islam and democracy - royal society of edinburgh · of islam and democracy: noting that, especially...

Islam and Democracy: 5 May 2006

© The Royal Society of Edinburgh: July 2006

ISBN: 0 902198 94 7

www.royalsoced.org.uk

Theoyal ocietyR S

of Edinburgh

Report of a Conferenceorganised by

The Royal Society of Edinburgh

Friday 5 May 2006

Islam and Democracy

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements .................................................................................. 2

Islam and Democracy ................................................................................ 4

Appendix One: Programme..................................................................... 16

Appendix Two: Speakers’ Biographies ..................................................... 17

Appendix Three: Participant List .............................................................. 19

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The Royal Society of Edinburghwishes to acknowledge the support of

HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin TalalBin Abdulaziz Alsaud

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The Edinburgh Institute for the Study ofThe Arab World and Islam

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and thank the Organising Committee:

Professor John Richardson FRSEEmeritus Professor of Classics, University of Edinburgh

Professor Yasir Suleiman FRSEProfessor of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Director,

Edinburgh Institute for the Study of the Arab World and Islam,University of Edinburgh

Richard Holloway FRSEFormer Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church

Róisín Calvert-ElliottEvents Manager, The Royal Society of Edinburgh

Lia BrennanEvents Officer, The Royal Society of Edinburgh

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SESSION ONE - SCENE-SETTING

Professor Yasir Suleiman opened the conference byexplaining why the Society had decided to hold it. Henoted that ‘Islam’ is often in the news, and usually forbad reasons. Common Western perceptions of Islamare that it is backward, violent, and not compatiblewith democracy. Muslims, meanwhile, argue thatIslam is deliberately misinterpreted and slandered inthe West.

Professor Suleiman stated that the conference was notintended to rebut such arguments but to bringtogether prominent, active speakers to debate thissubject, addressing certain fundamental questions:

• What is democracy; what forms does it take?• Does it mean a particular form of governance,

set of values, system?• Why does democracy matter?• Can it be imported into the Muslim world?• Is ‘Islam’ an invariant idea?• Are there different interpretations and are

some of them more compatible withdemocracy?

• Can Islam be separated from Muslims?• Should we speak of democratisation rather

than democracy?• Is Islam compatible with democracy and does

it have to be?• What is the interest of the West in democracy

in the Muslim world?• Are those who call for democracy in the

Muslim world willing to live with itsconsequences?

• Should Muslims reject democracy simplybecause Western governments want it? Thiswould be shooting the message, not themessenger.

Khalid Abu al-Fadl has problematised the relationshipof Islam and democracy: noting that, especially in thematter of law, popular authority is hard to reconcilewith divine authority. Professor Suleiman observedthat this was a difficult question to answer. But thereare practical political (rather than philosophical)reasons for the lack of democracy in Muslim societies.These include the existence of authoritarian, powerfulstates; these societies’ experience of colonisation; anddemocracy’s specific historical background in post-Reformation Christian Europe. Despite all of these, itis quite possible for Muslims to see democracy as anethical good that is worth pursuing regardless of itsorigins.

However, Professor Suleiman noted that manyMuslims, despite their interest in democracy, arecynical about attempts by non-Muslim powers topropagate it. He cited as an example of this suspiciona newspaper cartoon depicting Condoleezza Rice as a

shifty-looking ‘saleswoman’ of democracy.

SESSION TWO - EXISTING FORMS OFDEMOCRACY IN MUSLIM COUNTRIES AS SEENFROM A SEAT OF WORLD POWER

Frances Guy, head of the FCO’s Engaging with theIslamic world group, began her talk by saying that shewould not answer, or even attempt to answer,Professor Suleiman’s questions. But she offeredanother example of a cartoon to illustrate thelegitimate suspicions of many Muslims regardingdemocracy (this one, about two years old, fromal-Hayat newspaper). It shows a set of (Iraqi) scales,on one side of which is ‘democracy’ and on the other‘totalitarianism’, each with an equal pile of skulls andbones.

Nevertheless, the speaker held that it is right forWestern governments to promote democracy as aform of political governance, and said that she woulddiscuss what this meant in practice, including thedifferent dilemmas posed by recent events in Egyptand Palestine. She noted that most Muslims do notlive in the Middle East and that many in fact live inbroadly democratic countries (e.g. Indonesia, India,Bangladesh). But her own experience, and recentBritish attempts at democracy-promotion in Muslimcountries, have been concentrated in this region,which according to the UN Human DevelopmentReport has extremely poor indices in areas such asgovernance, education, and gender empowerment.(She acknowledged that some see these as suspectfigures.)

Ms Guy noted that democracy is not simply thepeaceful transfer of power via a free and fair electoralprocess, but a range of contributing elementsincluding the guarantors of that peaceful transfer ofpower, such as: an independent judiciary; freedom ofassociation and of expression; a functioning, neutraland uncorrupt bureaucracy and security forcesanswerable to an elected government. The lack ofdemocracy is not restricted to the Muslim world and itis patronising to assume a problem between Islam anddemocracy. Islam is not the only world religion tosuggest that ultimate authority rests with God.However, in the Arab world the specific problemsoutlined earlier coincide with the concentration ofresources there and with political problems in theregion’s relationship to the West. Westerngovernments’ interest in promoting reform is notessentially a question of principle: it is because of abelief that democracy—as the European experiencehas shown—makes for more stable and effectivegovernment (notwithstanding the legitimate questionsposed to democracy even in democracies—forexample, how legitimate is a democracy where only50% bother to vote?). Western governments should


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not seek to impose specific systems and immediatechange, but they should still encourage reform on thebasic principles of good governance,transparency, and accountability.

The speaker then admitted that many find such aposition problematic, given the UK’s seeming interestin supporting undemocratic but friendly regimes (e.g.Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia)—and refusal to dealwith the Hamas government in Palestine, elected inunusually fair elections. The ‘promotion of democracy’has implications for relations between Westerngovernments and political Islam.

While these are difficult questions, Ms Guy stated thatthe UK has an interest in peaceful change rather thanrevolution, and acknowledged that the transition todemocracy has been difficult everywhere and will be inthe Muslim world too. She outlined the ways in whichthe British government has encouraged democraticreform in countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia,both through bilateral relations and in multilateralorganisations.

Regarding the ‘problem’ of political Islam indemocracy, Ms Guy noted that Islamist movementshave grown up under the political circumstances ofrepressive and autocratic regimes—regimes oftenassociated with the secular West, damaging the imageof secular democracy; regimes where bureaucratic andjudicial corruption seem to leave no alternative meansof challenging the system but a moral (i.e. religious)one. It is therefore important for democracypromotion to focus not merely on elections but on thewhole process of building democracy as outlinedabove, which will open space for other political forcesto emerge. At the same time, Western governmentsmust not ignore Islamist movements (which can pushthem towards extremism, as past Western errors haveshown) but seek to include them in democraticreform—indeed, many Islamist parties operate inrelatively democratic environments and represent arange of views within which it is in the West’s interestto encourage the moderate wing. Relations withIslamist movements are unlikely to be easy, and thereare particular ‘grey zones’ (as identified by AmrHamzawy in a recent Carnegie Foundation paper)which represent particularly problematic issues. Theseinclude:

• implementation of Islamic law• violence• pluralism• civil and political rights, especially those of

women and of religious minorities.These dilemmas relate to the implementation in aMuslim context of the Universal Declaration of HumanRights—which acknowledges the rights of individuals.Ms Guy noted that most legal systems in majorityMuslim countries are a mixture of colonial,

independent, customary and shariah law (and hard tooverhaul). Shariah law is rarely dominant overall, but itis particularly important as regards family law andtherefore women’s rights—an issue on which there hasbeen positive engagement with Muslim countries.Concerns in these areas should not hold the West backfrom engaging with Islamist movements, while stillholding to the principles of the international legalsystem as it has developed since the 1950s.

Ms Guy did not wish to demonise political Islam, whichhas many shades of opinion; nor to criticize the Westfor lack of engagement. For example, the Islamist AKParty government in Turkey is committed to EUmembership (and has implemented reforms demandedby the EU), while the EU—pushed by Britain—hasopened membership talks with Turkey.

