Brookings: Experts - Akbar Ahmed

America's War on Terror Is Now a War Against Tribal Islam

Akbar Ahmed — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

With the United States relying on the use of drones to target Islamic extremists, Nonresident Senior Fellow Akbar Ahmed writes in his new book, The Thistle and the Drone, that what began as the war on terror after the 9/11 attacks is now a war against tribal Islam. Ahmed explains that women are the innocent victims who suffer the most and argues that America must re-evaluate its war on terror and use proper methods to attack the right enemy.

The impact of the drones has been devastating and counterproductive.

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The Thistle and Drone is a Metaphor of Two Kinds of Society in the 21st Century

We are destroying an entire generation of human beings who are completely innocent.

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The Ordinary People Who Suffer the Most are Women

The enemy is not the ordinary tribesman. The enemy are the criminals.

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Tribalism and Ethnicity are Still Very Important in Traditional Societies

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Authors

Akbar Ahmed

How America’s War on Terror became a Global War on Tribal Islam

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:00:00 -0400

Event Information

March 14, 2013
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Along with the ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, America’s global war on terror has been characterized by the use of drones. In his new book, The Thistle and the Drone (Brookings, 2013), Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World Nonresident Senior Fellow Akbar Ahmed—the Ibn Khaldun chair of Islamic Studies at American University and former Pakistani high commissioner to the United Kingdom— examines the tribal societies on the borders between nations who are the drones' primary victims. He provides a fresh and unprecedented paradigm for understanding the war on terror, based in the broken relationship between these tribal societies and their central governments. Beginning with Waziristan in Pakistan and expanding to similar tribal societies in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, Ahmed demonstrates how America's war on terror became a global war on tribal Islam. This is the third volume in his trilogy about relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world after 9/11 that includes Journey into Islam (Brookings, 2007) and Journey into America (Brookings, 2010).

On March 14, the Brookings Press hosted the launch of The Thistle and the Drone featuring a discussion on the regional, societal and humanitarian effects of the war on terrorism. Following Ahmed’s presentation, Mowahid Shah, a former Pakistani minister, and Sally Quinn, editor-in-chief of the Washington Post’s “On Faith,” joined the conversation. Khalid Aziz, a leading official from Pakistan, formerly in charge of Waziristan, offered recorded remarks via video.

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The Thistle and the Drone: The United States, Islam, and the War on Terror

Akbar Ahmed — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:03:00 -0500

“We will not tolerate more genocide of innocent tribesmen.”

This was the message of hundreds of tribesmen from Waziristan demonstrating in front of the Governor’s House in Peshawar, Pakistan on March 5, 2013. They were protesting the on-going drone campaign Pakistan which is almost exclusively targeting their home of Waziristan. Only 18 drone strikes in Pakistan have been outside of the two tribal agencies that comprise the region of Waziristan. These tribesmen were bringing attention to the fact that these drone strikes have traumatized entire tribal communities and resulted in the deaths of many innocent people, including women, children, and the elderly, in traditional meetings of councils of elders, inside mosques, and in residential homes.

As the debate about the drone and the war on terror in America emerges, these are the voices that are not heard—those of the victims and the targeted communities. They are lost in the din of the war on terror and the 24 hour media cycle in the United States. The debate is in fact no debate at all: only one position, that of America, is represented. The arguments swirl around the precision of drone technology, keeping American boots off the ground, and the legality of the strikes. Few are concerned with the moral implications of the drone’s use and the social and historical reasons why certain members of the targeted communities have resorted to violence, being merely cast aside as “Islamic terrorists,” “Islamists,” or “jihadists.”

My latest study with Brookings Press The Thistle and the Drone: How America’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam, the third book in my trilogy on relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world after 9/11, provides the missing part of the debate. The Thistle and the Drone explains an important correlation: the United States uses drones almost exclusively against Muslim tribes with strong codes of honor and revenge living on the borders between nations—the tribes on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Yemen, Somalia, the southern Philippines, Turkey, and Mali. For these communities, the deadly drone is a symbol for America’s war on terror. It is constantly hovering above unseen, operated by Americans on the other side of the world, and with the ability to strike at will. The thistle is a symbol of these fierce tribes, invoking Leo Tolstoy’s novel Hadji Murad in which he compares the Caucasian tribes battling the advancing Imperial Russian army in the 19th century with this prickly flower.

Many of these tribal communities had been fighting for decades in order to defend their identity, culture, and independence in the chaotic and often brutal modern states created after the departure of the European colonial powers. After the tragic events of 9/11, it was to the “ungoverned spaces” of these peripheral communities that the United States looked to in their hunt for al Qaeda. Many of their central governments found it convenient to ally themselves with the United States and become integrated in the globalized financial, military, information, and communication networks. The United States, dominated by ideas of a “clash of civilizations” between the West and Islam, were quick to ascribe the retaliatory actions of the tribes as the work of al Qaeda or al Qaeda-linked militants as part of a “global jihad.” Once the specter of al Qaeda was invoked, the United States’ was fully committed to bolstering the military capabilities of its allies. U.S. involvement, especially the use of the drone, proved to exacerbate and expand these conflicts, each with their own social and historical context. The war on terror had thus become a global war on tribal Islam.

Amidst the anarchic violence, it is, however, the innocent men, women, and children of the periphery who suffer the most—children in a school, poverty-ridden families standing in line for food, or congregations at worship in a house of prayer. These communities are facing a massive humanitarian crisis yet their plight goes unrecognized under the din of America’s war on terror and the heavy fog of war. Pounded by drones and military strikes one day, suicide bombers the next, the people of the periphery cry out, “Everyday is like 9/11 for us.”

Relying upon forty case studies of tribal societies across the Muslim world, from Morocco to the southern Philippines, The Thistle and the Drone shows that the war on terror across the Muslim world is being fueled by the structural breakdown between the center and periphery rather than any compulsion within the Islamic faith. This study takes the reader into the heart of the war on terror—Waziristan—one of the most battered regions of the world by drones and where I served as the government administrator, or Political Agent, in the late 1970s. Using my own experiences in Waziristan, I describe how traditional tribal society functions and how to effectively administer them as a representative of government authority. I then show how the historical tension between the center and periphery spiraled out of control after 9/11, leading to one of its deadliest manifestation, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) based in the toughest clan of the toughest tribe of the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, the Shabi Khel of the Mahsud.

Expanding to other tribal societies in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, I establish a new frame for understanding the war on terror based in the historical conflict between the central government and tribal periphery, resulting in the mutation of the tribal code and increasingly deadly violence. I even discovered the catalyst for the war on terror—the 9/11 attacks—impossible to fully understand without knowledge of tribal society and this new paradigm for the war on terror. Of the 19 hijackers on 9/11, 18 of them, along with Osama bin Laden himself, were Yemeni tribesmen motivated by tribal codes. Of the 18 Yemeni hijackers, 10 were from the Yemeni tribes of the beleaguered Asir region on the southwest periphery of Saudi Arabia.

After over a decade, it is abundantly clear that the United States has been fighting the wrong war with the wrong methods against the wrong enemy. Only by recognizing the true source of the violence and the nature of the tribal society which produces it can the U.S. begin to provide lasting solutions. The Thistle and the Drone lays down this path to ending and winning the war on terror. In this age of globalization, we must be guided by the shibboleth tikkun olam—to go out and “heal a fractured world.” Peace is in everyone’s best interests.

Authors

Akbar Ahmed

The Thistle and the Drone : How America’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam

Akbar Ahmed — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Brookings Institution Press 2013 424pp.

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On March 14, Brookings hosted the launch of The Thistle and the Drone with a presentation by author and Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Akbar Ahmed, and a panel discussion with Sally Quinn, editor-in-chief of the Washington Post’s "On Faith," and former Pakistani minister Mowahid Shah. See video clips from the launch event»
You can watch an introductory video to the March 14 launch featuring commentary by Ambassador Anthony Quainton, Diplomat in Residence at American University, and Khalid Aziz, Former Chief Secretary North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan. You can also read coverage of the event in The Nation. Watch the video here »
For more from Akbar Ahmed on The Thistle and the Drone, read his post on Brookings Up Front Blog.

The United States declared war on terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. More than ten years later, the results are decidedly mixed. In The Thistle and the Drone, world-renowned author, diplomat, and scholar Akbar Ahmed reveals a tremendously important yet largely unrecognized adverse effect of these campaigns: they actually have exacerbated the already-broken relationship between central governments and the tribal societies on their periphery.

As this groundbreaking study demonstrates, it is the conflict between the center and the periphery and the involvement of the United States that has fueled the war on terror. No one is immune to this violence—neither school children nor congregations in their houses of worship. Battered by military or drone strikes one day and suicide bombers the next, people on the periphery say, “Every day is like 9/11 for us.”

In the third volume of his trilogy that includes Journey into Islam (2007) and Journey into America (2010), Ahmed draws on forty current case studies for this analysis. The United States, dominated by ideas of a “clash of civilizations” and “security,” has become directly or indirectly involved with these societies. Although al Qaeda has been decimated, the U.S. is drifting into a global war against tribal societies on the periphery of nations. Beginning with Waziristan in Pakistan and expanding to similar tribal societies in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere, he offers an alternative and unprecedented paradigm for winning the war on terror.

