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THE CRUCIBLE:

A QUEST TO REDEFINE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE WEST AND THE MUSLIM WORLD

Dedicated to the memory Of the Victims of 9/11:

This paper is an attempt To create A better understanding Of the Contemporary Islamic World

Ottawa: September 28, 2002

The Crucible INDEX

INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................................4 SURVEY OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD.......................................................................................................5 UNDERSTANDING ISLAM'S EARLY HISTORICAL EVOLUTION...................................................8 DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES AND THEIR IMPACT ON PRESENT-DAY ATTITUDES ...........11 THE MYTH OF MONOLITHIC ISLAM.................................................................................................19 THE 'ISLAMIZATION' OF MODERNITY.............................................................................................31 INFORMING THE DEBATE.....................................................................................................................44 THE 'GEOGRAPHIC CRUCIBLE'..........................................................................................................52 CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................................59

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Not chaos-like together, crushed and bruised, But, like the world, harmoniously diffusd, Where order, in variety, we see, And where, though all may differ, all agree.
-H.H. the Aga Khan III (1877-1957) India in Transition: A Study in Political Evolution (1918 )

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INTRODUCTION
The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War was a momentous event in world history. For nearly half a century, Western civilization was faced with an existential threat from a formidable military alliance. But the West prevailed. Soviet communism imploded. It was a euphoric moment, not just for the Trans-Atlantic Alliance, which made it possible, but for the entire planet. The ricochets were heard around the world - from apartheid-South Africa to Tienanmen Square. In succeeding days, two conflicting sets of visions would be put forward to explain the emerging post-Cold War reality. The first would be that of a kinder, gentler world where democracy, individual liberty and free-market economics would flourish. Francis Fukuyama at Johns Hopkins even came up with a definitive phrase in 1989 to describe this promised new era: The end of history.1 An alternate vision of a world with new dangers and new challenges coalesced around the writing of the Harvard political scientist, Samuel Huntington who, in 1993, presented his thesis of an inevitable Clash of Civilizations.2 In the aftermath of the terrible tragedy of 9/11, Professor Huntington's theory has gained even more adherents. But long before September 11, 2001, there were important public figures arguing both, the need for the West to have a common enemy (in order to preserve the Trans-Atlantic Alliance which won the Cold War), and the actual presence of one - the Islamic world. Willie Claes, the hapless former Secretary General of NATO was one such person who spoke publicly along these lines.3 This paper, while recognizing the threat that radical Islam (or Islamic fundamentalism) poses to the West in particular and to world peace and order in general, does not subscribe to the inevitability of a generalized conflict between the West and the Islamic world. On the contrary, by de-mystifying misperceptions and explaining the diversity and pluralism of the Islamic world, it seeks to highlight practical areas of opportunity and common interest which the West can effectively leverage to influence the peaceful evolution of the Muslim world. By introducing a new sophistication in its understanding and approach to the world of Islam, the paper argues that the West can create a metaphorical and geographical crucible to fashion, as it were, a new chapter of friendship with moderate elements in the Muslim world and prevent the world of Islam from becoming, by default, a united chorus of undifferentiated hatred towards the West. This paper also recognizes that in the multi-polar world we are moving towards, the Islamic world is far from the only "challenge" the West may have to face. China is but one giant waking up and just beginning to make an impact in the international arena that its size might imply. By having to dedicate disproportionate resources to respond to dangers from a single potential threat, the West runs the risk of being blindsided to other, emerging, challenges. Only recently it has paid too dear a price for so doing: its obsession with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan blinded it to the new threat of jihadist elements it was itself inadvertently nurturing.

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SURVEY OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD


The Islamic world began the third millenium as a collection of just under 50 political entities; all, without exception, belonging to the so-called "Third World". All, with the sole exception of Turkey, failing the test of liberal democratic governance. Politically, the Islamic world stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific; from the heart of Europe (Albania) to sub-equatorial Africa (Zanzibar); from arid deserts to the highest mountains; and comprises one-fifth of the world's population, speaking hundreds of different languages. Yet the collective output of this ocean of humanity is less than one-half of the GNP of Germany ($1.2 trillion vs. $2.5 trillion) and less than a quarter of that of the geographically tiny nation of Japan ($1.2 trillion vs. $5.5 trillion).4 The Islamic world is also characterized by its position at the bottom end of the world development index and by the endemic violence and civil strife that continue to wreck havoc through the length and breadth of its geographic space. In a world of meritocracy and global competition, the Muslim world is the least adapted to the requirements of free market economics and globalization. It has, within its membership, a higher concentration of poverty, disease, ignorance and political disenchantment than any other world faith.5 Collectively speaking, this grouping is often synonymous with the absence of the freedom of expression, of political participation, of gender equality and, depending on local politics, religious freedom for minorities (including Muslim minorities). This collective state, whilst differing in individual dimensions from region to region, differs only in degree. The Arab world, often presented, in a facile sense by the popular press as synonymous with the Muslim world, too, exhibits these symptoms in spite of being favorably endowed economically with natural resources - primarily oil. As a recent UNDP Report, compiled by a group of Arab scholars states: "A very large investment in fixed capital formation of over $3,000 billion, over the past 20 years, has had poor returns in per capita income, which experienced the lowest growth rate in the world apart from subSaharan Africa." The Report also goes on to point out the "freedom deficit", unequal citizenship for women (one in two women can neither read nor write), falling education spending - all contributing to poverty of capabilities and poverty of opportunities.6 The state of the Muslim world at the start of the third millenium has, perhaps, been best summarized by Pakistan's President Musharraf when, in a recent speech to an international Islamic Science & Technology Conference, he said: "Today we are the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most unenlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race".7 In the face of this sorry plight that the Islamic world finds itself in, it has been suggested that there is something intrinsically "wrong" with the Muslim world which makes it antipathetic to modernity. In the words of Francis Fukuyama:
... there does seem to be something about Islam, or at least fundamentalist Islam, that makes Muslim societies particularly resistant to modernity. Of all contemporary cultural systems, the Islamic world has the fewest democracies (Turkey alone qualifies), and contains no countries that have made the transition from Third to First World status in the manner of South Korea or Singapore.8

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Stated differently, the sorry state of the Muslim world vis--vis modernity stems from the fact that it is Muslim. Based on anecdotal evidence stated above, this thesis appears persuasive. The problem with the notion of modernity as applied by Fukuyama et al., however, is that it is absolutist. Modernity, as a concept, can never be absolutist; it has to be relative. It is, perhaps, more correct to speak of "contemporary modernity" than "modernity" per se. Each generation, of necessity, defines its age as modern. The fact that a particular culture or society is in tune, or at odds, with its time does not make it modern or anti-modern for all time to come. Japanese culture's "acceptance" of modernity is, in historical time, fairly recent. For most of its national existence, Japan "lagged" behind the times. How then, may one judge Japan vis--vis its receptivity to modernity in the abstract? The Muslim world's position vis--vis the contemporary world at the start of the third millenium is in complete contrast to its comparative position at the start of the second millenium. Then, Islam was reaching the end of its fourth century. Islam had had a lot to adapt to during its first four centuries. From its humble origin in the deserts of Arabia, Islam had to adapt an unlettered, nomadic culture to the sophisticated needs of a world empire spread over three continents. Of course, by the 11th century, the original Arab Umayyad caliphate had been replaced by two competing caliphates - the Fatimid (Ismaili) caliphate with its capital at Cairo and the Abbasid (Sunni) caliphate based in Baghdad. The Abbasids, the more ancient dynasty, had been in decline for some time and had lost the battle for power, prestige and wealth to the more parvenu Fatimids. Despite this, Baghdad was probably, on a world scale, second only to Cairo in culture, industry and scientific scholarship. The Fatimids, who controlled trade in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, made Egypt the entrept for trade between Europe, Asia and Africa. Using the wealth from this trade, they entered the second millenium as probably the world's most intellectually and materially sophisticated civilization. Cairo boasted not only the famous Al-Azhar University, which had "metamorphosed" out of the mosque of Al-Azhar under the Rectorship of Ibn Killis, the Grand Vizier of Jewish-origin, but also the Dar al-Ilm, the Academy of Sciences, which was to be the precursor of the medieval university. Coming out of the deserts of Arabia, the Muslims had no tradition of political governance, of land administration, of maintaining standing armies, of a civil service, of formal learning, of urban planning, of medicine, of monetary administration, of architecture and a great deal more. Their empires functioned, survived, and thrived only because they showed remarkable ability to learn from their subject peoples and apply new intellectual methods to their growing needs. The notion that Muslim societies, per se, are resistant to modernity did not hold at the start of the second millenium when Islam was "closer" to its historical message. If the Islamic ethos were congenitally malformed with an anti-modern "gene", it would have exhibited its "true colors" at birth and in its adolescence. And it would have been in good historical company: the heirs of the great Hellenic and Roman civilizations were comfortably ensconced in the throes of their Dark Ages. Later in the paper we will look at the reasons for the Islamic world's "attitudinal" change to, or retreat from, intellectual modernity.

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Having said that, at the start of the third millenium, Islam is definitely the "odd man out" among world cultures; totally at variance with world trends. While the entire world moves, inexorably, towards meritocracy, liberal democracy, free market economics, Muslim societies are exhibiting theocratic tendencies with all the attendant inequities and economic distortions.9 Notwithstanding these "regressive" manifestations, it is intellectually and historically more accurate to describe the Islamic world's present fate as a case of losing one's way, rather than an inherent "character flaw". Its present fate is no different from the Dark Ages in which Western civilization lunged for centuries before finding its way through to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. If the world's dominant civilization - one that has, since the 1500s, been the most pervasive, influential and ubiquitous in the history of the human race i.e. Western civilization - emerged, as it were, from the ignorance and barbarism of the Dark Ages, there is hope for the Islamic world: that it, too, will find its "nirvana" from its present-day confusion and backwardness. Because the Islamic world controls most of the remaining reserves of fossil fuel and comprises such a large swathe of geography and humanity - with events within it having global implications - the West does not have the luxury to wait for the former to put its house in order over several centuries la Europe. It has to seek potentially useful interventions and mutually beneficial partnerships with Muslim societies in order to influence the Muslim world's peaceful evolution towards modernity and peaceful coexistence with the rest of the world. Recent history has shown that events emanating from the Muslim world have had worldwide implications - and generally negative ones at that: the 1973 Arab-Israeli War (and the oil crisis and stagflation that followed); the 1991 Gulf War (and the global recession that followed); the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center (and the economic meltdown that we continue to experience). A starting point for the West has to be a keener understanding of the Islamic world - its history, evolution and doctrinal beliefs.

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UNDERSTANDING ISLAM'S EARLY HISTORICAL EVOLUTION


The Islamic Message - the Quran - was brought to the Arabs, a nomadic people who commanded little political significance in the then contemporary world scene, in the early seventh century, by Muhammad, a successful Meccan businessman. Muhammad, not unlike Christ, did not claim the start of a new religion, but the "completion" (or "reformation") of the "Abrahamic Message". The people of the Judaic and Christian traditions thus became kindred spirits to the faithful of the new religion - Ahl al-Kitab, People of the Book (i.e. people who shared with Muslims belief in monotheism). This could have had revolutionary potential by providing a theological basis of fraternity with the followers of Judaism and Christianity. And in practice, it did, in Islam's Classical Age, when many Christians and Jews held high office under Muslim rulers and generally enjoyed the latter's protection. The Quran also declared that Muhammad was the "seal of the prophets", God's final messenger, and that the Quran was God's final revelation. In effect, the prescriptions of the Quran were to be the final guidance for Muslim behaviour for all time to come. The Quran was revealed over the years between AD 610 and AD 632 in the form of 6,000+ verses. The Quran speaks in allegory and parable which offer general, universal, guidance; but at times it also speaks on specific events, such as military threats to the nascent Muslim community, and offers time-specific advice on how those threats should be met. During his lifetime Muhammad was the final religious authority on the interpretations of the Quran. Even in his own lifetime, Muhammad had to use pragmatism and compromise - without violating the fundamental principles of Islam - to address problems faced by his community when problems could not be solved by traditional means. On Muhammad's death in AD 632, the Muslim community was faced with a succession crisis. According to the majority, Muhammad's demise brought an end to divinelyappointed religious leadership since he was God's final prophet. But, because by accident of history, Muhammad, in his later years, had become the political ruler of Arabia as well, a political successor, who would be the chief of the community of faithful, would need to be appointed. This Amir-ul-Momineen (commander of the faithful) - or the caliph - was to be elected on "merit" (i.e. righteousness) by the community. Religious guidance for the community would be based on the Quran and the Sunnah (example or tradition) of the prophet. The adherents of this view came to be known as Sunnis - the traditionalists. Today, some 80-90% of the world's Muslims are Sunnis. Another, smaller, group, associated with the Prophet's family, asserted that the Prophet, on his return from a final pilgrimage to Mecca had, based on a divine revelation (Quran 5:67), declared his cousin and son-in-law, Ali - whom he had likened as Aaron unto Moses - as the successor of his religious and political authority. This religious authority was to continue in the Prophet's family through the designated descendants of Ali and Fatima (the Prophet's daughter), who were to be known as Imams (lit. leaders). The supporters of Ali's claim came to be known as the Shia (or party) of Ali; later, just plain Shias. Today Shias comprise 10-20% of the world's Muslims. Although "officially" Iran is the only Shia-Muslim country, large local concentrations of Shias are to be found in Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Iraq and Lebanon. In addition, Shia communities, in varying numbers, are dispersed throughout many parts of the Muslim world.

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The problem of the Prophet's succession was resolved in favor of the Sunnis when Abu Bakr, the father of Muhammad's youngest and favorite wife, Ayesha, managed to get "elected". The "pseudo-elective" principle did not last long, however, and only three other caliphs - the last of whom was Ali - were to be "elected" (known collectively as the four righteous caliphs) before the caliphate was to be transformed into a hereditary kingship. Ali's elevation to the caliphate did not heal the Shia-Sunni split; it exacerbated and crystallized the fault lines. Joined by the Prophet's widow, Ayesha, Muawiyah of the Umayyad clan and the then Governor of Syria launched a military challenge to Ali's authority - starting the first civil war in Islam. Muawiyah, a man who, in cunning and statecraft, was the equal of an Augustus, prevented Ali from gaining a decisive military and political victory. Upon Ali's assassination in AD 661 at the hands of a fanatic, Muawiyah was to successfully sweep away Sunnism's "proto-republican" principle and start the first hereditary dynasty in Islam - the Umayyad caliphate which, in less than 100 years after Muhammad, was to stretch from Spain to the borders of China. It is important to understand Islam's early historical evolution in order to grasp present-day political contortions emanating from the Islamic world. The ShiaSunni schism is of primordial importance in understanding subsequent historical developments and even present-day attitudes in the Muslim world. Ali's attitude of loyalty towards the first three righteous caliphs was to determine later Shia credo. While maintaining the right of his family to both the religious leadership (or Imamat) and the political leadership (the caliphate), Ali, in effect, conceded that for the sake of Islamic unity, the "Alid Imams" (i.e. Imams descended from Ali) could relinquish their political claims, when circumstances so necessitated, although they could never ever renounce their claims to religious leadership. However, the fact that Ali managed to eventually secure the caliphate, albeit for a brief period, and the appeal the Prophet's family would likely exercise in times of crises, and in the minds of the disenfranchised, made them singular threats to Sunni rulers. Starting with the massacre of Ali's son (i.e. the Prophet's grandson), Hussain and his family at Karbala (in present-day Iraq), Sunni rulers made the elimination of the Prophet's Alid descendants a matter of state policy. Thus many early Shia Imams met unnatural deaths and their followers were actively persecuted and often faced the same fate. To give "legitimacy" to this policy, Sunni caliphs co-opted the Sunni ulema, the clergy, in trying to present Shiism as a heretical movement. The rapid expansion of the Islamic Empire and the large numbers of non-Arabs brought into the fold of Islam through conversion created a two-tiered community of faithful: the privileged Arab ruling elite; and the dispossessed newly-converted non-Arabs. For the latter, inequities, suffering and deprivation made the appeal of a divinely-inspired Shia Imam - who was to restore equality and justice for all at an appointed hour - seductive that, in spite of state-persecution with the active support of the clergy, Shiism refused to go away and continued to attract adherents, particularly among non-Arabs1. The fact that
1

In AD 909, the Ismailis, then the most important branch of Shiism, even succeeded in setting up their own caliphate - the Fatimid - near ancient Carthage to rival the Sunni Abbasid caliphate at Baghdad. In AD 969 an Italian Ismaili general, Jawahar the Sicilian, conquered Egypt and founded a new city Cairo, which became the new Fatimid capital. Fatimid expansion continued to cover the whole of North Africa, the islands of Sicily and Sardinia to Syria, Palestine, Yemen and Islam's holy places. In the middle of the 11th century even Baghdad fell to Fatimid arms and the Abbasid caliph was placed under house arrest for a year. Timely relief from the Sunni Saljuq Turks under their leader, Tugril Beg, turned the tide, restored the Abbasid caliph, and put paid to

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Iran, the only country with an "official" Shia government, is a non-Arab country and that the overwhelming majority of Shias are non-Arabs may have something to do with this historical antecedent. The religious persecution of Shias forced practising Shias to practice taqiyya (precautionary dissimulation of belief): outwardly observing Sunnism, but secretly practicing Shia beliefs. The constant threat to the lives of the Shia Imams made it difficult for them to freely move about in public and communicate with their followers. Over time a lot of confusion ensued over who the rightfully designated heirs were, causing schisms when different groups accepted different family members as successor Imams - in the absence of a definitive public pronouncement by the preceding Imam. The most important schism took place in AD 765 when one group accepted the elder son, Ismail, as the Imam of the Time, whilst another group accepted the younger sibling, Musa Kazim as the seventh Shia Imam. The former faction came to be known as the Ismailis and are today the second largest Shia community, spread throughout the globe, but primarily resident in some 25 countries. The latter group, in time, came to be known as the Ithan-asharis (lit. Twelvers because their 12th Imam disappeared in AD 873 and is believed to be in occultation) and is today the largest Shia sect, present in large concentrations in Iran, Southern Iraq, South Lebanon, Bahrain, Azerbaijan, and the oilrich Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. There are important Twelver Shia communities in India and Pakistan as well.

Fatimid dreams of uniting the world of Islam under a Shia Ismaili Imam-Caliph. The drain on the Fatimid treasury started their decline until finally in AD 1171 the Sunni hero Salahuddin (Saladin of the Crusades) ended the Fatimid dynasty and eliminated Shiism from North Africa.