But if the Islamist, democratically-elected AKgovernment is acceptable, what is the problem withthe Islamist, democratically-elected Hamasgovernment in Palestine? Ms Guy highlighted thefollowing issues:

• Hamas’s use of violence for political ends.• At the time of the elections Hamas was a

banned organisation in the EU, creatingtechnical and legal problems for funding andpolitical contact.

• The AKP came to power in a secular statewhere the peaceful transfer of power hasbeen tested, the army defends the state andnot the party in power, and the judiciary andbureaucracy are regarded as independent.Islamism is thus a political agenda within ademocracy, an agenda which has endured—and accepted—democratic setbacks. In ademocracy the winner does not take all, andgovernments act in the name of all thepeople, including those who voted againstthem.

• As regards Hamas, Palestinians are by thestandards of the Middle East both well-educated and secular; their reasons forsupporting Hamas are complex, and do notnecessarily imply support for the party’sreligious agenda. But the Palestinian state isfragile: there are concerns about theindependence of the security forces and thejudiciary, and corruption in the bureaucracy.These concerns justify caution on the part ofEuropean governments. Aid has been frozen,not cut, and donors are seeking ways to helpthe Palestinian population. Space has beenleft for dialogue, and Hamas ought to (but hasnot so far) take advantage of it.

In conclusion, Ms Guy reiterated that Westerngovernments should promote democratic values in thebroad sense but not impose any particular models.

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They should engage with Islamist movements but notshy away from issues of e.g. human rights.

DISCUSSION

In the course of the discussion on Sessions 1 and 2between panellists and the floor, a number of pointsemerged:

• Understanding the relationship between Islamand democracy requires a deconstruction ofboth concepts: democracy is no more a singlething than Islam is, and it could be that someforms of Islam can accept some forms ofdemocracy. But in addressing these questionsit is important to to extract them from awestern-centric context.

• This debate often lacks historical perspective:in the West democracy is also a new systemand some cultural features of the West (e.g.Judaism, Christianity) have incorporated anti-democratic elements—but have also beendynamic, able to support or counterdemocracy. Islam, like Judaism or Christianity,is not static—though even critical scholarshave sometimes assumed that it is, forexample by taking classical law as currentnorm.

• Iraq aside, promoting democracy is not thesame as imposing it, and it is in the interestsof Western governments to create space formore voices to be heard—while accepting theconsequences of democratisation even if thiscreates space for voices critical of the West,for example.

• There is a proper debate about the legitimateand illegitimate use of force—whether bystates or by non-state actors.

• There is a profound hypocrisy in the West’sattitudes to democracy in Muslim world. Forexample, Britain views Hamas negativelyowing to its use of violence, but engaged in apeace process with the provisional IRA despiteits failure to decommission its weapons.

• In the Occupied Territories, corruption may bea big problem but occupation is a biggerproblem. If Western governments wish to betaken seriously when they protest againstcorruption, they must also protest theoccupation.

• There may be questions over Turkey’s humanrights record—but the Turkish government isactively engaged in discussion on these issues,which will be taken very seriously in the EUadmissions process.

• Western governments are frequentlyuncertain and uneven in their encouragementof democracy, and in weighing thatencouragement up against their economicand strategic interests. But in the long term

supporting autocratic regimes only stores upproblems and exacerbates them. There is arecognition that this has happened in thepast, and it is to be hoped that current eventsin Iraq and Palestine will not discourageWestern governments from promotingdemocracy. This is an important subject forpolitical debate in Western countries; while inMiddle Eastern/Muslim countries there arethose who want external pressure for democ-ratisation—up to a point, and provided theWestern powers are willing to live withconsequences.

• The relative absence of large publicexpressions of dissent in the Arab worldregarding the war in Iraq, by comparison withthe major demonstrations in Westerncountries, reflected the autocratic regimes’refusal to permit manifestations of publicdissent for fear that it might get out of hand.But permitting dissent is an essential test ofdemocracy; and the fact that some largedemonstrations did take place in the Arabworld shows the courage of people willing todemonstrate in the face of severely repressivesecurity forces. People do come out on to thestreets to demand their rights. But they arealso aware of possible consequences and thisdoes limit popular demonstrations.

• The media plays a very important role in givingpopular access to political debate and must beencouraged. In this respect, Al-Jazeera haschanged face of political discourse in Arabworld; one result is that the FCO has created aunit to express British views in Arab media. Itwas felt that al-Jazeera is a very good, high-quality broadcaster—its excellent children’schannel being one often overlooked example.

• Across the Middle East, there is muchdiscussion of politics (and religion) at apopular level despite people’s awareness ofthe security services.

• The Middle East is not the only region of theworld with a democracy deficit, and theWest’s markedly different attitude towardspromoting democracy in China is revealing.But democracy is still worth promoting.

SESSION THREE - THE CHALLENGE OFDEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Professor John Esposito began by relating ananecdote: as he passed through immigration on hisway to the conference, the official on duty had askedhim the purpose of his visit. On being told that it wasto give a conference speech about Islam and democ-racy, the officer smiled, stamped the passport, and said“I guess it’ll be a very brief speech!”


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This anecdote reflects the situation in which we, innon-Islamic societies, find ourselves in trying to under-stand Islamic societies—after 30 years ProfessorEsposito said that he was still being asked precisely thesame questions (“Is Islam compatible withdemocracy?”). He noted that as a rule Islam isconsidered guilty until proven innocent; things can besaid about Islam that would not be acceptable if theywere said about any other religion or group. Foreignpolicy is not the only problem in Western govern-ments’ relations with Islam: social policy concerningIslam and Muslims is also deeply problematic.

For the West, the speaker noted, democratisation inMuslim countries has posed problems: examples arethe electoral victory of Hamas, or (democratic)constitutional demands in Iraq and Afghanistan for anIslamic system. Recent poll research in Muslim-majority countries creates interesting dilemmas forWestern powers that claim to promote democracy butare hostile to the notion of any ‘Islamic’ involvement inpolitics. In Egypt, meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhoodhas enjoyed a degree of electoral success despiterigged elections—while the regime has clamped downon Islamic and/or democratic activists, as well as theincreasingly independent-minded judiciary. This raisesthe question of what Western policy towards an allyshould be. While Western governments may havereasons to encourage democracy (e.g. stability), thequestion may be asked in the region, “Who are you toencourage democracy?” It is well-known that,traditionally, US governments have openly supportednon-democratic governments (and entrenched secularelites) which since 9/11 have said that they arebecoming democratic but are not. Likewise, AbuGhraib, US unilateralism and pre-emptive strikes donot fit well with US calls for Muslim respect for humanrights or ‘international norms’. There is an increasinglywell-informed, well-educated, globally-aware—and, insome cases Islamist—Muslim audience that will askthese critical questions.

On the other hand, Professor Esposito pointed out, thehistory of Islamist regimes in power is troubling. Yetnew Gallup polling evidence shows strong supportamong Muslim populations for democracy ordemocratic-style reform; their problem with the Westis western denigration of Islam, and western observershave not adequately understood this. Westerngovernments say they want to listen to alternativevoices, but hold conferences at which believingMuslims are not present—let alone Hamas andHizbullah.

Next, Professor Esposito raised the issue ofsecularisation, noting that there has been a resurgenceof religion globally—not just in Islam—that posesproblems for secularisation. It is no longer, perhaps, aquestion of the separation of religion and politics, but

of church and state—these are different things. Andmany critics of the mixture of religion and politics inIslamic countries willfully mix religion and politics intheir own countries (e.g. John Ashcroft). This is notjust a problem for Islamic countries.

Turning to the question of Islam and democracy, thespeaker identified a number of problems fordemocracy in the Middle East. Many of them, hemaintained, are structural political realities, rooted incolonial oppression and continuing into (oftenWestern-influenced) undemocratic systems of (secular)government. In many Middle Eastern societies there isa culture of authoritarianism, and in some a culture ofviolence—both secular and religious. But this is notjust a question of ‘Islam’.