WATCH: Professor Ahmed traces the history of tribal Pakistan »
Listen to Professor Ahmed discuss The Thistle and the Drone with Steve Inskeep on NPR »
Listen to an interview with Maureen Fielder and Professor Ahmed, on Interfaith Voices »

Praise for The Thistle and the Drone:
“In the end, I was close to tears. Lagrimas caudales or “flowing tears,” to use the apposite phrase of Blas de Otero, seems to be what the book’s conclusions lead to. Thus lagrimas for the tribes, for the soldiers, and for the United States. Professor Ahmed gives us the only way out of this dangerous dilemma, a way to coexist with the thistle without the drone.”—Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell and Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary

"The Thistle and the Drone is a must read. It unveils what few understand and demythologizes the war on terror for what it is; a failed, overly simplified response to the highly complex role that tribalism plays in America's war on terror."—The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane D.D., The 8th Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC, Senior Advisor, Interfaith Relations, Washington National Cathedral

"Professor Ahmed combines a clear professional anthropological expertise with an equally clear, critical and humane moral perspective. This is an unusual and groundbreaking book, which should be compulsory reading for Western governments."—Dr. Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury and Master of Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, UK

“Yet another brilliantly written masterpiece—a must-read for all, particularly Muslims who have an interest in understanding the roots of the conflicts that go back in history but have become accentuated since 9/11. Only Akbar Ahmed can give us these insights into the post-modern era we live in and the conflicts that bedevil our times through this highly readable and deeply engaging narrative."—Jafer Qureshi, Co-convenor of the UK Action Committee on Islamic Affairs

"In this groundbreaking and startling book, Akbar Ahmed bravely uncovers an inconvenient truth, a fearful reality which endangers us all and in which we are all implicated. It should be required reading for those working in the media, policy-making and education—and, indeed, for anybody who wishes to understand our tragically polarised world."—Karen Armstrong, author of The Case for God

Read about The Thistle and the Drone at The Washington Post »

Read about The Thistle and the Drone at Time »

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Akbar Ahmed

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Aung San Suu Kyi, the Rohingya of Burma and the Challenge of Faith

Akbar Ahmed and Harrison Akins — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0400

She came, she saw, she conquered. The photograph of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi standing proudly with America’s smiling political elite at her Congressional Gold Medal ceremony last month in Washington, D.C., provides a powerful image of this heroine of democracy. She has justifiably caught the world’s attention and earned its love. Arizona Sen. John McCain called her “his personal hero.

In Suu Kyi’s visit to American University where she received an honorary doctorate during her U.S. visit, we are provided with another powerful image of her, that of a supplicant Buddhist kneeling before a dozen monks to receive their blessing. She has not only become a voice for freedom and political leadership but a voice of Buddhist compassion for the Burmese people and the ethnic minority groups on the periphery who have long suffered under Burma’s oppressive government.

Suu Kyi, the daughter of Burmese founding father Aung San, was known to rely on her Buddhist faith for a sense of inner freedom during her 15 years of captivity after rising to power during the 1988 student uprising. After her release in 2010, she continued her work for democracy, stressing the “loving kindness” of Buddhist teachings for Burma’s democratic transition in place of feelings of hatred and revenge. She was elected to the Burmese Parliament representing the National League for Democracy, and in recent weeks, she has expressed her willingness to continue to serve her nation as the next president of Burma with elections scheduled for 2015.

With Suu Kyi’s near universal appeal and star power, she is in a unique position for both political leadership in Burma as well as a voice of Buddhist compassion and an ally for the oppressed. Buddha stressed that compassion lay at the heart of a Buddha nature and demonstrates one’s respect for the dignity of life.

Yet, Suu Kyi has remained curiously silent on one of the most urgent humanitarian issues facing Burma, the plight of the Rohingya people.

The Rohingya, whom the BBC and many NGOs call “one of the world’s most persecuted minority groups,” are the little known Muslim people of the coastal Arakan state of western Burma. Over the past three decades, the Rohingya have been systematically pushed out of their homes by Burma’s military government and subjected to widespread violence along with the complete negation of their rights and even identity. They have become a stateless minority.

Many hundreds of thousands have fled to neighboring countries. The Rohingya are surrounded by adherents of the great faiths - Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Christianty - all of which emphasis compassion and charity for the needy. Despite these compulsions from their faiths, many Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and Christians in South Asia have treated the Rohingya with nothing but outright hostility.

The current situation of the Rohingya is a challenge not only for all in the region to adhere to the demands of their faiths but a challenge for Aung San Suu Kyi and the Buddhists of Burma to treat the suffering Rohingya with “loving kindness,” of which they have seen little.

The widely reported violence in July 2012 against the Rohingya by the neighboring Buddhist Rakhine people in which over 1,000 Rohingya were killed and entire villages burned to the ground must be understood in the context of this sustained campaign of oppression against the Rohingya. The violent actions of the Rakhine were committed with the complicity and, at times, participation of the government security forces.

Even the new democratic reforms have not altered the perception of the Rohingya with President Thein Sein stating in July 2012 in the wake of this violence that he would not recognize the Rohingya or their rights and wished to turn over the entire ethnic group to the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees. Buddhist monks, contrary to the teachings of Buddha, staged anti-Rohingya marches in September to declare their support for the president’s proposal. The Burmese government has blocked the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) from opening an aid office to assist displaced Rohingya due to the violence in Arakan state.

While many ethnic minorities in Burma, with non-Burmese peoples comprising over 30 percent of the population, have been the victims of the military junta’s oppressive measures, the Rohingya stand apart in that their very existence is threatened.

When General Ne Win and the military junta came to power in 1962, the central government began to shift away from the inclusive vision of Aung San and towards a nationalist ideology based on the Burmese ethnicity and the Buddhist faith. The Rohingya, as both non-Burmese and Muslim, were now stripped of any legitimacy and erroneously and incorrectly labeled “illegal Bengali immigrants.”

The initial push of the military’s ethnic cleansing campaign came in 1978 under Operation Naga Min with the purpose of scrutinizing everyone in the state as either a citizen or alleged “illegal immigrant.” For the Rohingya people, this resulted in widespread rape, arbitrary arrests, desecration of mosques, destruction of villages, and confiscation of lands. In the wake of this violence, nearly a quarter of a million Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh, many of whom were later repatriated to Burma where they faced further rape, imprisonment, and torture.

In 1991, a second push, known as Operation Pyi Thaya, or Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation, was launched with the same purpose, resulting in another mass exodus of 200,000 Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh, with nearly 300,000 refugees remaining today, many without food or medical assistance from a Muslim population ignoring the demands for compassion in their faith towards their fellow Muslims.

With the passage of the 1982 Citizenship Law, the Rohingya were officially denied Burmese citizenship and effectively ceased to exist legally. With their loss of citizenship, the Rohingya found their lives difficult to lead. They were barred from travelling outside their villages, repairing their decaying places of worship, receiving an education in any language or even marrying and having children without rarely granted government permission, often procured through bribes which few are able to afford. The failure to receive permission for any of these innocuous acts lands the offenders in prison where men are beaten and women routinely raped.

Women who become illegally pregnant are forced to either flee the country or resort to dangerous back-alley abortions, where many die because of their inability to get adequate medical treatment due to the severe travel restrictions.

The Rohingya are also subjected to modern-day slavery, where they are forced to work on infrastructure projects, such as constructing “model villages” to house Burmese settlers intended to displace them. Women are susceptible to forced prostitution by the Burmese security forces.

While many efforts have been made by the Burmese government towards the creation of an open and democratic political system, there is still much more to be done. Suu Kyi, following the example of inclusive leaders like Nelson Mandela, should reach out to the Rohingya people and set a positive precedent for an all-embracing society which welcomes the participation of the Rohingya as well as all the ethnic minorities of Burma. In this way, she will also be living up to the ideals of her Buddhist faith to show compassion towards those who suffer. Where she leads, others will follow.

Only when the systematic violence against the Rohingya ends can a truly democratic Burma be legitimate in the eyes of its own people and the international community.

But the first step is for Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma to acknowledge the Rohingya exist.

Authors

Akbar Ahmed
Harrison Akins

Publication: The Washington Post

Image Source: © Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters

The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Importance of Muslim-Christian Understanding

Akbar Ahmed — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0400

The proximity to a great spiritual master is always inspiring. And perhaps there are few masters as eminent as the archbishop of Canterbury.

On October 8, 2012, my daughter Amineh Hoti and I had been invited to participate in what was probably the last major public event of the Most Rev. Rowan Williams during his ten-year engagement with Muslims as the archbishop of Canterbury. The event was held at Lambeth Palace, the archbishop’s London residence. The who’s who of Britain was there including the archbishops of Wales and Ireland, several bishops and Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the first-ever female chairman of the Tory Party. Also present was my dear friend James Shera, MBE, a Pakistani Christian, the first Pakistani mayor of Rugby and the only Pakistani in the United Kingdom with a road named after him.

The lectures of the archbishop to Muslim audiences in Egypt, Libya and Pakistan had been compiled into a volume and translated into Urdu and Bengali. The translations were presented that day to the archbishop along with glowing speeches made by Muslims recording the contributions of the archbishop in promoting interfaith dialogue.

