THE CENTER FOR ISLAM, DEMOCRACY AND THE FUTURE OF THE MUSLIM WORLD,in conjunction with
THE LEFRAK FORUM/SYMPOSIUM ON SCIENCE, REASON AND MODERN DEMOCRACY,
cordially invites you to a major three-day conference entitled:
"Beyond Radical Islam?"
Session 3: Islam and Modernity
Many Muslims, radicals and moderates alike, understand secular modern life as a form of ignorance and disavowal of God. This view contributes to the anti-modernist ideology of radical Islam and to the political and economic poverty that exists throughout the Muslim world. What are the sources of this view? Does Islam need to undergo a "Reformation" or "Enlightenment" similar to that experienced by Christianity in the West? Is this a helpful way to conceptualize the present conflict between Islam and modernity and to encourage the future growth of liberal Islam?
THIS SESSION IS CHAIRED BY:
Marc Plattner
Mr. Plattner is the editor of Journal of Democracy.PAPER IS PROVIDED BY:
Abdou Filali-Ansary
Director of the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations at Aga Khan University in London, he served from 1984 to 2001 as the founding director of the King Abdul-Aziz Foundation for Islamic Studies and Human Sciences in Casablanca, Morocco, having previously taught modern philosophy in the Faculty of Letters in Rabat. Professor Filali-Ansary has contributed widely to academic discourses on democratization and civil society in the Middle East and in 1993, co-founded the bilingual Arabic and French journal Prologues: revue maghrébine du livre. His work includes a translation into French of Ali Abderraziq's landmark book, Islam and the Foundations of Political Power, and an essay titled "Is Islam Hostile to Secularism?". He serves on the advisory boards of numerous academic and cultural institutions, and on the editorial board of Journal of Democracy.RESPONSES ARE PROVIDED BY:
Asma Afsaruddin
An associate professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Notre Dame her fields of specialization are the religious and political thought of Islam, Qur'an and hadith studies, and the intellectual history of Islam. Professor Afsaruddin is the author of Excellence and Precedence: Medieval Islamic Discourse on Legitimate Leadership and editor of Hermeneutics and Honor: Negotiating Female "Public" Space in Islamic/ate Societies. She was recently a visiting scholar at the Centre of Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and is currently serving on the board of directors of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (Washington, DC) and on the advisory board of Karamah, a women's and human rights organization (Washington DC).Francis Fukuyama
The dean of faculty and the Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University, he has previously taught at George Mason University, was a scholar at the RAND Corporation, and served on the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. Professor Fukuyama has written widely on democratization and international political economy. He is the author of many books and articles including The End of History and the Last Man and Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity.A PDF version of the transcript is available here.
Support for this conference has been provided by James Madison College and the Center for European and Russian Studies at Michigan State University.
