WHO SPEAKS FOR ISLAM? WHO SPEAKS FOR THE WEST?

ABOUT DIALOGUES

A program of New York University, Dialogues: Islamic World-U.S.-The West emerged from the tragedy of September 11th, 2001, which highlighted the need for greater communication among and about the United States, Europe, and the Muslim world. The program was founded as a forum for constructive debate between the various religious, intellectual, economic, and political sectors of American, European, and Islamic societies. Dialogues brings contentious issues between the Islamic world and the West into a more rational plane and promotes this approach to a wide audience that includes the important constituencies of policy and decision makers, policy analysts, the media, and educational institutions. Dialogues is committed to a number of academic, policy, and outreach activities, including conferences on a variety of topics of critical importance todaythe clash of perceptions, elections, the nature of authority in the Islamic world and in the West, Muslims in the West, the role of the media, and education, among othersthat result in the development of policy recommendations. Our conferences are based on solid scholarly background material and bring together policy analysts, policy makers, scholars, religious leaders, business and nongovernmental organization leaders, and media decision makers, with the goal of altering public perceptions and effecting policy change. In addition, findings from the program are published as policy papers as well as in book form and are disseminated to educational institutions worldwide for use by students, faculty, and researchers. Moreover, Dialogues is creating a network of leaders who will continue to communicate with and consult one another formally and informally for years to comea valuable network for negotiating peace in times of crisis. Ultimately, dialogue should extend to the general population, thus allowing the widest possible scope of participation and expression.

Cover: Arches at Tin Mal mosque, Morocco (c. 1156) Photo: Kim Zumwalt

WHO SPEAKS FOR ISLAM? WHO SPEAKS FOR THE WEST?

Report of the Conference organized by

Dialogues: Islamic World-U.S.-The West

in cooperation with the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, February 10-11, 2006

Funded by the governments of Malaysia, the United Kingdom, and France; the MacArthur Foundation; and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund

R E M A R QU E I N S T I T U T E N E W YO R K U N I V E R S I T Y

W H O S P E A K S FO R I S L A M ? W H O S P E A K S FO R T H E W E S T ? Copyright 2006 by Dialogues: Islamic World-U.S.-The West. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For more information, address

Dialogues: Islamic World-U.S.-The West

Remarque Institute Faculty of Arts and Science New York University 194 Mercer Street, 4th Floor New York, NY, 10012-1502
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CONTENTS
Directors Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv Message from Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General . . . . . . . . . x Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii Opening Session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Session IImproving Mutual Perception Through the Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Session IIThe Impact of Globalization on the Muslim World. . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Session IIIThe Challenges Posed by Science and Technology to the Muslim-Western Relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Session IVWhat Is the Future Framework for the Muslim-Western Relationship? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Closing Session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Notes to Sessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Appendix I: Conference Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Appendix II: List of Participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Appendix III: Mustapha Tlilis Opening Statement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Appendix IV: Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawis Keynote Address . . . 52 Appendix V: Background PaperWho Speaks for Islam? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Appendix VI: Background PaperWho Speaks for the West? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
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DIRECTORS PREFACE
The conference Who Speaks for Islam? Who Speaks for the West? represented more than two-and-a-half years of substantive and administrative preparations, during which time Dialogues staff refined the core intellectual concepts behind the conference, drafted and translated background materials, liaised with the government of host country Malaysia, and continued to raise funds. Evolution of the Conference Theme The original idea for the conference emerged from a recommendation at Dialogues first international conference, Clash of Civilizations or Clash of Perceptions? in Granada, Spain, in
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October 2002. Most participants felt that questions central to defining Islam required further discussion.1 Many participants felt strongly that the intraIslamic debate should take precedence over the cross-cultural debate. It was thus suggested that a conference be held that would invite Muslims of conservative, modernist, Islamist, and secular thought to sit together to discuss their views on the nature of religious authority. This task was considered especially important at a time when the official ulama (religious scholars) appear to be under attack, in part from youth and women, and when radical fundamentalists are attempting to establish their own religious monopolies. The Granada participants believed that

this debate could well help foster a valuable exchange of opinions within the Muslim world, which was regarded, in turn, as an integral step toward achieving wider dialogue with the West. But it soon became clear that the question of who speaks for Islam begs its counterpart: who speaks for the West? This new dimension of the debate reflected the confusion in the West that mirrors the confusion in the Muslim world with regard to the sources of authority. Dialogues thus adopted a two-pronged conference theme, questioning both Muslim and Western systems of legitimacy, not only for the sake of taking a balanced approach, but also with an eye toward advancing the quest for understanding between Islam and the West. Over the course of the two-and-a-half years of planning, the conceptual premise of the conference was continually refined through exchanges with various thinkers and policy makers in the United States, Europe, and the Muslim world, including at a preparatory committee convened in Amman, Jordan, on December 6-7, 2004, and hosted and chaired by His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal. Our most sincere gratitude goes to His Royal Highness for his generosity and his steadfastness on behalf of the cause of peace and understanding between the Muslim world and the West.

Background Material In keeping with Dialogues tradition of grounding its conferences in solid scholarly research, its staff assembled two working groups to draft background papersone on Who Speaks for Islam? and the other on Who Speaks for the West? The papers are meant to offer analytical, politically neutral surveys of those who claim to speak with authority in either world and thereby offer a foundation for debate among the conference participants in Kuala Lumpur. Over a two-year period, the papers were drafted and revised with the objective of producing the most accurate, comprehensive, and informative documents that the program could produce with its resources. The papers were translated from English into Arabic, and both versions were made available to the participants prior to the conference. In addition to Mustapha Tlili; Shaanti Kapila, Dialogues special assistant; and Shara Kay, Dialogues editorial consultant, the Islam working group was also composed of Hassan Abedin of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and Mohammed Ayoob, University Distinguished Professor of International Relations at James Madison College, Michigan State University. The West team included Lisa Anderson, dean of Columbia Universitys School of International and Public
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Affairs; Tony Judt, Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies and director of the Remarque Institute at New York University; and Scott Malcomson, journalist and author. Our thanks go to all of them for their unsparing efforts in pursuit of accurate knowledge, clarity of expression, and elegance of style. Liaising with the Malaysian Government We came to an early decision that the conference should be held in a nonArab, majority-Muslim country, and in September 2003, I met with the thenprime minister of Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir Mohammed, and proposed that the Malaysian government serve as host and cosponsor. As a centrist, pluralist, multicultural democratic country with a majority-Muslim population, Malaysia seemed a fitting choice. Although Dr. Mahathir strongly supported the idea and agreed in principle to host the conference, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi replaced him as prime minister on October 31, 2003, and the governments decision was thus not formally delivered until January 2005. Although the Institute Kefahaman Islam Malaysia (IKIM) was initially designated by the Malaysian government as the cosponsor organization in 2004, in September
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2005, the Malaysian government turned over local responsibility for the conference to the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations Malaysia (IDFR), an agency within the Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that provides formal training to Malaysian foreign service officers. IKIM Chairman Tan Sri Dato Ahmad Sarji bin Abdul Hamid and IDFR Director Fauziah Mohd Taib, as well as her colleagues, deserve our most sincere thanks. Fund-Raising Fund-raising is always essential to successful conference planning. Generous annual contributions from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in 2004 and 2005 enabled Dialogues to undertake initial steps, including the drafting of background papers, the convening of the preparatory committee, and planning missions to Kuala Lumpur. With the formal approval of the Malaysian government to host the conference secured in January 2005, Dialogues stepped up fund-raising efforts. In addition to Malaysias important financial support, significant contributions from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France enabled Dialogues to convene the conference in February 2006.

To all of these supporters we say thank you, and we hope that this report shows the importance and far-reaching effects of your contributions. Context of the Conference Two weeks before the conference was convened, the world witnessed the eruption of an international crisis prompted by a Danish newspapers publication of satirical cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. On September 30, 2005, Denmarks largest circulation and historically rightwing newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, printed 12 drawings of the Prophet Muhammad, including one showing him wearing a turban shaped like a bomb and another showing him with devil horns. On October 19, a delegation of ambassadors from Muslim countries posted in Denmark attempted to meet with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to discuss the issue. The prime minister rejected the request on the grounds that the government could not interfere in a free speech issue. Frustrated by the lack of response, a delegation of Danish Muslim leaders traveled to Cairo to present the matter to the scholars of Al Azhar University, a theological institution renowned throughout the Muslim world as an authority on Islamic faith and prac-

tice. Meanwhile, as the controversy was building, a Norwegian publication, Magazinet, reprinted some of the images on January 10, 2006. The cartoons offended millions of Muslims around the world who perceived a willful violation of the proscription on visual depictions of the Prophet, exacerbated by the linking of Islam with terrorism. With further reprintings, the controversy became a crisis. On February 1, newspapers in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland, including France-Soir, Die Welt, and Courrier International, reprinted the cartoons on their front pages as a sign of solidarity with the Danish paper. On February 8, the French satirical weekly, Charlie-Hebdo, published a special issue with the full set of cartoons, adding new ones in the same vein. Numerous demonstrations took place in early February, with the largest and most dramatic occurring in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon. Subsequently, thousands of protesters took to the streets in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, France, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, New Zealand, Pakistan, Qatar, the Sudan, the United Kingdom, and Yemen. While some protests were peaceful, others were violent; 13 people died in total in
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Lebanon and Afghanistan. Danish embassies were stormed by angry mobs in Beirut, Tehran, and Damascus. In Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and much of the Gulf, Danish products were boycotted and two Danish factories were temporarily closed. The intense reaction around the Muslim world, coupled with equally intense reactions among European populations, made the issue a top international news item, with politicians and heads of state called on to weigh in with their opinions. Several Western leaders expressed their strong commitment to freedom of the press while noting the need to exercise such liberty with care. U.S. President George W. Bush, for instance, stated that with freedom comes the responsibility to be thoughtful about others. 2 In France, President Jacques Chirac denounced all manifest provocations that might dangerously fan passions.3 In Vienna, the then-president of the European Union, Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel of Austria, condemned the spiral of reciprocal provocations and insults that fuels the flames of intolerance.4 The conference took place in the midst of this controversyimmediately after the embassy burnings in the Levant and before the major demonstrations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The cartoons affair, which pushed the Muslim and
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Western worlds to confront familiar issues of respect, freedom, and tolerance in new, concrete circumstances, thus informed panel debates and lent an added sense of urgency to the conference. This report offers the findings of both our preparatory efforts and the conference itself. My gratitude goes to Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, associate director of the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at Harvard University; Shaanti Kapila, Yale University graduate and special assistant at Dialogues; Shara Kay, a graduate of Harvard University and Dialogues editorial consultant; Marisa Menna, a New York University graduate and Dialogues intern; and Andrea Stanton, a doctoral student at Columbia University, all of whom worked tirelessly under my supervision to make this report worthy of your time and consideration. At this critical moment in the MuslimWestern encounter, we hope to have made an informative, provocative, and useful contribution to the dialogue.

Mustapha Tlili Founder and Director

Dialogues: Islamic World-U.S.-The West

Remarque Institute New York University

MESSAGE FROM KOFI ANNAN, UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL

I am delighted to send my warmest wishes to this international conference on Islam and the West. We all are aware that this is a time of sharply increasing intolerance, extremism, and violence, which have strained relations alarmingly between the Western and the Muslim worlds. They have exacerbated misconceptions about each other among peoples of Islamic and JudeoChristian or secular traditions. There is a danger that the essential dialogue between cultures and societies is being reduced to an angry exchange between the fringes, with each side assuming that extremists speak for the other side as a whole and in turnallowing its own extremists to
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frame its own hostile response. The extremist tendency to divide humanity into mutually exclusive groups or categories, and to treat anyone who tries to cross the dividing lines as a traitor, is one of the greatest threats that we face in the world today. Muslims have perhaps suffered most from this tendency, but they have not suffered alone. Extremist slogans have gained ground in East and West, inciting misperceptions and threatening peace and security all over the world. The truth is that no one voice can claim to represent an entire faith or a whole civilization. Nor can any one individual,

any single organization, or any particular government claim to speak for either the Muslim world or the Western world. Instead, it is up to each of us to speak for ourselves and for our values. That is why the question your conference asks is so timely and so pertinent. It is time for the voices of understanding and acceptance of diversity to show their strength. It is time for every one of us to speak up, rather than let others speak for us or to assume that the menacing voices of extremists are empowered or mandated to speak for their societies. And yet the question of who speaks for each of us in this dialogue begs another, equally important, question: to whom do we choose to listen? Surely the hallmark of any genuine dialogue is not only the respectful and constructive tone of the discourse but also the manner in which that discourse is received by others. We cannot insist on the civility of discourse unless we give serious attention to what is said. History teaches us that grievances expressed peacefully, and yet ignored, will eventually manifest themselves in ever-more forceful and violent ways. And so, as we ask who speaks for Islam and who speaks for the West, we must also

ask whether we are listening. A more civil discourse that fails to resolve long-standing grievances will ultimately lose the support of the most aggrieved among us and cause many to call into question the usefulness of civility in itself. This is a sure path to increased rancor and renewed violence. Our shared challenge is therefore twofold. First, we must embolden the voices of tolerance and understanding engaged in this dialogue. Second, we must foster a greater receptivity and will to give attention to what those voices say to us. Your gathering seems well-qualified to embark on such a dialogue. Your diverse backgrounds and experiences should enable you to make an important contribution to the Alliance of Civilizations, which I launched last year at the initiative of the Spanish and Turkish prime ministers. This initiative is intended to respond to the need for a committed effort by the international community in both its intergovernmental and its civil society formsto bridge divides and overcome prejudices, misconceptions, and polarizations that potentially threaten world peace. Meetings such as yours will be essential for its ultimate success, a goal made all the more urgent by recent alarming events.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Are the Muslim and Western worlds monoliths? How can we improve perceptions of one civilization by the other? These and other critical issues were addressed at Who Speaks for Islam? Who Speaks for the West?a conference convened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by New York Universitys Dialogues: Islamic World-U.S.-The Wes t and the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations Malaysia on February 10-11, 2006. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi of Malaysia opened the conference, which brought together 50 eminent personspolicy makers, religious leaders, scientists, economists, news media professionals, and other opinion makers
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from 17 Western, Muslim-majority, and other countries. Those attending included former president of Iran Mohammad Khatami, Grand Mufti of BosniaHerzegovina Mustafa Ceric, Oxford University historian Timothy Garton Ash, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund Stephen Heintz, and director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratorys Center for Global Security Research Ronald Lehman. Participants engaged in lively debates aimed at conveying the diversity within each tradition, dispelling misperceptions that can cloud members of each traditions understanding of the other, and developing strategies to promote a better relationship between the Muslim and Western worlds.

Participants tackled such timely issues as the impact of globalization on the Muslim world and the challenges that science and technology pose for the MuslimWestern encounter. The conference concluded with a policy-oriented session devoted to laying the ground for new frameworks for a better relationship between Islam and the West. The conference reached the following conclusions: Freedom of speech is a universal value. It is the oxygen of liberty, and, as such, it should be encouraged rather than stifled. The collision of opinion is a healthy, if uncomfortable, process, resulting over time in improved intercommunal understanding. Yet free speech should be exercised in a manner that is balanced, fair, nuanced, and contextualized. Free speech cannot be unlimited. Every society sets certain legal limits defined by knowledge of and respect for local customs. The boundaries placed on free speech should be minimal, however, and should mostly serve to prevent libel, promote respect for individuals, and avert violence. In keeping with this approach, individuals and institutions responsible self-restraint in the exercise of free speech is of paramount importance. Ultimately, there are legitimate and illegitimate ways to address the relationship

between free speech and mutual respect. The illegitimate option is through violence. Legitimate options include the precise application of judicious law, responsible journalism, and promotion of the visibility of minorities and others views. The media play a key role in transmitting socioeconomic and political information, which impact both societies and individuals perceptions. That role, a form of power, can be used positively to encourage civilized debate. It can be used negatively when dissemination of such information is unbalanced or skewed to allow the few to speak for the many. Today the Western and Muslim worlds diverge in their expectations of the role of government regarding media accountability. Western media coverage of Muslim affairs has historically focused on sensational issues. In so doing, it has often failed to portray the full reality of normal life in the Muslim world. Conversely, the media in Muslim countries have often presented the policies of some Western countries as driven by animus toward Islam, oil interest, and the ideological designs of conservative and neo-conservative political groups. These skewed portrayals foster both Islamophobia and fear of the West, two genuine threats to open communication between the Western and Muslim worlds.
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Globalization is a complex phenomenon. It encompasses the internationalization of capital and new information technologies, as well as the transformation of culture and, in particular, the massive transfer of taste. Globalization is shaped by the economic and political life of individuals and communities around the world, but it is also determined by the different social environments in which people live and operate. That variety creates tensions and opportunities. Globalization puts the same challenges to Muslim and non-Muslim countries, although capital, industrialization, and technology have tended for the past 200 years to aggregate in the West. Given this historical reality, the Muslim world, which in previous eras led the world in scientific learning, needs a new push toward science and technology to level the global playing field and reap the benefits that globalization can offer. It also needs to reconcile its rich tradition with the demands of the modern world. The impact of 21st-century globalization on the Muslim world has thus far varied by nation. Generally, however, gender equality, participatory governance, education, and peace are necessary requirements for successful globalization in the Muslim world. The importance of such reforms is acknowledged in most Muslim countries, but carrying them out has proven a difficult and often politically sensitive task.
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The injustice characterizing the international economic and financial system remains problematic. Fundamentally, this challenge concerns the process of international governance. Globalization is not a one-way street. It is a process of sharing power, information, knowledge, and rewards. Without a genuine share of the rewards, excluded nations will give rise to greater trouble and violence. The coming years will see a pressing need to focus on energy efficiency and restructure the worlds energy usage in terms of renewable resources rather than fossil fuels. Only by easing competition over increasingly scarce fossil fuels can the world avoid major economic and political crises between nation-states and global blocs. Technology has become a driving force behind the world economy. Moreover, science as a discipline offers possibilities for building bridges and improving lives around the globe. Applying scientific research to practical human problems produces challenges as well as opportunities, for which open societies are better equipped. There is no contradiction between Islam as a religion and the scientific pursuit of knowledge. The ethical issues that do arise, such as cloning, relate to specific technological applications of scientific knowledge, and are issues with which other faiths wrestle as

well. Sadly, despite the importance of science and technology in todays world, the Muslim world has few loci of scientific research or technology production, whether university, public, or private sector. This dearth hurts the Muslim world economically and creatively, by spurring the brain drain of scientists who find training and employment in the West. The proud tradition of the Islamic golden age of scientific enlightenment is not borne out today. Instead, the widening technology gap makes it imperative to place renewed emphasis on technology in the Muslim world. Genuine intercivilizational dialogue is of paramount importance in a world that feels smaller by the day. The debates about culture and identity that take place within each world and traditionWestern and Muslimneed to be recognized as part of a global conversation; the visibility of these internal dialogues may matter as much as their content. True dialogue brings out uncomfortable truths, which cultures must be ready to address constructively. Specifically, Muslims should consider reopening the interpretation of religious texts; stressing critical thinking and openness to remedy the narrowing of public education that has impoverished so many nations schools; and fostering a healthy civil society able to challenge official authorities. The West, for its

part, should address the double standards that have informed Western nations assumptions and policies; recognize the contribution of other civilizations to science and technology; and work cooperatively to define common, cross-cultural principles. Critical societal introspection and self-criticism are the sine qua non of internal and collective progress. Muslims tend to approach this issue in two ways: through criticism and self-criticism. Criticism, although a natural first response, results in feelings of self-victimization and blaming outside forces for all that goes wrong in the Muslim world. Self-criticism, while a more difficult process, invites Muslims to cast a critical but forgiving eye on domestic problems, which may result in pragmatic reforms. At its most effective, selfcriticism relies on freedom, equality, incisiveness, and tolerance. The West is also faced with two options: turning a deaf ear to honest grievances or listening with an open mind to the Muslim point of view. Both the Muslim and Western worlds should endeavor to unequivocally protect individuals and groups from acts of intolerance and discrimination; protect societies against the actions of extremists; and intensify dialogue to address misunderstandings on the basis of improved, shared knowledge.
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OPENING SESSION
The conference opened with the hosts welcoming participants and outlining the purpose and aims of the event. Mustapha Tlili, founder and director of Dialogues: Islamic World-U.S.-The West at New York University, thanked the government of Malaysia for cohosting the event and the governments of the United Kingdom and France, as well as the MacArthur Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund, for their generous financial support. Given the simultaneous international developments and renewed global discussion of the relationship between Islam and the West, Mr. Tlili stressed the timeliness of the gathering. He noted that forces of irresponsibility, insensitivity, and intolerance have been combining to endanger that relationship, infusing it with misperceptions and mistrust. This tension is underscored by cruel realities of economic and military inequality, social dislocation, and political repression. Yet, Mr. Tlili noted, the very combination of these formidable challenges and the volatility of the current political climate creates a window of opportunity for positive action. The conference, he said, should capitalize on this opportunity to launch a new dynamic of constructive engagement between the two cultures. That engagement relies on critical selfreflection and investigation of which
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individuals and institutions, if any, can claim the authority to speak on behalf of a civilization. Mr. Tlili urged participants to consider these issues and suggest practical ways to remedy misunderstandings, chart new channels of communication, and, ultimately, deepen mutual understanding. Fauziah Mohd Taib, director general of the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations Malaysia, which cosponsored the conference, spoke next. Echoing Mr. Tlilis appeal for a conference that engages substantively with todays critical issues, she stressed the importance of a forum for intercivilizational dialogue, remarking that unity can be found in multiplicity. Mr. Tlili and Ms. Taib then welcomed Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who was introduced by Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar. In his remarks, Mr. Albar noted that the primary challenge facing the assembled scholars and practitioners is to remedy the lack of tolerance. This task is particularly arduous, he commented, in the midst of sobering moments of intolerance such as the current one. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi opened his address by returning to the
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two questions asked in the conferences titleWho Speaks for Islam? Who Speaks for the West?and noting their pertinence at a time when the Muslim and Western worlds combined comprise 51 percent of the worlds population. Attempting to address these consequential questions in a fresh but productive way, he said, would mean working from three postulates: (1) blame cannot be assigned to any one side, (2) neither civilization is monolithic, and (3) a loud but small number of extremist voices do not represent the silent majority of the Muslim world or the West. According to the prime minister, those who can legitimately claim to speak for each side are those honest individuals who strive to live by universal principles of tolerance, upholding justice and dignity, fighting tyranny, rejecting oppression, equalizing opportunities, redistributing wealth, and being inclusive in word and deed. But as the prime minister pointed out, what is most visible to each side today is the perceived hostility each side has of the other. Large numbers of Muslims look to the West and see only subjugation, domination, selective persecution, and hegemony. Similarly, many Westerners look at Islam and find only violence, terrorism, and intolerance.

Such misperceptions have serious consequences, he insisted, and redressing them is the challenge facing this gathering of bridge builders. Animosity and antagonism between the Muslim and the Western worlds must come to an end. Reciprocity and equality should become the rule, heralding a harmonious relationship ultimately characterized by Muslims speaking for the West and Westerners speaking for the Muslim world.