The archbishops of Canterbury have been at the center of English history. Their clashes with the reigning monarchs in attempting to preserve the primacy of the church are legendary. In the 12th century, Henry II prompted the murder of Thomas Becket in the church itself and Thomas Cranmer, who helped build a case for Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon, was executed in the 16th century, but not before he compiled the English Book of Common Prayer. Balanced against this, however, have been the many occasions when the church has reached across sectarian lines to embrace those of other faiths.

Given this storied history of the position of the archbishop of Canterbury and his standing in British culture, it is significant that Archbishop Rowan Williams’ final public event would promote interfaith dialogue between the Christian and Muslim faiths. Special significance was given to Christian-Muslim understanding in Pakistan, and I had been asked to deliver the keynote address in the afternoon session.

We had lunch in the State Drawing Room where the past met the present. Thomas Cranmer looked down on us dolefully from a painting and a radiant Prince William and Kate Middleton had signed their picture for the archbishop.

In the middle of this most hectic of days, the archbishop graciously gave my daughter and me a private interview. He had always been a particular supporter of my daughter. He came to Cambridge to launch her book project “Valuing Diversity: Towards Mutual Understanding and Respect” at Michaelhouse, one of the oldest educational centers in the UK. The book is a valuable learning resource and useful tool to promote understanding. Some 2,500 schools now use it.

When I asked him what he felt was his greatest achievement after a decade as the archbishop, he talked of the educational development programs for schools. He has always been an advocate of faith-based development projects. His calm scholarly exterior was ruffled once only when I raised the issue of the dreadful film made in Los Angeles which insulted the prophet of Islam.

When I asked if he had a message for Americans about promoting better understanding with Muslims, he said, “We need higher standards of civility” and “we need a higher standard of public education.” Without these, society itself breaks down and all the efforts in interfaith dialogue are thus jeopardized.

He advised Americans “to watch Muslims pray.” When people watch others of different faiths in prayer we understand them better. It is the best way to build bridges. “Don’t see religion as a political entity but in its own context,” he said. Americans need to be in touch with Muslims including through the use of e-mails. That is one way greater understanding will be created.

The archbishop pointed out that the earliest translation of the Koran was carried out by a Benedictine monk 1,000 years ago in Europe. The aim was “to understand our neighbors better.” Even though the reception was generally negative regarding the Koran itself, at least it established the importance of scholarship in understanding the faith of others.

For Muslims, his message was that such films are no more typical of Christianity than the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was of Islam. The actions of small groups like the film makers must not be allowed to draw the global community into conflict which leads to so many unfortunate deaths.

Looking back at the contributions of the archbishop at the end of his tenure as head of the Anglican Church, the archbishop will be perhaps best remembered in popular culture as the man who presided at Westminster Abbey over the most important wedding of this generation – the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. It was estimated that some 3 billion people saw the ceremony on TV.

But, he will also be remembered for his bold intellectual initiatives in interfaith dialogue which created so much controversy when he raised the issue of sharia law and its compatibility with English law. Britain was in uproar. Even prominent Muslim leaders – in both parties – attacked the idea. The sharia controversy confirmed that here was a man of extraordinary intellect prepared to take logic where it led him.

But it convinced both Christians and Muslims that this man was a sincere explorer of the truth regardless of the path it took him on, well suited to his next position as a master of a Cambridge college.

The archbishop was justifiably proud of his record in interfaith dialogue. He told us that whenever he is in Europe people point out that the UK is a model of interfaith understanding and ask him how can Europeans replicate the model.

Thanks to his goodwill Muslims at this final gathering felt completely at ease among their warm and welcoming Christian hosts.

At the end of the day, the Rev. Rana Youab Khan, the assistant to the archbishop in interfaith matters and the first Pakistani in history appointed on the staff of the archbishop, insisted on showing us Pakistani hospitality. Khan takes pride in the fact that he was educated in a madrassah in Pakistan. He is playing a vital role himself in bridge-building between the two civilizations. He talks of the archbishop with a mixture of awe and adoration.

Khan showed us around Lambeth Palace and its beautiful garden, the largest in London after Buckingham Palace. A large lush green fig tree in the main courtyard was given as a present from the patriarch of Jerusalem 500 years ago. Some parts of the palace date back to the 12th century. These buildings were old before Columbus set sail for America.

Then Khan, his wife and sons welcomed us to their rooms which are adjacent to the living quarters of the archbishop for a Pakistani meal. Afterwards, Bishop Mano Ramalshah, the Pakistani bishop of Peshawar, offered to drive us with characteristic warmth to the railway station at King’s Cross for the Cambridge train.

The day had begun with the English approach to spirituality which is through the mind – reason, logic and systematic argument. It ended with the Pakistani approach to spirituality which uses the heart – emotion, sentiment and intuition. The two halves of worship had come together.

At Lambeth Palace the east and west, Muslim and Christian, the mind and the heart had met for a brief moment. In that meeting I saw the hope for mankind.

Authors

Akbar Ahmed

Publication: The Washington Post

Image Source: © Paul Hackett / Reuters

The OIC and the Arab Awakening

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 12:30:00 -0400

Event Information

March 15, 2012
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM EDT

The Brookings Institution
Washington, DC

On March 15, the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at Brookings hosted Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, the secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

As momentous changes have swept across the Arab world over the past two years, the OIC has emerged as an important voice defending the dignity and rights of its citizens. Early last year, the OIC suspended Libya from membership and condemned Muammar Gaddafi's attacks against his own people. It has also established a Human Rights Commission that has emphasized human rights violations in Syria, and repeatedly called attention to the need for international aid to Somalia.

Dr. Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu of Turkey took office as the ninth secretary general of the OIC in January 2005. Since joining the OIC in 1980 as founding director general of the Research Centre for Islamic History, Culture and Arts (IRCICA) in Istanbul, Dr. İhsanoğlu has sought to create awareness about Islamic culture across the world through research, publishing, and organizing congresses. He has been recognized as a leading contributor to rapprochement between cultures, particularly between the Muslim and Western worlds.

Dr. İhsanoğlu spoke about the Arab uprisings, the role of the OIC in engaging with and advocating for the rights of Muslim communities outside of the organization’s member states, the challenges in ending the violence in Syria, and the OIC’s efforts at promoting human rights and good governance. Participants of the event included current and former ambassadors, government officials, academics, and journalists.

Participants

Moderator

Panelists

Dr. Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu

Secretary General, Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)

Waiting for the Arab Spring in Western Sahara

Akbar Ahmed and Harrison Akins — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:01:00 -0400

The fate of the Sahrawi nation of Western Sahara hangs in the balance this week. About 165,000 Sahrawi refugees in Algeria are eagerly watching the current UN-sponsored negotiations taking place outside of New York City on the status of their country. For the past 36 years they have been languishing in camps, waiting for the day they may return home, which is currently under Moroccan control. Thus far, they have had little reason to hope.

The three-day negotiations, taking place from March 11-13, involve Morocco, with backing from the United States; regional nations like Algeria and Mauritania; and representatives from Western Sahara. It is the latest meeting in a 20-year process that has been marked by a continual failure to resolve the disputed status of this little-known and forgotten corner of Africa, wedged between Morocco and Mauritania.

Morocco is a perennial favourite of Western tourists who rightfully admire its spectacular natural vistas and the hospitality of a friendly people. But its dealing with the Sahrawi people is a little-known, dark and festering sore.

Following the Moroccan invasion of Western Sahara in 1975 and the resulting war, thousands of Sahrawi, the historical inhabitants of Western Sahara, began spilling across the border into Algeria. With the support of the Algerian government, four temporary refugee camps were established near Tindouf.

The camps have, of late, been in the media with rumours of potential links between al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Sahrawi, yet no evidence for these claims has been presented. However, few ask why the refugees are present in Algeria in the first place, the situation of the roughly 150,000 Sahrawi living inside Western Sahara, and the roots of this conflict.

The Sahrawi, meaning "from the desert", are a traditionally nomadic people who have occupied the region for over a thousand years. Prior to colonisation by the Spanish in 1884, this unforgiving and harsh stretch of the Sahara had never known the authority of any sovereign above the tribal level. The Sahrawi roamed free as the desert wind across the Western Sahara.

The Sahrawi tribes, approximately 400,000 in number and spread over several countries, are a mixture of West African Berbers and the Arab tribes who arrived in the 13th century. These communities live by an unwritten code of behaviour and law, known as orf, which stresses honour, hospitality and revenge independent of any structured legal or political institutions. The seven major tribes claim descent from the Prophet of Islam.

In spite of Spanish colonisation in 1884, the tribes were still able to maintain their independence. Spain, establishing its rule among coastal settlements only, was largely un-interested in subjugating the desert interior, leaving them free to practice their traditional culture.

Spanish presence in Western Sahara grew exponentially during the 1960s and 1970s due to the discovery of vast phosphate reserves and the encroaching Moroccan Army of Liberation. The Moroccan army, which sought to re-establish what it called "Greater Morocco" after attaining independence in 1956, was defeated in 1958 by a combined French-Spanish military operation.

In the face of this increased focus on Western Sahara, calls for independence began to emerge from the Sahrawi tribes. After Spanish troops fired on a crowd of Sahrawi demonstrators in June 1970 in a suburb of El-Ayoun, the capital of Western Sahara, the Sahrawi turned to armed resistance against Spain. The Polisario Front was created in 1973 to represent the Sahrawi people.

