Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
Islam
Muslim Voices

Muslim Voices

by , | Jul 27, 2009

A chaikhana is a Central Asian teahouse where poets and performers — men and (unveiled) women — sing verses and recite prose in a conversational atmosphere with fellow patrons. In New York, last month’s Muslim Voices festival recreated a chaikhana to showcase Urdu writers from Pakistan, performances of Lebanese zajal (dueling poetry with audience response and affirmation), and West African jaliya, an hereditary bardic tradition from Mali that has produced many world music stars.

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Islam and Pakistan

by , | Dec 21, 2007

From its Cold War role as a bulwark against the irreligious, evil empire of the Soviet Union to its status as a major non-NATO ally in the post-9/11 war on terrorism, Pakistan has flaunted its various religious credentials. Vacillating from jihad to enlightened moderation, Pakistan’s ruling civil and military elite has unscrupulously employed religion as a means to gain domestic and international legitimacy.

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How and Why to Support Religion Overseas

by , | Oct 29, 2007

Since September 11, in spite of the rhetoric on how the world has been transformed, U.S. foreign policy has approached the Islamic world and the war on terrorism as little more than old wine in new wine skins. During the Cold War, U.S. scholars and policymakers asked why people become communists. Now they ask why people become religious terrorists, extremists, and fundamentalists. What is so striking is that the solutions scholars give to this national security problem today is similar to the ones they proposed a half-century ago – more foreign aid to promote liberal democracy and free market capitalism. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) has been bold enough to call this policy “funding virtue,” even though scholars and policymakers have largely ignored the role of virtue or religion in sustaining democracy and development. The closest the United States has come to recognizing the role of virtue and religion in foreign policy is to promote religious freedom through the Office of International Religious Freedom created in the State Department during the Clinton administration.

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A Foreign Policy for Foreign Religions

by , | Oct 11, 2007

Nine years ago Congress, under President Clinton, unanimously passed the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. The Act authorized the formation of a bi-partisan Commission on International Religious Freedom to monitor the status of religious freedom around the world and identify countries that are inadequately protecting religious freedom within their borders. The legislation’s unanimous approval in both the Senate and the House reflected characteristics of the political situation of the late 1990s and of the Act itself.

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Postcard from…Istanbul

Postcard from…Istanbul

by | Sep 10, 2007

As the call to prayers in Istanbul gets louder – thanks to more sophisticated amplifying systems – the number and size of Turkish flags have grown in proportion. This is the fundamental conflict in Turkey today. On one side are the secularists, the heirs of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. On the other side are the Islamists, who are divided into moderate and fundamentalist factions. Since the landslide win of the moderate Islamists in the recent elections, the conflict between religion and politics has sharpened, at least at the symbolic level. In a country where women who wear headscarves are still banned from higher political office, the wife of the new president Abdullah Gul, has broken a taboo by wearing the turban. The army, the institution most committed to secular nationalism, has responded by boycotting the president’s swearing-in ceremony.

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Turkeys European Dilemma

by , | Jul 3, 2007

Turkey is on Europe’s edge. In the last decade, the country has struggled with whether to join the European Union (EU) or focus its diplomatic efforts elsewhere. During this period, Turkish public opinion has swung back and forth. While a slim margin currently favors EU membership, both elite opinion and public sentiment remains volatile, particularly with so much changing within Turkey itself. This is because Turkey’s European dilemma is no longer one of mere foreign policy but also concerns the future shape of Turkey itself.

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Nothing to Laugh At

by , | Jan 18, 2007

On January 15, a Moroccan court gave editor Driss Ksikes and journalist Sanaa al-Adzi three-year suspended sentences for publishing jokes related to Islam. Here, Dawid Warszawski of Poland’s leading daily Gazeta Wyborcza comments on the case.

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Engaging Islam

by , , | Sep 19, 2006

In August, FPIF contributor Najum Mushtaq authored a discussion paper— “Islamic Blowback Part Two?”—that critiqued the current U.S. policy of promoting “moderate Islam.” He was particularly critical of a report by Abdeslam Maghraoui, director of the Muslim World Initiative at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Here we highlight a detailed response from Abdeslam Maghraoui, followed by a rejoinder from Najum Mushtaq.

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