Panel Finds Few Answers in Discussion of Islam

A forum at the Institute of Politics last night discussed the broad spectrum of Islam and its links to politics, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The ARCO Forum was packed for the discussion featuring several Harvard experts and one author.

The event aimed to help Americans understand that “Islam has no place for violent attacks like the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center,” said Laila El-Haddad, the graduate student advisor to the Harvard Islamic Society.

The forum featured Karen Armstrong, author of various works on Islam; Ali Asani, Professor of Indo-Muslim Languages and Culture; William Graham, Albertson Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Professor of the History of Religion; and Roy Mottahedeh, Gurney Professor of History and Chair of the Committee on Islamic Studies.

The speakers expressed their personal understanding of Islam and politics, beginning their talks by scrutinizing the forum’s title, “The Role of Islam in Muslim Politics.” During his speech, Asani said that it is difficult to talk about Islam and politics in general because there is tremendous diversity within the religion.

“It is intellectually uncouth to think that every [Islamic] country thinks and acts the same way,” he said.

Asani specifically discussed the political instability caused by Islam in Pakistan, the first nation-state created in the name of religion.

Armstrong focused her segment on the word “fundamentalist.”

“Not all fundamentalists are extremist or violent,” she said, adding that the word has been used frequently and incorrectly following the Sept. 11 incident.

Armstrong explained fundamentalism as “a religious reaction against secular modernity” that uses fear to control its adherents. She said that extremists like Osama bin Laden skew Islamic history and give it a violent past to justify their terrorist activities.

She added that attempting to suppress fundamentalism is counterproductive, as it confirms the fundamentalists’ fears that they are being attacked by modern society.

“We must be alert in our so-called war against fundamentalism to gain absolutely accurate information,” she said.

In his turn, Graham criticized the term “Muslim politics” as it shows the Western view that in the Islamic world there is no distinction between religion and politics.

Graham said that in reality many religious leaders oppose to the state, and in return political leaders only pay lip service to them. “Most fundamentalist groups are focused less on political revolution, but on seeing social change,” he said.

Mottahedeh said that the events of Sept. 11 arose out concerns felt most strongly in the Arab world.

He discussed how the Arab world is full of diverse religious views, because religious authority is diffused in Islam. The recent terrorist attack, he said, was one made on the moral responsibility of individual opinions—not by a collective Arab voice.

In the question-and-answer session that followed the speakers, moderator Richard Parker, a lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, got a laugh when he asked the speakers to discuss “oil and Israel, the two words that haven’t come up.”

Armstrong called Israel the Muslims’ symbolic problem, comparing it to abortion and evolution in the U.S.

Asani said that the importance of oil to foreign policy in the Middle East causes the U.S. to prop up corrupt regimes, such as that in Saudi Arabia. Mottahedeh added that oil makes Arabs think that the whole Arabian peninsula, and not just Mecca, is sacred.

Graham said that the retaliatory strikes in Afghanistan will not help the U.S. work out a peace agreement in the long term. But he commended the U.S. government for refraining from attacking for a few weeks.

Asani said that the bombings raise many ethical and moral questions in Muslim countries, because the attacks put Afghan civilians in danger.

The forum ended without a definitive conclusion on what the U.S. should be doing.

“The forum didn’t answer what U.S. policy should be, but I guess it’s a start,” said audience member Rene Shen ’05.