Spain, not wanting to become embroiled in its own African war, announced a referendum for the self-determination of the Sahrawi people to be held in 1976 coinciding with its withdrawal. Violating this agreement, Spain signed the 1975 Madrid Accords, transferring the administration of Western Sahara to Morocco and Mauritania in return for Spanish fishing rights along the coast.

The current struggle between the Sahrawi and Morocco began with the exit of Spain. In October 1975, the International Court of Justice, in a case brought to the court by Morocco and Mauritania, ruled that Morocco's and Mauritania's claims on Western Sahara did not justify their sovereignty over the region. The court instead recommended self-determination for the Sahrawi.

'Victory march'

In direct violation of this ruling, Morocco "invaded" Western Sahara in November 1975 with its Green March, a procession of 350,000 Moroccan civilians consisting of old and young men, a few women, wealthy businessmen, two royal princesses, peasants, unemployed youths and wage earners. King Hassan called the Green March, named after the color of Islam, a massirat fath, or "victory march". This diverse crowd crossed over the southern border of Morocco into Western Sahara supported by 20,000 Moroccan Royal Army troops for "protection". A resulting military clash between the Moroccan Army, with military aid from the United States and the Polisario Front, with military support from Algeria, began in mid-November 1975 and continued for 16 years. Mauritania, an early participant in the war, eventually withdrew from Western Sahara in August 1979, signing a peace agreement with the Polisario Front.

Throughout this period, Morocco encouraged Moroccan settlers to move into the Western Saharan region, attracting them with double wages, tax exemptions and subsidised housing. Moroccan investment in the region largely benefited these settlers, who in time came to comprise more than half of the population. Despite this investment, Western Sahara has the worst economy and highest unemployment in Morocco, a remarkable fact in a country plagued by high rates of poverty.

The Sahrawi, both combatant and non-combatant alike, were also subject to extremely harsh treatment by the Moroccan Army, including the poisoning of wells, destruction of food supplies, burning of lands and homes, mutilation, rape, arbitrary arrests and murder. The lords of the desert have been reduced to living in restricted and squalid camps as destitute refugees. The irony is that their oppressors are fellow Muslims.

The fighting and oppressive measures of the Moroccans drove half the Sahrawi population across the border into Western Algeria, one of the most inhospitable regions of the Sahara. The refugee camps were originally cobbled together as temporary settlements without proper infrastructure or access to water and plagued with continual epidemics of respiratory illness, dysentery and malnutrition. Yet these temporary settlements have become the seemingly permanent home for 165,000 Sahrawi refugees.

These camps have also become the headquarters of the Polisario Front and the seat of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, the Western Sahara government-in-exile for the Sahrawi people, established in February 1976. The sovereignty of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) is currently recognised by 48 countries and is a full member of the African Union. As a result of the African Union seating the SADR in 1984, Morocco resigned from the organisation and is currently the only African nation to not be included as a member.

The 'berm'

In the 1980s, Morocco, in order to divide the Sahrawi population, constructed an approximately 2,500-kilometre wall called the "Berm", running north to south along the western border with Algeria and Mauritania. This wall consists of sand and rubble parapets, three to four metres high, with sophisticated detection systems, a manned force of 120,000 Moroccan soldiers and surrounded by the largest continuous minefield in the world, severely limiting movement in the desert.

Working towards a resolution to this conflict, a ceasefire was agreed to by Morocco and the Polisario Front beginning in September 1991. Morocco, however, has continued its harsh tactics against Sahrawi in Western Sahara, including arbitrary detention, torture, firing upon unarmed crowds, beating protesters to the point of death and denying injured protesters medical treatment. Reports of gross abuses by the police emerged as recently as February 2012.

In October 2010, a group of Sahrawi youths in the spirit of the Arab Spring formed a "tent city" outside Gdeim Izik in northwestern Western Sahara to protest the continued human rights abuses, discrimination and poverty their people faced. It eventually attracted over 7,000 people. In November 2010, Moroccan security forces attacked the camp without warning, killing 36 protesters. With the focus of the media on the momentous events taking place in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria, the plight of the Sahrawi drew little attention.

The 1991 ceasefire agreement was implemented with the conditions to hold a referendum for Sahrawi self-determination. To date, no referendum has been held. There have been a series of proposed plans for holding a referendum over the past 20 years, with issues over who may or may not participate. However, Morocco has continually rejected any proposal which allows for the possibility of Western Saharan independence, and the Sahrawi refuse to compromise on this point. In 1994, King Hassan issued a royal amnesty for hundreds of political prisoners in Western Sahara, but an explicit exception was made for "whosoever does not recognise the fact that the Sahara is Morocco".

King Muhammad VI of Morocco represents the Alaouite dynasty that has ruled for the last four centuries. Claiming descent from the Prophet of Islam, its monarchs skillfully balanced Ulema and Sufi, Europeans and local warlords, urban Arabs and Berber tribes. Sacred lineage and personal charisma have allowed the kings of Morocco to play a pivotal role in their country's affairs. The ascension of the present king has coincided with the onset of the Arab Spring.

The King's instincts are in tune with the times. He has already initiated a series of reforms involving democratic participation and extension of human rights. He now needs to draw on the wisdom and compassion of his ancestors and combine it with the compulsions of our modern times to resolve the biggest moral and political challenge facing Morocco: the fate of the Sahrawi of Western Sahara.

Authors

Akbar Ahmed
Harrison Akins

Publication: Al Jazeera

Image Source: © Juan Medina / Reuters

Deadly Drone Strike on Muslims in the Southern Philippines

Akbar Ahmed and Frankie Martin — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:11:00 -0500

Early last month, Tausug villagers on the Southern Philippine island of Jolo heard a buzzing sound not heard before. It is a sound familiar to the people of Waziristan who live along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, where the United States fights the Taliban. It was the dreaded drone, which arrives from distant and unknown destinations to cause death and destruction. Within minutes, 15 people lay dead and a community plunged into despair, fear and mourning.

The U.S. drone strike, targeting accused leaders in the Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah organisations, marked the first time the weapon has been used in Southeast Asia. The drone has so far been used against Muslim groups and the Tausug are the latest on the list.

Just as in Pakistan and other theatres of the "war on terror", the strike has provoked controversy, with a Filipino lawmaker condemning the attack as a violation of national sovereignty. This controversy could increase with the recent American announcement that it plans to boost its drone fleet in the Philippines by 30 per cent. The U.S. already has hundreds of troops stationed on Jolo Island, but until now, the Americans have maintained a non-combat "advisory" role.

The expansion of U.S.' drone war has the potential to further enflame a volatile conflict involving the southern Muslim areas and Manila, which has killed around 120,000 people over the past four decades. To understand what is happening in the Philippines and the U.S.' role in the conflict, we need to look at the Tausug, among the most populous and dominant of the 13 groups of Muslims in the South Philippines known as "Moro", a pejorative name given by Spanish colonisers centuries ago.

Sulu Sultanate

For hundreds of years, the Tausug had their own independent kingdom, the Sulu Sultanate, which was established in 1457 and centered in Jolo. The Sultanate became the largest and most influential political power in the Philippines with highly developed trade links across the region. From this base among the Tausug, Islam took root in neighbouring Mindanao Island among the Maguindanao and other groups.

The antagonistic relationship between the Moro periphery and the centre in Manila developed during the Spanish colonial era. The Spanish had arrived not long after expelling the Muslims from Spain and, intoxicated by that historical victory, were determined to exterminate Islam in the region and unite the Philippines under Christian rule.

In the instructions given by the Spanish governor on the eve of the first campaign against the southern Muslims in 1578, he ordered that "there be not among them anymore preachers of the doctrines of Mahoma since it is evil and false" and called for all mosques to be destroyed. The governor's instructions set the tone for centuries of continuous warfare. The idea of a predatory central authority is deeply embedded in Tausug mythology and psychology.

Of all the Moro groups, the Tausug has been considered the most independent and difficult to conquer, with not a single generation of Tausug experiencing life without war over the past 450 years.

As any anthropologist will testify, the Tausug have survived half a millennium of persecution and attempts at conversion because of their highly developed code and clan structure. It is the classic tribe: egalitarian and feuding clans that unite in the face of the outside enemy and a code which emphasizes honor, revenge, loyalty and hospitality.

It was only in the late 19th century that Spain succeeded in incorporating the Sulu Sultanate as a protectorate and established a military presence on Jolo. The Spanish were followed by American colonisers who could be as brutal as their predecessors. In a 1906 battle, U.S. troops killed as many as 1,000 Tausug men, women and children, and between 500 and 2,000 in a 1913 engagement.

Despite the Moro resistance to U.S. colonial rule, they advocated for either continued American administration or their own country, rather than be incorporated into an independent Philippines, which they believed would continue the policies of the Spanish against their religion and culture. The request, however, was rejected.

'Special provinces'

Following independence in 1946, the Muslim regions were ruled as "special provinces" with most of the important government posts reserved for Christian Filipinos. Despite being granted electoral representation in the 1950s, the majority of Moro had little interest in dealing with the central government. Manila, for its part, largely neglected the region.

The Tausug areas remained impoverished and, in the absence of jobs, young men turned to looting and piracy. In response, Manila opted for heavy-handed military tactics and based its largest command of security forces in the nation among the Tausug.