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DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES AND THEIR IMPACT ON PRESENTDAY ATTITUDES


As mentioned earlier, an appreciation of the doctrinal differences between Shias and Sunnis is key to understanding attitudinal differences manifested by different parts of the Muslim world, depending on which of the two influences they draw upon. Sunnis, by definition, believe in following the Prophet's traditions. As the Prophet did in his time, so should the pious believer do, in every succeeding period, in order to be true to the Prophet's Sunnah, or tradition. Many Sunnis see the demands of orthodoxy to require not only following Muhammad's example in the practice of the faith, but also in more mundane matters such as personal habits. For example, orthodox Muslims consider the wearing of a beard as a sign of religiosity because Muhammad, in his time, sported a beard. The wearing of traditional garbs (i.e. garbs supposedly worn by Muhammad and his companions) falls into the same category. This notion of legitimacy by identification with bygone tradition from a "reference period" would appear to impose a time dimension, a constraint in adaptability to changing times. Luckily, because Sunni Islam has neither the concept of a Church nor of priesthood1 as is understood in Christianity, each individual, in theory, has the right to interpret the Islamic Message according to his or her understanding of the scriptures. The Quran would appear to support this view because it contains several verses which say that God speaks to Man in allegory and parable. Thus two individuals, in good faith, may both study the Quran and Muhammad's example and arrive at different interpretations - and yet both be within the pale of accepted belief and neither being in a position to consider the other as "non-Muslim". Yet it is precisely this lack of norm, this apparent freedom of conscience, which has prompted some to make attempts at imposing rigid conformity on the entire community such as Wahhabi 2 fundamentalists are attempting at the present time. In Muhammad's own life time - when the process of revelations was still ongoing - there was a realization that many of the problems of the nascent Muslim community did not all have pat answers in divine revelations. Muhammad applied pragmatic solutions to problems which could not be solved by traditional means, while ensuring that they did not violate fundamental principles of the faith. For centuries after Muhammad, Islamic jurists pondered over issues which were not explicitly addressed in either the Quran or the Hadith - sayings of the Prophet - perhaps because these issues did not exist in Muhammad's time. Using the process of deduction, analogy, and expert consensus, Sunni Islam solved its ongoing problems as it encountered them. However, as the community of faithful spread far and wide, and became distant from its original Arab roots, a loss of confidence or faith in the community's ability to solve its problems contemporaneously seems to have taken place. Suddenly, Sunni Islam decided to "freeze" the interpretations of Quranic laws for all time.
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The Sunni ulema, mullahs in common parlance, are not priests in the sense of intervening between Man and God, but more like jurists. Most tend to be little more than paid functionaries who lead congregational prayers and teach the Quran for a fee. Some learned scholars of the Quran are called upon to pronounce an opinion - a fatwa - on an issue based on their understanding of the Holy Book.
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The term Wahhabi Islam is also sometimes used interchangeably with Salafi Islam.

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Future generations were to be condemned to interpretations made not just in Muhammad's time, but generations and centuries later, and yet in a different and simpler time and place - and by mere mortals like themselves. The body of immutable Islamic laws called the Sharia came to be packaged around four schools of Sunni jurisprudence - Shaf'i, Maliki, Hanafi, and Hanbali - identified with four masters called, interestingly, Imams1. Henceforth the Sharia was to be immutable and the only choice Sunni societies in the future were to have was the ability to pick one of the four schools of jurisprudence as their own. In most cases, even that choice was academic as the rulers, and tradition, pre-determined that. Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 179810 and the spread of European imperialism around the world brought home to the Muslim world how its fortunes had changed. In the face of opposition from the orthodoxy, Sunni reformers emerged in the 19th century: Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida of Egypt, Sayyed Ahmad Khan of India, and Jamaluddin Afghani (who belonged everywhere), who wished to adapt Islam to the times and interpret the Quran in accordance with modern science; and discard the Hadith (Prophetic traditions) in favor of the original interpretation and reinterpretation of the Quran.11 To this list of reformers must be added the influence of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Ataturk not only ended the Ottoman Empire, he also abolished the Sunni caliphate in 1924. The Turkish Sultans had, since 1517, succeeded the Abbasid caliphs as the leaders of Sunni Islam2. Post-1924, Sunni Islam lost its unifying centre and reference point - an institution which had existed since AD 632. Sunni Islam would no longer have a monolithic religious figure and thus no Sunni leader would have automatic pan-Islamic appeal as did the caliphs of old. The end of colonialism in the twentieth century further eroded links with tradition and found erstwhile Western colonies implementing not the Sharia, but secular constitutions, bequeathed by their former Western masters. Yet not all modern "reform" movements in Sunni Islam were secular-oriented or "progressive" in the Western sense. As John L. Esposito, Professor of Religion at Georgetown University, in his account of the 18th century Wahhabi revivalist movement in his recent book, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam, observes:
The Wahhabi religious vision or brand of Islam, named after Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, has been a staple of the Saudi government, a source of their religious and political legitimation. It is a strict, puritanical faith that emphasizes literal interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah (example) of the Prophet Muhammad and the absolute oneness of God. The Wahhabis denounced other tribes and Muslim communities as polytheists or idolaters. Anything the Wahhabis perceived as un-Islamic behavior constituted unbelief (kufr) in their eyes, which must be countered by jihad. Thus jihad or holy war
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The term Imam in Sunnism differs markedly from that in Shiism. In Shiism, the Imam is the divinely-inspired, infallible legatee of the Prophet's religious authority. In Sunnism, Imams are routinely used to describe paid, mosque functionaries who lead congregational prayers (pesh imams). Less commonly, and as a mark of respect, the title "Imam" has been used for each of the four founders of the Sunni schools of jurisprudence and for great religious scholars. 2 The Abbasid caliphate had ended in 1258 with the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols, but the Abbasid caliphs continued their reign, without political power, under the protection of the Mamluk Sultans in Cairo until 1517.

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was not simply permissible: to fight the unbelievers and reestablish a true Islamic state was required.12

Indeed, since the 'Seventies, economic hardship in a number of previously secular Muslim countries emboldened the religious orthodoxy to place increasing theocratic pressures to make the Sharia (narrowly interpreted) the law of the land. In other places, such as, for example, Pakistan and Sudan, illegal military dictatorships, lacking political legitimacy, made unholy alliances with the religious clerics - the mullahs - to anoint themselves with a mantle of religious legitimacy ( la House of Saud). This alliance required, in turn, accommodation to the demands of the clergy such as introduction of the Sharia in place of secular laws and generally changing the tenor of a secular society to the external manifestations of an Islamic theocracy. At the same time, the oil boom gave Saudi Arabia both unprecedented influence and wealth (in addition to the "accidental" prestige of its guardianship of Islam's holy places) in the Islamic world. It has used this to fund and export its intolerant and marginal vision of Islam - Wahhabism - to the non-Arab world and, at the same time, delegitimize indigenous non-Arab Islamic traditions. Many of these indigenous traditions were born of the syncretic fusion of Sufi (mystical) Islam with local cultures particularly where Islam had spread not by the force of Arab arms but through Sufi mystics and Muslim merchants (such as the greater part of Asia and Black Africa). The effect of this proselytizing has only begun to be recognized in the West since September 11, 2001, although its negative effects have long been felt and known in the Islamic world: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia, SE Asia, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, sub-Saharan Africa. It is a sad irony that oil - the lifeblood of the modern world - gave one of the most backward and regressive regimes in Islam the means to impose its medieval view on previously peaceful and moderate regions of the Muslim world. *-*-*-* Like Sunnis, Shias attest to the Quran being God's Final Message and to Muhammad being His last prophet. However, the Shia belief in a divinely-inspired Imam, from the Prophet's family, and wielding the Prophet's religious authority, goes to the heart of the doctrinal difference between the two communities. Indeed, Shias believe that the presence of the Imam is indispensable to the existence of the world and that each age has its Imam - even if the faithful may not be aware of his physical presence. Even though accepting the Quran as God's final revelation would make the Islamic Message immutable, the institution of Imamat, whereby the Imam has the final authority to interpret the Quran according to the times (taw'wil), would impart a built-in mechanism to keep the faith in tune with changing times. Two important corollaries arise from this: First, the implicit recognition that the Quran has to be read, not literally, but as a guiding document, speaking in parables, which have to be applied according to the context and circumstances of changing times. Second, the important role of the intellect in understanding faith. Due to the almost continuous persecution that Shias faced right from the point of coming into existence and the unnatural deaths that the early Shia Imams met, nearly all the different branches of Shia Islam suffered a break in the chain of Imamat. For the majority sect of Shias, the Twelvers, this came about in AD 873 when the 12th Imam disappeared and was never seen again. Because the raison d'tre for Shia Islam is belief in the existence of a divinely-inspired Imam, the various Shia branches evolved

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the credo of a "hidden" Imam: seeing, but unseen; an Imam in occultation who would 'return' and restore peace and justice in the world: a messianic figure, as it were.1 This, however, overturned a fundamental premise of Shiism, i.e. the inbuilt mechanism for change and renewal via the Imam's continuing guidance. In the absence of the Imam, Twelver Shia communities evolved a highly elaborate, heirarchical structure to regulate the community - the closest to the idea of a Central Church Authority in Christianity. Notwithstanding this, there was no authoritative figure with the religious authority of the Imam to make far-reaching changes, should these be required. Instead, the examples of the early Shia Imams became the guiding principles (just as for the Sunnis the example of the Prophet served this purpose). In particular, the teachings of Ali, the first Shia Imam, and Jafar al-Sadiq, the sixth Shia Imam (who is credited with laying the foundation of Shia jurisprudence), came to dominate later Shiism. Not all Shia communities lost the guidance of the Imam; some, like the Shia Ismailis, to this day have a "living" Imam who traces his descent, through 49 generations, to Muhammed. It is by observing such communities that we can gauge the promise of the the institution of Imamat in Shia Islam. The Ismailis, although the second most important Shia branch, are a relatively small percentage of world Islam. Yet their numbers belie their very great influence in the Islamic world. Their Imams, the hereditary Aga Khans2, have used their unparalleled religious authority within the Ismaili community to carry out reforms such as banning the veil, polygamy and introducing gender equity, promoting education and social advancement. As a result, today, the Ismailis are by far the most socially progressive, educated and economically-advanced community in the Muslim world; playing a critical role in the intellectual and economic lives of their countries of residence. Ismaili women, in particular, are the most educated and socially liberated in Islam. Even in the West, where their settlement is of relatively recent origin and a result of political upheavel, their educational attainment represents the very highest of any comparable group. Ismaili men and women may be found in the most prestigious centers of learning in the West - not just in the student community, but equally, in the faculty as well. In a world of globalization and meritocracy, of all Muslims, the Ismailis have most successfully embraced modernity, thrive in it and, as former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook13 observed recently, still manage to hold onto their identity. This adaptability is demonstrated in both the West as in the developing world. To take but two examples in illustration: Azim Premji, an Ismaili entrepreneur, is India's richest billionaire. In 1999 (before the hi-tech meltdown), the Indian press estimated his net worth to be second only to Bill Gates's. A man who has been called India's Bill Gates, he has built an international hi-tech empire, competing in the most advanced technologies with the best of international adversaries. Wipro, his company, is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is the first company to be awarded the Software Engineering Institute's (Carnegie Mellon University) highest mark of quality, CMM (Capability Maturity Model)
1

It was to capitalize on this deeply-felt Shia belief that Ayatollah Khomeini, though just a cleric (an Ayatollah) and not an Imam, was cynically given the honorific title of "Imam" Khomeini (something akin to a sacrilege in Shia Islam) by his "handlers", to exploit the unsuspecting and make them believe that the Imam had returned to end the Shah's "corrupt" rule and restore justice for the believers. 2 The title Aga Khan has no religious significance. It is a hereditary political title granted to the 46th Ismaili Imam, Hassanali Shah in 1830 by the Persian Qajar monarch, Fateh Ali Shah, who was also the former's father-in-law.

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Level V as well as P-CMM V (People-CMM). To date, only a handful of firms (such as the giant Motorola) have managed to achieve this distinction. Firoz Rasul, the current President of the Ismaili Council for Canada, doubles as the Chairman and CEO of Ballard Power, a small technological venture he took over in 1988 and is today the world leader in hydrogen fuel cell technology. One of Canada's greatest success stories, Ballard has managed to attract investment from two of the biggest players in the automotive world, Daimler-Chrysler and Ford because of its leadership in developing alternate, non-fossil fuel powered technology. The Scientific Program, Nova, called hydrogen fuel-cell technology "the next big thing". It's not too difficult to see why. The last "great thing", the internal combustion engine which revolutionized transportation is also the single biggest cause of the West's dependence on Mid-East oil. With new generation cars running not on internal combustion engines but hydrogen fuel cells, it is hydrogen (widely found in nature) and not fossil fuels which power them. Furthermore, the exhaust is not in the form of greenhouse gases (CO2), but just plain water vapor (H2O). But Shia intellectual achievement, even among Shia sects without a "living" Imam, is significant and far outstrips that seen among Sunnis. Even in situations where both communities live side by side, such as in India and Pakistan, this fact is quite evident1. Shias, in general, it would seem have a more open attitude to modernity than Sunnis. This is borne out even when one compares extremists on both sides. Both the current regime in Tehran and the Taliban were theocratic regimes, yet in comparison to the Taliban, Iran's Ayatollahs strike one as the very paragons of virtue, reason and liberalism. Even in comparison to Saudi Arabia (another theocratic state), women in Iran enjoy far more rights and privileges. Contrary to the factual position of the Shia world-view, the word "Shia" in the West has emotive baggage attached to it and conveys, to the layperson, the caricature of an unrepentant fanatic, if not an actual religious terrorist. It is not hard to see why. The recognition and awareness of the existence of the Shia sect of Islam by the West was coincidental with the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Khomeni's reign of terror and his creation and funding of proxies in places like Lebanon (Hizbollah) was, thanks to sensational reporting in the Western media, associated in the public's mind as an essential part of Shia Islam - not just a brutal politicization and exploitation of religion. The Tehran Embassy hostage crisis and the bombing of the US marine barracks in Beirut was the final straw. Conventional wisdom now associated moderation with Sunni Islam and religious militancy and fundamentalism with Shiism. Not until the early 'Nineties when Sunni groups were accused of terrorist plots on the US mainland (such as the first WTC bombing) did the conventional wisdom change. More recently, the US State Department has had cause to revise its assessment of threats to US security and now defines groups tied to radical Sunni Islam - rather than militant Shia Islam - as the number one threat to US security. Contrary to media representation, the Iranian Revolution had less to do with religion than with economics. The rapid rise in Iran's wealth fuelled by the oil boom of the 'Seventies
1

When the British replaced the Muslims as the dominant power in the Indian sub-continent, Sunni Muslims, in general, boycotted British institutions and Western education. The Shias, who were, in any case, second-class citizens under Sunni Muslim rule, had had less to lose by the arrival of the British and were therefore the first among Muslims to benefit from Western learning. It was their example which, over time, led to a change in Sunni attitudes towards Western education.

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triggered an unprecedented development boom designed to propel Iran from the Third World to the First World within a mere span of a few decades. To achieve this, millions of poor peasants from the countryside were uprooted in migration waves to Tehran and other urban centers to work on construction sites. Though they could see the grand mansions of North Tehran which their hands had helped build, their reality, at the end of the day, was in a barely inhabitable, temporary slum. Whilst their fate was one which millions in neighbouring India and Pakistan would gladly have died to have, these "havenot" Iranians gauged their happiness not in absolute terms, but in comparison to how their country's resources were exclusively enriching the Shah and his cronies. Not only was there no room in the Shah's grandiose plans for a pause to correct social inequity, he had also simultaneously reduced Iran to a one-party (his party) state; muzzled free expression; and left no room for civil society "mediation" between the powerful few and the powerless many. The only institution he could not control was the Twelver Shia religious heirarchy. It was but natural that the religious order, the only independent power structure free of the Shah's control, would be the springboard for venting the frustrations of the powerless, millions of whom were from the countryside and, though politicized by their sudden move to the city slums, were still deeply religious. The thinkers and intellectuals encouraged this, thinking that they could use the simple-minded clerics to play the "battering ram" for them and that, once the Shah's regime was brought down, they would take over. Little did they know that they were riding a tiger. Like the Bolsheviks, the mullahs railed against the absolute powers of the monarchy, not because they found it morally reprehensible, but because they wanted to monopolize it for themselves. Many of the liberal intellectuals who surrounded Khomeini in his exile in Paris would later pay with their lives or, in the case of the most prominent, the MIT-trained Dr Ibrahim Yazdi, suffer a lifetime of harassment and ill-treatment. Yet, from the early days, the Iranian electorate has consistently demonstrated that it did not necessarily share the Ayatollahs' vision of governance, by defeating conservative candidates and electing a liberal intellectual like Abul-Hasan Bani Sadr as President1. The recent two-time election of the reformer President Khatami reinforces this view. There is nothing intrinsically in the Twelver Shia psyche to predispose them to religious militancy and theocracy. It was the confluence of events which, as in the case of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, that created conditions where the Islamic Revolution prevailed. In Lebanon, one generation after the French had artificially carved out a Christianmajority state from what was originally Syria, demographic changes had made the Twelver Shias, arguably, the most inequitably represented group in the political process. Their case was defended in the Lebanese civil war by Amal, a secular organization led by an urbane, dual US-Lebanese citizen, Nabih Berri. It would not be unnatural for Iran, a Twelver Shia state, to be concerned about the fate of its co-religionists in Lebanon. However, instead of cooperating with Amal, the Iranian clerics undercut it and created a competing organization in their own image - the fundamentalist Hizbollah. And similar organizations were "exported" to other regions of the Muslim world where Twelver Shias were agitating for political rights against Sunni regimes - many of whom were US-client states such as Saudi Arabia. As a consequence, to the uninitiated, Twelver Shiism and religious militancy became synonymous.
1

President Bani Sadr subsequently had to escape for his life - as a stowaway on a plane.