SESSION I IMPROVING MUTUAL PERCEPTION THROUGH THE MEDIA

Among the first sessions central objectives were conveying the diversity within each tradition and dispelling misperceptions. Since the media in both the Muslim world and the West exercise enormous influence in disseminating information that shapes mass perceptions of the other, participants aimed to develop a strategy to promote better understanding between the Muslim and Western worlds through the media. Session chair Iqbal Riza, special adviser to the secretary-general of the United Nations on the Alliance of Civilizations, opened the session by reading a statement from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the conference. In his statement, the secretary-general acknowledged that we are at a critical moment in the Muslim-Western encounter. Extremists on both sides threaten to overwhelm the dialogue between cultures, which is why this gathering of tolerant voices is so timely. He urged participants to bear in mind that how we receive and act on the discourse of the other is as important as what is said; respectfully put, grievances that are not addressed will eventually spark violence. The conference is wellequipped to make a real contribution to the UNs new Alliance of Civilizations initiative, which was established to overcome prejudices and misunderstandings that potentially threaten world peace.
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Mr. Riza then turned to the theme of the first session, stressing the medias important role in strategic communication of information. Whereas educated elites can turn to other sources to corroborate, clarify, or dispute information found in the local press and televised media, the average person relies solely on this information, believing it to be the full story on any issue. The ability to convey or withhold information represents the medias greatest power. Freedom of expression is critical to the media, but it is also vital to societies in general as a means of fostering progress, limiting the power of the state, and protecting the rights of citizens. However, this freedom can be dangerous, particularly at a time of troubled relations between the Muslim and Western worlds. This is especially salient with regard to the media, whose power can be used negativelyparticularly when unbalanced, misleading, or inaccurate information promotes stereotypes. Such abuses produce a situation where the fewthose whose voices are taken up by the media as sourcesspeak for the unheard many. The key question regarding the promotion of accurate information and informed dialogue is how to balance the need to limit the power of the media to shape opinions while protecting the freedom of expression that allows for a healthy exchange.
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The first speaker, Timothy Garton Ash, director of the European Studies Centre at St. Antonys College, Oxford University, started by identifying the current moment as a time of opportunity, thanks to the many fast-paced transformations that define and redefine the world today. Whereas in earlier times different communities could express local customs and views in a relatively isolated manner, cultural globalization has ushered in a constant awareness of other places, other cultures, and other eyes, which has been reinforced by accelerated migration. For the majority of the world, a purely local existence and a mostly local awareness are thus no longer possible. This evolution from local to global is reinforced by the proliferation of round-the-clock, 24/7 mass media. Given the global context of todays world, how can the medias role as a protector of human freedom be understood and supported, Mr. Garton Ash asked? Perhaps the best approach, he suggested, is to start from the expression that freedom of speech is the oxygen of liberty. This is a universal value that is not attached to a specific culture. Just as modernization is not synonymous with Westernization, the right to speak freelythough practiced more consistently in that part of the worldis not a value confined to the Western world. Freedom of speech is that

healthy collision of opinion of which John Stuart Mill wrote the following: I do not pretend that the most unlimited use of the freedom of enunciating all possible opinions would put an end to the evils of religious or philosophical sectarianism. Every truth which men of narrow capacity are in earnest about, is sure to be asserted, inculcated, and in many ways even acted on, as if no other truth existed in the world, or at all events none that could limit or qualify the first. I acknowledge that the tendency of all opinions to become sectarian is not cured by the freest discussion, but is often heightened and exacerbated thereby; the truth which ought to have been, but was not, seen, being rejected all the more violently because proclaimed by persons regarded as opponents. But it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision of opinions works its salutary effect. Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil: there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood.6

The difficulty comes in translating free speech from the abstract into its concrete application, including its limits in any particular society. Which subjects are taboo, for what reasons, and with what consequences should they be raised regardless? As much as the answers vary across cultures, all societies must avoid leaving the definition of forbidden subjects to those espousing extremist positions. The limits of free speech must be defined by those who wish to keep such limits to a minimum. Tolerance, which makes free speech palatable as well as possible, likewise requires patience with views that initially appear divisive. The collision of opinions may seem at the outset to inflame passions, but in the long run it informs and enriches debate. Providing civilized dialogue based on the open exchange of views is one of the free medias most important functionsand it is for this reason that restrictions upon it must be applied cautiously. The second speaker, Max Boot, senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, echoed Mr. Garton Ashs comments regarding the timeliness of the topic. He stated that what the West and Islam are experiencing today is not so much a clash of civilizations as a divergence of assumptions. For example, many in the Muslim world assume that governments can and should be held
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accountable for the actions of their national media, while in the West these are assumed to be two separate spheres. Referring to the cartoons controversy, Mr. Boot noted that some media had chosen to contribute to the problem rather than work for its resolution and increased intercommunal understanding. He noted, however, that generally speaking, the Western media have made efforts to avoid offending Muslims. For instance, both the news agency Reuters and the BBC eschew the phrase Muslim terrorist when reporting the use of force by militants or insurgents. These efforts notwithstanding, ignorance of Muslim sensitivities, coupled with sensationalist tendencies in the popular Western media, has enabled negative reporting. Portrayal of the rich reality of the Muslim world and coverage of the normal are sorely missing. The danger of simplistic narratives of Muslim terrorists and other stereotypical views is that, when promulgated through the media, they can become the dominant prism through which people perceive Islamic civilization. The news media, in particular, should work to provide a more accurate depiction of each civilization so that the debate within and among civilizations can be based on solid facts.
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For their part, Mr. Boot continued, the media in Muslim countries have tended to filter news reporting through the point of view that American foreign policy is motivated by animus toward the Arab and Muslim world, the pursuit of oil and other commercial interests, and Zionist and neoconservative lobbies. Mr. Boot attributed this in part to the diversity of opinions that is prevalent in the West, which can create a situation wherein a view that is considered marginal within the West is picked up by foreign media and gains greater currency outside the West. The third speaker, Boutheina Cheriet, professor of sociology at the University of Algiers and former minister of womens affairs, spoke from the desire to ground policy discussions in a theoretical understanding of the history behind the current situation. She suggested that an adequate response to the cartoons crisis required investigation of the meaning that the Western and Muslim worlds have each attached to free speech. Mills collision of opinions is also a collision of thought. Further examination reveals, for instance, that a number of great Western thinkers carried and promoted a negative image of Islam and Muslims. Although not explicitly cited in contemporary media coverage, their opinions often inform a common sense subtext

of understanding. As an example, Ms. Cheriet mentioned Max Weber, the eminent German sociologist, who wrote in The Sociology of Religion that Islam is a warrior religion that displays a feudal spirit, champions the subjugation of women, and simplifies ethical requirements. Western thinkers have also often exhibited Manichaean thinking vis--vis the Muslim world. Ms. Cheriet referred to sociologist Ernest Gellners work, which pointed out Western historians tendency to represent human conflicts in a binary way: two opposites in confrontation with one another.7 This way of viewing the world has certain negative consequencesas may the very formulation who speaks for Islam and who speaks for the West. Rethinking the universal legacy that history, as the chronicle of human events, has to offer humanity will enable more objective representations of the other, which will in turn produce better journalistic accounts of conflicts and civilizations. Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami spoke next, stressing the timeliness and overall importance of reexamining civilizations, which he explained is as difficult to accomplish globally as within the Islamic tradition. The importance of dialogue among

cultures is paramount. Today there are great opportunities for this dialogue, although it is jeopardized by various threats. For example, true dialogue cannot tolerate that the prophet of one of the worlds great religions be insulted. Islamophobia is also a danger, and steps must be taken to eradicate it. Mr. Khatami cautioned that the signs of growing Islamophobia ought not to be taken lightly by the West. By the same token, the urgent need for self-examination and intercultural dialogue should encourage Muslims to consider how their identity fitsand is perceived by othersin a globalized world. The social dimension of identity is what matters most when it comes to communication. However, identity is neither predetermined nor preexisting; it is created and shaped by time and spacetoday, possibly, more than ever. In other words, Muslims willingness to take an impartial, critical, but respectful view of their own tradition can foster the development of a creative and flexible identity in a democratic paradigm. Absent such a dynamic, frivolity and violence will continue to proliferate. Mr. Khatami also pointed out the diversity that characterizes Islam, which is evident from Arab, Asian, African, Persian, and Turkic influences on
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religious teachings, practices, and cultural expressions. This multiplicity of Muslim voices must be reflected in the media. The panels discussant, Feisal Abdul Rauf, chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, concurred, noting also that the current boundaries of the Muslim world are not the product of its own history but have been imposed by the West. Similarly, recent Muslim thought has been shaped by and expressed in Western modalities. In classical Islam, the question, who speaks for Islam? would not arise. God speaks for Islam, and man interprets Gods words. A nuanced picture of the historical development of Muslim ideas is therefore necessary to understand the heterogeneity of Islamic thought. Mr. Abdul Rauf maintained that Islam does not have to be defined by a binary relationship that sets it against a presumed universal secularism. Since religion and identity are largely matters of perception, the media must play a leading role in finding solutions to the problems of misperceptions of other cultures and traditions. Following these remarks, the floor was opened to general discussion including conference participants and observers. Kamar Oniah Kamaruzaman, associate professor at the International Islamic University in Malaysia, asked for a definition of freedom of expression and
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wondered what kind of professional ethics guided the media in the cartoons controversy. Mr. Boot responded that freedom of speech is often defined as the right to express any views that one wishes, adding that although there should be limits to that right, they should be minimal and concerned mostly with preventing libel and the espousal of violence. He went on to say that although offensive speech should be limited, governmental policing of the press ought always to be kept to a strict minimum. As is often stated, the best remedy for speech deemed offensive is more speech. Professional ethics do exist, and they are recognized by the media and the general public, with the exclusion of radical groups. Media lacking such ethics ultimately lose credibility and thereby their audiences. Richard Bulliet, professor of history at Columbia University, added that the work of the media is often informed by a number of common sense cultural myths. One of the most powerful in recent years has been the theory of the clash of civilizations, which, he noted, is not grounded in empirical facts. Mr. Boot agreed, indicating that the clash is within Islam, rather than between Islam and the West.

If free speech is a universal value, argued A. Riawan Amin, president director of Bank Muamalat Indonesia, so too is respect. Given the interrelated nature of the two, what is the ultimate criterion by which they should be prioritized? The cartoons controversy, which drew in various media outlets, government agencies and officials, and ordinary citizens, raises the question of the degree to which the nation in toto and the government in particular are responsible for regulating free speech. What is painted as a dismissible myth (in this case, the representation of the Prophet Muhammad) by some members of the European media, governments, and citizenry is an urgent reality to practicing Muslims. Jean-Pierre Langellier, Le Monde correspondent in the United Kingdom and Ireland, took exception to Mr. Amins characterization of the current situation. He reiterated that freedom of speech is the oxygen of democracy, and thus its expression is nonnegotiable except in relation to the law and the respect of individuals. To be deprived of that freedom is to be metaphorically asphyxiated, to feel the painful privation of an essential component of democratic life. The critics right of irony extends even to blasphemy, which has been confirmed by the European Court of Justice. Though Mr. Langellier admitted that there is

a thin line between a right and how it is perceived by others, republicanism and the French constitution regulate this matter by providing for legal recourse. Furthermore, from a French republican perspective, religions are mere beliefs that can be criticized and deconstructed. It is indeed a form of progress to do so. Given that the Arab press habitually publishes anti-Semitic materials to no public protest, Mr. Langellier said, and that some Muslim countries are open to revisionism about the Holocaust, what is worse for the reputation of Islam, he askeda caricature in poor taste or a suicide bomber at a wedding in Amman? Returning to Max Webers derogatory remarks about Islam, a participant commented that there is a long list of such assaults on the part of some of the greatest Western minds. These respected philosophers and scientists have articulated all manner of demeaning thoughts on Islam (as well as Hinduism and Buddhism, for that matter). Yet one seldom finds similar attacks on the West expressed by leading Muslim scholars and intellectuals. In Islam, one does not defame another religion. Though freedom of expression is absolute, such a right cannot in and of itself condition our morality. If one is legally free to blaspheme, what is key is the moral question of whether to blaspheme.
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Expanding on Mr. Garton Ashs discussion of cultural globalization, Farhan Nizami, director of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, noted that the reason communities can no longer live with their local prejudices is that they are readily visible to others, primarily through the globalized media, raising new questions of responsibility for media organizations. There must also be consistency in the dynamic between free expression and restraint. Western societies and their media cannot be strict regarding some issues and lax on others. In the context of the relationship between Islam and the West, this also brings to the fore the persistent question of individual rights versus communal rights. Craig Charney, president of Charney Research, remarked that globalization in effect ends up creating a dilemma of transparency whereby the more people are exposed to other cultures, the more they have to object to. Responding to Mr. Langelliers comment on the republican principles, Mohammed Arkoun, professor emeritus of Islamic thought at the Sorbonne, noted that while the French constitution states that religious commands do not supersede French law, many constitutions around the Muslim world stipulate
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the exact opposite, namely, that civil law cannot contradict the sharia (Islamic law). Both sides hold their truths to be self-evident, and their media merely reflect that logic. It is precisely in such polarized conflictsthe Danish cartoons incident being merely the most recent episode in a long list of controversies that included the Salman Rushdie matter, the affair of Talisma Nasreen8, and the question of the veilthat we have to inquire about the nature (and usefulness) of the intellectual tools that are available to us. Mr. Arkoun argued that scientists have long demonstrated that reality and our perceptions of it are socially constructed; it is fundamental differences in our social realities, rather than particular events, which underlie the debate. On a separate note, he continued, we must place newfound investment into scientific research, which in turn would be transmitted through a reinvigorated educational system in which hard knowledge, an open perspective, and a commitment to literacy could vastly improve the relationship between Islam and the West. The session closed with Mr. Garton Ash highlighting the alleged clash of civilizations as a doctrine that has already done serious damage to relations between Islam and the West. Mr. Garton Ash insisted that it is therefore key to portray

the conflict properly, as a clash of values rather than civilizations. He suggested that an efficient means of fighting partial or distorted knowledge is increasing visibility of the other. In that sense, the West must redouble its efforts to portray the richness of the debate within the Muslim world.

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SESSION II THE IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION ON THE MUSLIM WORLD

The second session, moderated by Chandra Muzaffar, president of the International Movement for a Just World in Malaysia, addressed various aspects of globalization and the changes globalization has engendered in recent years. Participants discussed the impact these changes have had on Muslim countries and societies. Mr. Muzaffar opened the session by noting the complexity of globalization as a phenomenon that goes beyond the internationalization of capital and information technologies. Globalization also involves cultural and moral values and has had particular impact on taste. Though revolutionary in significant

ways, the current globalization is not sui generis. History has seen previous waves of globalization, with the most recent one taking place during the colonial era. Similar to todays movement but on a smaller scale and at a slower pace, the Muslim world itself was a major source of one such wave of globalization, which rippled out from the Mediterranean basin several centuries ago, bringing about transfers of goods, people, information, and technology. The impact of the current globalization on the Muslim world has been varied, with positive and negative outcomes for different nations. Whereas Malaysia, for
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instance, has benefited enormously from one particular aspect of globalization, namely, trade, the interwoven international financial networks proved disastrous to the Indonesian economy during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis. The globalization of communication technologies, for its part, is exerting tremendous impact across the Muslim world, particularly on youth. The first panelist, Ralf Fcks, member of the executive board of the Heinrich Bll Foundation, also stressed the complexity of globalization, which, he concurred, was not concerned solely with financial matters. The societal dimension of globalization has been essential in shaping the economic and political life of citizens around the world. By the same token, globalization itself is shaped in turn by different sociopolitical and cultural environments. While some would argue that the phenomenon is a U.S.-driven equalizer that diminishes local specificities, Mr. Fcks pointed to its capacity to promote diversity. One of the vehicles of that variety, he remarked, is brought on by global migration and the accompanying visibility of a plethora of cultural mores (articulated through food, music, films, and religious practice). Consequently, as goods are transported and sold all over the world, companies are also assembling multicultural workforces. Yet
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such variety can also create tension, which can lead to additional gaps between nations and civilizations, as in the case of Islam and the West. The Muslim world is reacting in manifold ways to recent global transformations, with some countries and populations appearing to be able to engage with the new realities more successfully than others. What is certain is that key components of that successful engagement human liberties, rule of law, equal opportunity, independent mediaare universal rather than merely Western values, and that, as the 2004 Arab Human Development Report indicated, these elements are often lacking in Muslim societies.9 Mr. Fcks expressed hope that the next wave of globalization would offer avenues to lastingly remedy these shortcomings, allow a fair say to the global South, and multiply ways to avoid civilizational conflict. The next speaker, Kurt Seinitz, foreign editor of Die Kronenzeitung, commented that for all the talk of globalization bringing increased diversity, most Westerners continue to demonstrate a widespread lack of basic knowledge about Islam. That lack is compounded in the West by social secularization and the accompanying death of religious taboos, which decreases interest in and empathy with non-Western

religions. Similarly, many Westerners view Islam as a monolith, and indeed the demonstrations that took place in the wake of the cartoons controversy were regarded as confirmation of this. Mr. Seinitz added that, to the contrary, Islam is a globalized world in and of itself. It is an international community that includes some of the richest and poorest countries in the world. Globalization presents both these winners and losers with challenges, much as it does non-Muslim countries. By and large, however, few Muslim countries appear to have made notable contributions to the current field of information technology. One reason is because the basic components of a viable and fertile economya good investment climate, inexpensive manufacturing, and market availability are often missing in the Muslim world. To compete economically, it is hoped that the Muslim world will renew its golden age of scientific progress and enlightenment (during which women were educated and joined the workforce). Using China as the prime example, Mr. Seinitz posited that democracy is not a precondition for modernization. Globalization itself has no moral values. (On this point, several participants remarked that there is a basic tendency for globalization to strengthen democracy.

Hence, in the late 1980s and early 1990s we witnessed a so-called third wave of democratization that accompanied growing interdependence.) Mr. Seinitz pointed to examples of effective models of modernization and development in the Muslim world, such as Malaysia and Turkey. What is needed within the Muslim world, as these examples demonstrate, is better governance that encourages modernization and enables Muslim nations to prosper from globalization, rather than suffer its losses. The panels discussant, Mr. Amin, noted the importance of the Quran as the source of ultimate authority among Muslims. This model of discourse, he remarked, is characterized by tolerance with the rewards going to those who do good. Currently, the United States dominates the rest of the world in terms of its wealth, military power, and educational infrastructure. As long as 20 percent of the worlds population consumes 80 percent of its resources, there will be trouble and rebellion among those left out. To address this imbalance, argued Mr. Amin, there must be reform of the world economic system. The subsequent discussion focused on the costs of globalization for the Muslim world. Mohamed Jawhar Hassan, director-general of the Institute of
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Strategic and International Studies (Malaysia), pointed out that since globalization inherently favors the powerful and tech-savvy, its costs are highest for those cultures that can least afford them. Whereas globalization is generally unconcerned with religion, the Muslim world is primarily characterized by a common, vibrant religious heritage. Mr. Jawhar Hassan indicated that Muslim countries have four institutional challenges to surmount (1) an uneven and often insufficient knowledge base, (2) a lack of empowerment of the female population, (3) an absence of participatory governance, and (4) the prevalence of ethnic conflicts. Imran Ali, professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences, added that the distribution of oil revenues must be addressed before the Muslim world can better engage with globalization. Those internal challenges play out in the context of global problems that are equally daunting, noted Mr. Fcks, who cautioned against a relapse into economic and military imperialism. That trend is materializing not merely in economic means but also in military terms. At the other end of the spectrum, we see the rise of a novel form of terrorismthe nonstate, transnational armed group. These ideologically motivated combatants aim to redress injustices by empowering people rather than states.
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Mr. Fcks went on to say that the architecture of international institutions such as the United Nations helps maintain the current global power structure. Apart from a few cosmetic changes in the dynamic of institutional engagement between the World Bank and particular governments in the South, there has been no genuine reform of the international system. In particular, reform of the United Nations remains a gnawing, elusive issue. The renewed violence and anger that the world has witnessed in the first years of this century is evidence of a severe institutional imbalance. Mr. Fcks added that if the world is not able to transition from reliance on fossil resources to renewable forms of energy, future generations may be condemned to further conflicts over dwindling supplies. Mr. Amin concurred that the international economic system must be reconstructed to accommodate for the effects of globalization. Previous reconfigurations of the world economy were brought about by increased migration, free exchange of goods, and the advent of common commodities markets. The challenge, hence, is not one of capacity but of rearrangement. Is the West willing to make another such vast adjustment today?

Mr. Muzaffar offered Malaysia as an example of a country that has had success with modernization despite the pressures of globalization. This, he feels, is due to five major reasons: (1) a lasting balance of power among national ethnic groups; (2) a socially responsible and relatively honest political leadership since the late 1950s; (3) a sustained economic growth accompanied by redistribution to bridge the gap between indigenous and nonindigenous peoples; (4) an emphasis on education, irrespective of gender; and (5) an ever-more ingrained cultural sense of tolerance at the societal level. Mr. Langellier expressed that the main difficulties the Muslim world is facing are self-imposed. He argued that the relationship between faith and ideology in Muslim countries needs to be overhauled to enable modernization. Mr. Bulliet, however, noted that these challenges must be considered from a historical perspective. The globalization that occurred between 1000 and 1500 was dominated by the Muslim world and witnessed a massive movement of knowledge, science, art, and philosophy from Islam to the West. The Wests leadership at the timelike some in the Muslim world todayresorted to violence, notably the Crusades, to regain power.

Returning to the notion of dialogue, Mr. Nizami suggested that language itself can become a barrier. Therefore, the challenge is to find ways to deploy language in ways that achieve progress rather than create more problems. To do so, our discourse must be pragmatic, honest, and dispassionate. An examination of the assumptions that surround notions of governance, accountability, and democracy, for instance, could potentially unearth a wealth of insights into policy reform. Mr. Boot interjected that the post-1500s rise of the West was linked to sophisticated currency practice (interest, bonds, and stocks) and that adoption of those practices by the Muslim world would have huge socioeconomic benefit. Israel, he argued, achieved its own good fortune by installing a free market and promoting education for women. Unlike many Arab countries, he insisted, Israel does not blame its problems on others. Mr. Muzaffar remarked that the importance of domestic reform is widely acknowledged throughout the Muslim world. It is the global dimensions of these political questions that need further examination. In particular, he differed with the assumption that good governance necessarily brings progress. Prior to the Gulf War, Iraq enjoyed a
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first-rate heath care system, high levels of education (including among women), and a vast public infrastructure, yet the countrys leadership made the wrong geopolitical choices. Mr. Muzaffar stated that the Middle Easts problems come from oil and Israels predatory stance, and it is high time that these be addressed. Both Joshua Muravchik, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and Mr. Charney took strong exception to Mr. Muzaffars statement on Israel. At the sessions close, Mr. Ali stated that the global transfer of resources must indeed be put in historical context and the arrogance that plagues the Western discourse must likewise be examined. Mr. Amin concurred, stressing that Westernization is not necessarily modernization, nor is democracy a panacea.