Central government actions to subdue the Tausug areas in the 1950s resulted in the deaths of almost all fighting age men in certain regions. The society was torn apart, with the young generation growing up without traditional leadership.

The current conflict began in 1968 with what became known as the Jabidah Massacre, when around 60 mainly Tausug recruits in the Philippine Army were summarily executed after they refused a mission to attack the Malaysian region of Sabah, where a population of Tausug also resides.

In 1971, the Moro, incensed by Jabidah and accusing the central government of conducting "genocide", began an open war against the state. A Tausug-dominated independence movement soon developed called the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). In 1976, the government reached an agreement with the MNLF to grant the Moro areas autonomy, which was further developed in a 1996 treaty that is still being negotiated.

For many Moro living on Mindanao, however, the deal was unsatisfactory because of the presence of so many Christian settlers, who they complained were taking more and more of their land under what seemed like government policy.

Indeed, the population had dramatically changed from 76 per cent Muslim in 1903 to 72.5 per cent Christian by 2000. The government was arming Christian settlers to attack Muslims. In 1971, the most notorious Christian militia, the Ilaga, killed 70 Moro in a mosque. Muslim militias lashed back, leading to a cycle of violence.

A new group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), based in Mindanao's Maguindanao ethnic group, soon split from the MNLF and vowed to push for secession.

'Abu Sayyaf' label

Following the 9/11 attacks, the United States became involved in the region in pursuit of the elusive Abu Sayyaf, which it accused of having links with al-Qaeda. The group was formed by a charismatic Tausug preacher in the late 1980s, whose speeches attracted angry young men from a community rife with orphans due to the previous decades of war.

Abu Sayyaf has been blamed for kidnappings, bombings and beheadings, gripping the Philippines with sensational media reports. Manila has been accused of applying the "Abu Sayyaf" label to any conflict in the region, including those involving small armed Tausug groups, many of them kinship based, which have existed for centuries.

Aid workers kidnapped in 2009, for example, reported that their "Abu Sayyaf" captor told them "I can be ASG (Abu Sayyaf Group), I can be MILF, I can be [MILF or MNLF breakaway group] Lost Command".

Manila was discovering, like many other nations after 9/11, that by associating its restless communities on the periphery with al-Qaeda, it could garner easy American support.

To resolve the conflict between the Moro and Manila, President Benigno Aquino must demonstrate that the centuries of conflict and forced assimilation into a monolithic Filipino culture are over. The government needs to promote pluralism and build trust with the periphery.

With the recent declarations by President Aquino's government that the state is fully invested in implementing the 1996 autonomy agreement with the MNLF and hopes to have a peace treaty in place with the MILF by 2013, the various parties have a unique opportunity to work for a longstanding solution.

Development projects to help the suffering Tausug must be conducted urgently as the situation for ordinary people is dire. Amidst the frequent barrages of artillery and bombs and the displacement of hundreds of thousands over the past decade, a 2005 study found that 92 per cent of water sources in Sulu Province, where the majority of Tausug live, were contaminated, while the malnutrition rate for children under five is 50 per cent. Education and employment are constant challenges.

The sad state of affairs does not only result from a lack of funds, as the Philippines government, the United States and others have poured millions into the region, but rather how funds are spent. The association of development with the military among the population has been an impediment to implementing necessary projects.

Mediation needed

Between inefficient aid funding and the ongoing military campaigns, Manila has been drained of desperately needed resources and diverted from fulfilling its ambitions to become an economic powerhouse.

Development solutions can only work if they have the full support of the clans that decide local politics, which is no easy task, considering the tenacity with which clans can fight over resources. Yet with a holistic plan of engagement in the context of true autonomy, it is possible to bring them together.

Mediation, involving local religious leaders and international bodies like the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation, which has taken the lead in peace talks between the Moro factions and the government, can play a key role in this regard.

Major General Reuben Rafael, the Philippine commander formerly in charge of military operations in Sulu Province, gave us an example of how to proceed. In 2007, he staged a public apology for transgressions against the population. The assembled people began to cry, including the Tausug mayor of the town, who stated that never in the history of Sulu had a military general apologized to them in such a manner. This is the way to the heart of the Tausug, and we salute the general for showing us the path to peace.

By unleashing the drones, the U.S. has pushed the conflict between centre and periphery in the Philippines in a dangerous direction. If there is one lesson we can learn from half a millennium of history it is this: weapons destroy flesh and blood, but cannot break the spirit of a people motivated by ideas of honour and justice.

Instead, the U.S. and Manila should work with the Muslims of the Philippines to ensure full rights of identity, development, dignity, human rights and self-determination. Only then will the security situation improve and the Moro permitted to live the prosperous and secure lives they have been denied for so long; and only then will the Philippines be able to become the Asian Tiger it aspires to be.

Authors

Akbar Ahmed
Frankie Martin

Publication: Al Jazeera

Image Source: © Stringer Philippines / Reuters

No Arab Spring for Egypt's Bedouin

Akbar Ahmed and Harrison Akins — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:49:00 -0500

In early February, two American women in their 60s, admiring the rugged beauty of South Sinai around St Catherine's Monastery—probably squinting under the bright Egyptian sun—were suddenly set upon by armed Bedouin tribesmen in a pick-up truck. The women were robbed of their money and valuables and then, along with their Egyptian tour guide, taken hostage. This kidnapping came in the wake of the abduction of 25 Chinese workers in North Sinai last month by the Bedouin.

The news spread like wildfire. Commentators immediately pointed to a possible al-Qaeda link. There were already reports in the media of the nefarious doings of groups like the Boko Haram in Nigeria and the TTP of Pakistan and their links with al-Qaeda.

What is happening with the Sinai Bedouin?

The Bedouin responsible for these recent kidnappings provide us a clue to the motivation of their actions. In both incidents, they were seeking to put pressure on the government to release their fellow tribesmen detained by the Egyptian authorities, and released their hostages in a matter of hours.

It is a little-known but sad story that the Sinai Bedouin have been suffering decades of neglect and prejudice by the central government. Under President Mubarak's government, the Bedouin tribes with their nomadic traditions were subject to hostile policies, harassment and economic exclusion; threatened on one side by the growing infringement and exclusion from the tourism industry, and, on the other side, by the security mindset with which the central government views the Bedouin—turning Sinai into a security state. The word Bedouin has unfortunately for them become synonymous with smuggler, spy or terrorist.

Within such a framework, the Bedouin are subject to arbitrary detention, barred the right to own land or participate in the military, and have even been denied citizenship, as with the al-Azazma tribe. Without citizenship, the tribesmen are left with no schools, hospitals or government services, ignored by the centre. This oppression occurs on the lands the Bedouin have lived on through the ebb and flow of history with empires coming and going, dynasties rising and falling.

Shifting sands

The Sinai peninsula has been an important thoroughfare since the time of the Egyptian pharaohs: the Jewish people crossed this wilderness fleeing Egyptian slavery and, atop Mt Sinai, God bestowed upon Moses his 10 commandments. In Arabic, Sinai is known as muftah, or a key space. Waves of invading armies and pilgrims over the centuries have stamped the pages of history into its soil.

However, for over a thousand years, these transient groups, using Sinai as a bridge and rest stop, have passed through the lands of the traditionally nomadic Bedouin tribesmen, the only permanent feature in the shifting sands of Sinai.

The first nomadic Bedouin tribes migrated into Sinai beginning in the 7th century CE, offshoots of the major tribes of the Hejaz region of present-day Saudi Arabia. In the harsh and sparse desert landscape of Sinai, they lived by a code of honour, hospitality and revenge based in their intricate kinship system. This tribal code, urfi, was able to regulate order and justice in the desert independent of any structured legal or political institutions.

This independence and general wariness towards central authority have defined the Bedouin and created tension with the centre. The government, leaving the Bedouin to regulate their own affairs, interacted largely on the basis of protection of trade routes and Hajj pilgrims. The first British agent in Sinai, W E Jennings-Bramley, noted in 1910 that he saw only one manned government garrison, housing the regional governor and 10 soldiers.

The increased presence of the government in Sinai led to the division of the Bedouin between British Egypt and the Ottoman Empire in 1906. This division became the permanent border between Egypt and Israel in 1948 and had little bearing on the reality of the tribes, splitting brother from brother. This arbitrary division between the two countries has resulted in the Sinai Bedouin being viewed with suspicion as Zionist conspirators by the Egyptian government, given the presence of their kinsmen in the Negev Desert and the Israeli occupation of Sinai from 1967-1982. Yet the same people are labelled Islamic terrorists by Egyptian and Israeli authorities during periods of strife.

Security threat?

In Sinai, the Bedouin are seen from the prism of a consistent security threat to the state, evidenced by the response to the bombing in 2004 in Taba, Sinai. Despite having already named the nine suspects, the Egyptian security services began mass arrests throughout North Sinai. Egyptian human rights organisations reported nearly 3,000 people were arrested and held without charge and subject to torture. Women and children were also arrested "as pawns to force men to turn themselves in." They began arresting individuals with beards as "presumed adherents of Islamist congregations."

Alas, the fall of President Mubarak in February 2011 has not changed this security perspective on Sinai. In August 2011, six months after Mubarak stepped down, the military, with the permission of Israel, launched Operation Eagle, the deployment of two Special Forces brigades to crack down on "militancy" and restore law and order to Sinai. A further 2,000 troops were deployed in December 2011.