In the late 1980s, an economic downturn led to callsfor greater democracy, transparency, andaccountability in many Muslim countries, includingTunisia, Algeria, Jordan and Turkey. This in turn led toan upsurge of elections (but not, in most cases,democracy). The regimes in power and Westerngovernments were surprised by the relative success ofIslamist movements despite electoral fraud. Behindthis popular turn to Islamic candidates lay complexreasons: some votes were ‘for’ them, others wereprotest votes ‘against’ the government. But, ProfessorEsposito emphasized, this is normal in democraticelections: it happens frequently in Western politics,without Western observers then saying that thosethereby elected are not credible democrats.

The speaker then discussed the US response to theseelectoral victories for Islamists. A State Departmentspokesperson said at the time that the US wouldsupport democracy, even if it involved Islamistpoliticians. But the American responds to Islamistelection victories with suspicion; for example, whenthe FIS was elected in Algeria. Professor Espositosummed up this attitude as “We know what they saybut we don’t know what they’ll do”—to which heoffered the rejoinder that we know what currentsecular regimes (such as that of Ben cAli in Tunisia) doas well as what they say. Why is secularauthoritarianism in some way more acceptable thanreligious authoritarianism? The speaker noted thatsecular authoritarianism is certain to feed religiousradicalisation and violence.

The late 1980s and 1990s demonstrated that as wellas violent Islamists there were moderate Islamists whowanted to come to power through democratic means.However, the Western response tended to be thatsuch peaceful Islamists were ‘wolves in sheep’sclothing’. But we need to look at track records. Canthe Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood—which renouncedviolence decades ago—really be considered a terroristmovement, a wolf in sheep’s clothing? And by con-

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trast, what about the track record of regimes in e.g.Egypt and Tunisia? In countries where regimesresponded to Islamist pressure by accommodationrather than repression, Islamist politicians have nowserved in senior positions within existing systems. Thisis also a track record on which they can be judged.

In the region and beyond, Professor Esposito noted,the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were used by Muslim andnon-Muslim governments to demand American (andEuropean) support with the argument that “Now youknow what it’s like: support us as we combatextremists”. But regimes have targeted all opponents,not just extremists, under the pretext of eliminatingIslamic radicalism. The West needs to understand this,and be aware that democracy promotion will be seenas a tool of western domination especially on thequestion of human rights. These are major issues, butwhen western governments are caught out (e.g. AbuGhraib) they claim that such abuses are exceptional.(It’s a problem for western governments too: how fardo we abrogate rights of individuals in order to com-bat terrorism?)

Nevertheless, in the post-9/11 Muslim world we do seeincreased democracy, for example, in Bahrain,Morocco, Turkey (among others). Some Islamistparties such as the Turkish AKP have broadened theirappeal, adopted a wider secularism that is not anti-religious (unlike French or Turkish laïcité) but secular inthe best sense of protecting the rights of believers andnon-believers. In other countries there is reform, evenif it is slow. But when observing this we must alsounderstand the slow evolution of democracyeverywhere, including Europe and the US. Westernpowers want ‘risk-free’ democracy in the Middle Eastbut this is not possible. There are risks indemocratisation, but these must be accepted. Thingsare changing in the Arab and Muslim world, thespeaker maintained; the question is, to what extentwill we in the West (as governments and individuals)recognise that change?

In this connection, Professor Esposito made theobservation that democracy depends on such things asa strong civil society and active NGOs, and the attitudeof Western governments and authoritarian regimes inthe region, to these. If Western powers seekingincremental reform offer support to regime-controlledentities such as ‘royal NGOs’ which lack credibility inthe eyes of the population, there is a risk of counter-productive hypocrisy.

The speaker stated that certain issues must be bornein mind in Western dealings with the Middle East.These include: the culture of authoritarianism; thequestion of whether existing governments stand fore.g. the rule of law; popular feeling in the region. Healso emphasised the fact that religious

authoritarianism is no more dangerous than secularauthoritarianism. From the point of view ofdemocratisation, the lack of a free press under eitherof these is equally dangerous torture in prisons isequally unacceptable whether it takes place under theShah or Khomeini. This being so, when promotingdemocracy it is acceptable to insist that Islamistmovements respect, in government, the things theydemanded in opposition (taking heed of the worryingbut extremist precedent of Islamist governments inAfghanistan, Iran, and Sudan). But we must beequally concerned to hold secular authoritarianregimes to account in these areas.

Western governments should encourage, not impose,movements towards broader participation, and seek tostrengthen civil society and the rule of law. Theyshould acknowledge that this presents risks, but risksthat must be taken—and they should not blame ‘Arab’or ‘Islamic’ culture for any lack of democracy withoutquestioning our own contribution to it. And theyshould be prepared to live with the consequences ofdemocratisation: for example, the election of Hamas.Western governments cannot claim to be promotingdemocracy while simultaneously trying to freeze out ademocratically elected government. (The speaker alsoasked the question, who benefits from this freezing-out?)

In conclusion, Professor Esposito reiterated thatWestern observers must be aware that we are seeing aprocess which in other countries (including our own)was long, painful, and involved bloody civil wars,revolutions, intellectual and religious conflicts. It is arisky process but one that is inevitable if we do notaccept it as such we contribute to an ever moreunstable situation.

DISCUSSION

In the discussion following Session Three, the followingpoints were raised:

• Encouragement of democratisation, whetherin ‘friendly’ states like Egypt or ‘enemy’ stateslike Iran, might best be achieved throughdiplomacy. Public rhetoric denouncing thelack of democracy—as currently heardregarding Iran—is counterproductive.However, this must be counterbalanced by awillingness to voice criticism of regimes(including friendly ones), where this is useful,in a way that is heard by the region’s public.

• The framing of the debate—whether Westernstates should ‘permit’ democracy in theMiddle East—is revealing of a very colonialistmindset. Whatever the risks ofdemocratisation in the region may be for theWest, self-determination only works whenrecognised as a universal good: not as


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something that some peoples are ready forand others not. And we need to recognisethat democracy, in any circumstances, isfragile.

• There are many ways to persuade regimes toenact democratic reforms, and these shouldbe used. But persuasion is the word: threatsand bluster are likely to be counterproductive,as in Iran at the moment where many citizenswho are hardly enamoured of theirgovernment nevertheless support it in itsconfrontation with Europe and America overthe nuclear programme. (There are othersimilar cases, e.g. Pakistan.) This createsproblems for reformers, who have to look‘nationalist’ and avoid being tainted byassociation with the West.

• It is not justifiable to delay democracy untilsocieties are ‘ready’ for it. Societies become‘ready’ for democracy through the practice ofit, not through waiting for it. For example, inIraq the tendency to vote along religious orethnic lines is seen by some as an example ofthat societies ‘unreadiness’ for democracy—and yet in the USA (to name just one exam-ple) it was until recently, and in some casesstill is, normal for voters to behave in a similarway. In a sense, democracy always meansputting the cart before the horse.

• Democratisation need not be a threat toIslamic identity, and not all Muslims perceive itas such. Recent poll data suggest that largemajorities in Muslim-majority countries wantdemocratic reform but also want to maintaintheir Islamic identity: people are proud of this,and believe that it is crucial for their progress.And there are many ways in which democraticreform can be made compatible withmaintaining an Islamic identity (and vice-versa)—just as many (religious) people in theWest don’t see their (secular) state as goingagainst their religious beliefs. A greaterproblem is that people in the Middle East, forexample, are rightly suspicious of howdemocratic government will be broughtabout: will true self-determination be allowed,or are Western governments keen to imposelimits? This is already creating anger againstWestern governments, e.g. because ofresponse to election of Hamas. If they areserious about democratisation, Westerngovernments must accept the idea that theymay have to work with relatively hostileelected governments.

• Islamist movements when they participate inthe political process are as pragmatic as theyare ideological—for example, PresidentAhmedinejad’s stand regarding Iran’s nuclearprogramme gains him support among

secularised youth who might otherwise behostile to him. Islamism (like other radicalmovements) is also often, if not always, theexpression of political and social grievances.Frequently activism done in the name ofreligion actually uses religion to legitimate actsof political or social protest.