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SESSION III THE CHALLENGES POSED BY SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TO THE MUSLIM-WESTERN RELATIONSHIP
Recent decades have brought extraordinary transformations in information technology and in biotechnology, the collective impact of which has been felt worldwide. These transformations often reinforce feelings of powerlessness among those who have not benefited. This session explored the challenges that these developments pose for governments, societies, and traditional moral authorities, as well as for ordinary citizens. The sessions chair, Ronald Lehman, director of the Center for Global Security Research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States, opened by identifying the role of science in facilitating intercivilizational engagement and its ability to build bridges that transcend differences and to offer shared opportunities to improve lives around the world. However, particular scientific discoveries and applications of technology can create tensions when they conflict with cultural practices and religious beliefs. Mr. Lehman raised four questions to lead the discussion. First, noting that participation in the global high-tech sector is made possible by education that is not equally accessible to all, he asked how science and technology can reach out to the different strata within communities. Second, he inquired whether faith and science advance together in the Muslim
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world and beyond, or whether they are adversaries. Third, Mr. Lehman wondered whether the Muslim world was transitioning from consumer to producer of technology at home and abroad and the implications of such evolution for the Muslim-Western relationship. Fourth, he asked how scientific cooperation between Muslims and Westerners could contribute to international peace and security and could mitigate the danger of dual use technology, such as nuclear energy. The first speaker, Imran Ali, prefaced his remarks by making three underlying statements about the issue of technology. He noted, first, that there is no contradiction between Islam as a religion and the scientific pursuit of knowledge. Like all religions, however, Islam places certain moral limits on the application of science, proscribing, for example, the use of ultrasound technology in the service of fetal sex selection. Second, during the past five centuries, the Muslim world has been beset by a downturn in scientific production, while the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution led to dramatic advances in Western technology. Third, the technology gap was reinforced by the subjugation of most Muslim countries during the colonial era. As global technological transformations continue to accelerate, will the gap widen, or will
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there be a breakthrough in the Muslim production of high-quality, scientific advancement? Mr. Ali noted that in quantitative terms there are many centers of technological research in the Muslim world, but the limited quality of their contributions hinders the Muslim worlds competitiveness. While there are many top-notch individuals in the sciences, they rarely aggregate into first-rate schools or departments. With the notable exception of Turkey, and, to a lesser extent, Indonesia and Iran, the Muslim world lacks industrial clusters that produce and patent technology. Excluding only the resource-based sectors (oil and gas), there are few, if any, companies based in the Muslim world that could be included in the top 500 worldwide. These deficiencies urgently need to be addressed. Mr. Ali felt that current prospects for a scientific and technological revolution in the Muslim world are dim. On the economic front, where there are advances, such as in the large and dynamic greymarket sector, they tend to undermine the structural profitability of bona fide activities. Additionally, the removal of subsidies in many countries, compounded by rising production costs, has further diminished competitiveness. Apart from oil-driven activities, Muslim

economies score low in innovationbased production. The private sector is still factory based and has not moved to a more agile, digital platform. This technological frailty also has military consequences: most Muslim countries have no significant technologically advanced weaponry. The economic, geopolitical, and strategic implications of globalization are, hence, linked. The second speaker, Mustafa Ceric, grand mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina, began by examining the relationship between faith and science. He noted that science is a tool used for achieving human goals, but it is not a goal in and of itself. This relationship has always underscored the interaction between theologians and scientists. Intellectual tolerance has been a distinctive feature of Islam for centuries, including lengthy periods during which other civilizations were stuck in their dark ages. The dramatic decline of the high scientific profile of the Islamic world challenges a staging of a comeback, while avoiding both assimilation through secularization and the isolation that would result from a rejection of globalization. The next speaker, Rainer Wessel, president of Ganymed Pharmaceuticals, began by highlighting that technology poses great challenges to us all, regardless

of location or faith. Mr. Wessel stressed that the current era is witnessing a momentous technological revolution fueled by three areas of innovation: information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. The publication of the human genome in 2001 constituted a landmark event encapsulating this recent history. While scientists themselves have placed ethical limits on their own research, the overarching challenge today is closing the gap between fastdeveloping technology and legislation that is not keeping pace. He suggested that there is a role for nongovernmental organizations, such as the recently launched International Council for the Life Sciences, to provide independent, field-based regulation. Mr. Wessel explained that the United States has led the way in recent scientific progressparticularly in biotechnology with Europe and Asia closely following. As technology has become the principal driving force behind these economies, potential abuses of its products also increase. Technology is inherently neither good nor bad: what matters is the use to which it is put. Pressing ethical questions regarding the application of technology have been posed across different cultures, polities, and religions, with the debate constantly shifting along with scientific innovation.
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Mr. Wessel concluded by stating that sciences seem to flourish better in open societies. With science now a major driving force behind successful economies, he pointed to the need for economic and political liberalization in Muslim countries to stir scientific development. The panels discussant, Mark Smolinski, director of the Global Health and Security Initiative and vice president for Biological Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) based in Washington, D.C., discussed the work of his organization to improve global capacity for prevention of and preparedness to biological threats through enhanced disease surveillance, early detection, and response. A consequence of globalization is that diseases spread quickly and over great distances, as demonstrated by recent severe acute respiratory system (SARS) and Asian bird flu epidemics. The NTI is working to establish regional organizations to monitor and respond to infectious diseases and has launched one such pilot program in the Middle East involving Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, and Jordandemonstrating that regional cooperation in the arena of science and technology is possible even in a volatile area. Mr. Bulliet launched this portion of the discussion by questioning the relationship
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between Western-trained Muslim scientists and scientific development in their home countries. Just as the repatriation of U.S.-based Chinese and Indian scientists has contributed in no small measure to these countries recent economic successes, could the same not be true for the Muslim world? Mr. Ali responded that, at this point, many Muslim scientists return to their countries of origin only to find that they cannot make a significant contribution in the absence of a professional environment conducive to sustained scientific creation. With scarce research possibilities and a culture of bureaucratic and institutional impedimentsand with no apparent leadership invested in resolving these problems Muslim scientists often find it impossible to live and work in their home countries. The Islamic world must culturally reinvest in the sciences to stem this brain drain. Mr. Bulliet also pointed out that major scientific contributions during the Muslim golden age took advantage of that civilizations permeability and lack of national boundaries. Today, technological pursuit is centered nationally, whereas Muslim scientists might fare best by creating regional networks. Hussein Solomon, director of the Center for International Political Studies at the University of Pretoria, endorsed Mr.

Wessels statement about the link between technology and open societies and added that changes in educational systems shifting away from rote learning to critical inquiryare necessary to foster a revival of technological progress in the Muslim world. This must also be supported by active recruitment of and competitive salaries for promising scientists. Abdelmajid Charfi, professor emeritus of humanities and Islamic studies at the University of Tunis, concurred, adding that dogmatic training and memory-based education, as opposed to open-minded engagement, are conducive neither to proper education nor scientific production. Mina Al-Oraibi, a journalist for Asharq Al-Awsat, noted that these challenges are compounded by an urgent sense among Arab youth of having to catch up with fast-paced global transformations. Mr. Fcks questioned the existence of such a discipline as Islamic science. Religion could be a source for ethical guidance in science, he offered, but religion should not interfere with science. This concern is not unique to Islam, but one that is relevant to Christianity as well, with regard to the teaching of evolution, for example. Several participants agreed that Muslims should avoid adding the qualifier Islamic to science or other fields, as this demonstrates cultural insecurity and does not offer a constructive

solution to the problems faced by Muslim countries. Vitaly Naumkin, president of the International Center for Strategic Studies in Moscow, wondered whether it might be useful to develop a Muslim scientific strategy or a joint Muslim vision of science. He also raised the question of whether measures adopted in the West for security reasons, such as the increased difficulty encountered by Muslims applying for visas to work or study in the United States, were preventing Muslims from gaining access to the information and education necessary for technological advancement. Mr. Wessel acknowledged that restrictions on the flow of knowledge are indeed a problem, not only between the Islamic and Western worlds, but within the West as well. Although such restrictions do not impair science itself and are mostly limited to regulating sensitive matters, certain people are excluded from information that could serve them better. For example, it is important that scientists in the Muslim world know about virulent viruses in order to make antibodies to fight them. The threat that such knowledge could fall into the hands of terrorists seeking biological weapons is offset by the benefits this knowledge would bring in the battle against infectious diseases.
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The discussion then turned toward sources of funding for research and development in the Muslim world with Mr. Wessel remarking that although there is significant funding available from Muslim individualsparticularly in the Gulf countriessuch support is not always effectively distributed across the Muslim world. Mr. Nizami raised the problem of the widespread assumption of the Wests centrality in scientific matters, specifically the idea that progress demands the mirroring of Western history. Although the Enlightenment made future scientific advances possible, these, in turn, depended on Muslim philosophical and scientific contributions of an earlier era. Furthermore, Mr. Nizami added, much of Europes success rested on the institutionalized monopoly of patent protections and secured markets. Given that todays Muslim societies have neither of these capabilities, can they do the same? Mr. Ali suggested that while the European system cannot be replicated in the Muslim world, there are other models for industrialization that could be instructive. To create climates conducive to scientific development, governments across the Muslim world must establish and institutionalize private property rights, which would stimulate a virtuous
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cycle of investment and returns. Ultimately, Muslim countries must set their own shops right, and this begins with elites who all too often enrich themselves with little regard to the welfare of their less fortunate countrymen. The session closed with Mr. Ceric noting that Islam and the West have the opportunity to build trust around the interplay between science, politics, and theology by cementing technological interdependence and enabling strong international regulatory systems.

The last session of the conference sought to draw on the panel discussions in order to make recommendations for American and Western policy in general toward the Muslim world and vice versa, including the establishment of formal mechanisms for dialogue. The session chair, Stephen Heintz, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, opened the discussion by noting that the logic behind such a conference is to advance policies that reflect a broadly shared vision of constructive, cooperative, far-sighted, and principled global engagement. An effort of this type seeks to amplify a wider range of voices than would otherwise be heard. In doing so, it

strengthens the relationship between Muslim and Western societies. Inasmuch as U.S. foreign policy, in particular, will continue to have a profound influence on the worlds ability to cope with complex global challenges, it is essential to try to reduce the current destabilizing tensions by promoting mutual respect and understanding and by encouraging collaboration among Muslim and Western societies in managing global challenges. This endeavor recognizes, too, that both the Muslim and Western civilizations are engaged in parallel internal debates about their respective identities, futures, and places in a rapidly changing, increasingly interconnected world.
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Mr. Heintz noted that, in addition to the media, our policies and actions speak for us. Each side must therefore constantly inquire whether its policies, both domestic and foreign, correspond to informed attitudes about the other. Mr. Heintz expressed concern that the mutual perceptions of the Muslim world by the Western world and vice versa seem evermore distrustful, hence the importance of dialogue in devising a lasting framework for the Muslim-Western relationship. Such a framework, offered Mr. Heintz, could feature the following five components: (1) measures to restore and increase trust; (2) the use of accurate and impartial language to describe relationships and shared aspirations; (3) the application of professional norms that will ensure media responsibility; (4) reform of international institutions to render globalization more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable; and (5) greater exchange in the realms of education and science. The first speaker, Usman Bugaje, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in Nigeria, started by noting that dialogue between Islam and the West is not just desirable, it also offers the only route out of the current situation of tension and mistrust. Although the search for understanding may bring to light uncomfortable truths, both cultures
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need to educate themselves about the other. Two such uncomfortable truths to note at the outset of this process are that (1) any dialogue will inevitably involve a discussion on power as the currency of achievement and on current power structures and (2) the acceptance of difference is a sine qua non of progress. It bears reminding, stressed Mr. Bugaje, that what applies to one religion does not necessarily apply to another, and that unity is not synonymous with uniformity. The Muslim and Western worlds face different challenges. For Muslims, the present challenge is threefold. First, it concerns democratization of the interpretation of religious texts. The gates of ijtihad must be reopened, Mr. Bugaje maintained; the text is divine but its interpretation is human, a principle of Muslim scriptures themselves. Second, Muslims must tackle the challenge of education more directly and efficiently, particularly by rekindling their intellectual curiosity instead of proscribing fields of study. Third, in the face of persistent dysfunction, the need for Muslim countries to embrace good governance has become imperative; the first step is the empowerment of civil societies to challenge their governments to live up to the standards of Islam.

According to Mr. Bugaje, the challenge is similarly threefold for the West. First, the question of double standards toward the Muslim world must be addressed with a view of correcting misconceptions and ensuring equal treatment for Muslims. Second, the Western world must relinquish its claims to ownership of civilization in general and science and technology in particular. Too often, Westerners ignore or minimize others contributions toward global progress. The degree of dominance that the West currently enjoys gives it all the more reason to create space for participation by the rest of the world and Muslims in particular. Third, while no values are absolute, the West might benefit from stating a broadly shared set of values. These respective challenges, concluded Mr. Bugaje, are underscored by the urgent need for both sides to work on communication with one another. The next speaker, Mohamed Charfi, professor emeritus of law at the University of Tunis and former minister of education (Tunisia), opened by taking stock of the historically rocky relationship between the Muslim and Western worlds, which has ranged from hostile to cooperative. For the past 100 years, the relationship has been framed around the question of colonization and its aftermath. Three geographical areas continue

to fuel conflict and misunderstanding: Palestine, Chechnya, and Iraq. The sooner just and lasting solutions to these gnawing rivalries can be found, the better the prospects for good relations between Muslims and Westerners. Since positive developments often escape the worlds notice, Mr. Charfi pointed out that many Muslim countries have, by and large, taken control of their political and economic destinies. Efforts have been particularly effective in Malaysia and Turkey. The dichotomy between success and frustration may come down to which parts of the Muslim community focus on criticism as opposed to selfcriticism. The former group indulges in a blame game, entertaining notions of a Western conspiracy; such a negative approach, argued Mr. Charfi, leads to self-victimization and is ultimately a dead end. The alternative is to respond to the challenges facing the Muslim world by engaging in self-examination, diagnosis of concrete problems, and ultimately long-term domestic transformation. Echoing Mr. Bugajes analysis, Mr. Charfi identified four realms that represent challenges for the Muslim world today: freedom, equality, good governance, and education. He placed emphasis, in particular, on freedom, which he indicated should be thought of
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not merely as a buzz word but in its full implications, notably, tolerance of dissent, both internal and external. Equality, for its part, must be understood especially in relation to gender issues; Islam cannot be used to justify limitations on womens rights when the religions very ethos is of humanity and empowerment. As for good governance, it first and foremost requires transparency, separation of powers, and respect for the rule of law. Regarding education, Mr. Charfi stressed the need for modernization and more critical thinking in the Muslim world. A proper educational system is one that not only teaches its students how to use their minds but is also open to foreign contributions. As several participants pointed out throughout the conference, knowledge of other cultures is essential for survival in a global world. The next speaker, Wilhelm Hynck, former secretary-general of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), argued that future interactions between the Muslim and Western worlds depend on tolerance but also on the very real challenge of its implementation. One such meaningful and practical step, he suggested, is support for the Alliance of Civilizations, the UN initiative launched in July 2005, which seeks to bridge civilizational divides and overcome
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prejudice, misperceptions, and polarization among cultures. It is equally important to develop adequate and innovative institutional responses for proactive management of rapidly escalating crises. Admittedly, noted Mr. Hynck, this is a monumental task that calls for a balanced and cooperative effort. He raised three principal objectives for those concerned with improving the relationship between Islam and the West: (1) protecting individuals and groups from acts of intolerance and discrimination; (2) safeguarding societies against the actions of religious extremists; and (3) intensifying knowledge-based dialogue to address disagreements. Beyond such institutions as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the League of Arab States, the untapped potential of a larger set of regional actors is an additional asset toward accomplishing these goals. Mr. Hynck cautioned that one must be realistic in assessing the very real challenges facing Muslim-Western relations. The more attempts at dialogue fail, the more people will lose heart, and the more frustrations will build. He closed on an optimistic note, however, suggesting that the experience in building a unified Europe from among once antagonistic states should offer hope for

a lasting, peaceful solution to conflicts between the Muslim world and the West. The discussant, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, outlined two options for moving forward. The negative option is to dwell on what has not been done and continue to lament the status quo. A positive approach is to assess the challenges and forge ahead by listening (to the other) with an open mind. Specifically, it is unhelpful to construe a view of Islam that does away with the religions intrinsic variety. A positive approach offers greater prospects for building mutual respect, anticipating or defusing crises, breaking down monolithic preconceptions, and working together on the challenges that unite Muslims and Westerners. Sir Iqbal agreed with Mr. Bugajes analysis that the interaction between Muslims and Westerners has a long history shaped by ideas and science but primarily by powerits presence, absence, uses, and impact. The two civilizations are now in a postcolonization phase, dealing with the fallout from decolonization and, in some quarters, a dangerous yearning for imperial power. The outcome of this phase of the relationship depends on the Muslim world to implement equitable, democratic, and well-governed systems recognizing the rights of women.

According to Sir Iqbal, the West must in turn (1) widen the definition of citizenship to confer rights and societal responsibilities not merely legally, but communally, in acceptance of people of different cultural backgrounds; (2) integrate this citizenryand especially the youthin a dynamic way without imposing a sterile and alienating uniformity; and (3) foster an inclusive society intolerant of prejudice. In the general discussion that ensued, participants concurred on the importance of self-criticism and introspection within both the Western and Islamic worlds. Mr. Muravchik remarked that the West has a system of permanent soulsearching built on the cornerstones of freedom and democracy, which includes opposition parties, a free press, and an active intelligentsia that is at liberty to criticize those in power. By contrast, he pointed to the current situation in the Islamic world where several newspapers in different countries, including in Malaysia, had been shut down, and editors fired, for reprinting the Danish cartoons. Mr. Muravchik added that a positive outcome to the conference and a validation for the process of dialogue would be for the delegates to issue a far-reaching, intercommunal statement that would
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condemn, in all forms, defamation that offends religious sensibilities across faiths. Ramn Prez-Maura, vice-editor of Diario ABC, agreed with the importance of institutional vehicles, such as the newly formed Alliance of Civilizations, to further mutual recognition. Such efforts require strong leadership in order to fairly and comprehensively represent the idiosyncrasies and traditions of each side. For example, he remarked, the Christian lineage of the West (once referred to as Christendom) must be acknowledged as a lasting influence on large segments of the Western population. In that respect, Mr. Fcks posited that while the West tends to be defined (and defines itself) as a set of institutions and values, roughly circumscribed geographically, Islam is understood and paints itself as a religious community spread over a number of specific countries but global in its presence. This configuration, he remarked, raises the issue of difference between the provinces of faith (a set of personal beliefs grounded in the absolute truth of divine power) and politics (in which there is no absolute truth). Participants further addressed the question of power and the notion of its limitations, primarily the requirements of justice. Mr. Riza noted that when the politically and socioeconomically
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aggrieved do not find justice, they often turn to use of force. He reiterated the call for reform of international institutions, such as the UN Security Council, to give a greater stake to less powerful states. Hoda Badran, chairperson of the Alliance for Arab Women, remarked that the persistence of double standards perpetuates injustices and, therefore, the sometimes violent acts undertaken to right them. While noting that the conference had been useful from his perspective, Mr. Solomon urged that the discussion on how to improve Muslim-Western relations should move beyond elite circles to encompass grassroots activists in communities and the faithful in churches, mosques, and synagogues. Truly effective dialogue must embrace all strata of societies. The session closed with Mr. Heintz highlighting three main areas of insight that emerged during the discussion that could be further developed as follows: (1) reorienting the framing of the current relationship away from the religion/ region dyad; (2) reforming global institutions such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank to ensure greater justice in their operations; and (3) empowering transnational civil society to play a larger role in intercivilizational dialogue.

CLOSING SESSION
At the close of the conference, Mustapha Tlili, founder and director of Dialogues and coconvener of the event, noted the positive tone that had characterized the debates. These had not been easy discussions especially in the context of divisive international events, but the group managed to strike the proper balance between honest, no holds-barred exchange and joint construction of a positive vision of the future. A major challenge facing both this gathering and the Muslim and Western civilizations at large is that of finding lasting ways to work and live together. Meanwhile, each culture is undergoing massive and rapid transformations and thereby altering perceptions of itself and of others. The resulting opportunity to improve relationships demands a role for those able to speak better for Islam and the West. This forum, it is hoped, will be reconvened annually to facilitate that process. The conference was formally brought to a close by Mohammad Najib Abdul Razak, deputy prime minister of Malaysia, who also applauded the spirit of cooperation and understanding that characterized its proceedings. Mr. Abdul Razak noted that the early-21st century has been a troubled period characterized by fracture, confusion, violence, and a Muslim-Western relationship fraught
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with tension and mistrust. This unfortunate state of affairs has contributed to a rise in intolerance, brought into sharp focus by the Danish cartoons crisis. By rationally and dispassionately tackling the issues of who speaks for Islam and who speaks for the West, this conference has managed to distance itself productively from the currents of anger and hatred that underlie civilizational mistrust. It has also attempted to allow the reasoned and cultured voices of the many tolerant Muslims and Westerners to come to the forefront of the dialogue. To be certain, Muslims and Westerners will always hold different worldviews grounded in their own philosophical traditions as well as their distinct historical experiences. Yet the process pursued here can contribute to mutual understanding. Although solutions will not immediately materialize, the exercise itself and the wide dissemination of its resultsbeyond academe and expert groupswill sow seeds of greater understanding between Islam and the West.

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CONCLUSIONS
The conference Who Speaks for Islam? Who Speaks for the West? was anchored in three moments: (1) a historical outlook on the long-standing issues characterizing the difficult relationship between Islam and the West; (2) the dramatic events and global changes of the post-September 11, 2001, era; and (3) the immediate escalation of that dynamic in the context of the Danish cartoons crisis that erupted shortly before the conference. Against this multilayered context, conference discussions aimed at three objectives: (1) reining in the forces of irresponsibility, insensitivity, and intolerance; (2) engaging constructively in critical self-reflection; and (3) considering creatively the practical policy implications of these outcomes. An immediate and widely shared conclusion was the rejection of the inevitability of the clash of civilizations, indeed, of the notion of clash itself. Participants preferred to frame the current situation as a difficult moment of disagreement and differing perceptions and interpretations, echoing the consensus reached by participants in Dialogues first international conference, Clash of Civilizations or Clash of Perceptions? held in Granada, Spain, in October 2002.

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To be certain, profound differences exist and were acknowledged by participants, notably the interesting paradox that, in the view of some participants, resides at the heart of the relationship between Islam and the West. These participants argued that from a religion devoid of a clergy and intercessionary corps, Islam evolved historically toward more institutionalized forms of practice and, especially, discourse. This is particularly true in modern times, as demonstrated in regional and international policy pronouncements in crisis situations. The West, however, has moved from centralized and highly organized religious structures, embodied for centuries in the power of the Catholic Church, toward multifaceted practice and no particular cohesion in its public discourse. The second major aspect of the discussions was the identification of the contradictory tendencies and perceptions, including illegitimate ones, which increasingly characterize the exchange between Islam and the West. Specifically, the hijacking of discourse by radicals on both sides was understood as a significant impediment to progress and genuine dialogue. Strengthened educational structures, more responsible media, and improved societal tolerance were identified as conditions for establishing proper trust and understanding.
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Third, the discussions demonstrated strong existing incentives for overcoming misperceptions. Among these, the apolitical role of technology (and of a global community of scientists) is an asset that can be made to work, in particular, to the benefit of the Muslim world. The debates also showcased a variety of perspectives in relation to both the locus of the problem between Islam and the West and the type and extent of prescriptions necessary to address it. Whereas some argued that something went wrong in the Muslim world causing socioeconomic and technological decline, others regarded politics as the crux of the conflict. Disagreements also emerged concerning the core values of each civilization and how these could be affected by an effort to ameliorate the relationship with the other. With the Danish cartoons crisis weighing on participants minds, some were adamant that free speech, though not absolute, is preeminent and could suffer no relativisms. Others considered mutual respect a value equal with free speech and argued that, for all its sanctity, freedom of expression could not excuse disrespect of the other. As for prescriptions for improving the Muslim-Western relationship, the

conference raised more questions than it could hope to answer. Are urgent changes needed domestically, regionally, or globally? Is the breaking of some long-held practices a factor ushering positive change and modernization, or is it merely disruptive and counterproductive? Finally, consensus was achieved where it most matters: participants unanimously reaffirmed the principles of coexistence and civilized alliance, which are essential to an informed reappraisal and recalibration of the relationship between Islam and the West. The conferences proceedings constitute a flexible platform upon which such recalibration can begin.