In addition to coping with the continued presence of Egyptian security forces, Bedouin must also cope with the continued presence of tourists. The tourist industry in Sinai quickly expanded during the 1990s. By 2000, 24 per cent of all the hotel rooms in Egypt were located here.

The Bedouin were cast aside to make way for hotels and resorts, removed from their own land which had been an integral aspect of their traditional way of life for centuries. Their land ownership was denied by the government. Their only concession was to become hotel guards or day labourers. The remainder of the positions was filled by the migration of Egyptian workers from the Nile Valley and Delta.

Lack of investment outside of the tourism sector and lack of economic activity has led to high unemployment. Bedouin are faced with the choice of either abandoning their traditions to travel for work or revert to illegal smuggling practices, one of the "causes" of the security apparatus present in the peninsula. Throughout history, the Bedouin have fallen back on smuggling when other sources of revenue have disappeared. The security-first policy of the central government does little to resolve the gross rates of poverty and economic marginalisation in Sinai.

Justice, compassion and welfare

Now with the Arab Spring spearheading one of the most exciting democratic revolutions in modern history, started in Tunisia and picked up by Egypt, the Arab world has been changed forever. The real test of democratic rule in Egypt will be the inclusion of its periphery, the extension of rights, citizenship and justice to all people regardless of ethnicity or religion. The Muslim Bedouin and the Christian Copts alike must be given a voice.

The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, following the recent elections, are, for the first time in history, represented in large numbers in Parliament. Given their commitment to their Islamic faith, they must further incorporate and provide for their fellow Muslims, the Bedouin, if any peace and prosperity is to be found in Sinai.

Both the Holy Quran and the Prophet of Islam emphasise the obligation of the ruler to care for the poor and dispossessed; to treat them with justice, compassion and welfare. The Bedouin, as among the poorest and most dispossessed in Egypt, need the most compassion and assistance.

The exhilaration of present-day Egyptians for the ideals of democracy is, however, matched by the lack of democratic precedent in living memory, given Egypt's subjection to rule by the cult of the despotic military dictator and, prior to this, imperial colonisation from the British to the Ottoman Empires. Let us look to distant history and to one of Egypt's most shining and celebrated leaders, Saladin.

Visitors to Cairo are struck by the monuments and mosques associated with the great Saladin's rule nearly a thousand years ago. Saladin is celebrated above all because of his commitment to the Islamic obligation of compassion to the poor and marginalised within his domain. His magnanimity towards his people was so sweeping that, at his death, his only possessions consisted of the equivalent of a few dollars, a copy of his favorite Quran, a saddle and sword, having given away the remainder to his subjects. This serves as a stark contrast to the array of military dictators in the Muslim world who have pillaged and killed their citizens.

If there is no Saladin to lead Egypt today, Egyptians must be inspired by his ideals of justice and compassion that won him the respect of his people. Just as Egypt's national flag bears the eagle of Saladin, a democratic Egypt should bear the principles of Saladin. Only by reviving such ideals can all Egyptians, including the Bedouin, fully realise the aspirations of the Arab Spring.

Authors

Akbar Ahmed
Harrison Akins

Publication: Al Jazeera

Image Source: © Amr Dalsh / Reuters

Solving Sudan's Nuba Crisis

Akbar Ahmed and Frankie Martin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

"We are forsaken."

Halima Kaga, a Muslim woman from Sudan's Nuba ethnic group, looks directly into the camera. She is angry and exhausted, with her face full of anguish.

"We are only looking for food," she pleads in the video clip, filmed in South Sudan's Yida refugee camp and now circulating online. "Omar Bashir only wants to kill us with his airplanes. But the poor, elderly, orphans, small children. What does he need with their souls? What did women do that he wants to kill us?" "The people of Nuba are dying," Halima says with exasperation.

Halima fled the Nuba Mountains on Sudan's southern periphery, where several hundred thousand terrified people today are huddled in caves seeking shelter and safety from government bombardment. The vast majority have gone months without access to adequate food and are running out of water. Reports indicate they have resorted to eating bark and leaves. Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the UN, echoed many international observers in warning that "if there is not a substantial new inflow of aid by March" the situation in the province of Southern Kordofan, where the Nuba live, will be "one step short of full-scale famine".

Southern Kordofan, on the 2011 partition border with South Sudan, has become a potential battleground between the North and South that could become an African version of Kashmir. Like Kashmir, which has been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan for over six decades, Southern Kordofan could have gone to either North or South Sudan. Because Kashmir's fate was unresolved at partition in 1947, both India and Pakistan claimed the region and went to war three times over it. In Kashmir, those who suffered most were the local people. Alas, we fear this could be the fate of the Nuba.

Though the Nuba - a majority-Muslim assortment of tribes that also includes substantial numbers of Christians and animists - supported the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) during the Sudanese Civil War, their resource-rich area was not included in the new nation of South Sudan. The partition was based on British colonial districts, which placed the Nuba in the North.

The North declared the status of the region was to be decided by "popular consultations", but no such consultations have been held. Instead, the North launched the current military push to extend government authority over the mountains in mid-2011. The result of this operation has been chaos as hundreds of thousands of Nuba have been violently displaced, affecting already unstable neighbouring regions. There have been reports of widespread atrocities against the Nuba population, with a TIME magazine reporter last summer describing the military campaign as a "bloodbath".

Dangerous levels

The involvement and interest of world powers was dramatically seen last week when Ambassador Rice condemned the Sudanese bombing of a Nuban Christian school that was funded by American donors, while Sudan's ally China dispatched a team to negotiate with a rebel group for the release of 29 Chinese construction workers captured in the Nuba mountains. With the crisis worsening and the humanitarian situation reaching dangerous levels, the conflict has the potential to further draw in regional and international actors, in addition to disrupting the local economy and the oil sector so important for both Sudans.

The Nuba, described by Winston Churchill as a "mountain people who cared for nothing but their independence", have fiercely resisted central control for centuries. In the late nineteenth century, they fought back against the armies of the Arab anti-colonial mahdi movement as Sudan fell under British administration. The British ruled the Nuba indirectly, isolating them from the Arab population in the north and stipulating that traditional law and leadership be preserved. Yet after Sudan's independence in 1956, the central government began consolidating its power over the mountains, evicting the Nuba from their lands and distributing them to settlers and officials loyal to the government.

In the mid-1980s, the Nuba were drawn into the North-South civil war with area attacks by the SPLA, which resulted in the government arming local Arab tribes who had previously largely co-existed with the Nuba. Some Nuba began to venture south, where they joined SPLA rebels. In addition to resisting what the government saw as efforts of centralisation and modernisation, the Nuba were now seen as posing a security threat to the state.

Following his 1989 coup, Sudanese President Omar Bashir stepped up the campaign to subdue Nuban rebels and impose an Arab identity on the population. The policy was cast as a jihad against nonbelievers, despite the fact that the majority of Nuba were Muslim. Pro-government Islamic leaders declared that any "insurgent who was previously a Muslim is now an apostate" which "Islam has granted the freedom of killing".

The commander of a powerful government-backed militia announced his intention to "cleanse every stretch of territory sullied by the outlaws". The government cut off access to the mountains and began a campaign to starve the population. Hundreds of thousands of Nuba were held in so-called "peace camps" where men were conscripted and forced to fight against fellow Nuba, women were raped in an effort to dilute the ethnic group, and children were forcibly taught Arabic and the central government's interpretation of Islam.

Villages were systematically destroyed in bombing campaigns, and Nuba intellectuals and community leaders were arrested and killed. By the time the campaign was halted with the international mediation of the civil war, as many as half a million Nuba lay dead.

The crisis involving the Nuba today needs to be seen in the context of this history as current events carry ominous echoes of the past. Recent satellite imagery shows the Sudanese military massing its armed forces for a full-scale assault on the Nuba, with evacuation routes sealed off. President Bashir had said last year that if the Nuba did not accept the results of the Southern Kordofan gubernatorial election - which saw a Nuban rebel leader defeated by a prominent government bureaucrat wanted by the ICC for war crimes in Darfur - "we will force them back into the mountains and prevent them from having food just as we did before".

Echoes of the past

The Nuba issue has proved intractable for the Sudanese government because it has not treated the Nuba as full citizens with basic human rights. Furthermore, there has been a consistent cultural campaign to deprive them of their honour and dignity. The Muslim Nuba rebel leader and politician Yousif Kuwa, who died in 2001, captured the pain and alienation of his people when he wrote that he initially believed himself to be Arab until secondary school: "As I understood what was happening and became politically conscious, I recognised that I was Nuba, not Arab."

"I remember since elementary school until I went to the university that there was nothing in the history books about the Nuba that was good," he wrote. "The conclusion, of course, was that there is something wrong in Sudan that must be corrected… I started to think, we have to do something." For Kuwa, "being Nuba means to be a human being, with dignity and identity".

If we accept that the Nuba region is to remain part of Sudan, and the problems of the past decades stem from a denial of basic human rights to the Nuba, then extending those rights is the only way to solve the current crisis. The Sudanese government should halt the current military operation and distribute food in the Nuba areas, not deprive its citizens of it. Government representatives need to be meeting the Nuba on a human level, eating meals with them and discussing how they can forge a new Sudan together. These methods, which could also include a discussion of a true federal system that would allow for local autonomy, are of utmost relevance not only for Southern Kordofan but also for the troubled peripheral regions of Blue Nile and Darfur. Such policies would be in accordance with international law as well as the dictates of Islam.