• Tunisia is an example of a country which hassuccessfully achieved economic (and social)development under an authoritarian politicalsystem. But this has come at a real cost whichTunisia’s Western allies have been too quick togloss over. Islamists are not the only group tohave felt the cane: any opposition to theregime is repressed, especially human rightsorganisations.

• The invasion of Iraq, where the US and Britainhave sought to ‘impose’ democracy, has beenextremely counterproductive and this deservesdebate in the West. Have the politicians andthe generals understood the consequences oftheir decisions in terms of loss of life (Westernand Iraqi)? How can we know how many USlives have been lost while having no idea howmany Iraqi lives US policy has cost? The cost-benefit analysis of lives lost (versus politicaland other benefits) is made by people whoare very distant from the results of theirdecisions. This casts harsh light on the refusalto define state violence as ‘terrorist’—inanother example, Palestinian ‘terrorism’ killscivilians, but Palestinian civilians are not killedby Israeli ‘terrorism’.

• It is not for Western governments (orobservers) to decide whether others have theright to self-determination—they have thatright. When regimes such as those in CentralAsia claim that the opposition to them isIslamist, and use this as a pretext for denyingdemocracy, we should not necessarily believethem. This is a claim made by the govern-ments in order to clamp down on allopposition and gain carte blanche from theUS for doing so. Even if the opposition isIslamist, it is hypocritical to proclaim our fearsabout what such movements might do if theycame to power while ignoring the extremelyrepressive (and destabilising) behaviour of thesecular regimes that are currently in power.So supporting democratisation in suchregimes is not equivalent to supportingIslamism—and the existence of an Islamistopposition cannot justify the claim that certainpeople or societies are not yet ready fordemocracy. Where Islamism has emerged ithas done so in the specific circumstances ofautocratic political systems.

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SESSION FOUR - THE DIVERSITY OF FORMS OFBOTH DEMOCRACY AND ISLAM AND THEIRCOMPATIBILITIES AND INCOMPATIBILITIES

Professor Tariq Ramadan began by outlining his talk:a short introduction would be followed by threesections, the first a theoretical discussion about theIslamic tradition’s responses to democracy and the waydemocracy is perceived in Western countries; thesecond on the current political dynamics of Muslimcountries, and within Muslim communities in the West;and the third a dicussion of shared responsibility: theneed for us in the West to understand these dynamics(without seeking to control them) and facilitate theprocess—in the name of shared principles, but withrespect for the autonomy of Muslim populations.

In his introduction he made four main points:• As earlier speakers had noted, Islam and

democracy are often wrongly presented astwo monolithic and separate realities. Withinthe Islamic tradition we can find manyprinciples (such as the rule of law) that arealso seen as part of democracy—the idea thatsuch principles are unique to democracy, andthus Western traditions that are a foreignimport into Islam, is simply wrong. A mainpurpose of his talk would be to differentiatebetween principles and morals.

• Today in Islamic-majority countries—acarefully-chosen term, more meaningful than‘Islamic world’—there is something we haveto acknowledge: now and in the future itwould be very difficult for us to deal withthese countries while dismissing the Islamicfactor. Islam is present within the discourseand politics of these countries as a point ofreference—if we want dialogue (rather thanan ‘interactive monologue’ with people whoshare our points of reference) then we mustrecognise this. We respect someone when weunderstand that his or her universe of refer-ence is as complex as ours—and we recognisethat, for example, Christianity is very complex.

• Third, religious liberalism does not equate topolitical liberalism. As within Judaism orChristianity, it is possible to be religiouslyliberal, even non-practising, without being ademocrat. In the Arab countries it is often theopposite that is the case, with secular butauthoritarian political regimes. Such secularpoliticians use the false conflation of ‘secular’with ‘democratic’ in order to gain supportfrom democratic societies. (By the sametoken, there are devout believers who arepolitical democrats.)

• Professor Ramadan’s last point was thecentrality to this debate of the experience ofEuropean Muslims. Muslims are often

included in debates about terrorism in Europe,but excluded from debates about democracy.The discussion is influenced by the perceptionswe have—for example, of ‘Islam’ beingforeign to ‘democracy’. The speakeremphasised that there are millions of Muslimdemocrats living in European societies, butthey are rarely involved in this debate. It isalso necessary to respect and understandevolution and change within the other—forexample, the changes that are taking placeamong European Muslim communities.Change is accepted as such when we trust theother, but suspected as a strategy ofdissimulation when we do not.

The speaker then asserted that there is only oneparameter for consistent judgment between societies:what is the gap between the stated principles andactual practices of a society? This is, he felt, is moreuseful than comparing the practices or politics of onesociety with those of another; it is as useful a measurefor assessing the actions of the British government asit is for Islamist movements. For example, ProfessorRamadan once discussed Sudan with Hasan al-Turabiat a time when the latter was a senior figure in arepressive Sudanese government. Al-Turabi made acomparison with Egypt, to Sudan’s advantage—Egypthad more political prisoners, etc. But ProfessorRamadan did not accept this comparison: moreimportant was the gap between Sudan’s ownprinciples and its practice. Likewise when thegovernments of Islamic-majority countries criticiseabuses such as Abu Ghraib—this criticism is fine as faras it goes, but what about their own prisons?

Professor Ramadan did not accept the notion thatthere are many ‘Islams’, even though Islam is notmonolithic: there are common values within the beliefsand practices of Muslims. However, there are manyreadings of Islam: talking about ‘Islams’ oversimplifiesthe complex situation of diverse readings of Islamicsources, and diverse Islamic cultures, within oneover-arching Islamic frame of reference.

Political Islam, the speaker maintained, must be seenwithin this frame of reference—but with anunderstanding of its diversity. Geographically andhistorically, Islamist movements are diverse andchanging. Just as this is taken for granted when welook at political movements in the West, it must beunderstood when looking at Islamist movements—forexample, the writings of the Egyptian MuslimBrotherhood in the 1930s and 1940s cannot be takenas representing the Brotherhoods’s current views(though they are still relevant to an understanding ofthe Brotherhood’s historical development). WithinIslamist movements there is evolution, change, andre-thinking of positions in response to new


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circumstances.

Taking another example from an old discussion—thelate 19th century exchanges between al-Afghani andcAbduh—Professor Ramadan noted the differencesbeween these two influential thinkers in their responseto Western domination. The first saw change in thepower system as essential; the second saw it as moreimportant to improve education and achieve culturalresistance throughout society. Both wanted to resistdomination and colonisation through the developmentof autonomous alternatives within an Islamic frame ofreference. We often lack an understanding of thishistorical tradition of diversity and evolution. Hasanal-Banna, citing cAbduh in the 1940s, stated that the(British-style) parliamentary system was not againstIslam. He entered elections in 1941 and was criticisedby ‘Salafis’ for participating in a system imposed by thecolonisers, but responded that he had studied theconstitution and believed that while it was not fromwithin the Islamic tradition it was not against it—andcould be used in the struggle against domination. Hedid not have a binary vision of Islamic/non-Islamicsystems. But after al-Banna’s death, and Nasser’srepression of the Brotherhood, Egyptian Islamists—often imprisoned—developed such a binary vision, andrejected what they considered ‘un-Islamic’. A notableexample, Professor Ramadan said, was Sayyid Qutb: aman who was very westernised, being familiar withEnglish literature and having studied in the US. But hereturned from the US convinced that it was necessaryfor Muslims to cut themselves out from theirwesternised past (for himself, his own westernisedpast) and create a new present based on a purelyIslamic frame of reference. This was not the sameposition as Hassan al-Banna’s. But not all members ofthe Muslim Brotherhood, even imprisoned members,shared this violent rejection of Nasser, secularism, andthe West. The debate is ongoing, but within theIslamic frame of reference it is necessary for those whodisagree with this rejectionist binary vision tounderstand the circumstances (of repression) in whichit arose.

Moving from the debates of the 1950s to the present,Professor Ramadan noted that in the Islamic-majoritycountries and in the West, there are now Muslimscoming to their own reading of Islam which does notadopt this binary view. It goes beyond concepts (suchas ‘democracy’) to look at the principles on which bothsystems, ‘Western’ and ‘Muslim’, rest. For example,the principle of the rule of law is important in bothIslamic tradition and ‘democracy’. Likewise, in somesenses the Prophet’s injunctions regarding the rightsand duties of Jews in Medina can be taken asestablishing a sense of citizenship that is not basedpurely on Islamic identity. Other parallels can be foundwithin the Islamic tradition for universal suffrage,accountability, and the importance of civil society.