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NOTES TO SESSIONS
1. See the report Clash of Civilizations or Clash of Perceptions? online at www.islamuswest.org. See the White House press release, President Bush Welcomes King Abdullah of Jordan to the White House, issued February 8, 2006, and online at www.whitehouse.gov/ news/releases/2006/02/20060208 -1.html. As quoted in Dan Bilefsky, Muslim Protesters Ignore Appeals for Calm, International Herald Tribune, February 9, 2006. See Around the World, Leaders Weigh in on Cartoons, Riots, Daily Star, February 9, 2006. This Message to the Conference on Who Speaks for Islam? Who Speaks for the West? Kuala Lumpur, February 10-11, 2006, was delivered by Iqbal Riza, special adviser to the secretary-general on the Alliance of Civilizations, as part of the opening session. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Kitchener, Ontario: Batoche Books, 2001 [1859]), p. 49. Ernest Gellner, Postmodernism, Reason, and Religion (New York: Routledge, 1992). Talisma Nasreen is an outspoken Bangladeshi feminist writer who was charged with blasphemy by the Bangladeshi government for her 1992 novel Lajja (Shame), which depicted the tragedy that befell a Hindu family in Bangladesh following the destruction of a mosque by Hindu fundamentalists in India. She was forced to flee Bangladesh in 1994 after a fatwa calling for her death was issued by the militant group the Council of the Soldiers of Islam. She now lives in exile in India. 9.

2.

3.

Arab Human Development Report 2004: Towards Freedom in the Arab World (New York: United Nations
Publications, 2004).

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

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APPENDIX I: CONFERENCE PROGRAM

FEBRUARY 10, 2006 O PENING S ESSION 9:009:30 A . M . Opening Ceremony

Speakers
Timothy Garton Ash, Director, European Studies Centre, St. Antonys College, Oxford University (United Kingdom) Max Boot, Senior Fellow, National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations (United States) Boutheina Cheriet, Professor at the University of Algiers and former Minister of Womens Affairs (Algeria) Mohammad Khatami, former President of Iran

Introductory Remarks by
Mustapha Tlili, Founder and Director,

Dialogues: Islamic World-U.S.-The West,

New York University Fauziah Mohd Taib, Director General, Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations Malaysia

Welcome by
Syed Hamid Albar, Foreign Minister of Malaysia 9:30-10:00 A . M .

Discussant
Feisal Abdul Rauf, Chairman, Cordoba Initiative (United States) 12:30-2:30 P. M . Friday prayers/lunch S ESSION IIT HE I MPACT OF G LOBALIZATION ON THE M USLIM W ORLD 2:30-4:30 P. M .

Opening address by
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Prime Minister of Malaysia 10:00-10:30 A . M . Break S ESSION II MPROVING M UTUAL P ERCEPTION T HROUGH THE M EDIA 10:30 A . M .-12:30 P. M .

Moderator
Iqbal Riza, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on the Alliance of Civilizations and his representative at the conference
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Moderator
Chandra Muzaffar, President, International Movement for a Just World (Malaysia)

Speakers
Ralf Fcks, Executive Board, Heinrich Bll Foundation (Germany) Kurt Seinitz, Foreign Editor, Die Kronenzeitung (Austria)

Raisu-l-Ulama Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina Rainer Wessel, President and CEO, Ganymed Pharmaceuticals (Germany)

Discussant Discussant
A. Riawan Amin, President Director, Bank Muamalat (Indonesia) 4:30 P. M . Break 8:00-10:00 P. M . Group dinner with keynote address by Mohammad Khatami, former President of Iran Mark Smolinski, Director, Global Health and Security Initiative and Vice President for Biological Programs, Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) (United States) 10:30-11:00 A . M . Break S ESSION IVW HAT I S THE F UTURE F RAMEWORK FOR THE M USLIM W ESTERN R ELATIONSHIP ? 11:00 A . M .-1:00 P. M .

FEBRUARY 11 S ESSION IIIT HE C HALLENGES P OSED BY S CIENCE AND T ECHNOLOGY TO THE M USLIM -W ESTERN R ELATIONSHIP 8:30-10:30 A . M .

Moderator
Stephen Heintz, President of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (United States)

Speakers
Usman Bugaje, Chairman, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Nigerian Parliament (Nigeria) Mohamed Charfi, Professor Emeritus of Law, University of Tunis, and former Minister of Education (Tunisia)

Moderator
Ronald Lehman, Director, Center for Global Security Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (United States)

Speakers
Imran Ali, Professor, Lahore University of Management Sciences (Pakistan)

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Wilhelm Hynck, former Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and personal representative of the current OSCE Secretary General

Discussant
Sir Iqbal Sacranie, Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain (United Kingdom) 1:00-3:00 P. M . Group lunch with keynote address by Timothy Garton Ash, Director, European Studies Centre, St. Antonys College, Oxford University (United Kingdom) C LOSING S ESSION 3:30-4:00 P. M .

Closing address by
Mohammad Najib Abdul Razak, Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia

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APPENDIX II: LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

Feisal Abdul Rauf Chairman, Cordoba Initiative (United States) Ajmal M. Razak Al-Aidrus Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs, International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, International Islamic University (Malaysia) Imran Ali Professor, Lahore University of Management Sciences (Pakistan) Mockbul Ali Islamic Issues Adviser, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (United Kingdom) Mina Al-Oraibi Journalist, Asharq Al-Awsat (United Kingdom) A. Riawan Amin President Director, Bank Muamalat (Indonesia) Mohammed Arkoun Professor Emeritus of Islamic Thought at the Sorbonne (Algeria/France) Danuta Garton Ash Open University (United Kingdom) Timothy Garton Ash Director, European Studies Centre, St. Antonys College, Oxford University (United Kingdom) Hoda Badran Chairperson, Alliance for Arab Women (Egypt) Max Boot Senior Fellow, National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations (United States) Usman Bugaje Chairman, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Nigerian Parliament Richard Bulliet Professor of History, Middle East Institute, Columbia University (United States) Raisu-l-Ulama Mustafa Ceric Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina Abdelmajid Charfi Professor Emeritus of Humanities and Islamic Studies, University of Tunis (Tunisia)

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Mohamed Charfi Professor Emeritus of Law, University of Tunis, and former Minister of Education (Tunisia) Craig Charney President, Charney Research (United States) Boutheina Cheriet Professor of Sociology, University of Algiers, and former Minister of Womens Affairs (Algeria) Ralf Fcks Executive Board, Heinrich Bll Foundation (Germany) Nicolas Galey Special Adviser to the Foreign Minister (France) Karl von Habsburg President, Pan-European Movement of Austria and former member of the European Parliament (Austria) Mohamed Jawhar Hassan Director-General, Institute of Strategic and International Studies (Malaysia) Stephen Heintz President, Rockefeller Brothers Fund (United States)

Karen Brooks Hopkins President, Brooklyn Academy of Music (United States) Wilhelm Hynck former Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (Germany) Rastam Mohd Isa Secretary General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Malaysia) Kamar Oniah Kamaruzaman Associate Professor, International Islamic University (Malaysia) Shahran Kasim President, Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement (ABIM) (Malaysia) Mohammad Khatami former President of Iran Jean-Pierre Langellier Le Monde Correspondent in the United Kingdom and Ireland (France) Ronald Lehman Director, Center for Global Security Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (United States)

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Joshua Muravchik Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute (United States) Chandra Muzaffar President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) (Malaysia) Vitaly Naumkin President, International Centre for Strategic and Political Studies (Russia) Farhan Nizami Prince of Wales Fellow in the Study of the Islamic World and Director of the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies (United Kingdom) Ramon Prez-Maura Vice Editor, Diario ABC (Spain) Jane Perlez Southeast Asia Correspondent,

Sir Iqbal Sacranie Secretary-General, Muslim Council of Britain (United Kingdom) Kurt Seinitz Foreign Editor, Die Kronenzeitung (Austria) Kole Shettima Director of the Africa Office, MacArthur Foundation (Nigeria) Mark Smolinski Director, Global Health and Security Initiative and Vice President for Biological Programs, Nuclear Threat Initiative (United States) Hussein Solomon Professor and Director, Centre for International Political Studies, University of Pretoria (South Africa) Rainer Wessel President and CEO, Ganymed Pharmaceuticals (Germany)

The New York Times

Iqbal Riza Special Adviser and representative of the secretary-general of the United Nations

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APPENDIX III: MUSTAPHA TLILIS OPENING STATEMENT

Your Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen: On behalf of New York Universitys Dialogues: Islamic World-U.S.-The West, I wish to welcome you and thank you for joining us at this important moment. I extend my deepest gratitude to the government of Malaysia, our host. There could be no better venue for this gathering than Malaysiaa flourishing, multicultural democracy where differences are respected and tolerance prevails. My most sincere thanks go as well to the other funding institutions, first among them the government of the United Kingdom, whose financial support makes this conference possible. I also thank the government of France. Two forward-thinking American foundationsthe MacArthur Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fundhave also supported Dialogues since the programs inception. They deserve our profound gratitude. In particular, I would like to recognize Stephen Heintz, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, who is here with us, for his unflagging encouragement and guidance and his conviction in our mission. Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, we could not meet at a more critical time in
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the long history of the Muslim-Western encounter. In 14 centuries of interaction between the Islamic world and the Western world, this relationship has clearly seen some ups and downs. There is no doubt in my mind that the present moment is fraught with danger and may be one of those down moments, if we are not wise enough to check the forces of irresponsibility, insensitivity, and intolerance. Tragic events in history have almost always resulted from misunderstandings, leaving future historians to bitterly question, what might have happened if? In this case, we still have the time to summon the voices of reason and dialogue, to halt this race toward further violenceboth the violence of insensitivity and the violence of mobs burning down embassies. When we began to plan this conference more than two-and-a-half years ago, we already understood that deep feelings of humiliation, resentment, and anger arise from asymmetry of power, economic dependence, social dislocation, political repression, and other sad realities. We knew that these feelingshowever real or imaginary their causescould ignite in unpredictable explosions. Misperceptions and misunderstandings, such as the cartoons affair of the last several weeks, perfectly illustrate the

combustible combination of alienation with arrogance and ignorance. I think it is realistic to say that what has happened since the beginning of this affair will happen over and over as long as mutual understanding and respect are not the operating paradigm of the Muslim-Western relationship. The misunderstanding is indeed mutual. Freedom of expression is a hard-won and fundamental value in the West. Like the separation of state and religion, this Western value is not necessarily shared or understood by the Muslim world. There was very little the Danish or the Norwegian government could have done to stop the publication of the inflammatory material, except, maybe, to put the matter before the courts. No other Western government would have handled the matter differentlyfreedom of expression is the law of land. Yet many Muslims wonder, for the sake of peace and harmony between the Muslim world and the West, whether there might be a way of balancing legal freedoms with civic responsibility, as is practiced when it comes to material denying the Holocaust. To be sure, there were not one but many Western reactions to events surrounding the publication of the cartoons. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe naturally approached the situation

from their own particular perspectives and experiences regarding the role of religion in pubic life. On the Muslim side, protesters who burned Western embassies must not be misinterpreted as speaking for the nearly 1.3 billion Muslims who, although they may have been personally offended by the drawings, went about their daily lives, many of them appalled by the violence exercised in the name of their religion. As U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated recently, There is a huge transition going on in the Middle East, as a whole and in its parts [Steven R. Weisman, Rice Acknowledges Surprise Over Hamas, New York Times, January 30, 2006]. I wholeheartedly agree. I submit that her assessment is valid for the Muslim world as a whole. At a moment when its traditional moorings are being uprooted by modernity, isnt the time ripe for all Muslimsand in particular Muslim thinkersto embark on a new ijtihad, on a process of critical selfreflection, to examine the meaning of their Islamic identity and values, to reflect on the question, who speaks for Islam? and how to reconcile Islam and modernity? The twin questions, Who speaks for Islam? Who speaks for the West? are the
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theme of this conference. We have gathered you herepolitical, religious, civil society, and business leaders, scholars, editors, and journalistsnot only to ponder these questions, but to seize the opportunity to suggest practical ways and means to chart new channels of communication; to deepen mutual understanding; to help youth, women, and other vectors of social change reach a better understanding of each sides values, history, problems, and hopes. As Dialogues motto proclaims, the need has never been as urgent as it is today to knock down the walls of misunderstanding and build bridges of knowledge and reason. Educational programs, media campaigns, concerted integration of Muslim communities in the West, more debates like ours todayall these paths should lead, we hope, to the triumph of reason and tolerance, assuming that fundamental policy differences and related grievances are simultaneously taken into consideration. There is nothing inevitable about the clash of civilizations. Human affairs, as Machiavelli writes in the concluding pages of The Prince, are partly under our control and only partly governed by the violent forces of history. It depends on the princein this case, all of us, leaders and constituents, who affect the course of
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the state and the destiny of mankind. It rests in our hands to uphold reason and resist the trend toward a violent clash. I would like here to recognize Mr. Iqbal Riza, special adviser to the secretary-general of the United Nations on the Alliance of Civilizations, the initiative launched last summer by Secretary-General Kofi Annan. We hope that this initiative will lead to concrete collective policies that willto paraphrase the prime ministers of Spain and Turkey in their recent op-ed in the International Herald Tribunecultivate peaceful coexistence by taking an interest in the other sides point of view and respecting that which it holds most sacred [Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Jos Luis Rodrguez Zapatero, A Call for Respect and Calm, International Herald Tribune, February 5, 2006]. The agenda that you have before you reflects the concerns that I have just broached. Discussions of the globalization of the media and business and constant innovations in science and technology will occupy much of our time over the next two days; many in the Muslim world feel left behind by the transformative effects of these forces. The final session will be devoted to offering rational and tolerant policy proposals to overcome this resulting alienation.

As put forth in the two background papers developed by Dialogues for this conference, the cacophony of voices speaking for the West is matched by the cacophony of voices in the Muslim world. On both sides there is a crisis of identity. The simultaneous trends toward secularism in Europe and greater religious faith in America are just one example of the growing differences within the West. As for the Islamic world, its members range from violent extremists to tolerant, peace-loving citizens and organizations. We hope the two background papers will provide further historical and contemporary context for our debate. In conclusion, I would like to read a passage from the background paper on Who Speaks for Islam? which Ill ask you to keep in mind throughout the course of our discussions: The relationship between Islam and the West has a long and perhaps cyclical history. The crisis within the Muslim world today might be said to mirror the situation of the West during the Middle Ages, when the Muslim empire was the center of knowledge and civilization. To end its stagnation, the West entered a period of self-reflection and embarked upon the Renaissance, in part by appropriating Islams scientific and cultural advances. The renowned 13th-century Italian theologian and philosopher

Thomas Aquinas, for example, sought inspiration in the works of Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd, the most revered philosopher of the time at the Sorbonne. Perhaps the Muslim world today, by examining its situation through the lens of modernity, will embark upon a contemporary Islamic Renaissance. We can only guess at how this might change the relationship between Islam and the West. What is certain at this point is that greater communication, improved understanding, and identification of the multipleand sometimes conflictingsources of authority within each civilization can only hasten our entry into a new phase of the history of the Islamic-Western encounter.

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APPENDIX IV: PRIME MINISTER ABDULLAH AHMAD BADAWIS KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen: Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi waberakatuh and good morning. It is a real delight for me to see so many renowned scholars and thinkers assembled in Kuala Lumpur to discuss such a pertinent issue as who speaks for Islam and who speaks for the West. It is auspicious that this dialogue begins on a Friday, which is observed by Muslims everywhere, every week, as a special day. To those of you who have come from afar, I bid you a very warm welcome. I do hope that your stay in Malaysia will be both pleasant and rewarding. The two questions, Who speaks for Islam? Who speaks for the West? are among the most fundamental issues in the interface between two great civilizations the Islamic world and the Christian West. Their answers are not only important in determining the relationship between Islam and the West but are also vital in shaping the future of humankind because Christians and Muslims make up at least half of the worlds people. There are 2,039 million Christians accounting for 32 percent of the worlds population, and there are 1,226 million Muslims making up 19 percent of the total.
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When we ask you to search for the answers to the two questions, it is our intention neither to point fingers at any religion nor to apportion blame on anyone regarding the state of affairs that now exists between the Islamic world and the West. What we seek is the truth, which can serve the best interests of all humankind, and help bring peace to this troubled world of ours. Let us pray to God the Almighty, so that He gives us wisdom, courage, and determination to discover the answers. I do not suggest for a moment that Islam or the West is a monolithic entity. There is tremendous heterogeneity in both civilizations. Both manifest diverse and sometimes contradictory trends and tendencies. Having made that clarification, allow me to continue to speak of Islam and the West in the way they are normally understood. Let me say at the outset that while there are a multitude of voices that speak on behalf of Islam on the one hand and the West on the other, there are certain voices that I feel do not do justice to either Islam or the West. I hold the strong view that, in the case of Islam, those who deliberately kill noncombatants and the innocent, those who

oppress and exploit others, those who are corrupt and greedy, and those who are chauvinistic and communal do not speak on behalf of Islam. In the case of the West, I do not regard as defenders of Western civilization those who invade and occupy someone elses land; those who systematically cause innocent children, women, and men to be killed; those who oppress other people and exploit their resources for their own selfish ends; or those who are racist in outlook and bigoted in their religious beliefs. Anyone who seeks to dominate and control, who attempts to establish global hegemony, cannot claim to be spreading freedom and equality at the same time. Who then speaks for Islam? Who then speaks for the West? The noble Quran speaks for Islam. At its core is an eternal message of justice and compassion, of equality and humanity, of peace and solidarity. There is also the Prophets exemplary life and mission, which reflect the quintessence of Islam. Through their struggles and sacrifices, the illustrious caliphs from Abu Bakr to Salahuddin AlAyubi (Saladin) also succeeded in bringing to the fore the authentic face of the religion.

In a sense, the great accomplishments of Muslim civilizationin science and medicine as in agriculture and architecture served to enhance the image of Islam. The scholars who were responsible for these accomplishments such as AlKhwarizmi and Ibn Sina should be counted among the true voices of the religion. It follows from this that in the contemporary world, those who uphold justice, who fight tyranny, who seek liberation from oppression, who are honest and upright, who are universal and inclusive in word and deed, are the ones who represent the real message of Islam. One should also add that those who protect the rights of the human being, those who treasure the dignity of women and the welfare of children, those who preserve the integrity of the family, those who help the poor and feed the hungry, those who live in harmony with the environment, are also speaking on behalf of Islam. In a nutshell, all Muslims anywhere who sincerely endeavor to live according to the universal values and principles of the Quran are the true spokespersons of Islam. What this means is that the overwhelming majority of Muslims, who by
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and large lead decent lives, are already speaking for the religion. To express the principles of life that are important to ordinary Muslims as demonstrated in Islamic civilization, I have personally sought to promote an approach that I call Islam Hadhari, which we have defined as a comprehensive approach to the development of mankind, society, and country based on the perspective of Islamic civilization. The 10 principles of Islam Hadhari embody universal values that have endowed the religion with strength and character through the ages. The 10 principles are, namely (1) Faith and piety in Allah (2) A just and trustworthy government (3) A free and independent people (4) A vigorous pursuit and mastery of knowledge (5) Balanced and comprehensive economic development (6) A good quality of life for the people (7) Protection of the rights of minority groups and women (8) Cultural and moral integrity (9) The safeguarding of natural resources and the environment (10) Strong defense capabilities I consider this fresh approach as a necessary part of the reform and renewal that
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is needed in Islamic countries and in Muslim society as a whole. Malaysia feels that it is well-placed to begin this journey of reform and renewal because it is a multiracial and multireligious country in which we treat our diversity as an asset to be nurtured. In fact, we are merely building on the tolerance we have observed and the interfaith coexistence that we have practiced in the country for decades. We wish to show by example that a Muslim country can be modern, economically competitive, democratic, and fair to all its citizens irrespective of their religion. Islam Hadhari is not a new religion or madhab [school of Islamic jurisprudence]. It is not a new ideology. It is not meant to pacify the West. It is neither intended to apologize for the perceived Islamic threat nor to seek approval for a more friendly and gentle image of Islam. It is the way for practicing the religion in these modern times but firmly rooted in the noble values and injunctions of Islam. The principles of Islam Hadhari are what Muslims should emphasize in the contemporary world, the pursuit of knowledge being one of the most fundamental. In other words, there are certain civilizational principles in the religion whose realization will bring greatness and glory to the Muslim community, the ummah, today, just as they propelled the Islamic

civilization to such splendor and magnificence in the past. Western civilization, too, has its share of greatness and majestic accomplishments. We must acknowledge that in the West, principles such as freedom and equality have found concrete expression in the rule of law, public accountability, acceptance of political dissent, and respect for popular participation. We must also acknowledge that many great statesmen and reformers of the past made sterling efforts to redistribute wealth, to equalize opportunities, and to achieve equity and social justice. They may be regarded as the true spokespersons of the West. Admittedly, the West is also the civilization that has given birth to a whole host of scientists and researchers, from Newton to Einstein on the one hand, and from Marie Curie to Alexander Fleming, on the other, who have contributed immensely to the well-being of humankind. However, for a lot of Muslims today, this is not the face of the West that they see. It is the hegemony of the centers of power in the West that is most visible to them. They see the subjugation of Palestine as an indirect concretization of this hegemony. They see hegemony manifested directly in the attack on Afghanistan and in the occupation of Iraq. These are some of the realities that confront the Muslim masses today.

Of course, there are other manifestations of hegemonic power that have also made a deep impression on the Muslim mind. These include foreign military bases in Muslim countries; the dominant presence of huge Western corporations; the pervasive impact of currency markets; the ever-expanding security tentacles of the superpower; plus certain negative traits and influence of Western culture and ideas. At the popular level, the West is perceived as biased against Islam and Muslims. Muslims feel, rightly or wrongly, that they have become victims of double standards and selective persecution. More specifically, Muslims see those responsible for the devastation of Jenin and Fallujah, and the humiliations of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, as the ugly face that speaks for the West. Similarly, many in the West see Islam as synonymous with violence. The Muslim is viewed as a congenital terrorist. They [Westerners] think Osama bin Laden speaks for the religion and its followers. Islam and Muslims are linked to all that is negative and backward. For example, Muslim men, it is alleged, oppress their wives. Women, it is said, have no rights in Islam. Some so-called Western experts on Islam argue that Muslims invariably discriminate against non-Muslims. They
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say Muslims are intolerant. They say Islam is incompatible with democracy and modernity. The demonization of Islam and the vilification of Muslims, there is no denying, is widespread and within mainstream Western society. It is the duty of all people of goodwill to work hard to change these negative perceptions on both sides of the divide. Undoubtedly, the task is not going to be easy, for these perceptions have deep roots. Since the advent of Islam at the beginning of the seventh century, Christian, and to a lesser degree, Jewish antipathy toward the religion and its Prophet, Muhammad, has grown into active antagonism. The Crusades, Western colonialism, the imposition of Israel on the Arab world, postcolonial hegemony, and the Western desire to control oil and gas, especially those supplies coming from the Muslim countries, have all contributed in one way or another to the huge chasm that has emerged between the West and Islam. The targeting of so-called Islamic terrorists in the global fight against terrorism aggravated the situation, and the senseless violence of the terrorists themselves has made things worse. Quite clearly, we will not be able to change the situation by mere talk, dialogue, and being nice to one another. We must be brave enough, and we must
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be honest enough, to admit that as long as there is hegemony, as long as one side attempts to control and dominate the other, the animosity and antagonism between the two civilizations will continue. This is why hegemony must end. Mutual respect for one another should replace hegemony. Reciprocity should become the ethical principle that conditions relations between the West and Islam. The West should treat Islam the way it wants Islam to treat the West and vice versa. They should accept one another as equals. Respect, reciprocity, and equality: these are the essential prerequisites for a happy and harmonious relationship between the two civilizations. It is significant that in both civilizations there exist men and women today who are working toward a genuine transformation in relations, which will bring to an end the animosity and antagonism of the past and the present. There are many in the West, for instance, who realize that the exercise of hegemonic power and the demonization of Islam are not conducive for intercivilizational peace. It is these voices that the world should listen to. Likewise, there are numerous groups and individuals in the Muslim world who are deeply distressed by the violence and terror perpetrated by certain fringe groups

within the ummah, just as they are equally uncomfortable with the sweeping denunciations of Christians, Jews, and the West. They, too, oppose hegemony and occupation, but their words are authentic voices of Islam. Certain voices, both in the West and in the Muslim world, are not given the prominence they deserve. The mainstream media should give much more attention to them. It is only too apparent that these two groupsone in the West and the other in the Muslim worldshare a common perspective on some of the critical challenges facing both civilizations and the world at large. Both are opposed to hegemony. Both reject violence and terror. Both yearn for a just and peaceful world. Both are united by a common bond. It is this common bond that makes them bridge builders. It is such fine men and women who are capable of reaching out to one another, who are willing to transcend the civilizational divide, which we need badly at this juncture in history. It is a pity that there are not enough of them. One of our most urgent tasks is to multiply the bridge builders. We must develop through the family, education, and the media tens of thousands of men and women who can be critical of the weaknesses and wrongdoings of ones

civilization and, at the same time, be empathetic toward the other civilization. When the bridge builders reach a critical mass, their collective power would become so overwhelming that it would destroy the walls erected by those who are hell-bent on keeping Islam and the West apart. At that point, when the bridge builders reign supreme, the people of the West will speak for Islam and the Muslims will speak for the West. Ladies and Gentlemen, let us start now by curbing the extremists in our midst. We must put a stop to the mockery of any religion or the sacrilege of any symbol held sacred by the faithful. Let us not underestimate the power of religion as an imperative for people to act. In the face of fanaticism and hysteria, we must take action to counsel moderation and rationality. On that note, let me conclude by congratulating the Malaysian Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations and

Dialogues: Islamic World-U.S.-The West

for organizing this very important conference and for bringing together in Malaysia a prominent group of people who are serious about the subject of dialogue between civilizations. For those who have come from abroad, I invite you
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to take this opportunity to look around you and witness for yourself the Malaysia that you might have heard of. I hope you will be able to bear witness to our efforts at nation building in which interfaith and interethnic harmony lies at the core of our national development program. Thank you.

