Muhammad Abdul Muqtedar Khan (born 1966) is an Indian American academic and a professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware.
[citation needed] Of Indian origin, Khan is a proponent of change in the treatment of women in some Islamic societies, he identifies as traditional and liberal.
Khan advocates independent thinking, and says that it is the inability of Muslims to sustain a dialogue with time and text which sometimes makes Islamic teachings appear anachronistic or intolerant.
Some Shia Muslims objected to his comparison of Ayatollah Sistani to Saddam Hussein and his suggestion that Sistani was a dictator: "The US-led invasion of Iraq may have replaced an overt and brutal dictatorship by Saddam Hussein with a covert and subtle dictatorship by the Marja-e-Taqleed, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani—the highest-ranking Shiite authority on the planet:.
Then came Bin Laden and his bloody men and along with the World Trade Center, American Muslim dreams and aspirations came crashing down.
"[12] Unlike the present day Islamists, Prophet Muhammad, when he established the first Islamic state in Medina – actually a Jewish-Muslim federation extended to religious minorities the rights that are guaranteed to them in the Quran.
The state of Medina was based on a real social contract that applied divine law but only in consultation and with consent of all citizens regardless of their faith.
I advocate an approach to governance based on Ihsan (to do beautiful things) that privileges love over law and freedom of religion and thought over imposed adherence of religious mores.