At the same time, there are groups in Islamic-majorityand Western countries who on the basis of their(literalist) reading of Islam utterly reject all suchattempts to show that concepts that seem to belongto the West actually have principles in common withIslamic tradition. Such groups, which claim that thereis no democracy in Islam (“Where are ‘elections’ in theQur’an?”), idealize the Medinan community, and seekto import the model without thinking about itsprinciples. Similarly, they seek to implement theshariah exactly according to the model of the 7th

century (notably the penal codes)—but the definitionof shariah is hazy, and such groups—for example,Islamists in Nigeria who have successfully fought forthe adoption of the ‘shariah’ in some regions—typically start with penal codes because they are mostvisible. Such people, a vocal minority, will reject‘democracy’ and nurture fear of the West among themajority—which is otherwise inclined towardsdemocracy.

This subject leads on to a debate, Professor Ramadansaid, whose theoretical background must beunderstood. The debate is on two different levels:

• The first is the concept of ijtihad, criticalreading of the scriptural sources when thesources are not definitive or are silent.Literalist interpretations seek to place strictlimits on this—which can otherwise be usedto promote the principles and model ofdemocracy.

• The second is the definition of shariah, acentral concept. Professor Ramadan does notagree with those who claim that anyone whomakes reference to the shariah is an ‘Islamist’,and cannot be a democrat. Many Muslimsare now promoting the principles ofdemocracy, e.g. rule of law, elections,accountability—their approach is also evolv-ing, and they too must be questionedregarding problematic issues, e.g. the role ofwomen or the position of religious minorities.(In Malaysia, considered a democracy,Professor Ramadan had observed that thestatus of religious minorities is problematic.)Muslim democrats are still struggling withsome of these issues. Likewise the penalcode, which is often not properly opened todebate. Professor Ramadan has beencriticised for not condemning outright somepunishments that are enshrined in the shariah,but he felt that condemnation from outsidethe Islamic-majority countries is the wrongapproach. It is better to promote a transpar-ent and self-critical debate within the Islamictradition.

Professor Ramadan then moved on to his second area

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of discussion. He reiterated that a ‘monolithic’understanding of Islam or democracy is mistaken. Theimplication of this is that just as democracies, whetherwestern or otherwise, have different models drawnfrom their own histories, Islamic-majority countries willcreate their own models of democracy: the principlesmay be universal but the models are historical. Themodels of democracy that arise in Islamic-majoritycountries will share basic principles with other models,but they will be Islamically-orientated and this must beaccepted by Western governments. The speakernoted that it is quite normal for people in differentdemocracies (Britain, France, America) to have a lowopinion of other democratic models—but a diversity ofmodels is an accepted reality. The speaker noted thatoutside the Arab world there are already Muslim-majority democracies, such as Senegal. He felt thatthe experiences of African countries should not beexcluded from discussions of democracy or of Islam, asthey too often are: the Islamist movement in Senegal,for example, has changed over the last fifteen yearsand has become committed to secular democracy asthe guarantor of religious rights. (Professor Ramadanalso noted, though, that democracy in Senegal may beperceived as less threatening to Western interests thandemocracy in Saudi Arabia—and that geostrategicinterests trump principles.)

Professor Ramadan also offered examples of politicaldevelopments in Middle Eastern countries. In the caseof Egypt, we may agree or disagree with the MuslimBrotherhood, but we most honestly accept that themovement is constantly evolving, is engaged ininternal debate, and is developing new thoughts. It isnot fair to taint the entire movement by referring toAyman al-Zawahiri. It is not true to say that theBrotherhood supports al-Zawahiri, and indeed hehimself has condemned the Brotherhood as‘betrayers’, supporting the Egyptian regime againstal-Qaida and dealing with the CIA.

The first person to describe ‘democracy’ as a conceptcentral to the Islamic tradition, was the TunisianIslamist Ghannouchi. In Turkey Islamism has evolvedand changed: Erdogan is not the same as Erbakan,there is an internal debate and a better understandingof democracy. Likewise, current events in Moroccomust be considered when understanding the changingdynamics of political Islam. Other examples abound ofgroups promoting democratic values from within anIslamic tradition while remaining faithful to Islamicvalues. These, the speaker felt, are the deepdynamics. Our experience within the democraticsocieties of the West must inform us in our attemptsto promote democracy elsewhere, while weacknowledge the presence of an extremist minorityopposed entirely to the West.

There is a great deal of mistrust in the West, and

superficial (mis-)understandings of Muslim politicalattitudes—but for the mainstream of Muslim societies,including Islamist groups, there is no contradictionbetween promoting democratic values being a Muslim.There are already millions of Muslims living thisexperience, stated Professor Ramadan, both in theWest and in Islamic-majority democracies. In theWest’s relationship to the Islamic world we need tounderstand this and approach democratisationconsistently: maintaining a short-termist support forstability will fail in the long run. It is impossible forWestern democratic governments to justify sideliningdemocrats coming from within a Muslim tradition inorder to preserve their own interests—this underminesdemocracy for all of us. The ideology of fear spreadby the war on terrorism exacerbates this situation.Here, as academics and citizens, we have a role inquestioning our own governments—regarding theirown behaviour and their chosen interlocutors inIslamic-majority countries (and those who they choosenot to speak to). If we do not do this we will sustain abinary world at the cost of our own democratic values.

DISCUSSION

In the discussion following this session, the followingpoints emerged:

• There is a common human tendency, whendealing with people from other communitiesor traditions, to compare the ‘best in mytradition’ with the ‘worst in yours’. At thepolitical level, this is often deliberate—it maybe destructive but it is politically useful. At apopular level it often derives from a lack ofknowledge, an over-simplification of theother. We tend to try to live with the leasteffort possible, and it requires lots of effort tostep out of our own intellectual ghetto. Aswell as its disturbing actual effects, this hasdangerous implications for our ideals. To takethe example of current events in Iraq, theassumption of different relative values ofWestern and Iraqi lives not only has the effectof permitting an unacceptably high loss ofIraqi lives: the devaluation of human life ingeneral erodes democratic principleseverywhere.

• The elections of early Islamic leaders such asAbu Bakr can provide a useful model in thatthey offer an example of principles compatiblewith democracy in the Islamic tradition.However, there is a question of interpretation:a literalist interpretation ignores the principlesat work and seeks only to reproduce preciselythe model—so whereas a democratically-minded interpretation would take from theseexamples the principle of consultation, shura,and apply it to the whole population, aliteralist interpretation would apply it only to


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Muslims, and within the Muslim communityonly to men, and within the male Muslimcommunity only to the qualified (i.e. clerics).

• There are many ways for academics toencourage people to step out of theirintellectual ghettoes, and arrest the slide intofear, ignorance, and prejudice. These includeacademic research, and the engagement ofacademics in their national and localcommunities. In a plural society moregenerally, this is a necessity, whether we like itor not. Humility and a willingness to bede-centred are necessary; and what we areexperiencing the Europe now—the evolutionof plural societies with Muslim populations—will have a great influence everywhere. In thisrespect it is important to acknowledge andpromulgate shared universal values. At thelevel of education, we must seek to eliminateprejudice, superficiality, ignorance—andwithin academia we need more people able toexpress the ‘Other’s’ point of view. (Travel is asimple but important factor too.) While thismay be difficult, it represents an attempt tofind practical responses to contemporarysociety’s challenges. It should be seen as apersonal responsibility of all individuals, notjust states or ‘the West’, to understandcomplexity: an idealistic but necessaryobjective, and one that is perhaps even harderto promote in Islamic-majority countries thanin the West.