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Anyone familiar with the Twelver Shia religious heirarchy could have reasonably predicted the course of events once the mullahs succeeded in grabbing and monopolizing power. The anti-US and anti-Western rhetoric, however, would be something that could not, necessarily, have been predicted. As Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Chair at the University of Maryland explains: "Although Khomeini employed Islam to legitimize his rule, the primary opposition to the United States across Iranian society was driven not by Islamic belief but by resentment of the United States' support of the oppressive Shah."14 Similarly, theocratic Iran's uncompromising stance on Israel is less predicated on religion, per se, than in the disproportionate suffering of Twelver Shias in South Lebanon (where they are concentrated) from Israel's invasion of Lebanon and its subsequent 20-year occupation of the self-imposed "security zone". Public opinion in Iran will continue to be driven and influenced by the fate and attitudes of Twelver Shias in Lebanon vis--vis Israel1. The excellent relations Iran has with India, a non-Muslim state in spite of its "illegal" occupation of Muslim-majority Kashmir for more than fifty years (a situation not unlike that of occupied Palestine some would argue) would seem to support this argument. The major difference between the two situations is the absence of a large local Twelver Shia concentration in Kashmir. The uninformed public and journalists may be excused their ignorance of the finer doctrinal points of Shia Islam, but what about Western scholars of history; surely they could have better informed the debate and understanding? In practice that did not happen because much of Western scholarship's understanding of Shiism has come via Sunni historical sources. As explained above, succession and political control of Islamic lands following the Prophet's death passed onto the Sunni majority. The Sunni majority, and Sunni rulers in particular, did not take kindly to the Shia minority and many attempts were made to 'eliminate' them. In this they had the complete support of the Sunni clergy. In the early ages, when Shias lacked political power and were fighting an existential battle, they had no means to make their independent case to history and posterity through the written word. That power belonged to Sunni writers who were extremely hostile to the Shia cause. Dr Arzina Lalani, a scholar of early Shia thought at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London explains this succinctly in her book Early Shi'i Thought:
The Shi'a have generally been regarded by sunni heresiographers as 'deviators' from the 'norm', representing heterodoxy as opposed to an orthodoxy. Many later Western scholars of Islam, too, have adopted the same dichotomy and have treated Shi'i Islam as a heresy. Considering that we owe most of our sources to those who were in due course to become the Sunni majority, it is not surprising that the Shi'is are assumed to have diverged from the 'true path'. The 'orthodoxy-heterodoxy' dichotomy gives a very simplistic view of an extremely complex doctrinal development which evolved over several centuries. In addition, this dichotomy, when understood from a Christian context, is inappropriate because of the absence of any central ecclesiastical authority in Islam.15
1

In recent years we have heard of the cooperation between the Twelver Shia Hizbollah and Sunni groups like Hamas. To the extent one attaches credibility to these reports, it may speak to the inefficacy of Israeli policy that two distinct groups - separated by different political affiliation, worldview, religious affinity, and interests - have both been equally alienated that they should seek common cause in spite of their very real differences.

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Shiism has another legacy which it shares with other branches of Islam - Sufism. Sufism, the mystical movement in Islam, is a spiritual path shared by both Sunnis and Shias alike. Following the death of Muhammad, it arose as an organized movement among groups who found orthodox Islam to be spiritually stifling. It eschews conformity to external, ritualistic symbolism and instead advocates a tolerant, personal path to divine love and wisdom. Though frowned upon by orthodox Muslims, it has played a critical role in the history of Islam by spreading Islam outside the Arab world through Sufi literature using eclectic symbolism tolerant and respectful1 of other belief systems - in local (non-Arabic) languages. Most mystical Sufi orders, Shia and Sunni alike, revere Ali, the first Shia Imam as the fountainhead of esoteric doctrine (upon which Sufism is predicated). The shared spiritual beliefs between Shiism and Sufism served Shias well in times of religious persecution, they would clothe themselves outwardly in Sufi symbolism and escape Sunni wrath by passing themselves off as Sunni Sufis.

One of Hindu India's greatest pan-Indian Saint is a Muslim Mystic called Kabir the weaver, whose mystical poetry, written in Hindi, preaches universal love and is a synthesis of teachings from both the Quran and the Hindu Holy Book, the Bhagvad Gita.

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THE MYTH OF MONOLITHIC ISLAM


The previous section dealt at length with the fundamental doctrinal differences between Shia- and Sunni-Islam. And yet, such is the power of the popular press that Islam is often portrayed in its entirety - 1.2 billion souls in all - as a single, amorphous, monolithic, grouping. The truth is that Islam is anything, but monolithic, and except for its early history, it has never been monolithic even politically. The Islamic world is a pluralistic, diverse collection of many political entities. Entities which comprise people of diverse ethnic, linguistic and religious interpretations. As the Aga Khan Awards for Architecture (AKAA)1 has demonstrated - even to the Islamic world itself - the sheer diversity of cultural expression and interpretation in the Muslim world is phenomenal. The Islamic world's diversity and pluralism - in all spheres - has deep historical roots. During the Umayyad caliphate (AD 661-750), the Islamic empire was one single entity stretching from Spain to the borders of China - all ruled from Damascus. The successor Abbasid caliphate (AD 750-1258), in its early days, apart from Umayyad Spain, also ruled over all of the Islamic lands from their capital of Baghdad. However, even then, Islamic unity was only a thin veneer. The Shia supporters of Ali, and his designated descendants, viewed both the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates as 'illegitimate'. Moreover, the newly converted non-Arab Muslims, treated as second-class citizens, had less of a stake in the Islamic state than the Arab elite who dominated the reins of power in the early days. The stresses of distance and the need to co-opt non-Arab elements finally proved too much for a centralized Islamic state and, in time, a number of local, independent rulers set themselves up on the periphery of the empire. The arrival of the Turks was to particularly heighten this effect. The Turks were initially brought in as slaves and mercenaries for Arab rulers who had reason to mistrust treachery and ambition from their own kind. In time, the slaves became masters and reduced the Abbasid caliphs to a status of nothing more than glorified titular heads, with little political power outside of Baghdad. Their tribal instincts meant that Islamic lands came to be divided among a number of rival, warring chiefs. With the establishment of the Fatimids - the first Shia (Ismaili) - caliphate in AD 909, the religious fissures in Islam had already become deep and permanent. A seminal event in history, the Crusades, is presented in both Western and Islamic mythology as a monolithic religious2 struggle between Christianity and Islam. In truth,
1

For details on the history and objectives of the Aga Khan Awards for Architecture, refer to the AKDN website: http://www.akdn.org 2 In actual fact, objective scholarship would indicate that the Crusades had anything but a religious reason. When Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade in November AD 1095, he was responding to appeals from the Byzantine Empire for a brotherly joining of forces to free the Holy Land from the "heathens". Yet Jerusalem had been in Muslim hands for the past 450 years already! During that time it had never served as a rallying cry for a holy war. The real reason was existential. After losing border territories in the Near East to Arab armies in Islam's early days, the Byzantine Empire had reached a sort of accommodation and equilibrium with the Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates whereby the Byzantine frontiers held by and large. However, in the 11th century, the migration of independent Turkish tribes from Central Asia changed this. As

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the military successes of the First Crusade were in large part due to the divisions between Fatimid Shia Egypt (which controlled the Holy Land) and Sunni Syria under the Zangid Turks. The doctrinal enmity between the Fatimids and the Turks was as bad, if not more than, that between the Crusaders and Muslims in general. Indeed, it was the indiscriminate killing of civilians of all denominations by the early Crusaders that turned all sections of Muslim opinion against them. Saladin (Salahuddin Ayubbi) succeeded in reversing the Crusaders' victorious tide only after he united Egypt and Syria, which happened when he ended Fatimid rule (and Ismaili Shiism) in Egypt in AD 1171. In the West, Saladin is presented as a pan-Islamic hero who led a jihad (holy war) to liberate Jerusalem from the Crusaders. That is a myth. In as much as Shia groups in Syria and Palestine had equal reason to hate the Crusaders for their religious fanaticism and their early murderous orgies, Saladin represented a bigger threat - an existential threat. His track record in Egypt was there for all to see. He had not only ended the Fatimid dynasty but eliminated the last vestige of Shiism from Egypt; he had destroyed priceless libraries and venerable institutions such as Al-Azhar University had ceased to teach the Shia credo16. Consequently, two near-successful attempts on his life came not from the Crusaders, but from fellow Muslims in Syria between AD 1174-617. Indeed, once their initial religious zeal had been tempered by realities on the ground, the Crusaders managed to reach accommodation with Shia groups in Syria. Indeed, when in c. AD 1193, following the Third Crusade, King Richard I, the Lion Heart (Coeur de Lion) was imprisoned and held for ransom by Leopold of Austria, one of the accusations leveled against him was his consorting with Sinan,18 the formidable leader of the Syrian Ismailis. In fact, much earlier, in AD 1129, when 6,000 Ismailis perished in a generalized massacre ordered by Buri, the Turkish Sunni ruler of Damascus, the local Ismaili chieftain of the fortress of Baniyas, on the border of the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, successfully obtained refuge for his people in Jerusalem by writing to King Baldwin II (AD 1118-31); turning over to him his fortress in return.19 The point in making reference to a much-publicized historical event of mythic proportions is to underline the fact that even when the event in question is relatively well-known, inaccuracies can surround it when, in the absence of careful research, superficial appearances may come to cloud judgement. In situations which are lesser known, this
zealous new converts they were encouraged to expand westward - in the lands of the "infidels" rather than the lands of Islam. They proved a formidable adversary, successfully making inroads deep into Asia minor, defeating imperial Byzantine armies easily. At the Battle of Manzikert in AD 1071, the Eastern Roman Empire suffered its worst ever defeat losing Anatolia to the Saljuq Turks, and it was only a matter of time before the Turks would completely overwhelm the Byzantine empire. By making common cause with their rival Catholics, the Orthodox Byzantines sought to push back the Turkish threat. In actual fact, the Crusades only served to further weaken the Byzantines and, instead of regaining territory from the Turks, they were subject to the barbaric sacking of Constantinople in AD 1204 by the Latin Christians - an event which permanently drove the two branches of Christianity apart, irretrievably (on May 4, 2001, after nearly eight centuries, it would fall to Pope John Paul II to personally apologize to Eastern Orthodoxy for the excesses of the Crusaders). For the Western Christians, there were distinct advantages in participating in the Crusades. The incessant bloodletting through internecine feuds among Christian princes could instead be channeled and directed at "infidels". Success in the Crusades was also guaranteed to enhance the Church's prestige and power; for the Christian soldiers of God there would be both promise of booty here, and rewards and redemption in the hereafter (as the Church had led them to believe).

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difficulty can be compounded. For far too long, Western media has glibly portrayed the Muslim world in monolithic terms, in a sense suggesting that actions of Muslim countries are collectively-driven and influenced by their religion. Serious scholars who would have been expected to correct the inaccuracies, have, sadly, themselves fallen prey to this simplistic notion. Reference has already been made to Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations (more on this later). More than any other world faith, Islam embodies the notion of a world community of faithful - the Umma. No other world faith has supranational groupings such as the Organization of Islamic States (OIC) - and its sister organizations. A look at the discourse taking place in Islamic societies also shows the extent of world Muslim consciousness and solidarity, the like of which does not find parallel in, say, the Christian West. Certainly issues like solidarity with the people of Palestine find an echo in the entire Muslim world. Notwithstanding this, the Muslim world is a collection of nationstates, each with its own unique interests, needs, ethnicities, religious interpretations and strategic imperatives. As in the case of examples from early Islamic history considered above, examples of recent events will make clear that the Muslim world does not differ from the West or any other grouping in that each nation-state responds, individually, to political imperatives when choosing from different courses of actions. In 17th century post-Reformation Europe, the Hapsburgs (both the Spanish and AustroHungarian branches in collusion) tried to unite European Christendom under Catholicism by force of arms and thus eliminate the "heresy" of Protestantism in what became known as the Thirty Years' War (1618-48).20 France, a proud and strong Catholic nation would have been expected to support this "holy" (Counter Reformation) endeavor. As we know, under the guidance of a prince of the Church, the formidable Cardinal Richelieu, it did quite the opposite. It sabotaged the Hapsburg strategy. Although as a high-ranking official of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Richelieu could have been expected to be in favor of strengthening Catholicism, as a patriotic Frenchman, he realized that the uniting of the northern and southern Germanic powers under the Hapsburgs would pose a political threat to France. Richelieu therefore invoked his famous paradigm that since France was the pillar of Catholicism, all actions done to strengthen France were in the service of Catholicism. Thus he could consort both with the Northern Protestant powers as well as the Sultan of Turkey in order to foil the plans of his Catholic co-religionists, the Hapsburgs. Today, we recognize Richelieu's state policy (raison d'tat) as laying the foundation of the modern nation-state and of the fundamental principle of separation of Church and State. More than 350 years later, and although he may not consciously have followed Richelieu's course of action in history, a Muslim leader expounded the same logic. Following the end of the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, Pakistan turned Afghanistan into its client state, imposing on it the Taliban regime which had been spawned in its religious seminaries (madressas). Afghanistan became a playground for Pakistan's intelligence agencies and an instrument of its jihadist policy which was "exported" abroad. While the entire world (including most of the Islamic world) was shocked and scandalized by the Taliban's barbarism, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia funded and stood by the fundamentalist regime. The Taliban became an immutable part of Pakistan's foreign policy through all the frequent regime changes in Islamabad - including the musical chairs between civilian and military rule.

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When, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, President Bush gave his famous ultimatum that 'you are either with us or you are with the terrorists', Pakistan had a choice to make: to ditch the Frankenstein's monster it had helped create or to join it, willy-nilly, in a suicidal fundamentalist jihad "death pact" against the "infidels". Because policy analysis in Pakistan had never seriously explored a Taliban-free foreign policy, and because Afghanistan was the training ground for the Kashmiri jihadists who were being sent to bleed the Indian army, many Pakistanis (and not just the mullahs) were against dumping the Taliban cold-turkey. Pakistan's military dictator, General Musharraf, knew that if he did not comply with American demands, Pakistan could suffer the fate of Iraq. Swallowing his pride, he quickly said yes to all of the demands presented by the US in a phone call to Secretary Powell. Explaining his decision to the nation, he evoked the same metaphor as Richelieu had done, centuries earlier. Pakistan, he said, was a pillar of Islam; if, God forbid, anything were to happen to Pakistan, Islam would be the weaker for it. It was, therefore, his duty to do everything to preserve and protect Pakistan from harm. In spite of Pakistan's fundamentalist stance planted since the late 'Seventies by the former military dictator, General Zia-ul Haq, and strong feelings of affinity for the Taliban, the Pakistan establishment had no problem in fundamentally changing its orientation. What this demonstrates is that, like other nations, Muslim states are driven by selfinterest and strategic imperatives. That, notwithstanding the ideological imperatives of some, in the final analysis, self-preservation dictates following the path of political expediency rather than shared religious dogma or affinity. The fact that Saudi Arabia quickly ended diplomatic relations with the Taliban, stopped funding it, and reined in its fundamentalists under American pressure, further adds substance to this assertion. In chapter 12 of his book, the Clash of Civilizations, "The West, Civilizations, and Civilization"21, Professor Huntington gives a hypothetical scenario of an attack on Pakistan by India which is met by Pakistan with Iranian help. This scenario of Iran stepping into to help Pakistan against India, though hypothetical, is based on the implicit notion that Muslim countries are a "grouping" (in a sense monolithic); that they will act in unison against non-Muslim countries. This is a simplistic notion and could not be farther from the truth. In actual fact, Iran enjoys better relations with Hindu India than Sunni Muslim Pakistan. Iranian diplomats have been murdered by Sunni fundamentalists in Pakistan and Iranian cultural property attacked. Twelver Shia co-religionists of Iran in their hundreds, if not thousands, have been murdered in their places of worship in Pakistan since the late 'Seventies. More recently, Twelver Shia professionals, mainly physicians, have been targeted by Sunni fundamentalists in Karachi and elsewhere in Pakistan. Although a theocratic regime, Iran chose to back the "secular" Ahmed Shah Masoud and his Northern Alliance against the theocratic Taliban. This they did in spite of the Northern Alliance's links with India and Russia, two non-Muslim countries actively "suppressing" Muslim minorities in their own lands. This also put Iran in opposition to two Islamic countries - Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - which backed the Taliban. Clearly, even for an ideological, theocratic state headed by Ayatollahs, foreign policy is informed by more than just religious orientation, but takes into consideration pragmatic factors including sectarian religious affinity (protecting Twelver Shias), cultural factors (affinity with the Persian-speaking Tajiks of the Northern Alliance) and balance of power (curtailing Pakistan's sphere of influence in Afghanistan).

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During the 'Fifties and 'Sixties, Gemal Nasser pursued an aggressive policy towards proWestern monarchies in the region. The Shah of Iran countered by applying the policy of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. Iran became the most reliable supplier of oil to Israel throughout the long tensions between the Arabs and Israel. Religion certainly did not influence Iranian foreign policy in this instance. Interestingly, there were no outward signs of popular resentment in Iran at the closeness of ties with Israel. Pluralism and diversity are historical facts in the Muslim world, both in religious interpretation as well as cultural, linguistic, and ethnic bases. Even though the overwhelming majorities in both Pakistan and Bangladesh owe their allegience to Sunni Islam, the original Pakistan broke up into two because of cultural and linguistic differences between Bengali-speaking East Pakistan and Urdu/Punjabi-speaking West Pakistan. Common history, shared experience, and, most importantly, the same religious affiliation and interpretation proved less important than culture and ethnicity. The recent tensions between the Berbers and the Arabs in Algeria and between Kurds and the Arabs in Iraq (all Sunnis) are similar examples of the same reality. When Iraq attacked Iran, following the Islamic Revolution, Saudi Arabia, a fellow "fundamentalist, theocratic" state did not rush to support Iran. Instead, like the rest of the Gulf states and most of the Arab countries, it tilted towards Iraq even though the latter was the aggressor. There were two reasons for that. One was ethnicity - solidarity with a fellow Arab country; the second was religious affinity. Though lraq was a secular country, and Iran, like Saudi Arabia, a theocratic country, Saudi Arabia had reason to fear its Twelver Shia neighbor. With a significant discriminated and long oppressed Shia population22 in its oil-rich Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia had to be afraid of the influence a revolutionary Shia regime in Iran could have over their co-religionists in Saudi Arabia. The only Arab country to support Iran was Syria. Syria had its reasons for "betraying" Arab solidarity. Although a Sunni-majority country, Syria was ruled by a Shiite Alawwi clique headed by the Assad family. The Assad regime, though strongly secular, saw advantage in supporting a theocratic regime as long as that neighboring regime was Shia like it (albeit of a different branch of Shiism). Iran and Syria also "shared" influence over the activities of the Shia Hizbollah in South Lebanon. The above examples, though not exhaustive, are sufficiently illustrative to underscore the point, in Shibley Telhami's words, that:
....the world of over one billion Muslims, most of whom are not Arabs, is very diverse, with differing priorities and cultures. Moreover, the Islamic world, like other parts of the world, is dominated by states, which are driven by their own interests and priorities and often have more conflict among themselves than with the West.23

Clearly, in the few examples considered above, a wide variety of factors - cultural, linguistic, sectarian, political expediency - rather than just plain "Muslim-ness" go to explain why various Muslim states have acted "counter-intuitively" to what the media would have us believe. Even if, at the intellectual level, we can refute the simplistic notions of the popular press and of certain Western scholars, there is still the danger that popular notions could acquire a raison d'tre of their own and end up influencing state policy. The experience of the Cold War is all too vivid yet.