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APPENDIX V: BACKGROUND PAPER WHO SPEAKS FOR ISLAM?

Introduction Since the events of September 11, 2001, many in the West have come to view the Islamic world with a mixture of fear and hostility. Violent attacks against civilian populations, supposedly sanctioned by Islamic religious doctrine, seem to validate Samuel Huntingtons theory of a clash of civilizations.1 In the West, Islamic principles, theology, and above all, political activity in the name of Islam, have become suspect, while traditional schools of learning and the Islamic seminaries, or madaris , have come under special scrutiny. There is widespread debate in the West over the training of Islamic clerics and religious leaders, the authority they hold in their societies, and whether they use this authority to promote violence against Western targets. More and more Westerners, influenced by what they see, hear, and read in the media, have come to believe that it is the most extremist among the Islamists who represent, and speak for, Islam. Lacking an understanding of the intricacies of Muslim societies and the debates and cleavages within them, many Westerners confuse the terms Islamist and fundamentalist with the term ulama, the traditional scholars and jurists of Islam.
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The confusion about who speaks for Islam is also related to the fact that there is no single locus of religious authority within Islam. There are currently multiple groups in a variety of states that simultaneously claim to speak on Islams behalf. A major purpose of this paper is to identify these groups, including the ulamathe scholars of religion who were traditionally considered to be the authentic interpreters of Islamic faith and law. The ulama are themselves divided both by the schools of jurisprudence to which they belong and by their political orientations. Beyond the ulama, those who claim to speak for Islam include leaders of various Muslim states, many of which are products of the twin processes of colonization and decolonization. Several of these leaders claim to speak on behalf of the Muslim world but often use Islamic discourse to advance the agenda of their state or regime. Other claims to speak for Islam have been made by a number of Islamist groups that emerged in the second half of the 20th century. Although these groups represent a relatively recent phenomenon, their ideas are rooted in salafi thought that goes back to the latter half of the 19th century.2 Another cluster that claims to speak for Islam is made up of extremist groups that have deviated

significantly from the strategies pursued by most Islamist political formations. These extremists include transnational networks that undertake violent terrorist activities in the name of Islam, whereas mainstream Islamists are primarily engaged in advocating social transformation and/or regime change through peaceful means within individual Muslim countries. Finally, more recently, scholars and proponents of what may be called the New Ijtihad have begun, however hesitatingly, to assert themselves if not as spokespersons for Islam then as significant voices advocating change in the Muslim world. This paper will analyze each of these claimants in turn. The Ulama The question of who speaks for Islam dates to its classical age, from the death of the Prophet in AD 632 to the end of the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258. Traditionally, the ulama and the fuquha, the scholars of jurisprudence, were guardians of the Islamic faith and the leading authorities in religious matters. Their legitimacy rested largely on their partial independence from the state and their dual role of representing the interests of the state to the laity and the interests of the laity to the state.3 But, even in the classical age, there was no

single source of religious authority for the entire Muslim world or even for the territories under the control of the caliphs of Islam. This was in stark contrast to the situation in Western Christendom where religious authority was concentrated in the Papacy until the time of the Reformation in the 16th century. The decentralization of religious authority in Islam emerged from the absence of a hierarchically organized clergy capable of acting as the fount of religious authority and scriptural interpretation. Consequently, religious authority in Islam has never been able to project itself as a rival to temporal authority in the way the Papacy has in Western civilization. There was little attempt during the early centuries of Islam to impose a single body of interpretation, especially in matters of Islamic law. This is also suggested by the fact that there were hardly any wars of religion within the Muslim community, as opposed to the many conflicts within Western Christendom. Tolerance of both diversity within Islam and of other faiths was the rule rather than the exception in the classical period of Islam. Five madhahib , or schools of Islamic jurisprudence (four Sunni, one Shia), were established within the first three centuries of the Islamic era.4 They were
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named after the outstanding jurists who were the founders of these schools the Hanafi, the Shafii, the Maliki, the Hanbali, and the Jaafri. Traditionally, the followers of the four Sunni schools considered all the Sunni schools and their interpretations equally legitimate and valid for their respective followers. There was some tensioninspired more by politics than by religion between them and the followers of the Jaafri school, to which the overwhelming majority of Shias belonged. It was not until 1959 that the head of Al-Azhar, Sunni Islams oldest and most renowned theological institution, issued a fatwa accepting the Jaafri madhab as the fifth school of Islamic jurisprudence on par with the four established Sunni schools. This tradition of decentralization of religious authority and lack of significant tension among the various schools of jurisprudence helped the ulama retain a considerable degree of autonomy from the state, which they were thus less likely to confront or threaten. Simultaneously, the lack of centralized authority or hierarchy among the scholars of religion made it very difficult for temporal authorities to exercise control over them. Consequently, in practice, religious and temporal spheres came to be quite separate, with the leader in each realm following a policy of live and let
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live. Furthermore, the ulama normally exhorted their followers to accept established authority lest dissension lead to anarchy and the fragmentation of the ummah, the community of believers. As noted Near Eastern scholar L. Carl Brown writes, Rather than a divine right of rule, Islam came to recognize a divinely sanctioned need for rule.5 This did not mean that the state in classical Islam desisted from using religion to buttress its political legitimacy; still, the state was never very successful in intruding into the religious sphere. For their part, the ulama accepted the temporal rulers right to rule as long as the latter protected the lands of Islam, did not interfere with their Muslim subjects practice of the faith, and promoted, at least by word if not always by deed, Islamic law (sharia). It was only in the 17th century, when the Ottoman Empire was at its zenith, that a concerted attempt was made by the state to incorporate the senior religious functionaries into the imperial bureaucracy. The balance between the religious and political spheres shifted radically in modern times as Muslim states became powerful vis--vis the ulama in ways that were inconceivable two centuries ago. In most Muslim countries, the state now controls the private religious

endowments, or awqaf, that formerly provided for the ulama. This is particularly the case in the Sunni Muslim countries, including Egypt, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and others. Such financial control by the state has greatly eroded the autonomy of those learned in religion. It has turned many ulama, from the most learned, the muftis those with the right to pronounce religious edicts (fatwa)to common prayer leaders in mosques, into state functionaries. The expansion of the states control can also be attributed to the reluctance of sovereign nation-states to function with the minimal religious control characteristic of the classical Muslim empires. As the people came to be seen as the source of political legitimacy in modern times, the state sought to control the people, including their religious leaders, in order to prevent challenges emerging from civil society. The establishment ulama , those employed and supported financially by the state, face severe disincentives from expressing dissent, let alone actively opposing the regimes that pay their salaries. In the current era of mass political awareness, even in the least democratic countries, this relationship between the official clergy and unrepresentative regimes has severely diminished the popular authority of the stateappointed ulama and has proved

conducive to the emergence of alternative groups seeking to speak on behalf of Islam. Even Al-Azhar, Sunni Islams most esteemed institution of theological learning, has seen its authority questioned in recent years owing to its close ties to the Egyptian government. The worlds oldest university, Al-Azhar (The Brilliant) was founded in Cairo by the Shia Fatimid dynasty in 972 for the purpose of propagating the Fatimids brand of Ismaili Shiism. Over time, however, Al-Azhar came to be identified primarily with Sunni Islam, due to the subsequent influence of Sunni practice in Egypt. Since its founding, Al-Azhar has been renowned as a center of academic debate, discussion, and learning. Although the universitys ulama have generally followed a religious mandate, Al-Azhar has at times been at the forefront of political struggle, such as during the anticolonialist movements against Napoleons French armies at the turn of the 19th century as well as against the British in 1919. Despite occasional forays into the political sphere, Al-Azhar was able to maintain a large degree of independence from the state, as it drew its financial resources from awqaf . This changed, however, when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized Al-Azhar in
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1961. The state assumed the authority to appoint Al Azhars Grand Sheikh and created civil servants out of its ulama . Since Nasser, Egyptian presidents including Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak have increasingly relied on AlAzhar to garner public approval for policy decisions, most notably for the Camp David Accords in 1987 and the Persian Gulf War in 1990. By the same token, Al-Azhar has been able to substantially expand its role in public life. In recent years, Al-Azhar officials have become involved in regulating many spheres of Egyptian life, from the content of books, television, and other media, to policy issues such as whether or not sexual education should be taught in schools. Al-Azhars moral authority, however, has been questioned by an increasingly skeptical populace that views the stateemployed ulama as tools in the governments battle against Islamists and extremists.6 Contradictory fatwas have further diminished Al-Azhars credibility. In August 2003, for example, Azhari Sheikh Nabawi El-Esh banned recognition of the Iraqi Governing Council; several days later, following a well-publicized meeting with the American Ambassador in Cairo, Grand Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi then reversed
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this judgment. In his rejection of ElEshs fatwa, Tantawi declared that no Egyptian cleric has the right to pass verdicts on the affairs of another country. 7 Not only did Tantawis reversal incite outrage among those who viewed his decision as a direct result of American intervention, but he also brought into question Al-Azhars jurisdiction by proclaiming that Azheri ulama had no right to rule on Iraqi affairs. In light of Tantawis assertion, it is ironic that Al-Azhar may enjoy its greatest influence beyond Egypts borders. AlAzhar remains a preeminent voice in the Muslim world, particularly through its education of students and future clerics from more than 50 countries. As Barbara Rosewicz wrote in the Wall Street Journal, Poor Islamic countries beg for its missionaries and rich Arab ones hire its sheikhs to run their own Islamic universities. Al-Azhar graduates fill the clergy, courts, and government ministries all over the Middle Eastwith the exception of Shiite Iran.8 While state-sponsored ulama like those of Al-Azhar may increasingly be seen as puppets, especially by frustrated and politically aware youth, a growing distinction is apparent between establishment and nonestablishment ulama. Nonestablishment ulama, i.e., those not affiliated

with the state, such as the Al-Azhar-educated Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, have recently achieved unprecedented levels of popularity. Al-Qaradawi has become a household name across the Arab world through his weekly appearance on the religious show Al Sharia wa Al Hayat (Islamic Law and Life), broadcast on the Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera, as well as through his Web site (qaradawi.net). Although the decline of the establishment ulamas authority intensified after the end of colonialism, the process actually began in the middle of the 19th century when the print revolution sparked a dramatic increase in literacy rates in many Muslim countries. As the scholar of Islamic studies Carl Ernst has argued, a situation had been created in the Muslim world by the middle of the 20th century that was analogous to the Reformation period in Christian Europe. Lay literate Muslims, not trained in the religious sciences (and, therefore, largely unfamiliar with the accumulated traditions of Islamic theology and jurisprudence and the tools required to interpret them), now had direct access to the sacred texts of Islam and the principal sources of Islamic law, the Quran and the Hadith, the sayings of the Prophet. Access to these texts both in the original Arabic and in translation had a revolutionary impact across the Muslim world.

Thus began a process of scripturalism, or literal interpretation of the sacred texts, among certain groups of literate Muslims, paving the way for (what has been called in the context of the Reformation in Western Christianity) the priesthood of the individual. Literal interpretation of sacred texts without adequate reference to context created a situation where fundamentalism could thrive among some Muslim thinkers and activists.9 Multiple Sovereignties and Nation-States The crisis of religious authority in the Muslim world was intensified by the colonization of Muslim countries by European powers, which began in the 17th century but was accelerated in the 18th and 19th centuries. This process culminated in the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire following its defeat in World War I and the establishment of British and French control over its Arab regions under the Mandate system.10 The Muslim world had fragmented into several autonomous polities in the very first centuries of Islamthe breakaway Umayyad Caliphate of Spain in the eighth century providing the earliest major example. However, the fiction of the unity of the ummah, at least among the demographically predominant Sunnis,
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had been maintained until the advent of European colonialism through the institution of the caliph as titular head of the Muslim world. The caliphs power was, for long periods, marginal, such as during the latter part of Abbasid reign from the middle of the 10th to the middle of the 13th century (when the caliph reigned by permission of Turkic dynasties that controlled Baghdad). The Ottoman emperor took the title of caliph in 1517 when his armies captured Egypt, where Mamluk rulers had kept the institution nominally alive by installing scions of the Abbasid dynasty after the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258. The Ottoman appropriation of the title demonstrated decisively that the caliphate had become tied to force and conquest and therefore had little religious sanction or significance. In reality, the religious significance of the caliphate had always been in some doubt. The institution evolved from the Prophets tradition of nominating a prayer leader when he himself was unablefor health or other reasons to lead prayers. Muhammad elected not to nominate a political successor, preferring that the community of believers choose its own leader after his death. This process was problematic from the beginning, as the selection of the very
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first caliph was challenged by those who wanted succession to be restricted to the House of the Prophet. Three of the first four caliphs were, in fact, assassinated, demonstrating the extent to which the legitimacy of the institution was contested. The religious sanction for the caliphate was further weakened when Muawiya transformed it into a hereditary monarchy, establishing Umayyad dynastic rule. Despite its shortcomings, the existence of the caliphate offered most Muslims a feeling of continuity and at least a formal locus of political authority, however geographically distant. Consequently, a great sense of loss was felt when the caliphate was abolished after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, when the Republic of Turkey was established. The concept of the ummah was deprived of political significance, although it continued to have emotional appeal for many Muslims. Some Islamists, for example, the Hizb-ut-Tahrir and Al Qaeda, express nostalgia for the institution of the caliphate and are committed to its revival. The restoration of the caliphate, however, is not widely supported. Most Muslims, including most Islamists, are at ease working within the parameters of the nation-state, despite the fact that the importation of the European concepts of

the sovereign state and nationalism compounded the problem of decentralized and multiple authority structures in Islam. As established by the Westphalian European system, sovereignty resides in the nation, embodied politically and territorially in the state.11 The importation of the nation-state model also bolstered the already existing anticolonial movements in Muslimmajority countries. Such movements often combined elements of territorial and ethnic nationalism with such ingredients as resistance to foreign domination, all the while drawing on Islamic heritage. Thus the concept of jihad reentered Muslim popular imagination in the 19th century as a religious doctrine enjoining resistance to foreign rule.12 During the colonial period, such resistance in the name of Islam was territorially limited to liberating particular colonial possessions. For example, in the latter part of the 19th century, the Mahdis jihad focused specifically on the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, just as the jihad of the Indian Wahabis was directed only against the British in India. The nationalist political project, even where it employed Islamic vocabulary, called above all for the construction of a modern, quasi-secular, independent state on the basis of the European model.

This agenda promised an end to the humiliation of European colonialism, the implementation of a state-driven economic development program, and the assertion of a modern national identity based on watan, or homeland. The Muslim worlds emergence from colonial rule brought both general education and religious teaching largely under the control of the postcolonial, nationalist state. The increase in state power at the expense of the authority and autonomy of the ulama had major implications for the interpretation and enforcement of Islamic law. As the Islamic legal scholar Khaled Abou El Fadl has pointed out, The disintegration of the role of the ulama and their cooptation by the modern praetorian state, with its hybrid practices of secularism, have opened the door for the state to become the maker and enforcer of the divine law; in so doing the state has acquired formidable power that has further ingrained the practice of authoritarianism in various Islamic states.13 Accordingly, many who desire to make societies more Islamic believe that this can be achieved only by using the state as an agent for Islamization through legal decree and coercive enforcement.

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The primacy of the territorial state has also been both acknowledged and legitimized in the Muslim world by the creation of numerous interstate organizations that deem themselves Islamic or Muslim. The leading example is the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), whose members are sovereign, territorial states with majority Muslim populations. These interstate organizations explicitly acknowledge the doctrine of noninterference in the internal matters of their members. They operate largely on the basis of realpolitik with their members pursuing individual political, military, and economic goals, while sometimes using Islamic vocabulary to justify their policies.14 Self-Proclaimed Islamic States Some states in the Islamic world are theocracies and identify themselves as such based on their adherence in matters of governance to Islamic scripture and theology. Saudi Arabia and Iran in particular proclaim themselves Islamic and have intentionally used their Islamic credentials to further both their domestic legitimacy and their foreign policy goals. Both, on occasion, have also used their Islamic credentials to claim the authority to speak for Islam.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, the legitimacy of the hereditary monarchy that gives its name to the country rests on the alliance between the House of Saud and the Wahabi religious establishment. The Saudi state has used its Islamic identity to promote its interests abroad both by setting up international governmental and nongovernmental Muslim organizations and funding religious groups, educational institutions, and the construction of mosques in foreign countries. This dimension of its foreign policy became especially salient in the 1980s and 1990s following the Iranian Revolution in 1979 that challenged the Saudi hereditary order by terming it un-Islamic. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the same year, however, provided the Saudis the opportunity to buttress their Islamic legitimacy by supporting the (Americanbacked) mujahedin engaged in fighting Soviet occupation. In the meantime, the Saudi regime came face-to-face with a new, serious challenge at home: the emergence of a radical Wahabi movement, influenced by the extremist thought of the Egyptian Islamist Sayid Qutb. The Wahabi radicals broke ranks with the religious establishment allied to the House of Saud, denounced the regime as un-Islamic, and staged the 1979 takeover of the Kaaba, the holiest Muslim shrine. Osama Bin Laden and

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his followers are ideological descendants of the neo-Wahabis and their leader, Juhaiman al-Utaibi.15 The neo-Wahabis turned violently against the Saudi regime for a number of reasons, including their perception that the regime had deviated from the austere Islamic principles of the Wahabi theologians. The Saudi monarchys dependence on the United States for its security and economic well-being sparked further hostility among Islamists. Consequently, Saudi Arabia, the kingdom in the middle, as the political scientist Gregory Gause has called it, has seen rising tensions between two different Islamist tendencies.16 This situation hamstrings the Saudi regimes capacity to speak on behalf of Islam. A similar situation exists in Iran. The shahs repression of all forms of political opposition in the 1970s created the vacuum filled by Islamist forces, in this case a faction of the Shia ulama. Ayatollah Khomeinis rise as the primary vehicle for Islamists in Iran is explained in part by the fact that the Shia ulama maintained financial independence from the Iranian state, in contrast to Sunni clerics dependence on state patronage. Shia clerics independence was achieved to a large extent through the payment of khums, or one-fifth of a persons income,

by the religious laity to their marja, or preferred senior cleric. The robust Shia tradition of ijtihad 17 enabled the politically activist faction of the Iranian clergy inspired by Khomeini to adapt its strategy to the concerns of the 1960s and 1970s. The same Shia predilection for innovation provided Khomeini the opportunity to advocate his theory of Islamic government as guided by the Supreme Jurist, with the Shia ulama the ultimate repositories of both moral and political rectitude. Lay Islamist radicals were not, however, absent from the Iranian scene. The writings and speeches of activists such as Ali Shariati contributed significantly to the shahs downfall. Nevertheless, nonclerical forces could not compete with the ulama for control of postrevolution Iran. The ulama were better organized, had much greater financial resources, and were more united than their nonclerical counterparts.18 Despite the pan-Islamic rhetoric of the early years of the revolution, the postrevolution Iranian political elite, still led by Khomeini, came to view the defense of Iranian interests as their primary (Islamic) duty. The Iraqi invasion of Iran in September 1980 reinforced Irans position that the defense of Iran was an
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essential prerequisite for the defense of Islam. In January 1988, Khomeini went even further by declaring that the states actions based on expediency could take precedence even over the requirements of the sharia.19

Raison dtat continues to be the driving

force as far as Iranian foreign policy is concerned. This was demonstrated most recently by Tehrans neutral posture during the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the regimes covert collaboration with the United States during the war against the Taliban, as widely reported by the media.20 These policies reflected the Iranian regimes antipathy toward both Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi Baathists, as well as the Sunni fundamentalist Taliban. All in all, Irans focus on national interest, just like Saudi Arabias, compromises its capacity to speak either on behalf of Islam or the Muslim world at large. Another instance of national interest superseding pan-Islamic rhetoric is the Sulawesi Sea Crisis that nearly brought Southeast Asian neighbors Malaysia and Indonesia to blows in February of 2005. The Malaysian state oil company Petronas sparked an international row by awarding oil exploration rights in a disputed, resource-rich region of the Sulawesi Sea that is claimed by both
70