Resolving the Nuba issue is not only crucial for the stability of Sudan but also for its very identity as a modern, Muslim country. The Sudanese leadership self-consciously projects itself as an Islamic nation, and Sudan has indeed produced influential Muslim figures and scholars. It is imperative that they explain Islam's inherent compassion to the Sudanese leadership. The Quran is replete with verses demanding compassion and mercy for all mankind, and the last great address of the Prophet of Islam at Mount Arafat clearly established an Islamic worldview in which distinctions based on ethnicity and color were rejected.

"An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab," he said, "nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over a white except by piety and good action... Do not therefore do injustice to yourselves."

It is only in the extension of these Islamic and human rights to all of Sudan's people, whatever their religion and culture, that order can be restored and the suffering of people like Halima Kaga alleviated. For the Islamic leaders of Sudan preparing a final onslaught on the famished Nuba, it would do well to pause and ponder her name. This Nuban woman proudly carries the same name as one of the most revered figures in Islam, Halima, the foster mother who cared for and loved the Prophet of Islam.

It would be a supreme irony that instead of honoring another Halima in our age with such a noble name, the leaders of Khartoum are planning to destroy her.

Authors

Akbar Ahmed
Frankie Martin

Publication: Al Jazeera

Image Source: © Zohra Bensemra / Reuters

Tribal Societies and the Modern State in the Muslim World

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -0500

Event Information

January 30, 2012
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST

The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW

Washington, DC

On Monday, January 30, the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World hosted a luncheon discussion with Professor Akbar Ahmed, the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University and a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings. Ahmed discussed his new book project, which he said would use an alternative paradigm to examine the relationship between the periphery (in particular, tribal societies) and the center (i.e., the state) in the Muslim world. The research is an anthropological look at these tribal societies and will try to explain modern Muslim-majority states’ shortcomings in dealing with the periphery. Ahmed added that in his research, he will examine the relationship between these segmentary lineage systems—fully-formed tribal societies that have particular structures to maintain social stability—and the modern state in the context of globalization. Further, he will explore the tensions between tribal societies and the modern state regarding both identity (i.e., national vs. tribal) and religion.

In his book, Ahmed will take an in-depth look at the codes of honor of tribal societies—including courage, hospitality, and revenge—and how these societies treat women and minorities. This examination will be part of Ahmed’s comparative look at the notion of the “other” among different tribal societies. The research will also include a history of Waziristan to better understand some of Pakistan’s tribal societies. In particular, Ahmed will focus on the effects on Waziristan as a result of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s and the U.S.-led “war on terror” after 9/11. For example, he will examine how Pakistan’s military actions post-9/11 have affected the region’s population. Large swaths of the population not only face daily violence, but their lives have also been entirely disrupted, as they find it necessary to seek shelter outside their homes and villages as internally displaced refugees. Ahmed added that he will conclude his book with policy recommendations for both Muslim-majority and western policy makers.

The discussion also included presentations by American University researchers on the Nuba in Sudan, the Rohingya in Burma, and the Kurds in Iraq. The question and answer session focused mainly on whether (and how) outside forces, especially the United States, can play a constructive role in mitigating the tensions between the periphery and the center in Muslim-majority countries.

Participants at the event discuss Professor Akbar Ahmed's book project.

Participants

Moderator

Panelists

James Goldgeier

Dean, American University’s School of International Service

Ufuk Gokcen

Ambassador to the United Nations, Organization of Islamic Cooperation

Mohammed Elsanousi

Islamic Society of North America

2011 U.S.-Islamic World Forum

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:00:00 -0400

Event Information

April 12-14, 2011

Washington
DC

On April 12-14, 2011, the Government of Qatar, the Brookings Institution and the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World hosted the eighth annual U.S.-Islamic World Forum, convening for the first time in Washington, D.C. at this critical moment in Middle Eastern political history.

The U.S.-Islamic World Forum is a platform for dialogue at the highest level featuring leading U.S. and Muslim public officials, business leaders, scholars, journalists and commentators. Long seen as the world’s premier policy event for leaders with stakes in the global Muslim community, the Forum has a history of fostering unique, positive relationships between policymakers, business, cultural and religious leaders from across the Muslim World and the United States.

This year’s discussions focused on the rapid, turbulent change in the Middle East and implications for Muslims around the world.

There were five plenary sessions on topics such as civil society, the Libyan crisis, and the media.
Watch videos and read more about the plenaries »

Ten rountables held discussions on the Middle East peace process, the role of youth in the Arab Spring, Afghanistan-Pakistan relations, and many other issues.
Watch videos and read more about the roundtables »

Five working groups were convened to discuss and recommend action on issues in U.S. relations with the Islamic world, which were summarized in a paper published by the Brookings Institution. They are as follows:

Muslim-Majority and Muslim-Minority Communities in a Global Context
Humera Khan, Executive Director, Muflehun
Imam Mohamed Magid, President, Islamic Society of North America

Disconnected Narratives Between the United States and Global Muslim Communities
Ambassador Marc Ginsberg, Senior Vice President, APCO Worldwide
Anne Hagood, Managing Editor, The Layalina Review and The Chronicle, Layalina Productions

Higher Education Reform in the Arab World
Katherine Wilkins, Vice President for Communications, AMIDEAST

Building Capacity and Developing Leadership among American Muslims and Their Organizations
Brie Loskota, Managing Director, Center for Religion and Civic Culture, University of Southern California
Nadia Roumani, Co-Founder and Director, American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute, University of Southern California

The Role of Entrepreneurship and Job Creation in U.S.-Muslim Relations
Ahmed Younis, Senior Analyst, Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, and Director of Strategic Partnerships and Communications, Silatech
Mohamed Younis, Senior Analyst, Gallup Center for Muslim Studies

Forum Highlights:

Remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton » (state.gov)

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks at the 2011 U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Washington, D.C.

Qatari Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ahmad Bin Abdullah Al-Mahmoud, and Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu.

Time Magazine Editor and CNN host Fareed Zakaria moderates a panel with former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Judeh, Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister of Turkey Ibrahim Kalin, and U.S. Senator John Kerry.

(images courtesy of Paul Morse)

Video

Event Materials

Banning the Muslim Veil in France

Akbar Ahmed and Jonathan Laurence — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's Note: In an interview on the Diane Rehm Show, Jonathan Laurence and Akbar Ahmed discuss the July 13 vote in France’s lower house of Parliament to ban face-covering veils.

Diane Rehm: You said that the proposed ban attracts lots of attention but that in some ways it obscures more important issues in France. Talk about what you mean.

Jonathan Laurence: Well I think that just reading the headlines in France, or perhaps even from Switzerland last fall, regarding the ban of the minaret or the prohibitions from wearing the head scarves in French schools from several years ago, one could get the impression that across western Europe there’s a growing restriction of them, with regard to Islamic religious practices. But I think that would be a myth. Another trend that is also taking place that has to do with growing religious freedom for Muslims in western Europe, and I know that sounds paradoxical but if you look at the French religious landscape, you’ll see that there are more than 2,000 Islamic prayer spaces, which is the fastest growing number in all of Europe, there are thousands of Imams practicing freely and even programs run here in the ministry of France to help train them. There is a great concern for religious equality that is obscured by the more marginal phenomenon of Burkhas in particular, which many, which very few women actually wear.

Rehm: So are you saying you believe that the French are creating problems for themselves?

Laurence: Well it’s an attractive issue, as a kind of electoral ploy, if you like. The target audience is extremely small. There are about 2,000 women in all of France, including the overseas territories, who wear the Burkha and as the embassy spokesman mentioned, very few French Muslims and French Muslim leaders are willing to defend the Burkha as a requirement of Islamic religious practice. In fact no one was willing to say it was a religious prescription, which is very different obviously than the wearing of the headscarf, and so I think its an attractive issue because it actually affects very, very few people.

Rehm: Akbar [Ahmed] would like to pose his thoughts.

Akbar Ahmed: My thought is this, you know this excellent debate between two very impressive Muslim women, is illustrating exactly my concern, which is the debate about covering or not covering becomes a diversion, a red tangent when the issue facing both women and men in Muslim societies and there is a great deal of crisis in Muslim society, there’s a crisis of leadership, women aren’t given their inheritance in many Muslim societies, the laws of inheritance allowed by Islam are not allowed to women, the role of women as political leaders, as social leaders, you what’s happening in parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, those are the real issues and I’m very confidant that the women, they are fighting for their rights, within Islam itself. You had the example of women like Benazir Bhutto, she didn’t get caught up in wearing the Burkha, she covered herself with the veil as most women do in that part of the world, but didn’t make a big issue out of it and succeeded in becoming a role model of millions and millions of Muslim women and becoming the first female prime minister of a Muslim nation.

Listen to the full interview at the dianerehmshow.org »

Authors

Publication: The Diane Rehm Show

Thomas Jefferson and Mohammed Ali Jinnah: Dreams from Two Founding Fathers

Akbar Ahmed — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0400

"You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship. . . . We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state."