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Not too long ago, the paranoia of communism led Western governments and leaders, alike, to believe in a global communist conspiracy. Communism, in other words, was seen as monolithic, motivated purely by ideology. It should be apparent now to even the most gung-ho Cold War warrior that the practice of viewing communism as a monolithic phenomenon misguided policymaking for several decades before statesmen finally got it right. The different and competing needs and world views of the Chinese and the Russians were not exploited until the 'Seventies, whereas the Sino-Soviet split took place in the late 'Fifties. There are many statesmen today who see the US involvement in Vietnam as a direct consequence of a terrible failure to read the nationalistic aspirations (as opposed to ideological reasons, par excellence) underlying North Vietnamese actions; that the Vietnamese were more interested in a united homeland than in promoting communism abroad. As in the early days of the Cold War, the West has to disabuse itself of the simplistic notion of monolithic threats. More particularly it has to disabuse itself of the notion that religion is the only predictor of behavior in the Islamic world; it is one of many factors and not necessarily the most important. The West has to enhance its understanding of the subtleties and nuances of forces impinging on the Islamic world if its policies vis--vis the Muslim world are to be effective. Having said that, we need to be mindful that radical Islam sees the Islamic world through the same prism of romantic hype as the popular Western press. Given the fact that the Islamic world has a preponderance of Sunni Muslims (80-90%), Wahhabi Islam sees it as its natural constituency.1 They see the Islamic world as requiring a latter-day monolithic caliphate encompassing the entire Muslim world - a sort of totalitarian superstate. Almost exactly five months before September 11, 2001, Bin Laden, in a conference of fundamentalists near Peshawar, Pakistan, had a video message played urging Muslims everywhere to pledge allegiance to the Taliban cleric, Mullah Omar as the Amir-ul Momineen (prince/commander of the faithful i.e. caliph):
O Muslim ulema. Teach the Islamic nation that there is no Islam without a congregation, no congregation without an emirate, and no emirate without obedience. You are aware that at these difficult days, God has bestowed on the Islamic nation the rise of an Islamic state that applies God's sharia and raises the banner of monotheism, praise be to God; namely, the establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan led by the prince of the faithful Molla [sic] Mohammed Omar, may God protect him. It is your duty to call on the people to adhere to this emirate, to support it with souls and resources, and to back it in resisting the overwhelming currents of the world's infidelism [sic].

No matter what the form of Twelver Shia religious militancy, Twelver Shiism can never ever be a global threat to the West for the simple reason that, apart from a handful of regions, Shiism in general (and, therefore, Twelver Shiism) is very much a minority sect in the Islamic world, numbering just 10-20%. It will never have the global appeal that Sunni Islamic militancy can potentially have. If a global threat from the Islamic world were to emerge, it would have to be from radical Sunni Islam. That is not to suggest that Twelver Shia militancy cannot be dangerous in regional settings or in isolated locales.

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Weakening the infidels and warding off their evil, and upholding principles of monotheism can only be effected through a unified approach and by the Muslim's unanimous choice of one leader from among their men. I take this opportunity to assert that it is God's desire that I should pledge allegiance to the prince of the faithful Molla [sic] Mohammad Omar, that I have indeed given him my word of allegiance. I hope that my action will serve only God the Almighty.24

It goes without saying that a centralization of the Muslim world's resources and military capacity under a totalitarian, fundamentalist regime would be a big blow and seriously undermine the post-War international order. Yet it is precisely this that radical Sunni Islam seeks to achieve - the overturning of the current international order. By means of violence it seeks to create conditions in individual Muslim countries whereby the secular state collapses and is replaced by a theocratic alternative; hopefully creating a domino effect. In time, it would hope to achieve a coalescing of different fundamentalist movements into a latter-day caliphate such as the one Bin Laden refers to above. Radical Sunni Islam's view of the world is binary: the lands of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the lands of war (Dar al-Harb); the latter being the non-Muslim world ("infidels"), but also Muslim states who don't meet the "standards" of Wahhabi fundamentalism i.e. secular Muslim regimes. Equilibrium would be restored when the binary world was reduced to a unitary one i.e. victory of radical Sunni Islam ("the true believers") over the "infidels". Though the overwhelming majority of Islam belongs to the Sunni sect, this body of Sunni faithful is not, like Roman Catholicism, bound by an overarching, all-inclusive Church and Papacy. As we noted earlier, the symbol of Sunni unity - the caliphate - was abolished by Kemal Ataturk in 1924. Earlier, in the reign of Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid (1876-1909) and prior to the First World War, a policy of political Pan-Islamism was dreamt up, whereby zealous emissaries were dispatched all over Asia and Africa preaching the reunion of Islam under the Ottomans.25 The Great War put paid to this idea when, among others, Sunni Arab tribes, within the Ottoman empire itself, revolted against Turkish rule. Sunnism, at the first or most basic level, is a mosaic of different interpretations - ranging from the large-hearted toleration of the Sufi orders to the puritanical intolerance of the Wahhabi fundamentalists. At the second level are qualitative variations in religious interpretation based on regional differences derived from historical, cultural and ethnic bases. For example, the Sunni Muslims of South-East Asia have a relatively moderate interpretation in the donning of attire, application of laws and gender equity compared to, say, Sunni Muslims of Saudi Arabia. At the third level, is the system of nation-states spanning the political sphere of the Muslim world. Each nation-state reacts in a unique way to jealously guard its sovereignty and national interests - based not on religious imperatives but economic and political imperatives although religion informs how the first two imperatives are defined or interpreted. To gauge how strong these three "centrifugal" forces (i.e. levels) are vis--vis the "pull" of religious affinity, one need only observe the practical effectiveness of both the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Arab League. Beyond fine oratory there has been very little in terms of practical

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results from collective efforts of the Islamic world - or for that matter, the Arab world (except for the very limited success of the Arab economic boycott against Israel).1 To the extent that the system of nation-states is strong in the Muslim world, it acts to thwart the ambitions of radical Sunni Islam. Nations with significant Shia concentrations such as Iran (witness Iran's belligerent relations with the Taliban) would also serve as natural barriers.2 The strength of civil society organizations, particularly women's groups, would be yet another level of defense. Given the patriarchal and male-dominated ideology of radical Sunni Islam, women would have a vested-interest in opposing theocratic regimes. Islamic societies where women are empowered are thus likely to have a higher level of internal resistance to fundamentalist forces (thus in countries where a significant percentage of seats are reserved for women would have that percentage of seats "unavailable" to the mysogynist fundamentalists). Finally, progressive and outward-looking communities and groups with a secular outlook, who participate in the global economy, would be expected to be the first targets of fundamentalist regimes and, consequently, may be counted upon to oppose the inroads of fundamentalists tooth and nail. Based on the foregoing discussion, we may draw some practical pointers as to what measures the West needs to set up countervailing forces to neutralize the threat of Wahhabi fundamentalism: Strengthening the viability of individual nation-states in the Islamic world has to be an absolute priority. Given that many Islamic nations are candidates for "failedstate" status, this has an added urgency; a disintegrating nation-state would be an easy prey to the disrupting forces of religious fundamentalists. Efforts designed to improve governance, the rule of law, access to justice, economic empowerment and opportunities, and checking political disillusionment can all serve to help a state enforce its writ. Supporting cultural pluralism in the Islamic world has to be next. Much of the pluralism and diversity in the Muslim world is "legitimated" by historical precedents. Given the limits of distance and mobility, the ancient central Islamic powers such as the Abbasids or the Ottomans were severely limited in enforcing their writs over local communities. Hence, a flowering of diverse religious interpretations was possible. Today's state with its panoply of instruments has the wherewithal to enforce its dictate in the farthest corner of the country (as even the primitive Taliban with their Toyota pickups were able to do). Beyond the instruments of state power, there are the instruments of "referential power", of communications and mass media. Many of the different communities of interpretation that evolved outside the Arab world have unique characteristics imparted by indigenous influences. In most cases these have resulted in
1

In the late 'Fifties, Pakistan was considering joining the Baghdad Pact (later renamed Central Treaty Organization - CENTO), a military alliance with Western powers. To a suggestion from certain quarters in Pakistan that Pakistan should instead consider joining an "Islamic" military pact, the then Pakistani Premier Suhrawady made his now famous comment that "zero plus zero is zero" i.e. an alliance of Muslim states would lack any credibility and only an alliance with Western powers would add qualitatively to Pakistan's security. 2 The 'countervailing' force against Sunni pro-Wahhabi extremist groups in Pakistan is provided by Twelver Shia fundamentalist groups. In recent years these Shia groups have also used armed violence against prominent Sunni fundamentalist leaders in response to ongoing attacks on Shia civilians.

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more liberal attitudes as compared to those found in the austere climate of the Arabian peninsula. Ever since the oil crisis of the early 'Seventies, the wealth effect in the Gulf has funded fundamentalist schools and religious parties which have sought to delegitimize the indigenous, non-Arab, expressions of Islam - in black Africa, in Central Asia, South Asia and S.E. Asia; all areas traditionally far liberal than Wahhabi Islam. A pernicious theory suggesting a "norm" (i.e. Wahhabi Islam), contrary to historical precedents and to the dictates of the Quran, is being forced on previously peaceful and tolerant Muslim societies. Societies which reflected, historically, peaceful coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims as well as between different sects of Islam are now torn apart by sudden religious intolerance against minorities: in Nigeria, in Pakistan, in Kashmir, in South Africa, in East Africa, in Indonesia, in Central Asia - to name but some areas. That diversity and cultural pluralism are "intrinsically" good (irrespective of the "nature" of diversity) and in the West's enlightened self-interest to actively promote, is underlined by the recent war in Afghanistan. The only reason the US had a "beachhead" to attack the Taliban, was due to the linguistic, cultural and ethnic differences that the Northern Alliance Tajiks and Uzbeks had with the Pashtun-Taliban even though they were all largely Sunni. Although some Northern Alliance components were Shia Hazaras who were fighting alongside fellow-Persian speaking, Sunni-Tajiks against their common foe, the Pashto-speaking, Sunni-Taliban. It was in defense of cultural pluralism that the Northern Alliance sustained itself till the very end, against overwhelming odds, in holding on to a sliver of land in the North-East. Luckily, we have successful - and collaborative - examples from both the Islamic world and the West - of private endeavors in fostering cultural pluralism and which may serve as models for future interventions. The world's largest architectural prize, the Aga Khan Awards for Architecture (AKAA) is endowed by a private Muslim NGO - the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) in Geneva. Started in 1977 with an accomplished Canadian lady, Professor Renata Holod (an academic in Philadelphia) as the Secretary General, it has managed to bring together Muslims of all religious interpretations to define "Islamic Architecture" as the architecture of all Muslims, not of a particular region (e.g. the Middle East) or period (classical age of Islam). Thus not just mosques with domes and minarets are authentic expressions of Islam but flat, mud-roofed village mosques in West Africa are too. This, in effect, is tantamount to rejection of an Arab-centric Islam in favour of a universal and pluralistic Islam. An explanation is in order: If Arab architecture were to be the only "true" manifestation of Islamic architecture which the entire Islamic world should mimic or aspire towards, what counter-argument may one have to "reject" the insinuation that the Arab (wahhabi or salafi) interpretation of Islam represent the only "authentic" form of Islamic belief? The converse is true. If all forms and periods of Muslim architecture - and not just Arab classical forms - are equally authentic expressions of Islamic architecture, why are non-Arab forms of religious belief any less authentic Islam than Arab religious interpretation of Islam? Because of the international prestige attaching to the Awards, nations throughout the Islamic world vie to host the Awards ceremonies and compete aggressively for prizewinning projects. Even nations such as Saudi Arabia and Iran gloat when their projects are selected for Awards, even though the spirit of the Awards would tend to go against the very ideology of the theocratic state. The Awards, over the years, have benefited from collaboration with the best Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist architects

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working along side Muslim architects and intellectuals. The Awards have, therefore, created a successful intellectual forum for Muslim-Western dialogue and collaboration. The revival in Islamic architecture that the AKAA has generated has had another major impact. Because large-scale modern industrial and hi-tech structures were the preserve of global builders and designers based in the West, all too often these structures such as hospitals, airports, high rises were based on Western models. As the oil-boom generated a corresponding development and building boom, the profile of the urban landscape in the Islamic world stood in danger of becoming an undifferentiated copy of the Western city as old structures, representing their Islamic heritage, were brought down to build new buildings. This, in and of itself, may or may not have been innocuous, but for Muslim populations, still tied to their ancient roots and not yet "global citizens", this would have represented a constant visual alienation from their culture and religious roots. By sensitizing both, the Western designers (through programs such as the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard/MIT), and architects in the Islamic world itself, to the traditions and inspirations of Islamic architecture, the AKTC has ensured that the changing skyline of the Islamic city has preserved cultural legacies, without slavishly copying from the past; creating appropriate modern structures and yet staying rooted to Islamic cultural roots. More recently, the Historic Cities Programme (HCP) of the AKTC has pioneered the conservation, re-use (re-adaptation) and economic revitalization of historic spaces in the Islamic world from Bosnia to Zanzibar, the most important example being the CAD $75 million Al-Azhar Park in an impoverished area of Cairo. The other example is a Western initiative - the Silk Road Project - conceived by the world-renowned cellist, Yo-Yo Ma. Mr Ma's idea may have been stillborn but for the personal intervention of the World Bank President James Wolfensohn who used his close friendship with the Aga Khan to get the latter interested as a lead-funder through his AKTC. The Silk Road Project has had tremendous success in promoting Central Asia's pluralistic heritage. Yet in spite of the ultimate success of the Project, one has to be concerned that what should be a major Western foreign policy objective is not left to happenstance - to the accident of good intentions and charity of private individuals. Next in priority has to be strengthening of civil society groups (particularly, though not exclusively, women). Where strong civil society exists, it acts as a brake on the arbitrary power of the state and can mediate between the powerless individual and the powerful state thus empowering ordinary citizens and preventing political disillusionment. When the former Pakistani military dictator, General Zia-ul Haq tried to gain political legitimacy, he consorted with Sunni clerics. He imposed gender-discriminatory Sharia laws such as the controversial Zina Ordinance under which victims of rape were further punished by being charged with adultery while the perpetrators went scot-free because the requirement of four male witnesses to the act could never be met in the real world. Mrs Rashida Patel, the Chair of the All-Pakistan Women's Association (APWA), and President of the Women Lawyers' Association, was the most vocal critic of Zia's measures. Her efforts helped in sensitizing the international community to the travesty of justice taking place in Pakistan and won foreign support, including that from CIDA. A successful - and holistic - example of how civil society in the Islamic world may be helped is the Aga Khan Foundation Canada (AKFC) and CIDA's collaborative PakistanCanada Social Institutions' Development Program (PAKSID). This program strengthens civil society in a comprehensive and holistic manner - comprising policy environment,

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resource development and influencing attitudes of external stakeholders (such as government). Gender equity is an intrinsic part of the Program. Just recently, this program won the International Co-operation Award from the Canadian Council for International Co-operation.

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Next, Western governments have to achieve a change in mindset - away from putting all their eggs in the government-basket and building bridges with "likeminded" groups and institutions of moderate Islam. People-to-people contacts are absolutely vital to overcome mistrust, misperception and plain ignorance. The battle for hearts and minds has to be won in the private, and not the government sphere. In any case, if governments are illegitimate, they may fall at any point and with them all investments made in them up to that point. By fostering contacts between Western and moderate Muslim private institutions and individuals, such investments are likely not only to withstand regime changes but be more effective in creating links and bonds between societies. Irrespective of whether they are economic or intellectual in nature, such links are vital to the extent that they strengthen the "capacity" of moderate groups and institutions to inform public opinion and enlarge their circles of influence in their respective societies. Last but by no means least, curbing the influence of Wahhabi-inspired religious schools (madressas). Pakistan's entire jihadist culture (and the Taliban) was spawned in these schools. Aside from the brainwashing of young minds with the poison of religious hatred, thus breeding future religious fanatics and potential terrorists, these schools carry the seeds of societal instability. By attracting large numbers of students from urban slums and rural areas (almost a million in Pakistan) with the incentive of free education and board they inject into society functionally-illiterate adults unable to earn a living. This is so because these schools teach nothing but a recipe of religious intolerance, anti-feminine prejudices and the Quran by rote (a curriculum the Taliban internalized well). This is a mix that makes them incapable of fulfilling any productive role in a modern economy other than, perhaps, serving as so-called "holy warriors". Unless these schools are reformed immediately, they represent a real risk to the stability of secular Muslim nation-states and to the security of the West. It is imperative that these schools are actively monitored to curb their dispensation of hatred and are encouraged to introduce vocational trade skills such as will allow future graduates to earn a living as productive members of mainstream society. The West should apply all the leverage it can muster to impress upon "at risk" Muslim societies to carry out these reforms.

