scholarly journals Prospects and Dimensions of Conflict Resolution Programs in the Islamic Context

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-152
Author(s):  
Jay Willoughby
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
International Institute ◽  
San Jose ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
State Actors ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Muslim Scholars

Amr Abdalla (professor and vice rector, University for Peace, San Jose, CostaRica) visited the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) on February1, 2013, to discuss the challenges of conflict resolution and peace that hascaught the attention of so many Muslim and non-Muslim scholars and policymakersfor several decades. As the Muslim world remains plagued with violentconfrontations between states and non-state actors, regional and nationalsectarian conflicts, and domestic conflicts with gender and family elements,such a discussion is very timely.The outbreak of the Arab Spring, which has resulted in several Islamistgroups taking power, has raised various questions: Why is it important to talk about conflict resolution and peace building in an Islamic context? How canthe theoretical be combined with the practical? How does Islam fit into thedemonstrations that occurred during the Arab Spring as well as into modernity?This is, according to Abdalla, the first opportunity that contemporaryMuslims have had to answer these questions for themselves ...

scholarly journals Islamic Reform Movements after the Arab Spring

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 169-172
Author(s):  
Jay Willoughby
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
International Institute ◽  
Reform Movements ◽  
Islamic Reform ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Special Lecture ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Algerian Civil War ◽  
Annual Summer

On June 24-July 3, 2013, the International Institute of Islamic Thought held its annual Summer Institute for Scholars. Given the number of presentations, only a few of them will be mentioned here. In his welcoming remarks, Abdul Aziz Sachedina (George Mason University) spoke eloquently about how change has to come from within, how politics still dominates values, and how the Qur’an and Sunnah are being read not for inspiration, but for putting down opposition and dissenters. The Arab Spring represents a challenge to undertake such an internal reform. Unfortunately, he said, cyberspace contains no serious conversation in this regard, just hostility and animosity, which only damages Muslims. He called for leaders to “moralize” the entire issue in order to achieve co-existence, mainly between Shi‘is and Sunnis, and wondered if the reformers could deal with this and other issues. John Voll (Georgetown University), who delivered the keynote address, “Pop-politics and Elections: Islam and Democracy after the Arab Spring,” raised the question as to whether the Arab Spring makes any difference, given that reform movements have been going on in the Muslim world since 1880. Are we, he asked, “looking at something moving forward/different, or just rehashing the same old arguments?” He opined that a new vocabulary is needed and that people have to move beyond “interfaith,” “tolerance,” and interreligious dialogue and speak to each other about “shared interests.” He then discussed earlier Muslim reform movements and how their goals have changed over the years. Yahya Michot (Hartford University) presented a special lecture entitled “Taymiyyan Thoughts for a Temperate Arab Summer.” He pointed out how different groups (e.g., those groups responsible for assassinating Sadat, the Algerian civil war, and 9/11) took Ibn Taymiyyah’s anti-Mongol fatwas out of context to justify their actions. Thus they ignored the underlying issues: The supposedly “Muslim” Mongols were still massacring Muslims; ...

scholarly journals Islamic Political Thought after the Arab Spring

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-150
Author(s):  
Jay Willoughby
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Assistant Professor ◽  
International Institute ◽  
Naval Academy ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
United States Naval Academy ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Islamic Political Thought ◽  
The Arab Spring

On December 7, 2012, Ermin Sinanovic (assistant professor, Department ofPolitical Science, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD) presentedhis “Islamic Political Thought after the Arab Spring,” at the headquarters ofthe International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT; Herndon, VA). After openingwith several questions – How have the events in the Middle East and Arabworld influenced and continued to shape Islamic political thought? Why didthe Arab Spring happen now? What were the contributing factors? How is Islamicpolitical thought being reshaped by these events? – he began to makehis case that the underlying political theory of the Arab Spring representssomething new in Islamic political thought.One of his contentions is that traditional Islamic political thought is nowseen as out of date, as caught up in the past. This situation began to changefirst among the Shi‘ah and was instrumental in Iran’s revolution. The ArabSpring has accelerated this reawakening among the Sunnis, which began inthe 1970s, thereby showing that Islamic political thought was no longerstatic. But because this uprising is still so recent and ongoing, scholars arestill trying to make sense of it and thus all conclusions up to this point remaintentative ...

A Critique of Modernist Synthesis in Islamic Thought

1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-503
Author(s):  
Masudul Alum Choudhury
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Scientific Investigation ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Muslim Scholars

Is it the realm of theoretical constructs or positive applications thatdefines the essence of scientific inquiry? Is there unison between thenormative and the positive, between the inductive and deductivecontents, between perception and reality, between the micro- andmacro-phenomena of reality as technically understood? In short, isthere a possibility for unification of knowledge in modernist epistemologicalcomprehension? Is knowledge perceived in conceptionand application as systemic dichotomy between the purely epistemic(in the metaphysically a priori sense) and the purely ontic (in thepurely positivistically a posteriori sense) at all a reflection of reality?Is knowledge possible in such a dichotomy or plurality?Answers to these foundational questions are primal in order tounderstand a critique of modernist synthesis in Islamic thought thathas been raging among Muslim scholars for some time now. Theconsequences emanating from the modernist approach underlie muchof the nature of development in methodology, thinking, institutions,and behavior in the Muslim world throughout its history. They arefound to pervade more intensively, I will argue here, as the consequenceof a taqlid of modernism among Islamic thinkers. I will thenargue that this debility has arisen not because of a comparativemodem scientific investigation, but due to a failure to fathom theuniqueness of a truly Qur'anic epistemological inquiry in the understandingof the nature of the Islamic socioscientific worldview ...