These are the words of a founding father -- but not one of the founders that America will be celebrating this Fourth of July weekend. They were uttered by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, founder of the state of Pakistan in 1947 and the Muslim world's answer to Thomas Jefferson.

When Americans think of famous leaders from the Muslim world, many picture only those figures who have become archetypes of evil (such as Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden) or corruption (such as Hamid Karzai and Pervez Musharraf). Meanwhile, many in the Muslim world remember American leaders such as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, whom they regard as arrogant warriors against Islam, or Bill Clinton, whom they see as flawed and weak. Even President Obama, despite his rhetoric of outreach, has seen his standing plummet in Muslim nations over the past year.

Blinded by anger, ignorance or mistrust, people on both sides see only what they wish to see, what they expect to see.

Despite the continents, centuries and cultures separating them, Jefferson and Jinnah, the founding fathers of two nations born from revolution, can help break this impasse. In the years following Sept. 11, 2001, their worlds collided, but the things the two men share far outweigh that which divides them.

Each founding father, inspired by his own traditions but also drawing from the other's, concluded that society is best organized on principles of individual liberty, religious freedom and universal education. With their parallel lives, they offer a useful corrective to the misguided notion of a "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West.

Jefferson is at the core of the American political ideal. As one biographer wrote, "If Jefferson was wrong, America is wrong. If America is right, Jefferson was right." Similarly, Jinnah is Pakistan. For most Pakistanis, he is "The Modern Moses," as one biography of him is titled.

The two were born subjects of the British Empire, yet both led successful revolts against the British and made indelible contributions to the identities of their young nations. Jefferson's drafting of the Declaration of Independence makes him the preeminent interpreter of the American vision; Jinnah's first speeches to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in 1947, from which his statement on freedom of religion is drawn, are equally memorable and eloquent testimonies. As lawyers first and foremost, Jefferson and Jinnah revered the rule of law and the guarantee of key citizens' rights, embodied in the founding documents they shaped, reflecting the finest of human reason.

Particularly revealing is the overlap in the two men's intellectual influences. Jefferson's ideas flowed from the European Enlightenment, and he was inspired by Aristotle and Plato. But he also owned a copy of the Koran, with which he taught himself Arabic, and he hosted the first White House iftar, the meal that breaks the daily fast during the Muslim holy days of Ramadan.

And while Jinnah looked to the origins of Islam for political inspiration -- for him, Islam above all emphasized compassion, justice and tolerance -- he was steeped in European thought. He studied law in London, admired Prime Minister William Gladstone and Abraham Lincoln, and led the creation of Pakistan without advocating violence of any kind.

No one in public life is free of controversy, of course, not even a founding father. Both were involved in personal relationships that would later raise eyebrows (Jefferson with his slave mistress, Jinnah with a bride half his age). In political life, the two suffered accusations of inconsistency: Jefferson for not being robust in defending Virginia from an invading British fleet with Benedict Arnold in command; Jinnah for abandoning his role as ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity and becoming the champion of Pakistan.

The controversies did not end with their deaths. Jefferson's views on the separation of church and state generated animosity in his own time and as recently as this year, when the Texas Board of Education dropped him from a list of notable political thinkers. Meanwhile, hard-line Islamic groups have long condemned Jinnah as a kafir, or nonbeliever; "Jinnah Defies Allah" was the subtitle of an exposé in the December 1996 issue of the London magazine Khilafah, a publication of the Hizb ut-Tahrir, one of Britain's leading Muslim radical groups. (Jinnah's sin, according to the author, was his insistence that Islam stood for democracy and supported women's and minority rights.)

But today such opinions are marginal ones, and the founders' many contributions are commemorated with must-see national monuments -- the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, Jinnah's mausoleum in Karachi -- that affirm their standing as national heroes.

If anything, it is Jefferson and Jinnah who might be critical. If they could contemplate their respective nations today, they would share distress over the acceptance of torture and suspension of certain civil liberties in the former; and the collapse of law and order, resurgence of religious intolerance and widespread corruption in the latter. Their visions are more relevant than ever as a challenge and inspiration for their compatriots and admirers in both nations.

Jefferson and Jinnah do not divide civilizations; they bridge them.

Authors

Akbar Ahmed

Publication: The Washington Post

Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 10:00:00 -0400

Event Information

June 24, 2010
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

The nearly seven million Muslims living in the United States represent an increasingly important part of American society. Yet relations between the U.S. and its Muslim community are strained. Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Akbar Ahmed conducted a cross-country study of the American Muslim community, recounted in his new book, Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam. The book examines questions of the acceptance of Muslims as truly “American,” and what being “American” means, as well as issues such as how Muslims in the United States relate to other religious communities. The book also explores the potential threat of increased “homegrown terrorism” like the attempted bombing of Times Square and the deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood.

On June 24, the Brookings Institution hosted a discussion on the findings of the book and the experience of being Muslim in America. Following the presentation, Imam Mohamed Magid, vice president of the Islamic Society of North America, discussed Ahmed’s book and the crucial issues he raises. Fellow Stephen Grand, director of the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion.

After the program, the speakers took audience questions.

Audio

Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam

Transcript

Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20100624_muslim_community

Participants

Moderator

Panelists

Imam Mohamed Magid

Vice President, Islamic Society of North America

What Does America Owe Iraq?

Akbar Ahmed, Jean Bethke Elshtain and William A. Galston — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0400

As Congress and the Bush Administration begin an all-out debate on whether and when to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq, senior fellow William Galston and nonresident senior fellow Akbar Ahmed joins Univeristy of Chicago Divinity School's Jean Bethke Elshtain for a discussion on America's moral obligations to the Iraqi people. What does America owe Iraq?

Bob Abernethy (Host): Bill Galston, let's begin with you. What do you think is the top moral obligation that this country has to the Iraqi people?

William Galston: First and foremost, to do the right thing for those tens of thousands of Iraqis who have cooperated closely with us and who will be at risk as we begin to draw down our forces.

Watch the Interview

Authors

Akbar Ahmed
Jean Bethke Elshtain
William A. Galston

Publication: Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

Journey into Islam : The Crisis of Globalization

Akbar Ahmed — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Brookings Institution Press 2007 323pp.

"Why?" Years after September 11, we are still looking for answers. Internationally renowned Islamic scholar Akbar Ahmed knew that this question could not be answered until Islam and the West found a way past the hatred and mistrust intensified by the war on terror and the forces of globalization. Seeking to establish dialogue and understanding between these cultures, Ahmed led a team of dedicated young Americans on a daring and unprecedented tour of the Muslim world. Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization is the riveting story of their search for common ground.

From the mosques of Damascus to the madrassahs of Karachi to the homes of Jakarta, Ahmed and his companions met with Muslims from all walks of life. They listened to students and professors, presidents and prime ministers, sheikhs and cab drivers, revealing Muslim hopes and frustrations as the West has never heard before. They returned from their groundbreaking journey with both cause for concern and occasion for hope.

Rejecting stereotypes and "conventional wisdom" about Islam and its encounter with globalization, this important book offers a new framework for understanding the Muslim world. As Western leaders wage a war on terrorism, Ahmed offers insightful suggestions on how the United States can improve relations with Islamic nations and peoples. Written with equal parts compassion and urgency, Journey into Islam makes a powerful case for forming bonds across religion, race, and tradition to create lasting harmony between Islam and the West. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future survival of the United States as a world leader, for the individual who faces the painful changes of globalization, and for the very future of our planet.

Includes black & white photographs.

Reviews of Journey into Islam

Events and Appearances

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Akbar Ahmed

Downloads

Sample Chapter

Ordering Information:

{9ABF977A-E4A6-41C8-B030-0FD655E07DBF}, 978-0-8157-0131-6, $19.95 Order
{BE4CBFE9-92F9-41D9-BDC8-0C2CC479A3F7}, 978-0-8157-0132-3, $32.95 Order

The U.S. Premiere of "Glories of Islamic Art"

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 18:00:00 -0500

Event Information

January 17, 2007
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM EST

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

As events in the Middle East dominate the attention of U.S. policymakers, many Americans view Islam with a great deal of suspicion. Indeed, it may be safe to argue that Islam is among the most misunderstood and controversial religions in the world.

On January 17, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy hosted a screening and discussion of noted Islamic scholar Akbar Ahmed's documentary film Glories of Islamic Art. To explain Islam's rich history, customs, and beliefs, Ahmed, a Brookings non-resident senior fellow, traveled throughout the Middle East with United Kingdom channel 5 film crew. The result of Ahmed's travels is a striking film that uses art and architecture to portray the depth and beauty of Islam. Panelists included His Excellency Mahmud Ali Durrani, Ambassador from Pakistan to the United States. Akbar Ahmed, non-resident senior fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, provided introductory remarks and moderated the panel discussion.

Using the historic cities of Istanbul, Damascus, and Cairo as visual chapters, Ahmed's film connects religious, historic, and artistic themes of Islam. The film examines the achievements of the first Islamic dynasty, delves into Islam's respect for knowledge, and explores Sufism's balance of meditation and passion. The film has received acclaim throughout the United Kingdom with The News (London) writing "Channel 5 should be congratulated for giving us something refreshingly different. The series moves at a fast pace whetting ones appetite to pack up at once and head for Muslim lands."

Transcript

Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20070117

Participants

Moderator

Panelists

H.E. Mahmud Ali Durrani

Ambassador to the United States, Embassy of Pakistan