Displaying items by tag: Islam and the West
The Aga Khan Trust for Culture
Famed for its charitable non-profit work in war-torn and poverty-stricken parts of the world, the Aga Khan Development Network funds, amongst others, a plethora of cultural initiatives coordinated under the umbrella of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. Albeit guided by Islamic ethics and a focus on redeveloping cultural heritage in areas with Muslim populations, the organization brings together financial and technical resources to revitalize local communities regardless of their faith, and build cultural bridges between the Islamic and non-Islamic world.
Published in Society and Culture Review
Three Living Western Academicians on Islam-Democracy Discourse: Analysing the Views of Prof(s) Abou El Fadl, El-Affendi, & Sachedina
This essay analyses the thoughts of three (3) Prominent Western Academicians on Islam-Democracy Discourse, namely jurist Khaled Abou El Fadl (b.1963, Kuwait), Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law (USA); political scientist Abdelwahab El-Affendi (b. Sudan), Reader in Politics in University of Westminster (London); and theologian Abdulaziz Sachedina (b. 1942, Tanzania), Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia (USA). These Muslim thinkers/ intellectuals have, along with others, contributed greatly to shape the theoretical understanding of "Islamic democracy" and thus have advanced this decades-old-discourse many steps further. The essay argues that the crucial issue, and the challenge ahead, faced by Muslim intellectuals is to turn the theory of Islamic democracy into a practicality.
Akbar Ahmed, Journey into Islam: the crisis of globalization, Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2007
"Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame". Akbar Ahmed, a Muslim Islamic scholar teaching in the American University, quotes the words of Benjamin Franklin in a thoughtful narration aimed to describe how the U.S. foreign policy and the War on Terror has led the West and Islam to the brink of collision.
Campanini, Massimo, An introduction to Islamic Philosophy, Italy, Edinburgh University Press Ltd, 2008
A diachronic investigation of Islamic philosophy and its greatest thinkers, the influence of Greek philosophy upon it and its reciprocal relationship with Islam are some of the main themes Campanini discusses in his book 'An introduction to Islamic Philosophy'.
"Islamic democracy" with reference to the political thought of Abdolkarim Soroush and Rachid al-Ghannouchi
Religion and politics constitute a relationship around which human affairs clustered since time immemorial. Faith in one or more superior beings already existed before the very first moment that people started perceiving themselves as members of an entity, irrespectively of its level of institutionalisation of power and formality of interpersonal relations. From the first family-based nomad communities where decisions were made on the basis of the Gods-sent omens till George W. Bush's references to God and al-Qaeda's Allah-inspired mission and ideology, religion was always centrally placed in politics (Gentile, 2006; Bruce, 2003) and vice versa.
Published in Policy Papers