Far More Dangerous Times

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Randa Nucho
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
State Actors ◽  
The Arab Spring

This concluding chapter begins by summarizing the arguments in the preceding chapters. It then attempts to contextualize the present discourse about the Shi'a versus Sunni conflict within the region in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011. It describes a “new sectarianism,” characterized by state actors, particularly in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, who “make decisions on the basis of a sectarian assessment of politics,” whereby Iran is presented as a Shi'a rival. The fact that these same state actors are opposed to Sunni Islamist groups makes it clear that the mobilization of sectarian rhetoric is, at least in some instances, a cynical tactic of scapegoating.

Peace Building Lessons From the Civilian Survival Strategy of Flight in Syria, 2011-2016

2019 ◽  
pp. 679-696
Author(s):  
Darlington Mutanda
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Survival Strategy ◽  
Valuable Property ◽  
Global Nature ◽  
Local Solutions ◽  
To Come ◽  
Syrian Conflict ◽  
The Arab Spring

Syria is in a devastating war brought by the Arab Spring. The country witnessed perhaps the bulk of the brutalities of the Arab Spring evidenced by the massacre of civilians and obliteration of historical and valuable property. In view of the brutal and global nature of the Syrian conflict, this chapter examines the significance of flight as a survival strategy developed by the Syrians in the wake of the Syrian conflict which began in 2011. This approach is not only significant in appreciating the fact that civilians are not necessarily passive recipients of violence but also gives us an opportunity to reflect on how superpower involvement deprived Syrians of the chance to come up with home-grown solutions before the conflict degenerated into an all-out war. The civilian strategy of flight thus shows the vulnerability of civilians in conflict and the significance of local solutions and ownership of peacebuilding programmes.

The Sorrowful Muslim's Guide

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hussein Ahmad Amin
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Muslim Intellectuals ◽  
The Many ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
The Arab Spring

Originally published in Arabic in 1983, this book remains a timely and important read today. Both the resurgence of Islamist politics and the political, social and intellectual upheaval which accompanied the Arab Spring challenge us to re-examine the interaction between the pre-modern Islamic tradition and modern supporters of continuity, reform and change in Muslim communities. This book does exactly that, raising questions regarding issues about which other Muslim intellectuals and thinkers have been silent. These include – among others – current religious practice vs the Islamic ideal; the many additions to the original revelation; the veracity of the Prophet’s biography and his sayings; the development of Sufism; and historical and ideological influences on Islamic thought.

scholarly journals Islam without Europe: Traditions of Reform in Eighteenth-Century Islamic Thought

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 110-112
Author(s):  
Bruce B. Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Reform Movements ◽  
American University ◽  
American University Of Beirut ◽  
Arab Muslim ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Georgetown University ◽  
Muslim Scholars

It is hard to exaggerate the scope or scale of this major monograph from one of the foremost Arab Muslim scholars of his generation, Ahmad Dallal, formerly Provost at the American University of Beirut, and now Dean of Georgetown University Qatar.In carefully orchestrated arguments, with massive documentary evidence, Dallal addresses eighteenth century theological/juridical issues across the span of the Muslim world. He touches on intellectual giants and reform movements from Senegal to Syria, from Yemen to India, delving deeply into complex debates that continue to resonate. Islam without Europe catapults Dallal into the company of revisionists who are also global historians, those looking for a way to redefine Islam outside the parameters of European historical conventions. To download full review, click on PDF.

The Era of Overseas Scholarships: Islam, Modernization, and Decolonization in Northern Nigeria, c. 1954-1966

2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Thurston
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Independence Era ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
Muslim Scholars

AbstractIn independence-era Northern Nigeria, different segments of the modernizing elite contended over defining the place of Islam in society. This article argues that the case of Northern Nigeria disrupts scholarly periodizations of twentieth-century Islamic thought and activism that depict the 1950s and 1960s as a time of secularist dominance. The specificity of Muslim communities’ experiences of colonialism and decolonization helped shape the role Islam played in different societies during this period. This article develops this thesis by examining the semiautonomous Northern Nigerian regional government’s program of sending young, Arabophone Muslim scholars to Arab and British universities between 1954 and 1966. The overseas scholarships system was to be the culmination of British colonial efforts to produce ‘modern’ Muslim judges and teachers. However, Arabophones’ experiences overseas, and their ambivalent relationship with the Northern government after their return highlight the unintended consequences of colonial policies and of scholarship winners’ encounters with the broader Muslim world.

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