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THE 'ISLAMIZATION' OF MODERNITY


Many Western and Muslim historians draw a watershed moment around Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798. For centuries Arab and Turkish Muslim armies had advanced deep into the heart of Europe and threatened the sovereignty of Christian nations. In 1492 the Reconquista, the freeing of Spain from Moorish control, had been completed with the surrender of the last surviving Muslim kingdom of Grenada to the forces of Isabel and Ferdinand. After the Turkish defeat in the second siege of Vienna in 1683, the Ottomans, inexorably, found themselves having to relinquish territories, piece by piece, on all European fronts, and retreat to their Muslim provinces. But Napoleon's conquest of Egypt - a province in the very heart of the Muslim world - was of a different order. It was not a freeing of Christian or European lands from Muslim control, but a role reversal; after centuries of suffering Islamic imperialism, it was now Europe's turn to cross the seas to impose its will on the Islamic world. Napoleon's victory over the Mamluk and Ottoman forces is represented by these historians as a moment of awakening for the Islamic world, a shock, as it were. This is historically inaccurate because the moment of "truth", of "shock", had already taken place almost half a century earlier - in India. At the Battle of Plassey, a tiny British force had defeated a major Muslim ruler, the Nabob (Nawab) of Bengal, in 1757, followed by a victory over the forces of the Mughal Emperor himself in the Battle of Buxtar in 1764. These were the first steps in the establishment of the British Raj in India as the successors and victors over the Great Mughals, one of three great contemporary Muslim empires. Be that as it may, the argument can be made, incontrovertibly, that by 1750, the balance of power had definitely shifted to the West. Muhammad's political successors, the caliphs, pursued an aggressive policy of military conquest which, in the span of less than a century i.e. by the early 8th century, had made the Islamic empire the biggest in history up until that point - stretching from Spain to India and the borders of China, deep in Central Asia. The Arab armies which spearheaded this conquest were the former denizens of the desert - simple, nomadic folk. Compared to the great powers of the day - the Romans (Byzantines) and the Persians - they were relatively unsophisticated and unlettered. Yet they were successful in sustaining great civilizations and military empires across three continents. For six centuries - from the seventh to the thirteenth century - Muslim civilizations dominated world culture. The Muslims were able to absorb antiquity's scientific and philosophical heritage (including the best of Greek and Roman civilizations), preserve, build and add to this body of knowledge. This would serve as foundational knowledge for all future civilizations.26 In particular, there were brand new fields of intellectual endeavor that Muslims added to the legacy of antiquity: algebra, geodesy, geometric solving of cubic equations, discovery of secant and cosecant, construction of the first astronomical observatory and - most significantly for future European exploration - invention of the astrolabe (a kind of celestial computer to accurately determine celestial altitudes, times and heights of mountains).27

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Belief in their new-found faith and their stunning military successes gave the Arabs - in spite of their humble origins and cultural and intellectual unsophistication - the selfconfidence to learn from every culture they encountered. Contact with foreign cultures and ideas never suggested to them a potential corruption or loss of their Muslim identity. Following the end of the period of the four righteous caliphs (AD 632-661), the leadership of the Islamic empire fell to the Umayyad dynasty (AD 661-750) who established the first hereditary kingship in Islam. Considered as hedonistic, worldly, and murderers of the Prophet's grandson and his family, many Muslims (particularly Shias) view them as impious usurpers of Islam's leadership. But it was perhaps this worldly ambition or materialistic view that inspired a pragmatic curiousity of things foreign and how it could serve their purpose. Maria Rosa Menocal, a professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University, explains it thus: "The Umayyads, who had come pristine out of the Arabian desert, defined their version of Islam as one that loved its dialogues with other traditions.... This was a remarkable achievement, so remarkable in fact that some later Muslim historians accused the Umayyads of being lesser Muslims for it."28 The early Muslims so successfully adopted foreign ideas and knowledge that, much of what was later to be associated with their name, was either borrowed, adapted or built upon other civilizations. For example, the term Arabic numerals is really an Indian innovation borrowed from India by the Arabs; the Muslim term for it, hindsaat (Indian science) being an acknowledgement of this fact. What is now known as Islamic architecture from Islam's early days, borrowed significantly from Byzantine built tradition. The Great Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, one of Islam's earliest major monuments, and which defined the shape of Islamic monuments of the future, was largely the product of Byzantine workmanship. The notion of what was Islamic was not based on the provenance of ideas and knowledge, but on how usefully they could be applied to practical uses without fundamentally affecting the faith of Islam. The xenophobia that presently characterizes large sections of the Muslim world seems to have been totally absent in those formative years. Most serious historians agree that beginning in the thirteenth century, Muslim intellectual leadership entered a less vigorous phase and, by the fifteenth century, "began a period of decline, losing ground to European economic, intellectual and cultural hegemony." Even as Muslim learning was being taught in the great seats of Renaissance Europe, Islam had started to forget its intellectual heritage from the fourteenth century onwards. Consequently, in time, Islamic culture was marginalized and its horizons narrowed; to the point that it lost its self-respect. The intellectual and cultural search in which it had led the world for six centuries ceased to be pursued.29 Whilst there is general consensus on the symptoms of intellectual decline, the causes of it are still being debated. For far too long Muslim historians have blamed outsiders for this turnaround - the Mongols and the Crusaders. But other civilizations, too, have suffered external invasions and yet they managed to resurrect themselves. To this day, apologists in the Muslim world explain its continuing intellectual backwardness on external factors. Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, Pakistan's MIT-trained theoretical nuclear physicist and author of Islam and Science, writes: "Often, diabolical theories of international conspiracy, with varying degrees of credibility, are invoked as explanation for Muslim Scientific backwardness. But these are not very fulfilling. Indeed, the damage to the collective self-esteem cannot be undone by such means, and thoughtful Muslims must seek sounder reasons."30

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In recent years some intellectuals in the Muslim world have sought to seek more plausible reasons. Dr Hoodbhoy himself traces it to the great debates which raged in Baghdad - the debate between Reason and Revelation and between Predestination and Free Will in Islam's classical age: Science flourished in the Golden Age of Islam because there was within Islam a strong rationalist tradition, carried on by a group of Muslim thinkers known as the Mutazilites. This tradition stressed human free will, strongly opposing the predestinarians who taught that everything was foreordained and that humans have no option but surrender everything to Allah. While the Mutazilites held political power, knowledge grew. But in the twelfth century Muslim orthodoxy reawakened, spearheaded by the cleric [Sunni] Imam Al-Ghazali. Al-Ghazali championed revelation over reason, predestination over free will. He refuted the possibility of relating cause to effect, teaching that man cannot know or predict what will happen; God alone can. He damned mathematics as against Islam, an intoxicant of the mind that weakened faith. Held in the vice-like grip of orthodoxy, Islam choked. No longer, as during the reign of the dynamic caliph Al-Mamun and the great Haroon Al-Rashid, would Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars gather and work together in the royal courts. It was the end of tolerance, intellect, and science in the Muslim world. The last great Muslim thinker, Abd-al Rahman ibn Khaldun, belonged to the 14th century.31 The Egyptian philosopher Hassan Hanafi adds: "We lost our pluralism, our liberalism 1,000 years ago. When al-Ghazali came, it was the beginning of the Crusades. He felt that pluralism, the enlightenment, might be risky, once you began to face the external enemy".32 Ziauddin Sardar, a British Muslim thinker who writes on science, seems to echo Hanafi: This is the period when the ulama [clergy] got together, and they were extremely fearful of multiple interpretations of Islam. And they saw that as feeding dissension in the community....So they tried to stop what is a key instrument of Islamic culture - namely ijtihad. Ijtihad means "reasoned struggle". And it was very much part-and-parcel of Muslim society, using reason in all kinds of ways - scientific method, empirical inquiry, sociological inquiry.33 When the West came knocking on the Islamic world in the eighteenth century, at the head of imperial forces, it had behind it the achievements of the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. It represented contemporary modernity. Unlike in the middle ages, Islamic society did not have the self-confidence derived from successive military victories against the great powers of the day; on the contrary, it was diffident and defensive. The West had not only imbibed the best that Islam had to offer in intellectual achievement, but had since significantly added to the universal body of knowledge. In the process, it had managed to harness, via the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, significant power over the forces of nature. In

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contrast, the Muslim world had spent the preceding centuries in a state of intellectual hibernation, losing contact with even its own intellectual heritage. In consonance with the Islamic doctrine of not seeing a dichotomy between din and duniya - faith and the world - Islamic learning had been holistic; the secular and the sacred were taught in the same milieu. Many of the great Muslim scientists (such as for example, Avicenna), were also renowned scholars and commentators of the Quran. The arrival of the West in the lands of Islam changed that. Knowledge became compartmentalized; secular education becoming the prerogative of Western schools while the Islamic schools, the madressas, restricted themselves to teaching nothing but the Quran by rote. Consequently, the process of learning and adapting to contemporary modernity - modernization - became synonymous with Westernization. Because Westernization came in the wake of imperial conquests, Western influence was resented and resisted. As in Quebec following the French defeat of 1759 on the Plains of Abraham, it was the clergy which sought to protect the colonized society against "nefarious" alien cultural influences. Western learning came to be discouraged; the righteous Muslims were supposed to stick to their madressas which, in other words, meant a divorce from the modern world. This did not prevent enterprising and ambitious Muslims from recognizing the value of Western learning. The aristocratic and merchant classes, in particular, displayed keenness in pursuing Western learning. The poor and rural folk, in contrast, if they got education at all, got it from madressas. The former became divorced from religious influences; the latter from secular ones. The former were taught marketable skills in English or French; the latter were taught unmarketable Quranic learning in Arabic and native languages. Muslim society, henceforth, was to display this schizophrenic duality. When Islam was the dominant culture and led the world in intellectual and scientific achievement, contemporary modernity was not something alien; it was a function of, and emanated from, Islamic society. It was in the Muslim world that the frontiers of world knowledge were being pushed; it was in Islamic centers of learning that new discoveries were being made - and only then, after many years, were passed on to less advanced civilizations. Contemporary modernity and Islam were thus synonymous. Because the advances in secular knowledge - the wherewithal of modernity - were the product of Muslim learning, adapting to contemporary modernity did not carry the fear of foreign influence subverting Islamic values. There were, for sure, internal conflicts between the modernists and the orthodoxy, but everyone stood under the "great tent" of Islamic culture; not an alien one. Adapting to new realities is an organic part of the growth of civilizations and societies, allowing them to cope with new challenges. Self-confident and healthy societies exhibit openness to constant learning, adaptation and re-adaptation, irrespective of the "sources" of new learning. Dysfunctional and diffident societies, in contrast, fear for their identities and seek to control new ideas and filter what learning should influence their societies and what should be kept at bay. Healthy societies live in the present and are guided by future-oriented considerations. Dysfunctional societies live in the past and are condemned to follow tradition. Healthy societies legitimate contemporary action based on the premise of needs-satisfaction. Diffident societies legitimate present actions based on conformity with past tradition. Significant sections of the Islamic world today belong to the latter category.

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The Islamic world has had no problem borrowing modern Western technology. Bernard Lewis in his recent book, What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response,34 reports instances of the earliest application of Western "hardware" by Muslim powers. From the penchant for the latest Western gadgets displayed by consumers throughout the Muslim world to the eagerness Muslim governments (and religious militants) show in acquiring hi-tech weaponry, there is ample evidence of this. It is in accepting modern thinking that the problem arises. As Suroosh Irfani, a Pakistani intellectual puts it: "We have access to the artefacts of modernity - which means the media, the cable television, the tape recorder, the aeroplanes, the high-rise apartments, autobahns. But we lack the intellectual underpinning of what modernity is all about."35 The essential features of modernity, many in the West would suggest, are concepts such as rationalism, scepticism and individualism. Scepticism and doubt, that this implies, are anathema to conservatives who seek certainty through obedience to the revealed truth. But it is reason, as Hanafi argues, that enables human beings to interpret revealed truth in the light of modern conditions.36 Pre-empting reason is to invite obscurantism. And yet it is precisely this that the orthodoxy and the religious fundamentalists seem to be advocating. To them all of the Islamic world's problems are the cause of flirting with Western secularist notions such as the primacy of reason. Once the Islamic world "returns" to its roots i.e. the Quran and the Sunnah, all its problems will be solved because solutions to all the problems of the Muslim world can be found there. Such thinking which suspects the role of reason and rationality is totally at odds to the spirit of free-inquiry upon which science is based. And modernity, after all, is anchored on science and the scientific method. It is not surprising, therefore, that science itself should be targeted by the fundamentalists. In his book, Islam and Science, Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, who has been called Pakistan's conscience of secular humanism, cites a poignant example: But their attitude towards science is often times a schizophrenic one, particularly in those Muslim countries where orthodoxy wields state power...This point is exemplified by the views expressed by the Saudi delegates to a high level conference held in Kuwait in 1983. The ostensible aim of the conference, attended by rectors from 17 Arab universities, was to identify and remove bottlenecks in the development of science and technology in the Arab world. But a simple topic dominated the proceedings: is science Islamic? The Saudis held that pure science tends to produce 'Mu'tazilite [free thinking] tendencies' potentially subversive of belief. Science is profane because it is secular; as such in their opinion - it goes against Islamic beliefs. Hence, recommended the Saudis, although technology should be promoted for its obvious benefits, pure science ought to be soft pedaled."37 Dr Hoodbhoy has gone on to document extensively, in an Appendix to his book titled: "They Call it Islamic Science", how science itself was being corrupted and undermined in the name of Islam in an important Muslim country - Pakistan - during the reign of the former military dictator General Zia-ul Haq: There has emerged, in recent years, a remarkable manifestation of orthodox religiosity which is, in essence, an attempt to extend the

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scope of Islamization in Pakistan beyond the sphere of social concerns and into the domain of natural phenomena. They call it Islamic Science. Rising like a phoenix from the ashes of a long gone medieval age, this new science seeks to establish that every scientific fact and phenomenon know today was anticipated 1400 years ago and that all scientific predictions may, in fact, be based on the study of the Holy Book. Once again, as in medieval times, theology is being crowned as the Queen of Sciences. Ordinary secular science, according to the proponents of the new Islamic science, has no business being here in the Land of the Pure [i.e.Pakistan]. Together with various other foul products of godless secular civilizations - such as capitalism or socialism or democracy modern science also needs to be unceremoniously shipped back to the West, where it supposedly belongs.38 Notwithstanding the intellectual honesty displayed by secular-minded Muslim intellectuals to seek a way out of the Dark Ages in which the Islamic world seems to be mired today, Islamic societies as a whole are increasingly turning away from 'secular' answers - in no small part because these are associated with the West. Because the orthodoxy has successfully demonized the West, they believe they can remove legitimacy from any idea 'tainted' by association with the West. And yet, secularism had its day in the sun in the Islamic world. The Islamic world's abject collapse before the forces of Western imperialism in spite of its religiosity convinced the masses that their salvation rested with those of their kin who had sought to enlighten themselves with Western learning. Without exception, all the leaders of the erstwhile Muslim colonies, were secular-minded individuals educated in Western institutions. They enjoyed popular support and were able to introduce secular constitutions bequeathed by their former colonial masters. Efforts by the clerical orders to counter their appeal fell on deaf ears. To cite a case in point, Pakistan; the only state to have been created as a homeland for Muslims and the biggest Muslim state at its birth. The struggle for Pakistan was led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a westernized, secular, lawyer who was born in the minority liberal, Shia Ismaili sect of Islam. According to the most objective biographers, such as Stanley Wolpert, and close contemporaries, Jinnah was anything but a practicing Muslim1. Leading a largely Sunni movement, he had the Sunni orthodoxy ranged against him. At the height of his power he was given the title of Quaid-i-Azam (Great Leader) to which the orthodoxy, playing on a pun, responded with Kafir-i-Azam (Great Heretic). This did little to dent his appeal among the overwhelming majority of Indian Muslims, including most Sunnis, who idolized him even though he addressed them in English and not in Urdu (a language he never fully mastered), the lingua franca of India's Muslims and Pakistan's national language. Even today, when most Pakistanis are disenchanted with most of their past and present political leaders, Jinnah still continues to command universal respect for his integrity and personal honesty.
1

Attempts have been made, particularly during the regime of General Zia-ul Haq, to rewrite history and present Jinnah as a devout, orthodox Muslim. Jinnah's vision for Pakistan as a modern, westernized secular, democratic republic, similarly, has been distorted and misrepresented as a theocratic 'Islamic' republic

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It took just one generation of lost opportunities, political and economic mis-mangement by the corrupt and incompetent leaders of the Muslim world for the masses to be disillusioned with the promise of freedom and Western-style institutions. Following the crippling oil embargo against the West during the Yom Kippur war of 1973, the forces of religious orthodoxy were ready to exploit the political disenchantment of the poor. The global recession which was triggered by the inflationary oil crisis affected many poor Muslim countries, which, unlike the West, exported commodities and not sought-after manufactured goods which could factor the higher fuel costs into their prices. The resulting economic misery in many a Muslim country tested the viability of political institutions on the one hand and, on the other, transferred huge surpluses to the conservative Arab Gulf states. This money was soon to find its way into funding religious projects, "like-minded" conservative religious political parties, and puritanical religious education throughout the Muslim world. The poor were led to believe that their plight was not a function of world conditions or paucity of economic resources, but because of the "turning away" from Islamic principles by corrupt secular rulers. Once the Sharia was introduced and an "Islamic" form of government (i.e. theocracy) took power, Islamic principles of social justice would come into play and provide immediate relief for everyone. The fact that the Islam that was Muhammad's legacy was a frontierless brotherhood and not a political ideology was irrelevant. The success of the Ayatollahs against the mighty state apparatus of the Shah in 1979 was to embolden the clerics even more. Today, Western-style institutions and secular solutions associated with them have lost the luster they had on the eve of political independence. Far from deferring to Western methods and intellectual superiority, the orthodoxy is tugging at the sources of political power and is openly hostile to the West. Dr Akbar S. Ahmed a prominent Pakistani Sunni scholar, a Fellow at Selwyn College, Cambridge, writing in the Manchester Guardian Weekly, as early as August 1991 (around the time of the Gulf War), succinctly framed the question confronting the Muslim world: The central issue facing Muslims in the world today is what to do with the part that is non-Muslim. It will dominate their political agenda in the 1990s. Two opposed arguments meet head on. One rejects the modern world as dominated by the West, as corrupt and evil; the other wishes to live with it while retaining its own sense of identity. If the media are to be believed, the former is in the ascendant. For the latter one of the most interesting and important voices to emerge recently is that of the Aga Khan...[who] is bringing about a quiet but far-reaching economic and social revolution in the lives of his followers....[and whose] work now brings together Ismailis and non-Ismailis as never before in history and thus provides a lead to mainstream Muslims.39 It may seem counter-intuitive that so prominent a Sunni savant as Dr Akbar Ahmed should see the urbane, Harvard-educated "soft-spoken, even shy" Aga Khan as a "quiet revolutionary" to provide a lead to mainstream Muslims in a volatile and often-violent Muslim world. But closer reflection would reveal that this opinion is a well considered one. The Muslim world, in its struggle to find its place in the modern world, is effectively rudderless. Islam's political leaders, beyond fine oratory, have done little to provide a vision and leadership to their long-suffering peoples. Theirs has been an abject failure

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which has created disenchantment with secular institutions. On the other hand, far too many of the religious orthodoxy have let themselves indulge in hate-mongering against the West without necessarily offering a practical alternate vision. The constraints on freedom of speech and the precarious and nascent state of civil society in the Muslim world preclude expectation of leadership from civil society in the Muslim world. Finally, given that the West and anything and everything associated with the West have been demonized, make it difficult to envisage acceptance of "Western leadership" by Muslim societies. As former President Clinton summarizes in a recent speech: ... there is... a war raging within Islam today about what they think about the modern world in general, and the United States in particular. It is rooted in the frustrations so many Muslims have with the modern world, which they see as a threat to their values, destructive of their way of life, hostile to their economic well-being in many places.40 Hence the reason for Akbar S. Ahmed to see promise in the Aga Khan's leadership. Akbar Ahmed epitomizes the anguished search of moderate Sunni intellectuals for a role model to lead them to an intellectual renaissance. They reject the hate-filled discourse of the religious orthodoxy and yet are aware of the dismal failures of their secular political leaders. Fortunately, the Aga Khan, following his immediate predecessor's example1, has been interested in the general welfare of the Islamic world and not just that of his Ismaili followers. Unlike almost all other religious organizations, the Ismaili Imamat operates a non-denominational institutional structure - the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) - which employs people of diverse religions and nations. This absence of sectarianism is one reason why many Sunni intellectuals are drawn to the Aga Khan for his leadership. The account of Ghazi Salahuddin, a Sunni journalist from Pakistan, on the Aga Khan's official visit to Tajikistan in 1998, epitomizes this appeal: One subject which I think should be tackled in a solemn manner and with great care is whether someone like the Aga Khan can play a modernising role in the Muslim world. What he said in his speeches was very encouraging. He urged his audience to never use arms to resolve differences and stressed the importance of peace, hope and ... confidence in the future. Another refrain was to emphasise the ethics of Islam shared by all schools of thought and the willingness to change.
41

The former Aga Khan, H.H. Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan III (1877-1957) whilst still in his twenties, was the youngest member of Lord Curzon's Imperial Legislative Council, and a confidant of the House of Windsor (from Victoria onwards), with close connections to the highest political circles in Britain. At the dawn of the twentieth century, he was offered overall leadership of India's Muslim community to help advance the educational and political agenda of India's backward and languishing Muslims. The Aga Khan was able to use his political influence to win concessions for Muslims, including the establishment of the first modern Muslim University at Aligarh in North India, and guaranteed political representation for Muslims at all levels. Later he was to be involved in the fate of many Muslim countries around the world. With the help of two influential Canadians - the press baron Lord Beaverbrook and one-time British Premier, Bonar Law - the Aga Khan played a key role in defending Turkey's right to its Turkish-majority provinces following the Ottoman defeat at the end of the Great War. On the eve of World War II, he served as two-time President of the League of Nations. He also played a key role in generously funding a network of modern educational institutions for indigenous Muslims in East Africa in the 'Forties - a process which helped create a modern educated Muslim African middle-class.