Indonesia and Malaysia. First Indonesia, then Malaysia, responded with a show of gunboat diplomacy, sending fighter jets and warships to the contested area. Although both countries leaders eventually resolved the dispute through diplomatic means, harsh words were exchanged, such as Indonesian House Speaker Agung Laksonos statement that the government should take stern action without hesitation, including military force if necessary.21 The dispute engendered strong nationalist feelings, particularly in Indonesia, where protesters across the country burned Malaysian flags and hackers vandalized Malaysian government Web sites with defiant slogans and symbols. Despite this confrontation, both nations insisted that their relationship remained strong, echoed by the statement of Indonesian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yuri Thamrin that we are both after all countries, which not only have good bilateral ties but are Muslim nations.22 The Islamists The dilemma over who speaks for Islam has been compounded by the emergence during the 20th century of several political movements within predominantly Muslim countries that call for the establishment of governance systems

based on what they consider the golden age of early Islam. Although their strategies and styles may differ, these movements are loosely united in their common belief that contemporary social, economic, and political problems facing Muslim societies cannot be resolved except by a return to the purity of the early Islamic polity. These groups and movements can be broadly termed Islamist in order to distinguish them from Islamic, for their primary focus is political rather than theological. The process of reappropriating and reinventing the distant pastand the accompanying rejection of intervening tradition, including the right to interpret religionis rooted in the colonial experience, in the sense that colonialism reopened the issue of how Muslim societies ought to be governed and by whom. In other words, colonialism provided a motivation first to rebel against nonMuslim rule, and later to reconsider the rules and mechanisms governing Muslim societies after the expulsion of European powers. Many Muslims, especially the Islamists, came to consider the ulama incapable of providing a political vision for the future. The ulama seemed preoccupied with the finer points of theological interpretation and with legal precedents that did not

apply to the contemporary situation. Furthermore, the ulama were accused (by reformers and revivalists alike) of detracting from the religions innate dynamism by closing the gates of ijtihad. Such criticism of the ulama is epitomized in the writings of Muhammad Iqbal, the colonial era Islamic reformer and Indian poet-philosopher, who argued that their false reverence for past history and its artificial resurrection constitute no remedy for a peoples decay.23 Significant segments of the Muslim intelligentsia came to believe that the ulama were as responsible for Muslim decline as the temporal rulers who succumbed to Western power. A new group of lay thinkers, drawn largely from modern professions such as science, medicine, journalism, and secular education, along with a few activist ulama, began to offer a new vision of the founding texts of the golden age of Islam. The Egyptian Hasan al-Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, contrasted the ulama of early Islam, who challenged their caliphs, rulers, and governors without fear, to the weakened ulama of his time, who he found busy ingratiating themselves with government authorities.24 On the Indian subcontinent, Abul Ala Mawdudi, who founded the Jamaat-i-Islami in 1941, also held negative views of contemporary
71

religious leaders. Of Mawdudis views on the ulama, political scientist Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr writes, His discourse on the Islamic state deliberately sidestepped the ulama, depicting them as an anachronistic institution that has no place in a reformed and rationalized Islamic order . . . Mawdudi derided the ulama for their moribund scholastic style, servile political attitudes, and ignorance of the modern world.25 Sayyid Qutb, the chief ideologue of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s, was even more critical of the ulama. He denounced the very idea of men of religion, who take from religion a profession as a corruption of the Quranic message.26 These three thinkers-cum-activists were among the most important Islamist figures of the 20th century. All of them attended universities as opposed to Islamic religious seminaries.27 Abul Ala Mawdudi began as a journalist, while Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb started their careers in secular education. The writings of Sayyid Qutb, executed by Nassers regime in 1966, provided much of the basic motivation for Islamist activism. After his death, Qutbs ideas were used to preach the violent overthrow of the Egyptian government, considered by Islamists to be a legitimate target for jihad because it had deviated from Islam.
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Qutbs ideas about jihad against nominally Muslim regimes provided a major departure from traditional Islamic political thought in which jihad was permitted only for defensive reasons and only against non-Muslim opponents.28 While these reformers shared an Islamic vocabulary common to their visions, each of them was influenced by the political trajectory of his nation. Because they operate in different settings and contexts, no two branches of Islamism are identical. Thus the Muslim Brotherhoods in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and the occupied Palestinian territories have adopted radically different political strategies in response to specific challenges that they face within their respective national boundaries. Indeed, the parent organization, the Egyptian Brotherhood, has itself mutated over time; its leadership in the early 1980s unequivocally rejected the more radical and militant ideas associated with Sayyid Qutb, the organizations ideological guru of the 1960s. As French scholar Olivier Roy has pointed out, [I]t is intellectually imprudent and historically misguided to discuss the relationships between Islam and politics as if there were one Islam, timeless and eternal.29 Yet there are characteristics shared by Islamic societies that relate to the

widespread appeal of Islamism in the postcolonial era. First, the secular, nationalist project has been generally unable to provide dignity, freedom, power, or wealth to most Muslim communities.30 Second, these regimes have often turned to authoritarian and repressive methods, stifling political and intellectual debate and eliminating almost all secular opposition, thus creating political space that has been filled by Islamists. However, unlike secular groups that can be prevented from speaking in public or through the media, Islamist political activity can never be fully suppressed since Muslim religious institutions are, to a significant extent, immune from governmental retribution. Publishing houses that print religious literature as well as mosques and affiliated organizations continue to transmit political messages disguised as religious ones.31 Third, Islamist groups have set up social service organizations in the fields of health, education, and welfare areas in which corrupt and inefficient governments in most Muslim countries have failed. Such social services cultivate important constituencies: the underprivileged and the youth. Thus Islamist charitable networks from Turkey to Egypt to Pakistan have come to provide Islamist groups with great staying power in the face of state repression.32 The muchreviled madaris, for example, often

provide the only source of education, food, and shelter to the children of the Pakistani poor.33 While these three factors unite Islamist movements in postcolonial Muslimmajority states, Islamism has also flourished in Muslim-minority nations for a different set of reasons. In regions where Muslim groups are discriminated against, or where their aspirations for political participation, autonomy, or independence are thwarted, secular leadership has frequently failed to achieve the groups objectives, and they have thus turned toward the more radical ideology of violent Islamism. Such ideological shifts have recently taken place among the adherents of ethnic secessionism, such as the Chechens and the Kashmiris, as well as among Palestinians. Such struggles, even when undertaken in the name of Islam, aim at creating new states or achieving national liberation. Although they draw on the religious sympathies of Muslims elsewhere, they could well be considered national rather than religious movements.34 Hamas in the occupied Palestinian territories and Hezbollah in Lebanon illustrate this phenomenon.35 Nevertheless, Islamism reinforces the belief among many in the West that Islam is a monolith, that the most extreme
73

voices are its authentic spokespersons, and that Islamist groups, even if they operate under different names, are part of a grand global project. The truth is that in most areasPakistan, Egypt, and Turkey among themthere are usually several Islamist movements competing for authority within the confines of the same state. Certain networks, such as Al Qaeda, do attempt to work beyond and across national boundaries. However, these are fringe groups, which, although they attract the worlds attention with acts of terror, are marginal to mainstream Islamist movements and to daily political struggles within most Muslim countries. The major Islamist political formations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt, the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) in Pakistan, the Nahdat al-Ulama (NU) in Indonesia, and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its precursors in Turkey, have all acted according to the rules of regimes unsympathetic to their causes.36 Several of these groups have even performed credibly in elections. Others have learned to lie low when suppressed and bounce back organizationally and politically when autocracies liberalize under domestic or international pressure. Some, such as the Pakistani JI, have even collaborated with military dictatorships to advance their agendas.
74

Turkeys Justice and Development Party, however, has become a so-called postIslamist party. As the Turkish academic Ihsan D. Dagi explains Realizing that the rise of political Islam was detrimental to Islams social and economic influence in Turkey, [the party] defined itself as conservative-democrat in an attempt to escape from the selfdefeating success of political Islam . . . Their demands are no longer grounded in Islam, Islamic civilization and values, and the uniqueness of Muslim society but on the universality of political modernity, i.e., human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.37 The Egyptian political formation known as Wasat, or Center, which is supported largely by former members of the Muslim Brotherhood, seems to be following the same path despite the fact that President Hosni Mubaraks government has repeatedly refused it license to operate as a normal political party.38 Transnational Islamist Networks Transnational Islamist groups, particularly militant ones, have come to the forefront of global concerns through terrorist activities over the last several years with the emergence of Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda itself is not a centralized or

structured movement, but rather a label applied by Western governments and the media to what is a broad and diverse network of networks.39 While this makes it very difficult to counter Al Qaeda by conventional military action, it also means that Al Qaedas political impact is likely to be limited; the network offers no realistic political agenda that appeals to a territorially defined political and social base. Furthermore, Al Qaeda, like mainstream Islamist movements, is the product of a specific context: the failures of the Taliban regime enabled Islamist radicals who had initially gathered in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Unionto entrench themselves in the country. The United States, in conjunction with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, played a significant role in facilitating, financing, and arming the so-called mujahedin to fight Soviet Communism in the 1980s. Consequently, not only did thousands of Islamist radicals gather in Afghanistan, but Afghan and Pakistani youth were widely radicalized and today provide much of the manpower to Al Qaeda, according to Columbia University Professor Mahmood Mamdani.40 From the American perspective, the good Muslims of the 1980s have thus morphed into the bad Muslims of today. The mujahedin of the 1980s are now called jihadis; while the

former term has positive connotations because it is borrowed directly from Islamic vocabulary, the latter is an invention of Western commentators and thus pejorative. Mamdani locates the Al Qaeda phenomenon within the American policy of the post-Vietnam era beginning in 1975. This policy aimed at creating terrorist groups and turning them into political movements, first in Angola and Mozambique and then in Nicaragua and Afghanistan, in order to destabilize leftist or revolutionary regimes considered to be Soviet proxies. According to Mamdani, this policy emerged out of the lesson that direct American intervention, such as in Vietnam, was likely to be both costly and ineffective. UNITA and RENAMO in southern Africa, the contras in Central America, and the various radical Islamist groups in Afghanistan were all funded and trained by the CIA to undertake terrorist activities.41 In some ways, Islamist terrorists have roots more related to American cold war policies than to Islamic scripture. While Al Qaeda has succeeded in making itself known through spectacular acts of terrorism and a thirst for publicity, Tablighi Jamaatthe largest transnational Islamic movementis unknown to most Westerners. Tablighi Jamaat
75

(group that propagates the faith) is a missionary organization that traces its roots to colonial India. It consists predominantly of lay Muslims who preach to fellow Muslims and focuses on internal faith renewal, rather than conversion of non-Muslims. The group emphasizes a return to Islam as practiced during the time of the Prophet. According to its leaders in America, the Tablighis goals are devotion to God and promoting change in each individual, not society.42 Although the Tablighi renounces politics and violence, it has come under intense scrutiny from Western governments for being a breeding ground for Islamic extremists. Both American and European intelligence agencies cite its vulnerability to infiltration as well as its tendency to promote religious awakening among disaffected youth as cause for concern.43 Voices of a New I j t i h a d In contrast to the Islamists, a new group of Muslim thinkers, which has emerged during the past several decades, seeks to apply contemporary intellectual methods to the task of reforming Islam. These thinkers, whom we might loosely term the proponents of a New Ijtihad, are both a response to and a product of the modernization of Muslim societies. They belong to a reformist tradition stretching
76

back to the mid-19th century, initiated by Muslim intellectuals including Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan in India, Syed Jamaluddin Al-Afghani across the Middle East and Central and South Asia, and Muhammad Abduh in Egypt, who, influenced by the European Enlightenment, applied positivist and rationalist thought to reconcile Islamic turath (tradition) with the challenges of modernity. Although Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan relied almost exclusively on the Quran for his interpretation of Islam, he was not a scriptural literalist. As political scientist Carl Brown has pointed out, Sir Sayyid insisted that Islam was completely compatible with reason and with nature. This meant that any supernatural events in religion, even the Quran, could properly be interpreted allegorically or psychologically. In short, he was very much a 19thcentury advocate of science and positivism.44 Sir Sayyids ideas ran afoul of the traditional ulama, but he made a foundational contribution to the spread of modern education and rationalist thought among the Muslim elite in India, especially by setting up the modern educational institution that eventually became the Aligarh Muslim University.45 Considered to be one of the founders of Islamic modernism, Syed Jamaluddin Al-Afghani was a vocal critic of Western

imperialism who called for a revival of Islamic civilization to counteract European domination. Afghani traveled widely throughout Muslim lands in the Middle East and Central and South Asia, attempting to mobilize the masses in a pan-Islamic movement against the imperial threat. Afghani was deeply concerned about the intellectual decay within the Muslim world, and he attributed the decline of Islamic civilization to neglect of the basic sciences and a lack of interest in the pursuit of knowledge. Afghani believed that the only way to restore Islamic civilization to its former grandeur was to return to the true core of Islam. In his famous refutation of French philosopher Ernest Renans denunciation of Islam as an obstacle to philosophy and science, Afghani concluded If the Islamic world is as you say, then why are the Muslims in such a sad condition? I will answer: When they were [truly] Muslims, they were what they were and the world bears witness to their excellence. As for the present, I will content myself with this holy text: Verily, God does not change the state of a people until they change themselves inwardly.46

viewed as its contemporary decadence and divisions. For Abduh, revelation and reason in Islam were complementary and not antithetical. Islam, therefore, had the innate capacity to reform and adapt to changing circumstances by the exercise of reason or ijtihad. Abduhs ideas influenced not only much of the modernist thinking in the Arab world, they also inspired what came to be known as the salafi (purist) movements in the early decades of the 20th century. Exponents of salafi thought borrowed from Abduhs ideas about jettisoning much of the accumulated baggage that they held responsible for Islams decline. However, rather than looking to Islams early period for a model of compatibility of faith with reason, the salafis prescribed a more literal return to the golden age of early Islam, in that way prefiguring Islamist movements of the second half of the 20th century.47 Across the Muslim world as well as in Muslim communities in the West, recent decades have witnessed renewed calls for ijtihad based on rationalist interpretations of Islam. As the scholar of contemporary Muslim thought Suha Taji-Farouki points out, while present-day proponents of ijtihad share a motivation with the modernist reformers of the late 19th century, they differ in the scope of their intellectual horizons.48 Whereas
77

Like his mentor Afghani, the Egyptian thinker Muhammad Abduh advocated the reform of Islam by returning to the religions pure state and casting off what he

the early modernists worked exclusively within an Islamic frame of reference, todays thinkers avail themselves of multiple critical and interpretive frameworks. Most of these thinkers combine knowledge of Islamic learning and scripture with secular training (often undertaken in the West) in the social sciences, including anthropology, sociology, philology, philosophy, and hermeneutics. Their roots in Islamic and Western intellectual processes offer them a unique critical perspective on Islamic scripture and heritage. The postmodernist discourse of contextuality has proven especially influential, as many of these thinkers hold that the Quran is situated in a specific time and placenamely, the community of the Prophet in the Hijaz. They believe that the messagethe Qurans core ethical principlescan and must be separated from its history, both at the time of revelation and over the nearly 14 centuries since. Diverse thinkers such as the late Pakistani reformer Fazlur Rahman; his student, the late Indonesian public intellectual Nurcholish Madjid; the Tunisian scholars Mohamed Talbi, Abdelmajid Charfi, and Mohamed Charfi; the Algerian Mohammed Arkoun; the Sudanese Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim; and the American Amina Wadud have all emphasized the importance of the
78

sociohistorical context of the Quranic revelation and the necessity to differentiate between the Quranic message and intervening history.49 Their critical rereadings of the Quran have admitted interpretations and innovations that prize reason, pluralism, universal human rights, gender equality, and other heterodox positions. The Egyptian-born and Switzerlandbased scholar Tariq Ramadan applies similar methods in his work on the place of Islam in modern European issue of growing importance as the Muslim population in the West continues to expand. Ramadan suggests that the only way to arrive at a European Islamic identity is to separate Islam from the cultures of the countries of origin. Recently denied entry to the United States by American authorities and prohibited from taking up his chair at the University of Notre Dame, Ramadan has pointed out that when you are trying to create bridges you are in the middle. . . you are too Western for the Muslims, and too Muslim for the Westerners. Controversy is natural.50 Other proponents of a New Ijtihad often face similar dilemmas. Although the ideas represented by these progressive voices have yet to find widespread resonance among ordinary Muslims, they do offer an alternative to more radical and revivalist interpretations

of Islam and a source of hope to those who support greater dialogue between Islam and the West. Conclusion In answer to the question of who speaks for Islam, it is clear that there is no single locus of authority in the Muslim world today. While the traditional ulama have lost much of their popular credibility as interpreters of religion, neither the ruling elites in Muslim states nor the Islamists, the militant fringe, or the practitioners of the New Ijtihad have yet been able to fill this role. The cacophony of voices attempting to speak for Islam has been amplified by the constant flow of unvetted expression through the Internet. As Gary Bunt, an academic who writes frequently on Islam and the Internet, establishes in Islam in the Digital Age, the proliferation of Islamic Web sites has vastly increased the amount of debate in the Muslim world.51 The Internet also offers believers an anonymous forum in which to address their religious concerns. Counseling sites and online fatwas are widely accessible and increasingly popular, while the development of online sermons and Friday khutbahs has extended the audiences of numerous preachers. The authority of online religious officials, however, is open to question. Unlike the

state-sponsored ulama, the Internet Imams are beyond the control of government agencies; at the same time, many of them have not gone through traditional training. As one would imagine, this arena of free expression is now home to a wide range of political opinions and is often used to mobilize opposition to those in power. The Internet has also been employed by extremist groups to promote their own agendas; however, it is almost impossible to verify whether specific sites speak for the groups that they claim to represent, including Al Qaeda. It might also be said that Islamisms current popularity is in significant part due to the slow pace of reform in many Muslimparticularly, Arabstates, as well as to what is perceived by a large majority of people in the Muslim world as lack of serious commitment by major international powers, especially the United States, to address the grievances harbored by most Muslims.52 Current events in Palestine and Iraq, which lie in Islams historical and politicalif not demographicheartland, resonate deeply with Muslims, accentuating the feeling of impotence across much of the Muslim world and increasing receptivity to Islamist arguments. Post-September 11 American policies have contributed to this pattern, demonstrating Washingtons insensitivity in the eyes of many Muslims.
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The cacophony of voices claiming to speak for Islam is also an expression of a more fundamental crisis in the Muslim worlda century-long crisis of poor governance, particularly in the Arab world.53 Since decolonization, Arab states have turned to a variety of political remediesincluding nationalism, panArabism, pan-Islamism, communism, and socialismyet, with a few exceptions, all have failed to deliver widespread prosperity and good governance. The tragedy of September 11, 2001, played a major role in bringing the crisis within dar-el-Islam to the attention of the West. At home, 9/11 and the events of subsequent years have made Muslims more concerned about their current situation and about finding ways to resolve it. Progressive Muslim thinkers are growing bolder and are taking risks to challenge the ulama as well as the Islamists. This surge of intellectual effort has resulted in a soar in the number of books published over the last few years by the proponents of a New Ijtihad. Finally, it should be kept in mind that the relationship between Islam and the West has a long and perhaps cyclical history. The crisis within the Muslim world today might be said to mirror the situation of the West during the Middle Ages, when the Muslim empire was the center of
80

knowledge and civilization. To end its stagnation, the West entered a period of self-reflection and embarked on the Renaissance, in part by appropriating Islams scientific and cultural advances. The renowned 13th-century Italian theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas, for example, sought inspiration in the works of Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd, the most revered philosopher of the time at the Sorbonne. Perhaps the Muslim world today, by examining its situation through the lens of modernity, will embark on a contemporary Islamic renaissance. We can only guess at how this might change the relationship between Islam and the West. What is certain at this point is that greater communication, improved understanding, and identification of the multipleand sometimes conflictingsources of authority within each civilization can only hasten our entry into a new phase of the history of the Islamic-Western encounter.

NOTES TO APPENDIX V
1. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of rule as legitimate became known as the Sunni. For a detailed rendering of the intricate set of events that led up to the Sunni-Shia division, see Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture

Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon and
2. Schuster, 1996). The term salaf can be translated as the revered ancestors. The main thrust of salafi thought is its advocacy for the return to the pristine form of Islam practiced by the first generation of Muslims. This is seen as the ideal from which later generations of Muslims have deviated, leading to Islams and Muslims decline. Khaled Abou El Fadl, The Place of Tolerance in Islam, Boston Review, December 2001/January 2002, online at http://bostonreview.net/ BR26.6/elfadl. html. The schism within Islam that resulted in the two grand families of Islamic faith (the majority Sunni and the minority Shia) came about in the early years following the Prophet Muhammads death. In 657 the notables of Medina selected Ali ibn Abu Talib, cousin and son-inlaw of the Prophet, as the fourth caliph. However, Muawiya, the Umayyad governor of Syria who had been appointed by Uthman, Alis predecessor as caliph, refused to recognize Alis authority. Those who sided with Ali became known as the Shia (partisans of Ali). The majority who accepted Muawiyas

of Islam, Volume 1: The Classical Age of Islam, reprint edition (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1977), pp. 276-79. L. Carl Brown, Religion and State: The Muslim Approach to Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), p. 54. Barbara Rosewicz, Prestigious Al Azhar is Force of Moderation, Wall Street Journal, August 10, 1987. Mona El-Nahhas, A confusing fatwa, Al-Ahram Weekly, September 4-10, 2003, online at http://weekly. ahram.org.eg/2003/654/eg6.htm. Rosewicz, Prestigious Al Azhar Is Force of Moderation. The Oxford English Dictionary Online (www.oed.com) defines fundamentalism as strict adherence to ancient or fundamental doctrines, with no concessions to modern developments in thought or customs. For an argument that a reformation has already taken place in Islam with the emergence of scriptural fundamentalism and priesthood of the individual, two fundamental features of the Christian Reformation, see Carl W.

5.

3.

6.

7.

4.

8. 9.

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Ernst, Following Muhammad: Rethink-

12. Rudolph Peters, Islam and Colonial-

ing Islam in the Contemporary World

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), pp. 66-67. 10. The Mandate system was established by the League of Nations following World War I to provide for the administration of former Ottoman territories and German colonies in the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific. The Ottoman territories were divided among the European Allies, who were granted supervision over these lands as a precursor to eventual independence. In the Middle East, five new Mandates were created from the former Ottoman territories: Iraq, Transjordan, and Palestine were British Mandates, while Syria and Lebanon were administered by France. 11. The Peace of Westphalia, embodied in a series of treaties signed in 1648, marked the end of Europes bloody 30 Years War and the birth of the modern state system. The Peace of Westphalia abolished the unity of the Holy Roman Empire and enshrined into treaty law the doctrine that the religion of the ruler is the religion of the state and no state could force another to change its religion. Subsequently, national interests began to trump religion as the basis for disputes among European states.

ism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History (The Hague: Mouton,

13. 1979). Khaled Abou El Fadl, Islam and the Challenge of Democracy, Boston Review, April/May 2003, online at http://bostonreview. net/BR28.2/abou.html. For details about the working of the OIC and other international Muslim organizations, see Saad S. Khan, Reasserting International Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). According to Sadik Al-Azm, Bin Laden may be seen as a more dangerous, advanced, and global version of Juhaiman al-Utaibi. While Juhaiman directed his desperate, spectacular intervention against the most important local legitimizing symbol of the Saudi system, bin Laden attacked the American core without which the local system could not possibly survive. Sadik J. Al-Azm, Time Out of Joint, Boston Review, October/November 2004, online at www.bostonreview.net/BR29.5/alaz m.html. See Gregory Gause, Kingdom in the Middle: Saudi Arabias Double Game, in James F. Hoge, Jr., and Gideon Rose, eds., How Did This
83

14.

15.

16.

Happen? Terrorism and the New War

(New York: Public Affairs, 2001), pp. 109-122; and Eric Rouleau, Trouble in the Kingdom, Foreign Affairs, 81(4), July-August 2002, pp. 75-89. 17. Ijtihad can be defined as the exercise of independent reasoning by jurists to apply the sharia to legal questions arising from circumstances that are not covered by the Quran, sunnah, established precedent, or direct analogy. 18. Nikki Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), chapters 9 and 10. 19. Daniel Brumberg, Reinventing

Khomeini: The Struggle for Reform in Iran

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), pp. 135-36. 20. See, inter alia, Jean-Michel Cadiot, Tehran and Washington a Step Closer Through Afghanistan, Agence France Presse, October 7, 2001; Nazila Fathi, On the Sly, Iran Weighs Closer Ties With U.S., New York Times, November 9, 2001; Thomas L. Friedman, The View from Tehran, New York Times, June 26, 2002; Seymour M. Hersh, The Iran Game: How Will Tehrans Nuclear Ambitions Affect Our Budding Partnership? New Yorker, December 3, 2001.
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21. Government Urged to Get Tough in Territory Dispute, Jakarta Post, March 7, 2005, online at www.thejakartapost.com/detaillatestnews.asp ?fileid=20050307181600&irec=2. 22. Quoted in Farrah Naz Karrim, Resolve Issue Through Talks, New Straits Times, March 9, 2005. 23. Quoted in John L. Esposito, Muhammad Iqbal and the Islamic State, in John L. Esposito, ed., Voices of Resurgent Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 187. 24. Saeed Abdullah, The Official Ulama and the Religious Legitimacy of the Modern Nation State, in S. Akbarzadeh and A. Saeed, eds., Islam and Political Legitimacy (New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 14-15. 25. Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, Mawdudi and the Jamat-i-Islami, in Ali Rahnema, ed., Pioneers of Islamic Revival (London: Zed Books, 1994), p. 105. 26. Charles Tripp, Sayyid Qutb: The Political Vision, in Ali Rahnema, ed., Pioneers of Islamic Revival, p. 178. 27. Incidentally, the same is true of Osama bin Laden, who was trained as an engineer, and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was trained as a physician.