• It is important to recognise both the politicalmanipulation of popular fears, and thelegitimacy of those fears in many cases. Theperceived threat of Islamist violence createspopular fear of Islam; in Europe, the far rightwill play on such fears and claim that currentimmigration policies are making inevitable aMuslim majority (presumed to be fanatical andviolent) in European countries. We mustrespond to such legitimate popular fears whileopposing the far right’s instrumentalisation ofthem. Likewise, the fears of Muslims thattheir identity is threatened must be takenseriously. But in both cases we must also beready to condemn those who step beyondlegal frameworks, and also recognise thatthere are limits to freedom of expression.

PANEL DISCUSSION

After the speaker presentations there was a generaldiscussion. The following points arose:

• Regarding women’s rights, it is important tonote that women’s status in contemporaryMuslim-majority countries is influenced notonly by religion but by location, region, tribe,patriarchy (amongst other things). Islam, like

other religions, is often used to legitimatecultural practices that are not in fact rooted inreligion; and the impact of culture onpsychology, over generations, cannot bechanged overnight. In the specific case ofAfghanistan since the invasion, many womencontinue to adhere to strict ‘Islamic’ dresscodes despite the fall of the Taliban; but thefact that Afghan women can now go toschool is a more important development. Inthe Arab world, low rates of female educationare common, and worrying. But in thisrespect economic development will also havean effect. It is dangerous, though, forWestern states to use the women’s issue as apretext for intervention.

• Regarding Iraq, there was a suggestion thatfrom the point of view of Western strategicinterests, the chaotic results of the attempt toimpose democracy in Iraq have removed acounterweight to Iran—harming thosestrategic interests. Iraq may not break downinto smaller parts, at least not in the shortterm; and if it does break apart it will (at leastat first) be into two entities, Kurdish andArab—not into religious entities. Externalpressure from neighbouring countries willhave an effect here. One panellist noted thedanger to the US of its building a huge andcostly embassy in Baghdad, which gives theimpression that America’s main purpose is todemonstrate its achievement of dominance inthe region.

• Turkey’s place in the debate was consideredcentral. From the European point of view it isa test case, with its long history ofengagement with the West and ademocratically-elected Islamist governmentthat—despite hiccoughs—is committed to EUmembership. (The use of the ‘politics of fear’by Europeans opposed to Turkish accessionwas also mentioned.) From the Americanpoint of view Turkey is also important, thoughthe European obsession with the countryseems strange—and worries about thecountry’s Islamic identity hard to understand,since poll data show that Turkey is the onlyMuslim-majority country where a majorityopposed implementation of the shariah. Butit was noted that Turkey often does notpresent itself as a vanguard ofdemocratisation in the Middle East or Muslimworld: it sees itself in relation to Europe andthe West, not in relation to other Muslimcountries. The question was raised of whysome Turks find it possible to imaginethemselves as Turkish and European, butmuch harder to imagine themselves asTurkish, Muslim, and European. (Nevertheless,

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some people in other Muslim countries do seeTurkey as an example to be followed.)

• The relationship between Islamic theologyand democracy was discussed, with refer-ence to Christianity—a religion whichinstitutionally resisted democracy everywhere,but whose theology of the Fall of Mantheologically justified democracy as aprofound response to the human condition.While there is no precise theological parallel,Islam’s legal tradition provides room forinterpretation within a framework of basicprinciples. It was noted that a major reasonfor the development of the shariah was toprotect the people from the tyranny of rulersand governments: in this light, it can be seenthat many Muslims want implementation ofthe shariah in order to create freedom againstautocratic and repressive governments.Different groups, however, do mean differentthings when they call for the implementationof the shariah. This is not necessarily a badthing: one panellist noted that there is a rolefor ‘constructive ambiguity’ in this area.

• On the subject of religious fundamentalismin Muslim diasporas and its relationship toIslamist movements in Muslim-majoritycountries, one speaker from the floor notedthe trade-off between human rights andsecurity, and felt that there was a possibilitythat freedom of speech in the West couldcreate space for extremism. The example wasgiven of students travelling to Westerncountries from Muslim-majority countries,becoming radicalised in the West, and thenreturning to their countries of origin with aradicalised political agenda. However,members of the panel noted that individual,personal Islamisation is far more commonthan political radicalisation. Radical groupssuch as Hizb ut-Tahrir are very small, and theidea that large numbers of students (whereverthey come from) are being radicalised towardsviolence is not true; there are also those whocome to Europe or America as students andmove away from Islam. For many Muslims inEurope (for example), Islamic principles cancreate the space for the creation of a MuslimEuropean identity: a literalist and exclusivereading of Islam is not the only possibility forthe creation of a sense of Muslim identity.One panellist noted that it is easy tooverestimate the importance of one sharedaspect of identity and ignore others, especiallywhen the exaggerated aspect is religion—butreligion is not necessarily the most importantthing. For example, a Muslim Palestinian islikely to feel closer to a Christian Palestinianthan to a Muslim Indian. We would do as

well to recognise these complexities.

SUMMATION

The conference’s closing remarks were made byBaroness Williams of Crosby, who regretted that avibrant conference on an under-explored subject wascoming to an end, and expressed the hope that thereport on the conference would be distributed to otherlearned bodies elsewhere in UK.

Baroness Williams noted that the conference began byexamining the religious basis on which we discussMuslim-Christian dialogue. This had conveyed a usefulpoint: that there is a tendency in the West to see Islamas a homogeneous force, and a failure to understandfine distinctions. This failure comes from being poorly-informed. The speaker suspected that most Britishcitizens know little about Islamic civilization and itscontribution to world culture, and hoped that schoolcurricula such as the English National Curriculumwould began to take more account of Islam and otherreligions.

Having identified the recurrent theme of the day’sdiscussions that Islam is not homogeneous andunnuanced, Baroness Williams raised the question ofhow much the issues discussed by Professor Ramadanturned on specific periods of interpretation of HolyQur’an. She had been told by Malaysian (female)Islamic scholars that in past the Qur’an was interpretedin a way much more favourable to women, and notedthat such flexibility may well be useful to us. Thespeaker also emphasised that for Western societies tounderstand Islam there must also be a dialogue amongclerics, not just politicians and social scientists.

In the context of such a dialogue, Baroness Williamsoffered a comment on the issue of the Danishcartoons. In Britain, she said, we almost forget thatfreedom of expression must be balanced by humanrespect. If we understood this we would understandwhy the cartoons trampled on other humans’ sense ofwhat is sacred. She drew a comparison with her ownexperience as a Roman Catholic, who often hearscomments about Christ that are hard to take: whileChristians may become inured to this, we shouldunderstand that others may find similar commentshard to accept.

Baroness Williams then compared simplisticunderstandings of Islam, which ignore its complexities,with the equally simplistic understanding of democracythat we have in the West. One common model fordemocracy is that of Attic Greece; but we rarely stopto think that this was the democracy of a relativelysmall minority. It excluded women (say, 50% ofpopulation) and slaves (25%). The remaining,‘democratic’ 25% has become for us a model of


15

democracy, but by excluding women, slaves, andforeigners it bypassed problems that we in pluralsocieties must face—and created a very distorted‘democracy’. Another frequently cited model fordemocracy is that of the French Revolution—whoseleaders, having asserted the droits de l’homme,ridiculed the idea of the droits de la femme. Thesepowerful but exclusive models for democracy must beregarded critically.

Moving on to another recurrent them of the day’sdiscussions, that of the West’s hypocrisy and doublestandards regarding democratisation in the MiddleEast, Baroness Williams cited a number of particularcases. The first was Iraq, where the Western publicshould be concerned not only about the war butabout the mishandling of the occupation. Theoccupation has been deeply corrupt: $18.8 billion ofIraqi money has disappeared, a sum dwarfing the oil-for-food scandal, with no systematic accounting done.This gives the lie to claims that democracy will bringgood governance, transparency, and an end tocorruption. In this light, what is surprising is that theoccupation has not bred more trouble. Meanwhile, areligious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani—whoasserts the right of clerics to exert moral influence onpolitics while denying that they should themselves holdpolitical power—has played a key role in promotingdemocracy: for example by ensuring that the newconstitution would be written not by foreign expertsbut by an elected constituent assembly of Iraqis, andthen ratified by a referendum.