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Though leading a Community spread throughout the Muslim world (and the Western world too), unlike other Muslim leaders, the Aga Khan and the headquarters of his institutional network are based in the West so as to maintain his independence and in order not to be sucked into the volatile local politics of the Islamic world. Although he maintains close personal contacts with the political leaders of the Muslim world, as an apolitical figure, he steers clear of passing judgement on them, and is steadfastly politically neutral. The Aga Khan heads the biggest private development network (AKDN) in the Islamic world (and the most comprehensive anywhere) which controls tangible assets worth billions of CAD - from schools, hospitals, rural development projects, universities, banks, hotels, telecoms, airlines, various industries, and multinational energy projects - in some of the poorest Islamic countries. These have brought modern techniques, advanced education and cutting-edge technologies to the some of the remotest parts of Asia and Africa. Like the World Bank, the AKDN also maintains resident diplomatic missions in some Muslim countries from Afghanistan to Syria to Tajikistan, and in some non-Muslim countries (Cte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Mozambique etc.), too.1 Given that many politically unstable Muslim countries are candidates for "failed-state" status, where foreign investment has shied away, the Aga Khan's social and economic assistance has been critical in preventing the disintegration of many a secular nationstate. His timely intervention in Central Asia following the demise of the Soviet Union, was instrumental in helping the precarious economies survive their early years and the export of religious fundamentalism by the former Taliban regime. In the case of Tajikistan, the Aga Khan personally helped broker a peace treaty between the government (erstwhile communists) and the Islamic opposition in 1997. He also funded constitutional lawyers to work with the two parties and the UN, to iron out the details. For all these reasons and more, the Aga Khan is actively courted on an ongoing basis by many leaders of the Islamic world; often times, as a funder of "last resort". Called variously by the global media as a "Renaissance Man" and "Visionary", the Aga Khan has consistently challenged conventional wisdom and been "ahead of the curve" by several decades2. In the last half-century, few individuals have had the impact on
1 2

See the AKDN website for details: http://www.akdn.org In 1980, the World Bank Report, for the first time recognized that health and education were basic inputs to development, which should be viewed independently of economic growth prospects; the Aga Khan had been advocating that position for more than two decades prior to that. In 1982, the Aga Khan coined the phrase the "enabling environment" which he defined as good governance, fiscal incentives and a healthy partnership between the private and public sectors. Conventional wisdom in the West and at the World Bank then favored mega-projects which "threw" money at the problem and which focussed development on national governments. Four years later, in 1986, he organized a conference in partnership with the World Bank and subSaharan governments in Nairobi to focus attention on sustainable development for Africa. Nearly two decades later, the international community has signed on to these precepts, accepting that governments alone, notwithstanding all the aid they have been receiving, will never succeed in eliminating the problem of poverty. In 1997/98, the current President of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, a long-time admirer of the Aga Khan, announced his Comprehensive Development Strategy, which, in effect, rejected the World Bank's policy of the previous half-century. Anyone remotely familiar with the field of development would find much similarity between the World Bank's new strategy and the AKDN's long-standing approach and mission statement, including, interestingly, the role of culture as a facet of development. The AKDN's projects are the subject of

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global development thinking, on "as vast a scale", as he has had.42 It would appear that it is this same astute reading of history, and of emerging world trends, that suggests to him that modernization as long as its "clothed" in Westernization has little chance of acceptance in the Islamic world any time soon. That unless there is an "Islamization" of modernity, i.e. an Islamic model of modernity, it would be hard to make modernity a part of the Muslim world. Using academic partnerships between his institutions (such as the Aga Khan University) and some of the most prestigious centers of learning in the Western world - Harvard, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Oxford, London, McGill, Toronto and McMaster, among others and with some of the most brilliant minds in the West, he has successfully evolved innovative, indigenous (culturally sensitive) models for application in Islamic societies. Not being "Western" imports, per se, these models have brought modern ideas to some of the remotest villages of the Islamic world and have found local acceptance. The Aga Khan has benefited from the presence, as it were, of "living laboratories" in the form of Ismaili communities in the Islamic world. New ideas and models from AKDN-institutions find immediate acceptance in Ismaili communities due to the Aga Khan's unique influence over these communities. Once successfully implemented there, and practical benefits clearly demonstrated, the more recalcitrant non-Ismaili communities have signed on to these new ideas. Female education and economic empowerment in remote mountain villages in Pakistan, for example, have been introduced in previously maledominated, orthodox settings. In Pakistan, traditionally, nursing was the purview of non-Muslims, males, or Muslim women from economically-depressed backgrounds. As far as middle-class Muslim women were concerned, there was a form of stigma attached to nursing. With the opening of the Aga Khan School of Nursing in Karachi as a Centre of Excellence in 1980, the Aga Khan encouraged women from the wealthy and educated Ismaili community to look at nursing - and not just medicine - as prospective careers. The resulting interest shown by middle-class Ismaili women in nursing soon caused nonIsmaili Muslims to question their former reluctance to join the field. Today, women from all Muslim communities have rediscovered nursing as an honorable profession. The government, too, has been sensitized into improving conditions and remuneration for the profession in response to the recommendations of the Aga Khan University. Following 9/11, the West was made conscious of the potentially-destabilizing role of the madressas, the Islamic religious schools. More than fifteen years earlier, the Aga Khan was apprised of the marginalization of Muslims in East Africa by their patronage of the Islamic madressas which taught no secular subjects. Because subsequent access of secular schooling was effectively pre-empted by the madressa education, Muslims were condemned to future economic marginalization. Such a state was likely to lead to future tensions and political instability. Consequently, the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) embarked on an innovative program with the support of the local Sunni Muslim communities, to train teachers from the community to teach secular subjects along with Quranic learning. To formalize this process, madressa resource centers were set up in each of the three East African countries to support multiple communities. This innovative model has successfully bridged the religious education system to the secular public
case studies around the world, studied by development practitioners as models of effective development. Prince Charles, not too long ago, called the record of "creative endeavour" of the Aga Khan's programs in helping the poor of the world as "matchless".

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education system. Today, as concerns regarding the role of madressas in other countries come to the fore, the AKF model in East Africa is worthy of study for transferable lessons. Given the historical role played by European universities in the intellectual renaissance of the West, advanced education has been at the forefront of the Aga Khan's plans for the Muslim world. Realizing that sustainable intellectual activity is possible only in a climate of free inquiry guaranteed by academic freedom - something which was conspicuously absent in the Muslim world - the Aga Khan has established a number of private tertiary educational institutions both in the West and in the Islamic world. These include: an international university, nominally chartered in Pakistan but with campuses in many countries, the Aga Khan University (AKU); the Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS) in London; the University of Central Asia (UCA), headquartered in Tajikistan, but with campuses in other Central Asian countries; and the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA) at Harvard-MIT. This has provided "intellectual space" for the best minds in the Muslim world, in cooperation with the best Western minds, to work on its problems, free from economic blackmail or outside interference - be it from the orthodoxy or government circles. This has also resulted in a reversal of the "brain drain" which in earlier years had seen the cream of the Muslim world re-locate itself in the West in a quest for an "enabling environment". Also, many Muslim intellectuals who, though deeply anguished about the state of the Muslim world, had been forced into exile in the West because they were targets for religious fanatics, have now been given a forum to employ their energies to solving the Islamic world's myriad problems. A case in point is Dr Mohammed Arkoun, Emeritus Professor of Islamic Thought at the Sorbonne - author of Rethinking Islam and The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought - a Sunni Algerian intellectual, who is probably one of the most incisive thinkers in contemporary Islam today. In the crosshairs of the Algerian fundamentalist opposition, his return to his native homeland would mean certain death. Thanks to the Aga Khan Awards for Architecture (AKAA) in Geneva and the IIS in London, Dr Arkoun has been allowed "intellectual space" in Europe, through his involvement with these institutions, to continue to inform the modernity debate within Islam and to influence budding intellectuals from across the Muslim world. Earlier, reference was made to the Islamic world's urge to seek legitimation from the past and from tradition. We also touched on the fundamentalist forces seeking to impose a stultifying monolithic conformity on the entire Muslim world. Geography in the past served to act as a "countervailing" force preventing central powers from imposing their ideology or views on distant populations. In an age when neither mechanized or airborne power was existent, natural barriers such as mountainous regions prevented national armies from enforcing the empire's writ on unwilling populations. The result was a proliferation of diverse traditions, cultures, religious interpretations and customs. When the Wahhabi fundamentalists look back into the past to clothe their agenda with a legitimacy of tradition, they pick and choose a particular tradition which reflects their brand of religious intolerance. Encounter with European imperialism created a dichotomy between the secular and the sacred - with the intellectuals divorced from Islamic culture and the obscurantist clerics defining Islam within the narrow bounds of theology. This state of affairs means that the Islamic world has never seriously studied Islamic culture in a holistic manner as a "civilization" rather than as a theology. The intellectual tools of critical analysis that

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Europe developed in the wake of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment have yet to be formally deployed in the study of Islam. An objective, scientific study of Islamic history, as opposed to a description of dogma and a narrative of chronological events, would provide legitimation and authenticity for pluralism and diversity, as traditionally practiced throughout history. The Aga Khan Awards, in documenting and informing the Muslim world of the pluralism of its built-environment, has successfully re-defined the authenticity of Islamic architecture to be the architecture of all Muslim societies in all periods and not, as the traditionalists long held, the architecture of a particular region (the Middle East), in a particular time (the past). In part taking a cue and inspiration from this, an International high-powered Commission headed by a prominent Canadian intellectual, Dr J. Fraser Mustard, a senior member of the Aga Khan University (AKU) Board of Trustees, recommended in 1994 the establishment, under the AKU, of an institute to study Islamic civilizations. Extracts from Dr Mustard's Report read: In particular the AKU Institute should address the meaning of modernity, contemporary problems of the Muslim world, and the encounters of Islam and the West. It will have a research agenda but should also, and perhaps more importantly, make synthetic efforts at grasping the character of Islamic civilisations as they have been, and the complex social, cultural and historical processes they undergo in the modern world... We see needs for it to provide research, scholarship, and analysis on many matters that now gravely concern the Muslim world and the world at large. Such matters as the building of civil societies in Islamic contexts, the special problems of governance in Muslim societies, or the relations of Islamic values to economic, scientific, and technical performances are of fundamental importance but we do not find they receive as thoughtful and persistent attention from within the Muslim world as they ought to.... The strident critique of modernity from the fundamentalists should not be the only voice from the Muslim world. There is the germ of a difficult but important mission of this Institute in the phrase "the Islamisation of modernity". We may hope that it will generate ideas and understanding important not only for Muslims but for the world at large.43 Pursuant to the recommendations, the Aga Khan has established an Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations (ISMC) in London, which will be a branch of the AKU. The ISMC is headed by a respected moderate Sunni Moroccan scholar Dr Abdou FilalyAnsary. Dr Filaly-Ansary has a personal insight into how Muslim governments work having previously worked for the Moroccan government. The ISMC's location in London should both provide it intellectual freedom and freedom of expression to pursue the ambitious goals set it by Dr Mustard's Commission, free of the pressures of the "Islamic streets", Islamic governments and reactionary forces in general.

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Today, the religious orthodoxy seem to be wielding an apparent monopoly vis--vis the masses and the governments of Islamic countries over the interpretation and definition of Islamic authenticity because the introduction of Western education allowed the clerics to assign themselves sole authority over the "sacred", leaving the "secular" for Western educated intellectuals, who were thus divorced from the "sacred". Yet, there are few cultural expressions more closely bordering on the sacred than architecture for it includes the design of "sacred space" (houses of prayer); and the experience of the AKAA over the last quarter century has shown that methodical study backed by objective analysis and systematic documentation can impart unassailable credibility to modern scholars as to successfully challenge long-held notions of the authenticity of sacred space. There is reason to believe that the experience of the AKAA in the field of architecture need not be a unique situation. That, provided modern scholars are motivated to apply a disciplined approach, using the panoply of tools of modern scholarship, they can, and will, gain credibility. Consequently, there is no reason to believe that the AKU-ISMC need not have the same success as the AKAA, given similar effort. If the experience of the AKAA has anything to teach the Islamic world, it is the power of ideas. The battle between reason and dogma can be resolved in the former's favour; modern Muslim intellectuals can break the monopoly of obscurantist clerics on what it is to be a Muslim in the modern world. For the purveyors of doom and gloom; of those who speak of an inevitable "clash" between the West and the Islamic world, here, then, is proof that people of goodwill on both sides can work together to create monumental change. And though this change may be like a crack in a gigantic structure, imperceptible to the naked eye at first, it has the germ to produce earth-shattering consequences in the fullness of time. If the West is jaded with its "partnership" with countries of the Islamic world, it is largely because it, all too often, has put all its eggs into the "government" basket. Like the World Bank of yesteryears, it has for too long looked to governments as its only partners. Like the World Bank, it, too, needs to look at NGOs and civil society as its new partners. To effectively influence positive change in the Islamic world, the West has to act like a smart and savvy venture capital firm, investing in ideas with the greatest promise of "future gain" and in groups with "proven track records", creating business relationships for the long term with "like-minded" people who "share cherished values and ideals".

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INFORMING THE DEBATE


At the start of the Cold War, an American diplomat stationed at the US Embassy in Moscow, George Kennan, did an analysis of the essential nature of Soviet society and the emerging post-War threat represented by Soviet Communism. That analysis was sent in the form of a telegram on February 22, 194644, which has since become the stuff of legends. That telegraphic message was an insightful analysis of Soviet society by an old Russia hand and was to inform US foreign policy towards the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. That telegram is today held as a masterpiece of foreign policy analysis. The Cold War also generated a tremendous interest and intellectual activity towards understanding the Soviet Union. A number of institutions and individuals, as indeed the media, were engaged, on a permanent basis, in studying developments there; their analysis helped inform both foreign policy and public awareness of the challenges presented by Soviet Communism. As we look back on the Cold War years, it has to be said that the victory in the Cold War was won by the success of US foreign policy which correctly analyzed the Soviet challenge and responded in an informed manner. But foreign policy in free Western democracies is not arrived at in isolation; it works in tandem with, and responds to, public opinion. And public opinion itself is shaped by a free and responsible press and by Government agencies. Perhaps it was for this reason that George Kennan himself prophetically recommended, in his celebrated telegram: We must see that our public is educated to realities of Russian situation. I cannot overemphasize the importance of this. Press cannot do this alone. It must be done mainly by government, which is necessarily more experienced and better informed on practical problems involved. In this we need not be deterred by ugliness of the picture. I am convinced that there would be far less hysterical antiSovietism in our country today if the realities of this situation were better understood by our people. There is nothing as dangerous or as terrifying as the unknown.45 Today, in the aftermath of the Cold War, as the West braces itself to deal with the challenges of religious fanaticism from certain parts of the Islamic world, there is, unfortunately, not the same understanding of the Islamic world. Western political leaders, particularly in the USA, were known for their grasp of Soviet-Western relations during the Cold War-era. A number of think-tanks and dedicated institutes devoted considerable resources in turning out "Soviet" experts. The media had specialists with the appropriate background and training to engage in specialized analysis and inform public opinion. Today, nothing of the sort can be discerned when it comes to the Islamic world. Both the media and other opinion-makers have been known in recent times to have entertained sweeping generalizations and uninformed comment. Objective observers have long been apprised of the unhealthy consequences of such a situation. As far back as January 1995, Patrick Comerford, an Irish journalist wrote: At the height of the Cold War, the West invested considerable energy in trying to understand the communist system and Marxist thought. But similar efforts are not being made to understand or come to grips with Islam....Without dialogue there can only be confrontation .46

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Even after the events of 9/11, Mr Comerford's advice seems to be lost on many. The University of North Carolina, a long-standing bastion of liberalism, reacting to the events of 9/11, decided to assign about 4,200 incoming freshmen and transfer students the reading of about 130 pages of Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations, by Michael Sells, a religion professor at Haverford College. The result was lawsuits by students and the Virginia-based Family Policy Network (a Christian group) to stop it. A three-judge panel of the appeals court rejected the motion, ruling that ``the appellants have failed to satisfy the requirements for such relief.'' No further explanation was provided.47 In his Fox News Network program, Bill O'Reilly, the right wing pundit, said that teaching the Quran to US students was wrong as it was the book of "our enemy's religion".48 Of course, for a balanced understanding of the Islamic world much more than Muslim religious belief needs to be taught; history, geography, philosophy curricula will also need to be made more "inclusive". That notwithstanding, at the time of writing, there does not appear to be a bee-line of colleges and universities seeking to emulate even the small start pioneered by the University of North Carolina. The absence of essential understanding in the Western world of Islam and the contemporary Islamic world may explain why the simplistic notion of the "Clash of Civilizations" has so easily been accepted by so many. The terms "Islam" and "Islamic" have become pejorative by loose application to the methods and ideologies of the most extremist Muslim groups. Violence and every sort of excess is, consequently, associated, in the lay mind, with the faith of Islam and not to groups exploiting it for political purposes. Dr Karim H. Karim of the School of Journalism at Ottawa's Carleton University, has devoted an entire book to document the misrepresentation of Islam in Western media in his book: Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence.49 Because of the global reach and influence of Western media, the application of "Islam" and "Islamic" to the violence and excesses of Muslim extremists, tends to not only perpetuate a slur against an entire community of 1.2 billion souls, but also, unwittingly, serves to lend a "normative" faade of religion (rather than political violence, par excellence) to those who would politicize Islam to get to power. In the Islamic world, radical Islam has succeeded in demonizing the West by painting it as evil. Ironically, by accident or design, Islam per se, and not just radical Islam, has been effectively demonized in Western media by being associated with violence and militancy.1 Besides being a slander on a major world faith which shares common Abrahamic precepts with Judaism and Christianity, it is contrary to the spirit of fairness, journalistic integrity and intellectual honesty that Western societies hold so dear. The West can defeat Muslim religious fanaticism not by stooping to the latter's depth, but by shining its own ideals and principles high for all to see. Once again, George Kennan makes an apt observation: Finally, we must have courage and self-confidence to cling to our own methods and conceptions of human society. After all, the greatest danger that can befall us in coping with this problem of Soviet
1

Shortly after 9/11, evangelist Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the Quran "provides ample evidence that Islam encourages violence in order to win converts and to reach the ultimate goal of an Islamic world".