28. For analyses of Sayyid Qutbs ideas, see Yvonne Haddad, Sayyid Qutb: Ideologue of Islamic Revival, in John L. Esposito, ed., Voices of Resurgent Islam and Charles Tripp, Sayyid Qutb: The Political Vision, in Ali Rahnema, ed., Pioneers of

Islamic Revival. 29. Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), p. vii. 30. For a discussion of the model of the strangers and the model of the ancestors, see Fouad Ajami, The Arab Predicament, second edition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 242. 31. For details of this argument, see Mohammed Ayoob, Political Islam: Image and Reality, World Policy Journal, Fall 2004, p. 3. 32. For Egypt, see Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, Mobilizing Islam: Religion,

Mainly Driven by Nationalism, New York Times, September 12, 2004. 35. For Hamas and Hezbollah, see respectively Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Hamas (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), and Judith Palmer Harik, Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2004). 36. See Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, Mobi-

lizing Islam: Religion, Activism, and Political Change in Egypt; Jenny White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey; Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The JamaatI-Islami of Pakistan (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1994); and Robert W. Heffner, Civil Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). 37. Ihsan D. Dagi, Rethinking Human Rights, Democracy, and the West: Post-Islamist Intellectuals in Turkey, Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, 13(2), Summer 2004, p. 140. See also Mohammed Ayoob, Turkeys Multiple Paradoxes, Orbis, Summer 2004, pp. 451-463. 38. Joshua A. Stacher, Post-Islamist Rumblings in Egypt: The Emergence of the Wasat Party, Middle
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Activism, and Political Change in Egypt

(New York: Columbia University Press, 2002); for Turkey, see Jenny White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003). 33. Husain Haqqani, Islams Medieval Outposts, Foreign Policy, November-December 2002, pp. 58-64. 34. For the Chechen case that bears out this thesis, see C. J. Chivers and Steven Lee Myers, Chechen Rebels

East Journal, 56(3), Summer 2002,

pp. 415-432. 39. The term network of networks is borrowed from Jason Burke, Al

47. L. Carl Brown, Religion and State, pp. 93-98. 48. Suha Taji-Farouki, ed., Modern

Muslim Intellectuals and the Quran

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). 49. For a more in-depth exploration of these thinkers, see, inter alia, Suha Taji-Farouki, ed., Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Quran; Rachid Benzine, Les nouveaux penseurs de lIslam (Paris: Albin Michel, 2004); Fazlur Rahman and Ebrahim Moosa, eds., Revival and Reform in Islam (Oxford: Oneworld, 1999); Ronald Nettler, Mohamed Talbis Ideas on Islam and Politics: A Conception of Islam for the Modern World, in J. Cooper, R. Nettler, and M. Mahmoud, eds., Islam and Modernity (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2000), p. 131; Abdelmajid Charfi,

Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror

(New York: I. B. Tauris, 2003), p. 16. Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim (New York: Pantheon, 2004). Ibid. Susan Sachs, A Muslim Missionary Group Draws New Scrutiny in U.S., New York Times, July 14, 2003. Sachs, A Muslim Missionary Group Draws New Scrutiny in U.S., and Craig S. Smith, French Islamic Group Offers Rich Soil for Militancy, International Herald Tribune, April 29, 2005. L. Carl Brown, Religion and State: The Muslim Approach to Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), p. 95. For Sir Sayyids ideas, see Christian W. Troll, Sayyid Ahmad Khan: A

40.

41. 42.

43.

44.

Islam entre le Message et lHistoire

(Paris: Albin Michel, 2004); Mohammed Arkoun, Rethinking

45.

Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology

(New Delhi: Vikas, 1978). 46. Nikki R. Keddie, An Islamic Response

to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1983), p. 173.
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Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers, trans. Robert D. Lee (Boulder: Perseus, 1994), The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought (London: Saqi Books, 2002); Abdullahi An-Naim, Toward an Islamic Reformation (Syracuse:
Syracuse University Press, 1990); and Amina Wadud, Quran and

Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from

a Womans Perspective (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1999). 50. Deborah Sontag, Mystery of the Islamic Scholar Who Was Barred by the U.S., New York Times, October 6, 2004. 51. Gary Bunt, Islam in the Digital Age (London: Pluto Press, 2003), p. 141. 52. See Jean Lacouture, Ghassan Tuni, and Grard D. Khoury, Un sicle

pour rien: Le Moyen-Orient arabe de lEmpire ottoman lEmpire amricain

(Paris: Albin Michel, 2002). 53. See, for example, the Arab Human Development Reports, published by the United Nations Development Programme. 54. See Maria Rosa Menocal, The Orna-

ment of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (New
York: Little, Brown, 2002).

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APPENDIX VI: BACKGROUND PAPER WHO SPEAKS FOR THE WEST?

Introduction The West is a vexed and elusive notion. From the outside, it seems to be a coherent, perhaps even monolithic, wholea single pole, both attractive and repellent, but somewhat identifiable. The crosses that adorn church steeples, the fine wines of Bordeaux, television shows like Cheers and Friends, womens rights advocates like Mary Robinson, multinational corporations like ExxonMobil, the American president, pop star Michael Jacksonfrom the outside, these are all emblems of the West and yet from within, the West hardly exists. Americans and Europeans do not call themselves Westerners; they may see themselves as members of the communities that others perceive as the West, but rarely do they feel loyalty to or affection for that allinclusive identity. Were we examining some of the constituent communitiesthe Roman Catholic Church, France, Hollywood, human rights groups, Wal-Mart, the Bush administration, the German Social Democratswe would be better able to identify spokesmen, exemplary figures, and representatives whose pronouncements summarize consensus or convey authority. As this list suggests, however, the West is a complex, fractious, and
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conflicted group of societies. The Catholic Church and womens rights groups differ over abortion; the Americans and French differ over the meaning of secularism and the merits of the war on Iraq; Europeans differ among themselves about the historical significance of Christianity in defining and shaping modern Europe. Indeed, one of the most striking features of the West is its frequent embrace of difference, its willingness not to say, eagernessto encounter, adopt, and adapt new ideas, peoples, and institutions. This enthusiasm can be delightfully invigorating: from the adoption of Arabic numerals to the development of Asian fusion cuisine, the West has borrowed, changed, and used elements of cultures from around the world. This voracious appetite can sometimes also appear threatening, however, as the West seems to appropriate for itself what is good and valuable from around the world. But then havent all civilizations, including Islamic civilization, done just that? Although the importance and influence of the West are undeniable, it is still difficult to know how we can determine the real nature of Western opinion today. How are we to know whether a prominent Westerners statementfor example, the then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio

Berlusconis remark late in 2001 that Western civilization is bound to Occidentalize and conquer Islamrepresents a popular or idiosyncratic belief? How significant were the Christian echoes of U. S. President George W. Bushs reference that year to a crusade against terrorism?1 How, if the Muslim world seems to be faced with a determined and dangerous adversary called the West, do we account for the fact that Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe and the United States? Today, the West has immense economic, political, and military powerand sometimes expresses imperial or quasiimperial ambitionsbut it is also riven by significant discord. Its two main political componentsWestern Europe and the United Statesare frequently at odds on policy questions. The United States and France, for example, faced with Muslim girls wearing headscarves in state schools, started from the same premise of religious liberty and state agnosticismand yet reached entirely different conclusions. The decision by France to ban the wearing of scarves by Muslim girls in French public schools was made in defense of secularism (lacit). It was also, to many Americans, an infringement of personal choice in a matter of religious expression. The decision by a Bush

administration official to publicly criticize France in the matter may be taken as an illustration of how differently Americans and Europeans think of religion and of how different their fears are.2 When we examine the question, who speaks for the West? we therefore need to acknowledge at the outset that any claim to represent the West must be partial at best. A second caution is in order: the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush reflects a relatively new neoconservative worldview. This view tends to see treaties and conventions as constraints on American power rather than part of a durable global order. It is largely uninterested in the soft power of culture, the slow improvements achievable by aid, development, and human rights programs, or the conservation of environmental, cultural, or other resources. It takes only passing interest in trading systems or international commerce. It commonly disdains the accumulated wisdom of the foreign policy establishment in particular, though neoconservatives also have little regard for military or other traditions.3 Yet we should not assume that any American administration, even one with the ideological vigor and forcefulness of the administration of George W. Bush, can speak even for the American policy-making establishment,
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much less the American people, and very much less the West. Looking beyond the present moment, this paper will consider popular beliefs, political movements, and currents of analysis that have defined the West and in part have affected its relationship with the Muslim world. These themes are (1) the distinctive liberalism of the West as a product of constant struggle with (and accommodation of) the power of religious institutions and beliefs; (2) the export of the West through economic, military, political, cultural, and institutional expansion; and (3) the institutional complexity of large, economically advanced Western democracies. Christianity and the Western Liberal Tradition Liberalism represents an effort to manage conflict; it is a method for resolving disputes but is not, in itself, a resolution. President George W. Bushs call for a crusade, for example, echoed Dwight Eisenhowers call for a Great Crusade against European Fascism, yet was accompanied by strong expressions of respect for religion and, in particular, for Islam. For the president, and within liberalism, these statements were not contradictory. Outward-looking and altruistic idealismcrusading with a small
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cand tolerance have always coexisted in the liberal tradition. This tradition developed in the aftermath of the 17th century struggles among Western European states that ended in the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. The treaties determined that political toleration for the three great European religious communities of the time Roman Catholic, Lutheran Christian, and Calvinist Christianwould henceforth be the norm. Indeed, toleration of religious differenceamong Christians and even for other religious faithswas said to be itself a Christian idea. This view was famously expressed by the English philosopher John Locke in his Letter on Toleration of 1689: I esteem that toleration to be the chief characteristic mark of the true Church. For whatsoever some people boast of the antiquity of places and names, or of the pomp of their outward worship; others, of the reformation of their discipline; all, of the orthodoxy of their faithfor everyone is orthodox to himself these things, and all others of this nature, are much rather marks of men striving for power and empire over one another than of the Church of Christ. Let anyone have never so true a claim to all these things, yet if he be destitute of charity, meekness, and good-will in general

towards all mankind, even to those that are not Christians, he is certainly yet short of being a true Christian himself.4

preserving a bias toward individual freedom has remained characteristic of Western life. The modern West, then, is both Christian and deliberately, carefully not Christian. This distinct balance came only after ages of religious conflict both between Christian Europe and outsiders and, much more importantly, among Christians themselves. Ever since, Westerners have debated how to balance religious affiliation and state liberalism in public life, as the differing approaches to headscarves in schools in France and the United States suggest. As an immigrant society, the United States has generally respected private belief more than Europe and insisted less on public conformity. By contrast, European Christianitys experience of other faiths, Islam in particular, is colored by a history in which conflict played a significant part, leaving in European collective memory a distinct sense of threat. Unlike American religion, European churches have a strong sense of rootedness in place, culture, and local history. This explains why the question of the place of Christianity in the creation of Europe and particularly the supranational European Union is much more loaded than comparable debates in the United States. Vaclav Havel argued in
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Whether Locke was right about the true Church, the idea of toleration, even to those that are not Christians, became a basic component of Western liberalism. The Peace of Westphalia, from which Westerners date the birth of the modern state and the international state system, was an acknowledgment that living together in peace required a formal disinterest on the part of the authorities in what would soon be defined as private mattersnotably, religious faith. It also required noninterference in how other rulers ran their own states. From this set of protocols, the formally secular state, the rights of citizens to civil and political freedoms, and other elements of Western liberalism have developed. These liberal principles have not been fully honored. Persecution of religious minorities never fully ended in Europe, and today there are signs of increased anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic activity in Europe as well as institutionalized suspicion of Muslims in Europe and the United States. Nonetheless, the necessity of accommodation between church and state, of common toleration, and of

1994 that the European Union is based on a large set of values, with roots in antiquity and in Christianity.5 This European sense of a Christian tradition reappeared over the next decade both in the politics of immigration and assimilation and in debates over the nature of the European Union. Former French President Valry Giscard dEstaings assertion that admitting Turkey would be the end of the European Union reflected this conviction, as did the remark of Silvio Berlusconi regarding the West and Islam. The debate over whether God or Christian heritage should be mentioned in the European Unions new constitution is another example of how the West struggles with the appropriate expression of religious affiliation in public life.6 For many Europeans, the exclusion of Christianity from the constitution seemed to deny the importance of the faith in bringing Europeans to where they are today and, perhaps, where they are headed in the future. For others, to acknowledge a particular religion in a document like a constitution would be to introduce a force that has always proved divisive into a process that aims at unity. These debates make the European response to the Islamic world very different from the American, which focuses largely on issues of geopolitics and foreign policy, with special reference to the
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Middle East. While the Middle East is still vital from the European point of view, many European politicians now consider Islam a domestic issue, played out in the suburbs of Antwerp and Paris, or the underground of London, while by and large Americans have just started to confront the significance of their own indigenous Muslim communities. Indeed, from the era of Malcolm X until September 11, most Americans associated American Islam with the struggle for civil rights for African Americans rather than with the growing immigrant community. The situation in the United States is different in another sense, as well. American respect for the religious impulseof whatever typehas always been high. Unlike that of Europe, American popular culture has generated religious sects and enthusiasms with unmatched fecundity, from Jehovahs Witnesses to new forms of Buddhism to Scientology and the heterodox Nation of Islam.7 What is incomprehensible to American believers is not other beliefs but unbelief, which was the charge against atheistic or Godless Communism during the cold war. The United States enlistment of religious Muslim allies against atheist Communist parties in the Muslim world sprang, in part, from this moral vision of the anti-Communist struggle.

The administration of George W. Bush came into office advocating a greater presence for religion in public life. This was not necessarily intolerant; the faithbased charities that the administration sought to support, for example, included Muslim charities, not least because Islam is the fastest-growing religion in America and is especially strong among the black urban poor.8 However, the administration was itself unusually Christian in its outlook and willing to use Christian faith as a political tool in advancing certain social policies, such as promoting the traditional family and discouraging abortion. Yet since September 11, the avowedly Christian element in the Bush administration has gone some distance to make it clear that Christianity as suchof any typeis not the basis of Americanism.9 This is true as well for American public opinion; a poll conducted by the respected Pew Research Center following the September 11 attacks captures the ambiguities of the situation: Favorable views of Muslim-Amercans have risen from 45% in March to 59% today, even though 40% of the public think the terrorists were motivated at least in part by religion when they carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. The survey finds clear evidence that Americans are heeding

President Bushs call for tolerance toward Muslims, and the Presidents own core constituentsconservative Republicanshave shown by far the biggest turnaround. Nearly twothirds of conservative Republicans (64%) feel favorably toward Muslims in this country, up 29 percentage points since March.10

The Export of the West: From Empire to Security Alliance Out of efforts to manage this divisiveness grew the modern secular state. Soon after it arose in Europe, it began to spread. The export of Western models of state organization took place mainly through the imperial expansion of Western powers, principally Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Portugal, beginning in the 15th century and accelerating as the notion of the modern state took shape in the 18th and 19th centuries. As a source of identity and as an extension of national territory, formal empire remained importantparticularly for the Dutch, the British, and the Frenchuntil well after World War II. Indeed, partly because of the disasters of that war, the initial postwar response was to turn to empire as a kind of consolation, with the recovered territories in East Asia or the Middle East as a source of renewed standing and confidence for the
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European homeland. The final loss of empire was in turn felt very strongly in the Netherlands, rather less so in France and Britain, for reasons having to do with scale, but also with the alternative resources and stronger historical identity available to France and Britain. In Portugal and Spain, imperial decline worked very differentlyit occurred over a longer period and, since these were not stable democracies, there was much less debate over the implications of decolonization.11 The American attitude toward imperialism has been quite distinct from that of its European precursors. By and large, Americans today do not see their countrys expansionist past in North America as imperial. In part because much of the expansion was associated with commercial projectsfrom the Louisiana Purchase to the Gold Rush, the transcontinental railroad and the sale by the state of land for agriculturemost Americans think of their nations push westward from the 13 original colonies as driven by material growth and justified by moral progress. They do not think of it as official, formal, political conquest, nor is it taught that way in American schools. The brief period of undiluted American imperialism in the Caribbean and the Philippinesat the turn of the 20th centuryis seen as exceptional.
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Moreover, today much of what people elsewhere may see as American imperialism the nations dominant corporations, its ubiquitous cultural products, the outsized importance of its consumer market (and therefore of its tariff, tax, and trade policies)is seen by most Americans as mere commerce or culturenot, in other words, as matters of power.12 In fact, this distinction between the role of the government, formal political institutions, and the rest of societythe private sector and civil societyis a crucial one in understanding how the West operates more generally. The government of the United States, or of any Western country, is but one of many voices seemingand claimingto speak for the West. Western societies are cacophonous, perhaps none more so than the United States itself. Western life in the post-World War II period has become thick with political and social opinion and the institutional structures to lend those opinions substance. Institutionally, the contemporary West took shape during and immediately after World War II. Europe had exploded in violence twice in 30 years, at a cost of many millions dead. The world system had demonstrated its inability to prevent escalating destruction. Continental Fascism had additionally proved that the

elimination of an entire peopleEuropean Jewswas technologically and politically feasible to a degree almost impossible to imagine. Similar levels of destruction, based on political leaning and class rather than racial or religious grounds, had occurred in the Soviet Union. The West that grew out of this context had several new features. After 1945, state systems and borders in the major theatres of war were essentially frozen, regardless of whether the peoples affected found such a status quo desirable. The vanquished powers were thoroughly disarmedpermanently, as was generally expected in the cases of Germany and Japan. The victorious powers, above all the United States and the Soviet Union, emerged as the guarantors or enforcers of the new stability. A second new feature of the West immediately after World War II was the dominance of a single state. As we have seen, the West had always been an arena of competitive states, and its most distinctive ideasliberal pluralism and the indefinite management of conflict through balancing of powersdeveloped against that backdrop.13 Single-state dominance drastically altered the context of Western liberalism because it threatened the pluralism of Western state power.

A third new feature was that the dominant state was the United States, whereas the heart of Western civilization had been firmly in Western Europe until 1945. The war, and the decisive intervention by America, changed that dynamic. Americas goal, however, was not dominance in an imperial sense (or in a fascist sense). Rather, the United States believed its interventions in the world wars were unavoidable, the alternative being a German-dominated world. A fourth development was that this new West faced a new Eastthe Eastern Bloc one that had no significant connection with Islam and very little to do with the traditional East, in the sense of Orient. The wholesale takeover of the term the East by China, the Soviet Union, and the eastern tranche of Europe was entirely unprecedented. The idealistic side of European imperialism was dismissedeven by most Westernersover the course of the antiimperialist independence struggles of the 20th century, in particular those of the period from 1945-1970 and as the cold war came to dominate international consciousness. The reappearance of a more or less pro-imperial position among influential Western commentators European and Americanafter the end of the cold war and more so after
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September 11 was thus particularly striking. However, there is no popular pro-imperial movement in the United States or Britain or anywhere else in the Westunless strong belief in a forceful international community led by Western countries is itself Western imperialism. With the end of the cold war, the values represented by the West were now perceived to be universal. This was the contention of the American political thinker Francis Fukuyama in his famous 1989 essay, The End of History?14 With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rejection of state socialism by popular movements in the Communist world, Fukuyama argued, the Western system had won and there was no longer any alternative or competitive model. Fukuyamas analysis received considerable support at the time, even in Europe. The German sociologist and philosopher Ralf Dahrendorf, for example, argued in his 1990 article, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe that the First and Second Worlds are being reunited into something which has no name yet, nor a number; perhaps it will just be the World.15 Insofar as liberalism assumes pluralism, however, the notion of a single world with no future history revealed that a profoundly illiberal strain remained alive in the varied fabric of Western intellectual life.
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Soon, however, it seemed entirely possible that, far from embracing liberal democracy, much of the world would be consumed in conflicts of ethnicity, nationality, and religion. From 1989 to 1992, religion played an important role in conflicts across the Balkans and in the former Eastern Bloc (as in the impending division of Czechoslovakia, widespread persecution of Gypsies, and the threatening isolation of Russian communities in the Baltic States). Religion was becoming an increasingly divisive force around the world, whether connected to mainstream traditions (Christian terrorism in the United States, Muslim and Hindu conflicts over Kashmir, Sunni-Shia clashes in Pakistan, Muslim-Christian conflict in Nigeria and Sudan, and Jewish-Muslim battles in the Middle East) or local enthusiasms (the Lords Resistance Army in Uganda, Gods Army of the Holy Mountain in Burma). Looking back on this period, Oxford historian Timothy Garton Ash has written, Even at one minute past midnight on 1 January 1990 we already knew that this would be a formative decade in Europe. A 40-year-old European order had just collapsed with the Berlin Wall. Everything seemed possible. Everyone was hailing a new Europe. But no one knew what it would look like.16

After 1989, both the United States and Europe drifted away from the West as a security concept. Americans debated the purpose of foreign policy, oscillating between relatively modest and conservative definitions of U.S. national interests during the administration of George H.W. Bush to the more ambitious, if very different, idealisms of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The United States recognizes that we have a special responsibility that goes along with being a great power, the Clinton administration declared. Our global interests and our historic ideals impel us to oppose those who would endanger the survival or well being of their peaceful neighbors . . . At the same time, this does not mean that we or the international community must tolerate gross violations of human rights within those borders . . . We will act with others when we can, but alone when we must.17

globalization or advancing human rights, which marked it as enthusiastically cosmopolitan. The international community, however, is not avowedly Western, and to some degree marked itself off from the West, which for many in Clintons camp is tarred by association with imperialism, racism, and the enforcement of uneven economic development.18 At the same time, Clintons actual security policies allowed ample scope for unilateral American action. In the last years of the Clinton administration, there emerged two additional schools of thought about American security policy: the core/periphery model and the imperial model. Both of these reflected a sort of geographical reorganization of the political-conceptual map of the world. The primary challenge to the West was no longer from the East but from the South, a region seen as less prosperous, less law-abiding, and more dangerous. The core/periphery model distinguished a core of nationsoverlapping, to a great extent, with the old West in which laws, free trade, and human rights formed something like a common patrimony. Within the core, there were no noneconomic rivalries and thus no serious security concerns. Outside this core was a world of conflict and even chaos, from which security threats emanated. The Harvard political scientist
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To what extent was this a Western foreign policy? There is no simple answer. The Clinton administration, particularly in its second term, was clearly at the head of what is called the international community. It had a sympathetic partner in the secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan; a broad acceptance among Europeans; and a sense for international structure, whether in managing