Another example of Western double standards is inrelation to Iran. Regardless of our attitudes to Iran’scurrent government and its proclamations on Israel,Western governments should acknowledge that Iran issurrounded by hostile nuclear powers—not all ofwhich have signed the Nuclear Non-ProliferationTreaty. Iran has legitimate nuclear security concerns,yet the issue of whether substantial security guaran-tees should be offered in order to persuade Iran not topursue nuclear weapons has never been properlyaddressed.

Baroness Williams concluded with remarks on threeimportant areas of policy. The first was education.She noted that in some Islamic countries, of whichPakistan is an important example, the governmentfunds available for education had in the past been cutunder pressure from the World Bank and InternationalMonetary Fund). This had surely increased the roleand influence of madrasas, some of which offer agood education while others are deeplyfundamentalist. Western governments now have todeal with the problems that this has created—andaccept their own responsibility in contributing towardsthose problems.

Next, the speaker discussed the EU’s relations withTurkey, stating that for all its mistakes the EU methodof building democracy—encouraging voluntary reformwith the ‘carrot’ of EU membership—has been wildlysuccessful in extending democracy across Europe. Itcan also strengthen democracy in Turkey, a Muslimcountry, and will do so in another, albeit smaller,Muslim country when Bosnia achieves membership—which it will do long before Turkey.

Baroness Williams’s final comments were on the ‘waron terror’. After weeks of debate on the terrorism billin parliament, she fully agreed that the war on terror isgradually eroding civil liberties. Mercifully, manyproblematic laws have been blocked by the independ-ent judiciary which is at the moment upholding thefundamental rules of law—unlike the executive. Thesituation in the US is even worse, with theadministration using intimidation, wire-tapping andhome searches without warrant. The President’s ‘warpowers’ give the President unprecedented power—butthe ‘war on terror’, which Donald Rumsfeld tells uscould last 50 years or more, is a war against anunidentified enemy in unnamed territories. In order toprevent the excessive accumulation of executivepower, and the erosion of democracy in the‘democratic’ West, the war on ‘terror’ should berenamed a war on organised terrorism wherever itmay exist.

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APPENDIX ONE

PROGRAMME

09.30 Registration and Coffee

10.00 RSE WelcomeSir Michael Atiyah OM FRS PRSE HonFREng HonFMedSciPresident, the Royal Society of Edinburgh

10.05 Session 1: Scene settingProfessor Yasir Suleiman FRSEProfessor of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Director, Edinburgh Institute for the Study of theArab World and Islam, University of Edinburgh

10.15 Session 2: Existing forms of democracy in Muslim countries as seen from aseat of world powerFrances GuyHead of Engaging with the Islamic World Group, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

10.40 Question and answer session

11.15 Tea and coffee

11.45 Session 3: The challenge of democracy in the Middle EastProfessor John EspositoProfessor of Religion and International Affairs, the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA


13.00 Lunch

14.00 Session 4: The diversity of forms of both democracy and Islam and theircompatibilities and incompatibilitiesProfessor Tariq RamadanVisiting Fellow at St Anthony�s College, Oxford and Senior Research Fellow, Lokahi Foundation,London


15.15 Discussion panelInvolving all speakers

15.45 SummationBaroness Shirley Williams of Crosby

16.15 Drinks reception


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APPENDIX TWO

SPEAKERS� BIOGRAPHIES

Professor John EspositoUniversity Professor of Religion and InternationalAffairs, The Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Centre forMuslim-Christian Understanding, GeorgetownUniversity

John L. Esposito is University Professor as well asProfessor of Religion and International Affairs and ofIslamic Studies at Georgetown University. Previously,he was Loyola Professor of Middle East Studies andDirector of the Centre for International Studies at theCollege of the Holy Cross.

Founding Director of Georgetown’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding: History and InternationalAffairs in the Walsh School of Foreign Service, he hasserved as President of the Middle East StudiesAssociation of North America and of the AmericanCouncil for the Study of Islamic Societies as well as aconsultant to governments, multinationalcorporations, and the media worldwide.

Esposito is Editor-in-Chief of The Oxford Encyclopediaof the Modern Islamic World, The Oxford History ofIslam, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam and Oxford’s TheIslamic World: Past and Present. His more than 30books include: Unholy War: Terror in the Name ofIslam, What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam,The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, Turkish Islam andthe Secular State (with H. Yavuz), Islam and Politics,Islam: The Straight Path, Modernizing Islam (with F.Burgat), Islam and Democracy and Makers ofContemporary Islam (with John Voll), Political Islam:Radicalism, Revolution or Reform?, Iran at theCrossroads (with R.K.Ramazani), Islam, Gender andSocial Change (with Yvonne Haddad), and Women inMuslim Family Law.

Frances GuyHead of Engaging with the Islamic World Group,The Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Frances Guy is currently Head of the Engaging withthe Islamic World Group at the Foreign andCommonwealth Office. One of the key objectives ofthe group is to increase understanding of andengagement with Muslim countries and communitiesand to work with them to promote peaceful, political,economic and social reform.

Guy served as HM Ambassador to Yemen from 2001to 2004 and has also had diplomatic postings inEthiopia, Sudan, Thailand and France. She studiedArabic in Jordan and Syria, and International Relations

at Aberdeen University, Johns Hopkins University andCarleton University, Ottawa.

Professor Tariq RamadanVisiting Fellow at Oxford St Anthony’s Collegeand Senior Research Fellow, Lokahi Foundation

Professor Tariq Ramadan holds an MA in Philosophyand French literature and a PhD in Arabic and IslamicStudies from the University of Geneva. In Cairo, Egypthe received one-on-one intensive training in classicIslamic scholarship from Al-Azhar University scholars.

Tariq Ramadan has resigned from the post of Professorof Islamic Studies at Notre Dame University (ClassicDepartment) and Luce Professor at the Kroc Institute(Religion Conflict and Peacebuilding). He is currentlySenior Research Fellow at Lokahi Foundation andvisiting Professor at Oxford St Anthony’s College.Through his writings and lectures he has contributedsubstantially to the debate on the issues of Muslims inthe West and Islamic revival in the Muslim world. He isactive at both the academic and grassroots levels,lecturing extensively throughout the world on socialjustice and dialogue between civilizations.

Professor Yasir Suleiman FRSEProfessor of Arabic and Islamic Studies andDirector, Edinburgh Institute for the Study of theArab World and Islam, University of Edinburgh

Professor Yasir Suleiman FRSE is Professor of Arabicand Islamic Studies at Edinburgh University andDirector of the Edinburgh Institute for the Study of theArab World and Islam.

Previous positions held by Yasir include Head of thePlanning Unit of Asian and Modern EuropeanLanguages and Member of the University Court at theUniversity of Edinburgh, as well as that of Vice-President and Chair of Council at The British Society ofMiddle Eastern Studies.

Yasir’s main areas of research interest include Arabicsociolinguistics, Arabic grammatical theory andlinguistics, translation studies, Arab intellectual history,nationalism and cultural politics, teaching Arabic as aforeign language, and Arabic literature.

Baroness Shirley Williams of Crosby

Baroness Williams of Crosby was born in 1930, and for35 years was a member of the Labour Party. As ShirleyWilliams she entered journalism in the 1950s, became

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General Secretary of the Fabian Society in 1960, and in1964 was elected MP for Hitchin. She was a memberof the Wilson and Callaghan Governments in the1960s and 1970s, culminating in her period asSecretary of State for Education and Science, andPaymaster General, from 1976 to 1979. She lost herseat in the 1979 election.

By 1980 it was clear that the Labour Party was veeringinto left-wing extremism, and in 1981 BaronessWilliams co-founded the Social Democratic Party asone of the “Gang of Four”, becoming the first MPelected for the SDP in 1981 when she becamemember for Crosby. From 1982 and 1988 she wasPresident of the new party. When, after the 1987election, it became clear that the two parties shouldmerge she strongly supported the creation of whatwas to become the Liberal Democrats.

Shirley Williams lost her seat in the 1983 General

Election following boundary changes. OutsideParliament she increased her academic commitments,as Public Service Professor of Elective Politics at theJohn F Kennedy School of Government at HarvardUniversity from 1988 to 2000. She has held lecturingposts at Cambridge, and in Princeton, Berkeley andChicago in the US, and continues to lecture.Shirley Williams was married to the late ProfessorRichard Neustadt, a leading US political scientist. Previously she was married to the philosopher BernardWilliams.

