al-Turki's the Mu'askar Ras Kamboni and Muaskar Anole, the Marehan clan's Militia and Harti clan's militia. These groups previously took part in the fighting against the Ethiopian occupation of Somalia.
University of El Imam El Mahdi is a public Sudanese university based in the town of Kosti, Sudan. The university was founded in 1994 as a public university funded by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. It is named in honor of Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi, the leader of the Mahdist revolution which overthrew the Ottoman-Egyptian administration and established their own "Islamic and national" government in Sudan (1885-1898).
Jay C. Gandhi is a United States magistrate judge for the Central District of California, and made history as the first South Asian American federal judge in California, and the second Indian-American federal bench officer nationwide. As the son of Indian immigrants, Gandhi was born in Huntington Park, California, and grew up in Hacienda Heights, California.
Ibrahim Abu Mohamed is an Egyptian-born and educated Sunni Islamic scholar and Grand Mufti of Australia from September 2011 to March 2018. He became Grand Mufti again after Afifi's death.
Somali International University (SIU) is a private non-profit community owned university located in Mogadishu, Somalia.
The judicial system of the United Arab Emirates is divided into federal courts and local courts. The federal justice system is defined in the Constitution of the United Arab Emirates, with the Federal Supreme Court based at Abu Dhabi. As of 2023, only the emirates of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah have local court systems, while all other emirates use the federal court system for all legal proceedings.
Allan Jeffrey Stitt is a chartered Canadian arbitrator, mediator and film producer. He is the president and CEO of ADR Chambers, a Canadian arbitration and mediation organization. Stitt is the recipient of the 2006 Ontario Bar Association Award of Excellence in Alternative Dispute Resolution. In 2022, Stitt was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Windsor Faculty of Law. As a movie executive producer, Stitt has also contributed to films including The Layover, The Birth of a Nation, Into the Forest, I Saw the Light, and Ithaca.