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communism is that we shall allow ourselves to become like those with whom we are coping.50 All the major world religions provide ethical systems and an eternal moral compass, irrespective of the momentary perversions of their essential principles by those claiming adherence to them. If certain Muslims have perverted the Islamic Message for their political ends, it does not change the peaceful premise of Islam, the religion. All religions have been betrayed by followers, claiming to act on their behalf, at one point or another. Long after the memory of such people has passed into the dustbin of history, the eternal humanistic principles of these religions continue to shine undimmed. Christ's eternal message of universal love and Christian charity did not die either with the religious fanaticism of the Crusades nor with the cruelty of the Spanish Inquisition; it survives to this day in the daily lives of millions of practicing Christians around the world. When Dr. Baruch Goldstein gunned down dozens of innocent Muslim worshippers in a Hebron mosque in the name of Judaism, Judaism's humanistic principles did not undergo a change; they will remain undying long after people forget who Baruch Goldstein was. Indeed, followers have been known to glorify acts which are actively discouraged, if not held taboo, by their religion. Today, a lot of discussion is focussed on whether "suicide bombings" have sanction in the Quran. Anyone remotely familiar with the Islamic religion would know that taking one's own life is severely condemned in Islam. The Quran also affirms (5:32) that to take a life is, as if, to kill entire humankind; and to save a life is, as if, to save humankind altogether1. That, of course, does not prevent certain Muslims from carrying out murderous suicide attacks, but their actions do not justify malicious aspersions on the teachings of Islam when they clearly, and unequivocally, forbid such actions. Judaism does not advocate the taking of one's life, and yet Jewish Zealots, fending off Roman legions at Masada in AD c.72/73, had no problems convincing a thousand men, women and children to commit collective suicide. Much has been said about the "silence" of Muslim religious leaders in the face of the brutality of the 9/11 attacks when some 3,000 innocent people were killed. Indeed, some of them have displayed quiet, if not open, jubilation at this heinous crime. Statecontrolled media in many a Muslim country have attempted to cover-up these expressions in a bid at damage control. Commenting on their hypocrisy and obfuscation, Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, Professor of Nuclear Physics at Pakistan's National (Quaid-iAzam) University, wrote recently: Muslim leaders... have had little to say about September 11 that makes sense to people outside their communities. Although they speak endlessly on rules of personal hygiene and "halal" [the Muslim equivalent of kosher] or "haram" [religious taboos], they cannot even tell us whether or not the suicide bombers violated Islamic laws. According to the Virginia-based (and largely Saudi-funded) Fiqh [Islamic jurisprudence] Council's chairman, Dr. Taha Jabir Alalwani, "this kind of question needs a lot of research and we don't have that in
1

The full text in Chapter 5, verse 32 of the Quran states, "We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person -- unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land -- it would be as if he slew the whole people; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people."

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The only acceptable human - and therefore, Muslim - reaction should have been unequivocal condemnation of the sort Hoodbhoy himself expresses in Pakistan's leading English-language daily, Dawn: Before all else, Black Tuesday's [i.e. 9/11] mass murder must be condemned in the harshest possible terms without qualification or condition, without seeking causes or reasons that may even remotely be used to justify it, and without regard for the national identity of the victims or the perpetrators. The demented, suicidal fury of the attackers led to heinous acts of indiscriminate and wholesale murder that has changed the world for the worse. A moral position must begin with unequivocal condemnation, the absence of which could eliminate even the language by which people can communicate.52 All decent Muslims, of all persuasions, have to be ashamed at the behaviour of such of their religious leaders for this gross perversion of the fundamental principles of their faith. Morally repugnant as this episode is, Muslims are, unfortunately, not the only religious community to feel betrayed by their leaders. In August 1572, 3,000 French Protestant Huguenots were butchered by French troops in Paris and their corpses dumped in to the Seine (out of a total of up to 20,000 killed throughout France). When the news of what became known in history as the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre reached Pope Gregory XIII and King Philip II of Spain, they celebrated with special religious services. The first-hand account of the Papal reaction by an eyewitness would be disconcerting to any practicing Christian: Although it was still night, I immediately sent to His Holiness to free him from the tension, and so that he might rise to the wonderful grace, which God had granted to Christendom under his pontificate. On that morning there was a consistory court ... and as His Holiness had such a good piece of news to announce to the Holy College, he had the dispatches publicly read out to them. His Holiness then spoke about their contents and concluded that in these times, so troubled by revolutions, nothing better or more magnificent could have been wished for; and that, as it appeared, God was beginning to turn the eye of His mercy on us. His Holiness and the college were extremely contented and joyful at the reading of this news... On the same morning ... His Holiness with the whole College of Cardinals went to the church of Saint Mark, to have the Te Deum sung and to thank God for granting so great a favor to the Christian people. His Holiness does not cease to pray God, and make others pray, to inspire the Most Christian King [Charles IX] to follow further the path which he has opened and to cleanse and purge completely the Kingdom of France from the plague of the Huguenots.53 The foregoing discussion is not just idle philosophizing; nor indeed for gaining perspective: it has real, practical, implications for the security of the West and is therefore germane to the thesis of this paper: The only people who can defeat the forces

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of radical Islam in the court of Muslim public opinion are moderate Muslims. As long as Islam, the religion per se, and not radical Islam, is perceived to be under attack, one cannot expect moderate Muslims to speak in defense of the West. Also, given instantaneous global communications, such messages in the Western media, when transmitted to the Islamic world, play in to the hands of radical Islam's agenda of hatemongering and sowing conspiracy theories against the West. Opinion makers and the media have the obligation to be both responsible and accurate and to keep the big picture in mind when they have a need to vent their understandable anger and frustration at the bestiality of Muslim militants. By being fair and accurate, and by treating Islam with the same intellectual honesty that is accorded to Christianity and Judaism, the West will have won the moral right to demand that moderate Muslims stand up and be counted by condemning in no uncertain terms the transgressions of their co-religionists. The West is now very much a pluralistic, multi-cultural society which includes, among others, many Muslims. It is these Muslims, who have benefited from the values of individual freedoms: freedom of worship, freedom of expression, equal opportunity, meritocracy, equality before the law and respect for the individual, who can be both a bridge to the Islamic world and informed witnesses to the West's true values as opposed to the demonic caricature painted by Muslim fundamentalists. Most Muslims in Western society are relatively recent immigrants - here by choice. Many have arrived here because of persecution, or discrimination or lack of opportunities in their native lands. It is important that the inclusive values of Western society which attracted them here be preserved, lest, inadvertently, they be alienated from mainstream society. As long as Muslims in the West can feel a sense of belonging to the larger society, society has a right to expect their full and complete loyalty and commitment. In the tense climate post-9/11, Muslims in the West have to shake off their passivity and be active citizens. It is but understandable that they will be under a microscope; and it is imperative that they demonstrate that their loyalties are with their countries of adoption. They should do nothing to give comfort to the extremists and if there is anything they can do to help the forces of law and order, they should volunteer to do that. In particular, Sunni Muslim communities and congregations, where the Wahhabi fundamentalists are likely to seek refuge, have a particular responsibility to create a "zero-tolerance" environment for people who come to recruit or spread hate against their fellow nonMuslim (and even moderate Muslims) citizens. If even a minority of Muslim communities abet and assist the religious extremists, all Muslims can expect to be under a cloud of suspicion. Now is the time for Muslims, like the Italians and Japanese during World War II, to stand up and be counted. Professor Hoodbhoy, who straddles two worlds - that of Islamic Pakistan and that of American Universities where he lectures regularly as a Visiting Professor, including his alma mater, MIT - is perhaps well-qualified to advise Muslims in the West: The problem is that immigrant Muslim communities have, by and large, chosen isolation over integration. In the long run this is a fundamentally unhealthy situation because it creates suspicion and friction, and makes living together ever so much harder. It also raises serious ethical questions about drawing upon the resources of what is perceived to be another society, for which one has hostile feelings. This is not an argument for doing away with one's Muslim identity. But, without closer interaction with the mainstream, pluralism will be threatened. Above all, survival of the community depends upon

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strongly emphasizing the difference between extremists and ordinary Muslims, and on purging from within jihadist elements committed to violence. Any member of the Muslim community who thinks that ordinary people in the US are fair game because of bad US government policies has no business being there.54 The freedoms enjoyed by Muslims in the West allow them to freely express themselves, unlike most citizens of the Islamic world. Muslims in the West need to use these freedoms to influence positive change in the Islamic world. Far too many Muslim intellectuals in the West tend to play the role of apologists for the faults of the Islamic world. Also, they fall into the trap of "moral equivalency" i.e. wrongs perpetrated against Muslims go under-reported so why draw attention to the wrongs of Muslims. Whatever the merit in their rationale, these Muslim intellectuals fail to see that their freedoms in the West empower - and therefore oblige - them to speak up against injustices and wrongs in the Muslim world because they care about the Islamic world and the people who live there. They need to take a cue from a prominent British author and journalist, a Muslim of Ugandan origin, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who has used her column in the Independent to expose the injustices against minorities and women in the Islamic world. A relevant example is her article, The truth about Islam and women, written shortly after 9/11 where she talks about the repression of women in Islamic countries and how Muslim apologists in the West: ...withdraw into ideals, responding to concerns with "proof" that Islam is supposed to be a religion which promotes and protects women. This knowledge is not used to change sexist attitudes and behaviour; instead it is used to placate or silence the real outrage many of us inside and outside the Muslim communities feel. I don't want anyone else to enlighten me about what the Koran [sic] says on women; what I would like is a robust dialogue about what we can do to stop the cruelties against women and girls in the Muslim world. This oppression is not confined to Muslim countries, of course. But we have an obligation to clean up our own back yards and to tell and confront the complicated truth.55 The 12th Century Renaissance in Europe was spearheaded by Spanish Christians who, having lived under Moorish rule, knew Arabic and could therefore read Muslim texts. Shortly after its liberation from Moorish control, Toledo became the intellectual center for Christian Europe when the Archbishop Raymond established a school of translation to translate Arabic texts into Latin. It was due to the efforts of people like the legendary Gerard of Cremona (who alone translated more than 72 Arab works into Latin) that Muslim science, medicine, philosophy and mathematics became widely available to Christian-Europe and ignited the flame of Renaissance,56 releasing it from its Dark Ages. Today, Muslims living in the West can play an equally historic role vis--vis the Islamic world and, like the Spanish Christians, help release the Muslim world from its "Dark Ages" by sharing their "Western" experience with their co-religionists elsewhere. It is in the West that Muslims are free to create a modern vision of Islam, to begin the process of reformation to free Islam from centuries of stultifying tradition and dogma - an Islamic Reformation, as it were. For Muslim intellectuals in the West to pass by these precious freedoms that they enjoy without engaging in the modernity debate is nothing short of a tragedy, because their co-religionists in the Muslim world lack these same opportunities.

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The West - through blood, sweat, and tears - has finally arrived at its present position in its evolutionary path through history. In the process, it has made mistakes, learnt from these and adapted to circumstances. The West's current predominant position in the world is based on certain strengths, "prominent among them are science and democracy (with their public mechanisms for self-correction) and also private institutions, liberal economics, and a recognition of fundamental human rights".57 Ironically, these very strengths of the West are what's deficient in the Islamic world. As beneficiaries of these "strengths", Muslims in the West can promote the transplanting of these institutionalized values upon which the development of modern nation-states in the 21st century is predicated. Many Muslim conservative, autocratic nations are dismissive of Western prescriptions of democracy, rule of law and fundamental human rights as "un-Islamic". It is easier to be dismissive in the face of non-Muslim criticism; much harder when that critique emanates from practicing Muslims who know that "Islam" is being used as a cover to preserve tribal or military, or dynastic dictatorship. By involving Muslims in the work of projecting Western foreign policy, the West will gain a qualitative leverage over "problem" Muslim states. Canada shows the way by its recent appointment of the only Muslim Senator, Mobina Jaffer as Canada's Special Envoy to the Sudanese Peace Process. Criticism of Sudan's treatment of its Christian minority, for example, would be far harder to dismiss as "Western bias" if made by a Canadian Muslim Diplomat than it would otherwise be, just as Secretary Powell's criticism of Mr Mugabe cannot be brushed aside as "racist propoganda" by Zimbabwe. The West has to draw strength from its Muslim citizens rather than marginalize them. In this way, it would be sending the strongest possible message of the value of pluralism, tolerance and inclusiveness to the purveyors of hatred and religious exclusiveness. Because of the pre-eminence of the rule of law and the democratic institutional framework to regulate or arbitrate between conflicting political demands, Western society is self-correcting and can make dramatic changes in direction, peacefully. Even major crises, which in other societies could entail civil war, are resolved through negotiation or through judicial or legislative processes - in a civil manner. A case in point is the US Presidential election of 2000. In contrast, peaceful conflict resolution in the Islamic world is conspicuous by its absence. The use of violence as a means of resolving conflict whether it is for internal political aims or for "liberation" struggles seems to be endemic. The Islamic world needs to realize that violence (or terror, by another name) is unacceptable to the civilized world and that, if it was ever condonable, post-9/11 it is unpardonable. It is true that there are genuine Muslim grievances representing festering wounds and calling for the world's attention. But it is also true that there are similar such grievances in the non-Muslim world too Tibet, Burma are two which readily come to mind and where courageous "opposition" leaders have won the world's sympathy and attention by exercising moral, non-violent leadership. In fact, two of the most successful political leaders of the twentieth century a century more bloody than any in history - are Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. - the proponents of non-violence. Nelson Mandela's international iconic status derives not from his days in the early 'Sixties, when he tried his hand at armed struggle, but from his post-prison days when he promoted peace and reconciliation among all races. While Western political leaders can, and should, put this across through official channels, Muslims in the West, too, free of domestic political pressures of the "Islamic streets", can

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act as a reality check for the self-defeating consequences of violence used to further political aims. Whether with the help of Muslims in its midst, or on its own, Western society has to free itself of the prison of perceptions. Perceptions, long after they have lost their validity, linger on, unless challenged by a constant reality check. As much as the Muslim world is home to some of the most anti-modern, obscurantist, and fanatical beliefs anywhere on this planet, thanks to its diversity, it is also a source of some of the most innovative ideas in the world. Many of these ideas and innovations have come as a result of efforts to overcome the particular resource constraints in which many Muslim societies are mired. Given that innovative ideas which can succeed in such "challenging terrain" have inherent value, they have replicability universally. In as much as governments in the Muslim world have failed their people, it is the ingenuity of private entities and individuals that is making a difference. For example, out of the tragedy of Bangladesh's War of Independence arose Professor Muhammed Yunus's idea in 1976 for a micro-credit operation - the Grameen Bank. So successful has the model been that many inner-cities in the States have adopted this model to help people out of Third World-like desperation. In 1997 the Grameen Foundation USA was set up to promote this model throughout the USA. At a time when healthcare costs are spiraling out of control in the West, the AKU School of Medicine in Karachi devotes 20% of the curriculum to teaching not just the conventional patient-centered health delivery model seen in the West, but a communitycentered health delivery model as well. Whilst maintaining world class standards of operation (the University hospital in 2000 became one of a small number in the world up until that point to receive ISO 9002 certification), it manages to run a tight financial operation with no government funding and with a liberal welfare patient-caseload. The recent inauguration of ArchNet, the world's largest on-line resource on architecture, urbanism, landscape design, and related issues at MIT by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture creates a global community with members from 110 countries sharing information on architecture and design issues. This model can be replicated in umpteen other areas for a cost-effective jump over resource constraints endemic in many educational environments. Numerous other areas can be cited, particularly in international development where many of the most exciting ideas in recent years have come from a Muslim NGO, decades ahead of global conventional wisdom. As such, the West would be well advised to be an informed and objective observer of the Islamic world, in all its diversity, and steer clear of viewing it through the prism of "monolithic generalizations".