She re-entered Parliament in 1993 as a peer, andchose to use her old constituency of Crosby in her title:Baroness Williams of Crosby. She served as the Party’sspokesperson on Foreign and Commonwealth Affairsin the Lords from 1998 to 2001. She waselected Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the Houseof Lords in 2001 and served in this position untilSeptember 2004.


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APPENDIX THREE

PARTICIPANT LIST

Mr Aniss AbazidStudent/ MSc by research in Politics, University ofEdinburgh

Mr Hazzaa Al-HasherHead of Islamic Dept & Head of Media, Royal Embassyof Saudi Arabia

Ms Mina Al-OraibiNewspaper Correspondent

Mr Kenneth ArthurPrincipal Teacher, Menzieshill High School

+Sir Michael Atiyah OM FRS HonFREngHonFMedSci HonFRSE PRSE

Mr Dadodjan AzimovStudent, Institute of Middle East, Central Asia andCaucasus Studies, University of St Andrews

Mr Fraser BrownStudent, Merchiston Castle School

Mr Stephen BurgeStudent

Mr Simon BurtonChevening Group, Foreign and CommonwealthOffice

Mr Andrew CampbellStudent, Merchiston Castle School

Mrs Caroline E S Carr-LockeHistorian

Mr Adam CookStudent, Merchiston Castle School

Dr T Dalyell FRSERector of Edinburgh University

Ms Elspeth DaveyChurch Relations Officer, General Synod Office

Dr Alhagi Manta DrammehLecturer, Al-Maktoum Institute

Mr Robert DunnInternational Division, Scottish Executive

Mr John EdwardHead of Office, European Parliament Office inScotland

Sir Gerald Elliot FRSE

*Professor John EspositoUniversity Professor of Religion & International Affairs,The Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University

Mr Edward FrenchStudent, Merchiston Castle School

Mr Ronald Guild

Dr Shirley GuthrieLecturer, Islamic Art

*Ms Frances GuyHead of Engaging with the Islamic World Group,Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Mr Alastair HallStudent, Merchiston Castle School

Ms Kifah HannaIslamic and Middle Eastern Studies, University ofEdinburgh

Professor R Hillenbrand FRSEProfessor of Islamic Art and Architecture, Departmentof Fine Art, University of Edinburgh

Professor C Hillenbrand FRSEProfessor of Islamic History, Department of Islamic &Middle Eastern Studies, University of Edinburgh

Right Reverend R F Holloway FRSE

Mr Mohd Rahdi IbrahimStudent

Ms Lesley IrvingTeam Leader, Race, Religion, and Refugee IntergrationTeam, Scottish Executive

Miss Aksana IsmailkekovaStudent, Edinburgh University

Mr Noorhuda IsmalStudent, St Andrews University

Mr Nassim ItaniAljazeera Television

Mr Mazhar Khan

* Denotes Speaker / ** Denotes Chairman

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Miss Souhad KhriesatPostgraduate Student, University of Edinburgh

Mr Matthew KirkwoodStudent, Merchiston Castle School

Mr Fahad KordiStudent, Merchiston Castle School

Mr Ahmed KordiStudent, Merchiston Castle School

Mr Timothy KrysiekMarshall Scholar, Director St Andrews Energy SecurityUnit, School of International Relations, University of StAndrews

+Dr M D Linklater FRSEColumnist, The Times & Scotland on Sunday

Mrs Helen MacleanDental Surgeon

Mr Robin MacphersonTeacher, Merchiston Castle School

Dr Gabriele MarranciLecturer in the Anthropolgy of Islam, School of Divinty,Religious Studies, & Philosophy, College of Arts &Social Sciences, University of Aberdeen

Mr Barry MarstonHead of Department, Islamic Media Team, Foreign andCommonwealth Office

Ms Shirvani MatharuForeign and Commonwealth Office

Mr Sergei MikhailenkoStudent, Merchiston Castle School

Mr Christian MiltonStudent, Merchiston Castle School

Mr Andrew PinerPolitical Analyst, Gulf Centre for Strategic Studies

Mr Ian PowellStudent, Merchiston Castle School

Miss Parvina RaichimovaScholar, International Relations, St Andrews University

*Professor Tariq RamadanSenior Research Fellow, Visiting Fellow at Oxford StAnthony’s College, Lokahi Foundation

Dr Kamran RastegarLecturer in Arabic and Persian, Islamic and MiddleEastern Studies, University of Edinburgh

Rev Donald ReidConvener, Committee for Relations with People ofOther Faiths, Scottish Episcopal Church

Professor J S Richardson FRSEEmeritus Professor of Classics, Department of Classics,University of Edinburgh

Mr Colin RogersonPrincipal Teacher (Religious Studies), Balerno HighSchool

Mr Calum RussellStudent, Merchiston Castle School

Mr George RussellStudent, Merchiston Castle School

Mr Tony SalvatoriMedia, British Satellite News

Mr Kamuran SamarMedia Correspondent, Cihan News Agency

Mr Andrew SarleEducation Officer, CAIRS (Church Agency for InterfaithRelations Scotland, University of Edinburgh

Ms Jennifer Scarce

Mr Andreas SculzeStudent, Merchiston Castle School

Mr Robin SilkTeacher, Merchiston Castle School

*Professor Y Suleiman FRSEProfessor of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Director,Edinburgh Institute for the Study of the Arab Worldand Islam, University of Edinburgh

Ms Mokhira SuyarkulovaPostgraduate Student, International Relations,University of St Andrews

Miss Tala SweissStudent (OSI/Chevening/University of EdinburghScholar), University of Edinburgh/ British CouncilScotland

Mr Michael SwinburnStudent, Merchiston Castle School



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Mr Graeme ThomasHead of UK Outreach Public Diplomacy Group, Foreignand Commonwealth Office

Mrs Aziza UmarovaPostgraduate student, University of St Andrews

Rev Dr James WalkerChaplain, University of St Andrews

Mr Philip WernerStudent, Merchiston Castle School

Mr Benjamin WhiteTeaching Fellow (Modern Middle Eastern History),Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies,University of Edinburgh

Mr Bruce WhiteheadMedia, British Satellite News

*Baroness Shirley Williams of Crosby

Mr Ian YeomanScenario Planning Research Manager, VisitScotland

Mr Andrew YoungStudent, Merchiston Castle School


5 May 2006

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The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is an educational charity, registered in Scotland.Independent and non-party-political, we are working to provide public benefit throughoutScotland and by means of a growing international programme. The RSE has a peer-elected,multidisciplinary Fellowship of 1400 men and women who are experts within their fields.

The RSE was created in 1783 by Royal Charter for “the advancement of learning and usefulknowledge”. We seek to provide public benefit in today’s Scotland by:

• Organising lectures, debates and conferences on topical issues of lasting importance,many of which are free and open to all

• Conducting independent inquiries on matters of national and international importance

• Providing educational activities for primary and secondary school students throughoutScotland

• Distributing over £1.7 million to top researchers and entrepreneurs working in Scotland

• Showcasing the best of Scotland’s research and development capabilities to the rest ofthe World

• Facilitating two-way international exchange to enhance Scotland’s internationalcollaboration in research and enterprise

• Emphasising the value of educational effort and achievement by encouraging,recognising and rewarding it with scholarships, financial and other support, prizesand medals

• Providing expert information on Scientific issues to MSPs & Researchers through theScottish Parliament Science Information Service

This report reflects opinions expressed by participants in a specific event. It does not, however,necessarily represent the views of the RSE Council, nor the Society’s Fellowship.

Islam and Democracy: 5 May 2006

© The Royal Society of Edinburgh: July 2006

ISBN: 0 902198 94 7

www.royalsoced.org.uk

Theoyal ocietyR S

of Edinburgh

Report of a Conferenceorganised by

The Royal Society of Edinburgh

Friday 5 May 2006

Islam and Democracy

islam and democracy - royal society of edinburgh · of islam and democracy: noting that, especially...

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