Samuel Huntingtons famous 1993 essay, The Clash of Civilizations, advanced this model by arguing that the West which he saw as Europe and the United Stateswas destined to clash with other civilizations. He argued that Western concepts differ fundamentally from those prevalent in other civilizations, listing those concepts as individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets, the separation of church and state.19 According to Huntington, these concepts often have little resonance outside the West and he advocated a Western security strategy aiming at westernizing Latin America; drawing a firm line between Western Europe and the Eastern Orthodox lands of the Slavs; maintaining overwhelming technological and military superiority; and forgoing futile interventions elsewhere. The belief in an enlightened Western cultural core facing a benighted periphery became more widespread over the course of the 1990s; it was used to justify inaction in the Balkans, for example.20 The imperial model was similar to the core/periphery theory in that it saw imperial rule as emanating from a Western, or formerly Western, core. The new imperialists, however, believed in action rather than isolation and took much of their energy from a view that the
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imposition of imperial rule was virtuous, that it ensured stability and development. The writer and former State Department policy planner Robert Kagan, together with William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, argued in 1996 for an American benevolent hegemony; by 1998, Kagan was maintaining that American dominance of the world constituted a benevolent empire.21 The term imperial had long been used to describe the United States by its critics; its use as a positive term was new. Its currency reflected the demise of a perhaps alien but predictable East and the rise of the often chaotic-seeming developing South as a security focus of the West. U.S. President George W. Bushs initial instincts as leader of the most powerful country in the world were isolationist. Although he shared a sense of the perils that the United States faced from the South, he spoke of a new humility in the use of American power and a retreat from the expansive engagement of the Clinton administration, in particular, its attempts at nation building. As president, Bush repudiated the Clinton administrations commitment to the International Criminal Court, declared the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty outdated, and withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. The Bush administrations reaction to the attacks

of September 11, 2001, was dramatically more ambitious than its previous policies, and it reflected embrace of an assertive policy toward the South, particularly the Islamic South. That said, it did little to strengthen American ties to Western allies. As President Bush told Congress on September 20, Great harm has been done to us. We have suffered great loss. And in our grief and anger we have found our mission and our moment.22 The grief and anger were international, as Bush noted in his speech, and the citizens of some 80 nations other than the United States were killed in the attacks. However, in security terms the counterattack (except for police and intelligence work, which proved critical) would be administered by the United States. Was the United States, then, ending its security link to what had been the West? The idea of the West as a security concept certainly did appear to have been gravely weakened. To many observers the Bush administration seemed to be constructing an American empire, and that empire did not, on the whole, seem to connect America to the West as such.23 Institutional Complexity of the West The institutional structure of Western societies was projected on the world scale

in the design and development of international institutions after World War II. In fact, the wars conflicts were not yet over when a majority of the worlds independent states (at least those who were explicitly anti-Fascist) assembled in San Francisco to form the United Nations. The institution closely reflected the new West: it was dominated by a single state the United States; placed great emphasis on ensuring the stability of existing states, not least by enshrining the 1945 balance of power with the establishment of the Security Councils permanent five members (United States, China, the Soviet Union, France, and Britain); accepted the de facto division of West and East; and most important, accepted and strengthened the idea that the victorious Western powers had a responsibility and a right to mold the global system.24 The same perspective was applied by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and indeed, all major international institutions. In other words, all global institutionspolitical, economic, social, and culturalwould be Western-dominated, with a subservient yet substantial role usually reserved for the large Eastern powers (the Soviet Union and China). Several trends have since undermined this structure: the economic recoveries of Germany and Japan; the shrinking
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percentage of the worlds population living in the West; the Wests disproportionate use of, and dependence on, petroleum; and the breakup of European empires, including the Soviet Union. The international architecture of the late 1940s has not always adjusted well to these trends. Nonetheless, the international community in its varied institutional expressions is still largely Western-dominated, due in part to Western leadership of international intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations. The institutional West is not, however, as monolithic as it sometimes appears to be. As discussed, there are many significant differences between the United States and the rest of the West; between the English-speaking countries and continental Europe; and between Eastern and Western Europe. One can speak, for example, of a European social model that is increasingly distinct from the American. The European modelwith its emphasis on the mutual obligations of citizens and the state, and the attendant right of the state to make fiscal and other claims on its subjectsis quite unlike the American model, where the emphasis is on freedom from governmental interference. Likewise, differences exist between European and American beliefs on the rule of law. In the course of unification, Europe
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has developed an extensive set of regulations and laws, right down to beer and sausages, as Robert Coopera British Foreign Office senior civil servant and a chief security-policy planner for the European Unionnotes in his reflections on postmodern states: No one compels [European] states to obey the rules of the CFE Treaty or to pay fines imposed on them by the European Court of Justice. They do so because of their interest as individual states in making the collective system work and, within the European Union, because all have an interest in maintaining the rule of EU law . . . [Europe], perhaps for the first time in 300 years, is no longer a zone of competing truths. The end of the Cold War has brought with it something like a common set of values. 25

Americans tend to place their arrival at a common set of values much earlier than the end of the cold warrather, at the moment when the Constitution was written. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are seen by most Americans as the basis for the legal order and, in many ways, the social order. The law rests on a conception of individual freedom that focuses on limiting the powers of the state, not on defining the activities of the individual.26 European and American attitudes toward secular values and human rights are also

different in some aspects. Europeans remain much more positive than Americans about legislating and enforcing a rather complex set of human rights norms (the core human rights treaties and their annexes run to hundreds of pages). Expansive European thinking about the future has begun to take the form of a growing European community of values. This is no longer commonly seen as a Western project, or even a Euro-American one, but more as a European effort to lead an international community different from, and in some ways against, the American-led contingent. The Western media similarly reflect both Western dominance and significant differences within the West. To the degree that a global culture exists, it is transmitted by Western-dominated means and reflects Western values. Yet until approximately 30 years ago, European newspapers tended to be affiliated with one or another political party, while radio and television were primarily government-run. Over the past 30 years, however, European governments have either privatized media interests or allowed private companies increasing control of the airwaves. The American media present a more complex picture. In the postwar period, American newspapers, radio, and television

were privately owned, and, by contrast, strove on the whole for nonpartisan objectivity. The general trend is still toward consolidation of ownership though somewhat in contrast to European ownership, U.S. companies have consolidated across media as well as within a particular medium, especially since the Internet boom of the late 90s. For instance, CNN is not just the dominant global news network; it is part of a still larger company, Time Warner, which owns print media, film, Internet, and television production companies. The result, in terms of who speaks for the West, is that a few companies dominate the debate, offering a glut of news and cultural information, some of it balanced and comprehensive, and some of it myopic and poorly informed. Since September 11, in particular, some of the more patriotic popular media have presented foreign news as a contest of Friends versus Enemies. The intensity of the Western engagement with radical Islam after September 11 has also led to the amplification of some extremist voices and a willingness among the public to listen to extreme statements about Islam and the Muslim world in both Europe and the United States. Oriana Fallaci in Italy, Brigitte Bardot and Michel Houllebecq in France, Melanie Phillips in Britain, Bill OReilly
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and Ann Coulter in the United States, and many others have exacerbated, in popular language, the idea of a clash of civilizations, with Islam on one side and the West on the other.27 Such exploitation of an alleged Islamic-Western cultural divide has had its counterpart in occasional remarks by Christian leaders like Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham.28 It has also received some intellectual validation in works by such scholars as Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington.29 Beyond the media and popular culture, the role of scholars and intellectuals in speaking for the West varies greatly. On the European continent, particularly in France and most of the Eastern/Central European countries, the influence of public intellectuals is considerable, whether as commentators or policy advisers. By contrast, in Britain, and still more so in the United States, even the most influential and visible intellectuals are largely excluded from policy making. In addition, the American practice of rotating hundreds of positions with each new presidential administration means that a wholly different team regularly replaces not only politicians but policy advisers, academic experts, and mid-level State Department and other planners. This practice contrasts quite sharply with the European pattern, whereby public
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intellectuals and accredited experts often retain their connections to policy making, and to the fashioning of the nations image, for decades at a time. In the United States there is, however, also an intellectual community poised between the traditional academy and the media, namely the various councils and institutions grouped under the term think tanks. The policy intellectuals in this arena can have considerable influence over government.30 Think tanks cover the entire political spectrum and often provide a home for government policymakers when their party is out of power or their point of view has fallen from favor. These institutions overlap with influential magazines like the Weekly Standard and the New Republic; they also provide many of the experts called on by television producers and opinionpage editors to offer commentary on current events. Conclusion The meaning of the West is today, more than ever, flexible and contested, and any effort to speak to the West must recognize the complexity and diversity of those who speak for the West. For peoples or individuals who believe strongly in cultural essences, the elusiveness of the West can be maddening; however, to react to

this elusiveness by denying it, or by imposing an order that isnt there, would be to move from confusion to error. The nature of the West has always been changing, and it is clear that the postcold war period is one of particular flux and unpredictability. The breakdown in transatlantic relations since late 2001 caught most Western decision makers by surprise, and it is not at all clear how profound and long-lived this rift will prove to be. Certainly it is more than merely a momentary disagreement about policy toward Iraq or terrorism. It reflects the different military and economic capabilities of the two constituent parts of the West, but it also reflects very different post-World War II histories. In the second half of the 20th century, Europe and the United States absorbed and assimilated immigrants from around the world in very different ways, and those differences are reflected in divergences in both domestic and foreign policy. Similarly, the increasing importance of religious observance and faith-based policy and politics in the United States (and perhaps with the new Pope Benedict XVI in Europe as well) represents a challenge to conventional interpretations of the modern Western political landscape. Despite assertions that the rise

in public religious commitment in the United States is tolerant and ecumenicalthat is, that Americans continue to prefer faith of any kind to atheist or irreligious principlesmost religiously observant Americans are Christians, a fact that seemed to prove very important in the 2004 presidential election. In an essay published by the New York Times Book Review on September 18, 2005, American historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., articulated this phenomenon: The recent outburst of popular religiosity in the United States is a most dramatic and unforeseen development in American life. As Europe grows more secular, America grows more devout. George W. Bush is the most aggressively religious president Americans have ever had. American conservatives applaud his faithbased presidency, an office heretofore regarded as secular. The religious right has become a potent force in national politics. Evangelicals now outnumber mainline Protestants and crowd megachurches. Billy Graham attracts supplicants by the thousand in Sodom and Gomorrah, a k a New York City. The Supreme Court broods over the placement of the Ten Commandments. Evangelicals take over the Air Force Academy, a government institution maintained by taxpayers dollars; the academys former superintendent says it will be six years before religious tolerance is restored.
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Mel Gibsons movie Passion of the Christ draws nearly $400 million at the domestic box office.31

Whether this rise in religious sentiment will turn out to be inclusive and embrace American Jews, Muslims, and others, or divisive, pitting the American Christians against Americans of other faiths, let alone the rest of the world, may be among the most important issues in U.S. domestic politics in the coming years. On the global scale, the extent to which international institutions born in 17thcentury Western traditions of sovereignty and statehood, and designed by Western powers during the 20th century, can nevertheless manage to serve a genuinely international community is a matter of profound debate, as the heated negotiations of the United Nations 2005 World Summit demonstrated. Although they reflect Western interests and values both in their structural design and in the predominant roles assigned to Western powers, particularly the United States, these institutions are still seen by many as indispensable to peaceful resolution of conflict. Finally, one cannot fail to note the selfquestioning described earlier here that reverberates through the multiple layers and interstices of what is generally called
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the West. In many ways, this introspection echoes the search for a new identity and a new anchoring that is at work in another traditionthat which is generally called Islam by the West. Will these twin identity crises be exacerbated by the words and deeds of extremists in both camps and lead to a clash of civilizations? Or rather, will this reflection be channeled into more productive and peaceful endeavors and serve as the springboard for an alliance of civilizations?32 These will be major questions for the future not only of the Western and Muslim worlds, but for the entire world in these times of nuclear, biological, and chemical arms proliferation.

NOTES TO APPENDIX VI
1. Apparently unaware of the strong negative connotations of the term crusade for many Muslims, President Bush touched off a firestorm within Muslim public opinion when he remarked in a speech in the days after the attacks of September 11, 2001, that this crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while. The term crusade can have multiple interpretations in English beyond the religious meaning contained in the terms Latin root of (Christian) cross; the Oxford English Dictionary lists as the second definition of crusade, An aggressive movement or enterprise against some public evil, or some institution or class of persons considered as evil. In Arabic, however, the literal translation of crusade is a Christian campaign, which conjures for many Muslims the medieval Christian wars against Islam in the Holy Lands. President Bushs unfortunate choice of language was roundly condemned by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. For an analysis of the cultural implications of the term crusade, see Anne E. Kornblut and Charles Radin, Bush Image of Crusade Upsets Some Potential Allies, Boston Globe, September 18, 2001. 2. John Hanford, the Bush administrations ambassador at large, made the criticism of France for international religious freedom. Hanford noted that items like headscarves are worn as a heartfelt manifestation of faith, and this is, we believe, a basic right that should be protected. Hanford spoke in the course of releasing an official report on religious freedom that also criticized Turkey for its ban on headscarves. See Christopher Marquis, U.S. Chides France on Effort to Bar Religious Garb in Schools, New York Times, December 19, 2003. Contrasting European and American perceptions of Turkeys application to join the European Union are another intriguing instance of how the two Western cultures perceive the religious identity question differently, in this case when looking at a political question. See David L. Phillips, Turkeys Dreams of Accession, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2004, for a characterization of the mainstream American view; for some European reaction to Turkish admission and the American interest in it, see the remarks by Frits Bolkestein, the EU competition commissioner, in Tobias Buck and Daniel Dombey, Fischler Criticises

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3.

EU plans for Turkey, Financial Times, September 10, 2004, p. 1, and the discussion in Turkish Tales, The Economist, September 11, 2004. For a survey of neoconservative thought, see William Kristol, ed.,

8.

9.

The Weekly Standard, A Reader: 19952005 (New York: HarperCollins,

4. 2005). John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration (Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1955), p. 13. Havels speech is online at http://www.europa-web.de/europa/ 02wwswww/203chart/chart_gb.htm. It inspired the Charta of European Identity (1995), which is available at the same electronic address. Elaine Sciolino, Gods Place in Charter Is Dividing Europeans, New York Times, May 26, 2004. One example is the career of Ruben Habito, a native of the Philippines who, although a Catholic, underwent Zen training, received a doctorate in Buddhist philosophy from Tokyo University, then made his home in the United States, where he teaches at Southern Methodist University and directs the Maria Kannon Zen Center, both in Dallas, Texas. See www.innerexplorations.com/catew/13.htm.

5.

6.

7.

The association of Islam with African Americans, and to a lesser degree with the prison population, is one of many instances where race and social class are closely associated with a particular religious belief. The then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was perhaps the most avowedly Christian member of the Bush cabinet, made positive statements about Islam following the attacks, in tune with the line of the administration as a whole. As early as his first address to Congress, on September 20, 2001, President Bush said: I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. Its practiced freely by many millions of Americans and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. The terrorists are traitors to their faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. Bush, Our Mis-

sion and Our Moment: Speeches Since the Attacks of September 11, Washington, D.C.: private printing, p. 15. President Bushs speeches are available at www.whitehouse.gov. One treatment of the Bush White Houses Christianity can be found
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in David Frum, The Right Man: An

Inside Account of the Bush White House

(New York: Random House, 2003). Frum was Bushs speechwriter and, before his resignation, one of the very few Jews in the administration. 10. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press report on Post-September 11 Attitudes, released December 6, 2001, online at http://peoplepress.org/reports/ display.php3?ReportID=144. 11. See Tony Judt, Post War: A History of Europe Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Press, 2005). 12. For a completely opposite view of American imperialism, see Neil Smith, American Empire: Roosevelts

est; subsequently expanded and published in book form as The End of History and the Last Man (New York:
Free Press, 1992). 15. Ralf Dahrendorf, Reflections on the

Revolution in Europe: In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Warsaw (London: Chatto and
Windus, 1990), p. 23. 16. Timothy Garton Ash, History of the

Present: Essays, Sketches and Dispatches from Europe in the 1990s (New York:
Vintage, 2001). 17. The passage is in the preface; the text of the 1996 National Security Strategy (NSS) can be found at www.fas.org/spp/military/docops/ national/1996stra.htm. 18. See, for example, the feverish battles over Stanford Universitys decision to modify its traditional Western civilization core curriculum to include more nonwhite, nonmale voices, as chronicled in Nathan Glazer, Canon Fodder, New Republic, August 22, 1988, and James Atlas, The Battle of the Books, New York Times Magazine, June 5, 1988. The strong generational abandonment of the West as a tainted idea is examined in Matthew Connelly and Paul Kennedy, Must It Be the West Against the Rest? Atlantic Monthly, December 1994.

Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 2003). Within the academy, the general view of American expansion is much less rosy than is the case in high school and undergraduate classrooms. 13. An interesting, very pluralist approach to this question is presented by Joao Carlos Espada, Adam Wolfson, and Marc F. Plattner, eds.,

Pluralism Without Relativism: Remembering Sir Isaiah Berlin (Lanham:

Lexington Books, 2003). 14. Originally published in the summer 1989 issue of the National Inter108

19. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, Foreign Affairs, summer 1993. Huntington added cultural freedom when he expanded his argument to book length: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), p. 310. 20. President Clinton was said to have decided that Balkan cultures were too deeply affected by ancient ethnic hatreds for U.S. intervention to make any difference based on his reading of Robert Kaplans Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History, (New York: St. Martins Press, 1993). See Nader Mousavizadeh, ed., The Black Book of Bosnia: The Consequences of Appeasement (New York: Basic, 1996), p. 54; also Misha Glenny, The Balkans: Nation-

book Present Dangers: Crisis and

Opportunity in Americas Foreign and Defense Policies (Washington:

Encounter Books, 2000). The book identified the present danger as U.S. hesitancy in maintaining global hegemony. 22. George W. Bush, Our Mission and

Our Moment: Speeches Since the Attacks of September 11.

23. Max Boot gave this argument on October 15, 2001, in his Weekly Standard article The Case for American Empire. Rome has been attacked, and Rome is fighting to re-establish its security and its hegemony, Michael Ignatieff wrote in the New York Times on February 5, 2002, introducing the imperial figure of speech into a broader discourse. Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallabys article The Reluctant Imperialist: Terrorism, Failed States, and the Case for American Empire appeared in Foreign Affairs the following month. Since then there have been numerous articles and, by now, a number of books, including Max Boot, The

alism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-1999 (New York: Viking
Penguin, 2000), pp. xxiv-xxv. 21. Robert Kagan and William Kristol, Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, July/August 1996; Robert Kagan, The Benevolent Empire, Foreign Policy, summer 1998. In spring of 2000, these ideas were further developed, alongside contributions from several noted architects of George W. Bushs security policies, in Kristol and Kagans

Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (New York:
Basic, 2002); Niall Ferguson,

Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (New York: Basic,
109

2003) and Colossus: The Price of American Power (New York: Penguin, 2004), by a British historian and frequent advocate of empire, particularly in the pages of the New York Times; Andrew J. Bacevich, American

Creation: The Founding of the United Nations (Boulder: Westview, 2003);

a recent meditation on the West, including an argument that universalization of the West would mark its demise, is David Gress,

Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US Diplomacy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003); Clyde Prestowitz, Rogue Nation: American

From Plato to NATO: The Idea of the West and Its Opponents (New York:
Free Press, 1998). 25. Robert Cooper, The Breaking of

Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions (New York: Basic, 2003); Ellen Meiksins Wood, Empire of Capital (London: Verso, 2003); and Michael Ignatieff, Empire Lite: Nation-Building in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan (New York: Vintage,
2003). See the omnibus reviews by Brian Urquhart, World Order and Mr. Bush, New York Review of Books, October 9, 2003; Martin Jacques, The Interregnum, London Review of Books, February 5, 2004; and Ronald Steel, Totem and Taboo, Nation, September 20, 2004. An argument that Americas imperial moment is more a mood swing than a permanent shift is made in Benjamin Wallace-Wells, Right Mans Burden: Why Empire Enthusiast Niall Ferguson Wont Change His mind, Washington Monthly, June 2004. 24. On the birth of the United Nations, see Stephen C. Schlesinger, Act of
110

Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-First Century (New York:

Atlantic Monthly Press, 2004), pp. 30, 60-61. 26. Robert Cooper writes, The United States is a state founded on ideas and its vocation is the spread of those ideas. European countries are based on nation and history. For Americans history is bunk. They aim, as the Mexican author Octavio Paz says, at the colonization not of space but of time: that is, of the future. The Breaking of Nations, pp. 47-48. 27. See Oriana Fallaci, The Rage and the Pride (New York: Rizzoli International, 2002); on how Michel Houellebecq created a scandal by saying Islam was a stupid religion, see Phillip Delves Broughton, Writer Defends Right to Call Islam Stupid, Daily Telegraph, September 18, 2002; Brigitte Bardot, Un Cri dans le silence (Paris: Editions du Rocher, 2003); Ann Coulter,

Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (New
York: Crown, 2003); Melanie Phillipss columns appear in the London Daily Mail and are online at www.melaniephillips.com. Phillipss column You Say Phobe, I Say Phooey from June 11, 2004, gives her perspective on being called an Islamophobe. Bill OReilly hosts The OReilly Factor on Fox News Channel and transcripts from his show are online at www.foxnews.com. 28. Considerable controversy attended the publication of Franklin Graham and Bruce Nygren, The Name (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2002) and Grahams comments on Islam made at the time, some of which can be found in an interview at www.pbs. org; for Robertson (and others), see Muhammad a Terrorist to Falwell, New York Times, October 4, 2002, and Islam Is Violent In Nature, Robertson Says, New York Times, February 23, 2002. 29. See Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of

argument for defending what he calls the Anglo-Protestant nature of the United States in Who Are We?:

The Challenges to Americas National Identity (New York: Simon and

Schuster, 2004). 30. A glimpse of how one public intellectual might influence policy can be found in David Frums description of a visit by Bernard Lewis to the White House, in Frum, The Right

Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush (New York: Random

House, 2003), pp. 170-171. 31. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Forgetting Reinhold Niebuhr, New York Times, September 18, 2005. 32. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced the formation of an initiative toward an Alliance of Civilizations in a statement on July 14, 2005. Based at the United Nations and cosponsored by the prime ministers of Spain and Turkey, the alliance will work to bridge divides between societies that are being exploited by extremists.

Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror

(New York: Modern Library, 2003); and From Babel to Dragomans (New York: Oxford, 2004), as well as Ian Burumas review of the latter book in the New Yorker, June 14, 2004. For Samuel Huntington, see note 19, supra, and his recent
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Sorbonne-educated Mustapha Tlili is the founder and director of Dialogues and a research scholar at the Remarque Institute of New York University. He is a former senior United Nations official, having served the organization in various capacities over a long career. In particular, he was the director of the UN information center for France, located in Paris; chief of the Anti-Apartheid, Namibia, Palestine, and Decolonization programs section in the Department of Public Information at UN Headquarters in New York; and principal officer/director in charge of communications policy in the same department. An established novelist, Mustapha Tlili is a knight of the French Order of Arts and Letters and a member of Human Rights Watchs Advisory Committee for the Middle East and North Africa. Dialogues has received financial support from the Carnegie Corporation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the governments of France, Malaysia, the State of Qatar, and the United Kingdom, the Spanish foundation El Legado Andalus, Majlis El Hassan, the nongovernmental organization of His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, and Mortimer B. Zuckerman. In these difficult times, when anger, extremism, and misunderstanding appear to have gained the upper hand, Dialogues work is crucial to world peace and security. Through dialogue based on mutual respect, Muslim and Western community leaders can dispel the current climate of anger, check extremist trends, and lay the foundations for a more comprehensive and lasting peace. New York University is one of the worlds largest private universities. NYUs president, Dr. John Sexton, is passionately committed to the goal of making NYU the first truly global university. As the University achieves its core missionthe production of knowledge and the education of students for lives of leadership and serviceit also seeks to foster a culture of informed dialogue and debate. The University encourages the exchange of ideas, knowledge, practice, and beliefs inside, and outside, the classroom.

A private university in the public service