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THE 'GEOGRAPHIC CRUCIBLE'


The previous sections, in a sense, generally touched on what the West may do in order to create favorable conditions for a "metaphorical crucible" to emerge in the Islamic world whereby relations between the West and Muslim worlds are refashioned in a more positive light. In addition to a metaphorical crucible, which, in a sense, applies to the entire Islamic world, there are distinctive geographical areas which have the potential to serve as "geographical crucibles" for opening a new chapter in relations between the West and Islamic countries. If one may permit oneself generalizations, the Islamic world may be divided into three categories (that may leave out some exceptions, but will allow major points to be made). These are: 1) the Arab world; 2) the former European colonies and protectorates; and 3) the former Soviet Central Asian republics. Each of these categories has a particular relationship with and attitude towards the West. Of all regions of the Islamic world, the Arab world has the most complicated relationship with the West. It has a deep and abiding suspicion and resentment of the West, in large part due to the Arab-Israeli conflict and the US's role as Israel's strategic ally. But the history of Arab resentment goes farther into time. Perhaps as early as 1882, when Britain occupied Egypt to safeguard British banking interests in the Suez Canal, making it a colony in everything but name. The role of other European powers in colonizing North Africa did not help either. But, perhaps, the biggest "betrayal" came during the Great War (1914-18) when conflicting "promises" were made to various parties: the MacMahon letters of 1915 (to the Arabs), the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 (between Britain and France), and the Balfour Declaration of 1917 (to the Jews). Interestingly, Bin Laden, in one of his early videos, in stating the raison d'tre for his hostility to the West, referred to the "eighty years of humiliation", an apparent allusion to the post-World War I, post-Ottoman order. Unlike other regions, the Arab world constitutes countries sharing a common linguistic, cultural and historical affinity, which subconsciously propels it to seek a common political framework. The populations of pre-united Germany, Italy, India and China went through the same emotional journey, before historical forces allowed a "national consciousness" to be translated into common political entities. It is beyond the call of any contemporary observer to predict the exact course events will take in the Arab world. Given the collective sense of humiliation Arabs feel and their lack of influence on the world stage in spite of their oil-riches, the impulse and drive for "Arab unity" will continue to tug at the Arab soul. The success of the European Union in forging a common political union in spite of the constraints of national sovereignties is a model that may not be ignored by the Arabs. Irrespective of how things ultimately evolve, for historical and contemporary reasons, the Arab world is going to represent for the West the most challenging of all regions in the Muslim world for a long time to come. Consequently, the Arab world is unlikely to be a good candidate to serve as a geographical crucible as we have defined it here. The next grouping, former European colonies, is less homogeneous and varies greatly from one country to the other. They all have, however, a common history of Western domination. Though they have "historical" grudges against the West, these are not of the same order and the resentment against the West is far less intense. The West's relations with individual Muslim countries from this grouping vary from acceptable to

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unacceptable. Whilst some countries in this grouping may offer the prospect of potential improvement in relations with the West by the introduction of the right mix of measures, the "bang for the buck" that may result from isolated successes may not translate into a "critical mass" showcasing a new tone in relations between a major grouping of Muslim nations and the West. This is not to suggest that opportunities in individual nations, when they present themselves, should be ignored and not acted upon. Consequently, again, this region, too, is not the best candidate to serve as our geographical crucible. The final category, the former Soviet Central Asian republics are not as homogenous as the Arab world, but are certainly more closely linked geographically, historically, culturally and ethnically than countries of the second group. This grouping, encompassing the crossroads of the ancient Silk Route between Asia and the West, is a new political phenomenon which only came into existence in the early 'Nineties following the breakup of the Soviet Union. These states, though comprising a dominant majority of linguistic or ethnic groups, are artificial entities created at Stalin's whims. Consequently, linguistic and ethnic groups have been divided across frontiers and each Central Asian republic has multiple ethnic groups, including Russian transplants (immigrants) from the Soviet era. The common denominator among all these emergent nations is their majority Muslim populations (of varying religious interpretations). Seventy years of communist rule, too, have created a commonality rooted in shared experience and history: high levels of literacy, gender equality, social cohesion, the absence of religion as a "state ideology", impressive gains in health and education58. Because these states carry no historic baggage of resentment or hatred against the West, have traditions of religious moderation, gender equity, and some of the Islamic world's highest literacy rates, they represent the most promising terrain to serve as our geographic crucible. Western leaders have been at pains, since September 11, 2001, to point out that the "War on Terror" is not a war on Islam or against the Islamic world, but against a part of the Islamic world. It would make sense for the West not to seek a generalized conflict with the entire Islamic world, but instead to define precisely the targets it must pursue to ensure the security of its citizens. Doing otherwise would be to fight fires on all fronts with 1.2 billion people spread on four continents. Like a good surgeon, the West must excise the malignant tumor, lest healthy cells become cancerous too; but, like a good surgeon, healthy cells and organs must not be wantonly affected by the surgery lest the body itself become so weak as to lose its immunity against disease. The West has no choice but engage and prevail over ideological groups in the Islamic world which seek it harm. It cannot relent now - or in the future - in this fight, lest it convey a sign of weakness to the adversary la Somalia. But the West also has another fight - a battle in fact - to engage in: the battle for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. This it must do to ensure that the Islamic world does not become an undifferentiated mass of hatred towards the West. The reasons are obvious for both current tactical and future strategic considerations. It thus stands to reason that preservation of healthy cells (to continue our previous analogy) should be high on the priority of Western governments. Our geographic crucible is that stock of healthy tissue that must be preserved and nurtured with a view to spreading its strength to the rest of the organism and help beat off cancerous growth. In the euphoria of the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the West quickly forgot about the constituent elements of the former Soviet Union. Long before the jubilation had died down in the newly-created Central Asian republics, the reality of

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surviving in a new world, not as part of a superpower, but as "babes in the woods", had slowly seeped in. Shorn of the generous subsidies of food and energy supplies from the Soviet Union, they were totally unprepared for independent existence in a meritocratic, global market economy. At the same time, these countries had to grapple with the task of creating new national identities. This meant going to pre-Soviet Islamic roots, prompting a new-found interest in their culture and religion. This provided an opportune moment for fundamentalist missionaries from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia carrying the ideology of Wahhabi Islam on the one hand and, with the help of Saudi funds, funding for religious projects, on the other. In a world where neither Western governments nor multilateral institutions were ready to jump in prior to political and economic restructuring, the governments did not have the means to turn away the "poisoned chalice" of funds channeled through fundamentalist organizations with axes to grind. In Tajikistan, a civil war raged on up until a few years ago; in Uzbekistan's Ferghana Valley, Wahhabism managed to find converts in the midst of economic desperation. Between their economic straits, the disinterest of the West, and the threats posed by the Taliban's Afghanistan - and inspite of their potential promise - the Central Asian republics may have fallen prey to radical Islam injected from the outside. The Pakistani journalist, Ahmed Rashid, in his book, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, describes the goals of one such foreign fundamentalist organization, the Hizb-ut-Tahrir al-Islami, which was founded in 1953 in Lebanon,59 in Central Asia: ...the Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (HT; the Party of Islamic Liberation) has also taken root in Central Asia.... the HT, which has also declared jihad in Central Asia, seeks to reunite the Central Asian republics and eventually the whole Muslim world... with the eventual aim of establishing a caliphate similar to that established after the death of The Prophet Muhammad in seventh-century Arabia. But the HT [has a] ...complete lack of a social, economic, or political plan for governing this caliphate.60 Commenting further on the penchant of the radical Islamist groups to introduce Sharia in the guise of a new Islamic order, Ahmed Rashid adds: The new Islamic order for these jihadi groups is reduced to a harsh, repressive penal code for their citizens that strips Islam of its values, humanism, and spirituality... the new jihadi groups reduce Islam to the length of one's beard and the question of whether burka-clad [veiled] women are allowed to expose their ankles.61 Given the fragility of these countries, economically and institutionally, it is not surprising that radical Islam should have actively targeted this region as their launching pad for ultimate takeover of the entire Muslim world. But for 9/11 and the removal of the Taliban, they may well have succeeded. Even now, the threat is not gone, but the interest in the strategic importance of the region has created a small "window of opportunity", which the West must seize and translate into goodwill for itself. One of the most potent weapons in the repertoire of the extremists, in their bid to convert the impressionable to their cause, is demonizing the West as evil by weaving a narrative of Western conspiracies and wrongs against Muslims. The West can, and should,

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"interrupt" this narrative by consciously reaching out to moderate Muslim partners and using its tremendous institutional, financial and intellectual prowess to help the peoples of the Islamic world better cope with the challenges of the modern world. This way, the West will gain friends who can stand up and defend it in the court of public opinion in the Muslim world. President Clinton touches a similar chord in an address to Harvard shortly after 9/11: "So we got to get our story out, and we have to give some ammunition to the moderates in the Muslim world that are trying to take a different course."62 There is no better opportunity for the West to reach out than in Central Asia. Here is a region where the West has no "historical" wrongs as baggage. Here is a region which has one of, if not, the highest manifestation of gender equality and religious moderation in the Islamic world. Unlike the Middle East, where the West's military presence is resented, this region welcomes the West's presence as an insurance against both i) religious extremism and ii) two Great Powers with historical designs in the region - China and Russia. There is no region, therefore, which offers more promise for a successful partnership between the West and Islam, and, more importantly, no region where the West's help would be more timely. The gut-wrenching transition from centralized to market economics in a globalized world economy, without the wherewithal that the West has taken centuries to build up, has to be looked at sympathetically. The tremendous dislocation, during the transition, of people who have always looked to the state to provide for everything, if not addressed in time, would be a gain for radical Islam's recruiters who seek to profit from others' misery to advance their agenda. And the West would not be acting altruistically; it would be working in the finest tradition of enlightened self-interest. Outside of the Middle East, this region has the largest potential reserves of fossil fuels and the strategic goal of reducing dependence on Middle-Eastern oil should, in and of itself, spur interest in the region. Furthermore, the countries of the region act as a geographical buffer between China and Europe. Based on current trends, the most likely challenge to Western dominance in this century is likely to emanate from China. The last time a physical threat from Asia was faced in Europe was in the 13th century when the Mongol hordes swept the Eurasian plains from China which they had conquered earlier. Before they reached Europe, they had to first take over Central Asia. Interestingly, China has "historical" territorial claims on all its Central Asian neighbors which, given that they are no longer parts of a superpower, make them vulnerable to potential future aggression by providing China with a "ready" casus belli. Their interest in having strong military, economic and diplomatic ties with a "countervailing" power would be natural and can be leveraged. Sometime in this century, China's growing energy needs will compete with the needs of the West and the temptation for China to "guarantee" energy supplies in its neighborhood may become unavoidable. Fortunately for the West, just as representatives of religious fundamentalism have shown interest in the region, the institutions of moderate Islam, too, have been drawn here. The West, hence, has potential partners already in place. The Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) has embarked on a unique pilot project to create the foundations of an open, tolerant and pluralistic society since 1997. Headed by a Harvard anthropologist, Dr Rafique Keshavjee, the Aga Khan Humanities Project for Central Asia (AKHP) works with schools and universities in the Central Asian republics to create a curriculum in the humanities. This curriculum studies the rich and diverse cultural influences of various religions and civilizations without premiating any. It aims to create an appreciation in students of the strengths of other cultures. A related undertaking of the Aga Khan Trust

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is the Aga Khan Music Initiative for Central Asia which is closely associated with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project in the USA. This initiative seeks to preserve and promote cultural diversity and pluralism by strengthening oral musical traditions and supporting performers and cultural institutions become economically self-sustaining. The other more profound undertaking is the University of Central Asia (UCA), the world's first university dedicated to mountain populations. Created by an international treaty between Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhastan and the AKDN, UCA is a secular, coeducational, and non-sectarian university currently headed by Dr S. Frederick Starr, the Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington D.C. Using the latest communications technologies, UCA is expected to cover the most poverty-stricken, isolated mountain populations from Uzbekistan to Western China - a catchment area of 25-30 million people. Using English, the language of international science, commerce and communications, UCA will aim at creating a new generation of secular leaders with a firm base in the liberal arts and in computer technology who will ease their nations into the global economy. The strategic goal, according to Dr Starr is to create "enlightened and principled generalists who can provide a moderate kind of leadership for the entire region."63 To create a "supply" of appropriately qualified candidates, the Aga Khan Education Services has already started operating centers of excellence - modern schools running at international standards which have introduced English and computer technology at the earliest ages. These above initiatives, collectively, constitute the most interesting and ambitious experiment in the Islamic world today: seeking to answer nothing less than the fundamental question i.e. Can a society be modern, moderate and Muslim in the new millenium? The answer to this question has to be of interest to both Muslim and non-Muslims alike. The newly-emerging nations of Central Asia start with many disadvantages and weaknesses, but, due to - ironically - their Soviet past, they offer a unique and propitious set of circumstances with which to engage in this experiment: High rates of literacy, gender equality, secular outlook, multi-racial/ multi-cultural/multiethnic societies, religious moderation and the absence of an indigenous anti-modern fundamentalist ideology. Because centralized-economies are pass, and the communist system is moribund in a world of free-markets, individual initiative and globalization, these societies have, of necessity, to start the whole gamut of institutional building educational, political, economic - from scratch which, though taxing, is a unique opportunity to build the "right" institutions for the future. Other Muslim societies have neither the propitious circumstances nor the luxury of doing away with existing institutions and starting from scratch - even if existing institutions leave much to be desired. Theirs is a unique opportunity to create civil society institutions from the ground up. To create, for the first time ever in the Islamic world, the use of education to inform values of tolerance, moderation, pluralism and respect for other cultures. To create a new leadership schooled in the best intellectual traditions available anywhere, yet rooted in the humanistic values of their cultures; proud of their Islamic roots, yet recognizing strengths of other cultures and willing to learn from them. Unlike many parts of the Islamic world, women will be equal partners in solving society's problems and not subjected to a discriminatory existence of the type practiced by the Taliban or Saudi Arabia or even Iran. Because this is a "free", participatory experiment; not an imposed one, its results should be self-sustaining. In the past, well-meaning dictators like Kemal Ataturk in Turkey and Reza Shah in Iran imposed, by fiat, modern practices and ideas.

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With time these become unsustainable without the people's genuine "buy-in" and, as we see in Turkey, can only be maintained by draconian measures.

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If Central Asia succeeds in creating a model of Muslim modernity, and demonstrates tangible benefits accruing to its population therefrom, the rest of Islam cannot but take notice. The West has a stake in the outcome, not only in the case of Central Asia, but also, more globally, as a potential example for the entire Islamic world. It, therefore, should be more than just a disinterested bystander; instead it should be an active partner financially, intellectually, and morally in the constituent parts of this experiment.

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CONCLUSION
The post-Cold War era has been defined by uncertainty and a tentative unveiling of the shape of things to come. Many political analysts have tried to anticipate the scenario that may unfold. Two sets of visions, among many, have been put forward. Francis Fukuyama's, The End of History and Samuel Huntington's, The Clash of Civilizations. This paper takes a different view. The end of the Cold War has created a multi-polar world with many challenges - and many unknowns. Whilst the paper recognizes the dangers posed by the threat of radical Islam (or Islamic fundamentalism) to world peace and order in general, and to the West in particular, it does not subscribe to the thesis of a generalized conflict between the West and the Islamic world. Contrary to the underlying presumptions of many Western analyses presenting the Islamic world in monolithic terms, the Islamic world is very much pluralistic and its diversity is rooted in history. Policies of individual Muslim countries, not unlike other non-Muslim countries, are dictated by many of the same considerations: notably, political expediency rather than religion, par excellence. Even in the realm of religion, Muslim nations differ between each other and within themselves in religious interpretations - precluding a monolithic identity or identification. The threat of radical Islam, particular radical Sunni Islam such as Wahhabi Islam, poses a threat which has global implications given the vast preponderance of Sunnis in most Muslim countries apart from a few Shia-majority countries like Iran, Bahrain etc. To meet the challenge of Islamic fundamentalism, the West needs to: * * * * * * * * * Support the international system of nation states; Support political and cultural pluralism in the Islamic world; Encourage reform of traditional Islamic schools (madressas) to teach marketable skills such as vocational skills for example; Support civil society (particularly women) in the Islamic world; Build people-to-people and institutional links between the West and Islamic world; Create partnerships with institutions and groups sharing values cherished by the West; Look to the private sector, and not necessarily governments, as partners; Look to institutions of moderate Islam as a "countervailing" force to forces of obscurantism; Create a 'Geographic Crucible' in Central Asia by actively supporting institutional building and innovative projects to create a 21st century model of a moderate, modern, Muslim society; Create an "enabling environment" for Muslims in the West to participate in bridge building with the Islamic world and further Western foreign policy objectives;

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There is a conflict between the civilized world and the forces of religious fanaticism; between modernity and obscurantism; between reason and dogma; between freedom and totalitarianism. But this conflict is not between Islam and the West per se, because the Islamic world is not an amorphous entity; it is highly pluralistic and many within it share the very values held dear in the West. The pluralism of the Islamic world creates natural allies for the West because many moderate forces share common foes in radical Islam; and by bringing a new sophistication in approach to the Muslim world, the West can learn to recognize potential opportunities and partners. Effectively leveraging these, it can positively influence the peaceful evolution of the Islamic world. It is in the West's enlightened self-interest to strengthen the forces of moderation in the Islamic world; to keep the channels of communication open with the peoples (as distinct from governments) of the Islamic world; and to help in economic and political empowerment of Muslims with a view to stemming political disillusionment with secular governments. As a former US President aptly observed, shortly after September 11, 2001: In the Middle East theocratic and secular, but non-democratic governments with troubling economic, social and political problems have seen a dramatic rise in fundamentalism portraying the U.S. and Israel in particular, and the West in general, as evil. We've got to get into this debate. We have to strengthen the forces of moderation. We have to increase the capacity of those governments to deliver for their people. We have to support democratic transitions. And we've got to get our story out.64 The Victorian British Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, is reported to have said that "great powers have neither permanent friends, nor permanent enemies; only permanent interests". Russia's elevation into the good graces of the West from its erstwhile status as the "evil empire" should tell us that Victorian statesmanship still has relevance in the 21st century. Though the Islamic world presents today a silhouette of danger, it is not in the interest of the West to be in a state of conflict with the Islamic world in the long run because it would constrain Western foreign policy options in the face of new, and more serious, challenges emanating from elsewhere. To change the tone of the relationship between the West and the Muslim world, the West should seriously consider creating a model of partnership in a 'geographical crucible' in Central Asia to promote the benefits of moderate, modern, Muslim society of the 21st century which is an example for the entire Muslim world.

The Crucible REFERENCES

61

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31 Pervez Hoodbhoy, Muslims and the West , Dawn, Karachi, (December 10, 2001).

"

"

32 Roger Hardy, "Islam and the West", BBC Online News: Islamic World, (August 12, 2002).

33 Ibid.

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36 Ibid.

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38 Ibid., Appendix.

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"

"

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57 H.H. the Aga Khan IV, "Commencement Address", (MIT: May 27, 1994).

58 Ibid.

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60 Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, (Yale University Press: February 2002), ch. 1.

61 Ibid.

62 Clinton.

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