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“Ladies
and gentlemen, the Common Room is now closed.” The daily
announcement from the porter at Christ Church College was able to put
only a temporary halt to the conversations among participants at the
Oxford Muntada (3 – 30 August 2003), a collaborative project between
the Oxford
Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) and the British
Council. The inaugural Muntada (the word is Arabic for forum)
brought together twenty-five Muslims from all over the world for a
month of dialogue in Oxford. During the meeting, it was often after
midnight when people finally walked back to their rooms past the warm
stone walls of Christ Church College, still talking.
The
participants in this innovative program came from a range of
countries: from Kosovo to Kenya, Bahrain to Britain, and Malaysia to
Morocco. The Muntada formed part of the British Council’s Connecting
Futures program, which creates forums through which the next
generation of leaders in the UK and other countries can engage with
one another on important issues facing their communities.
In
format, the Muntada combined seminars by distinguished professors,
researchers, activists, and NGO officers, with extensive time for
questions and discussions by participants. In addition, the program
included visits to the Foreign Office and the Regent’s Park Central
Mosque in London, attendance at a panel discussion with leading
journalists, and special viewings of the Islamic art holdings in the
British and Victoria and Albert Museums.
Between
the Seminars
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The
participants in this innovative program came from a range of
countries
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Perhaps
the most important aspect of the Muntada, however, which did not
appear in its schedule, was the free time between seminars. Over the
month, the Muntada initiated deep friendships among the participants.
For most, this was “the first time to have such contact with Muslims
from all parts of the world,” as Xjabir Hamiti from Kosovo observed.
Even the full schedule of formal sessions at the Muntada could not
accommodate the resulting interest. Participants established other
“common rooms” to continue their interaction. Almahdi Alonto of
the Philippines was not surprised. “There is so much for Muslims to
learn about other Muslims in the world,” he said.
What
might Muslims learn about one another in such a setting?
Professor
James Piscatori, whose seminars on political movements in the Muslim
world were extremely well-received, felt that the seminars would
enable a new kind of exchange. He envisioned that “the Muntada would
offer people the opportunity to meet in a setting removed from their
own, hopefully an open, honest, not combative space, which would allow
them push the agenda forward, to think through the larger issues,
without being defensive.”
The
larger questions visited often during the Muntada include the question
of identity, the nature of modernity, the definition of good
governance, the impact of globalization, the future of Islamic
education, and media images of Muslim societies, et cetera.
Relations
between Muslims and the West were a central focus of the Muntada, and
according to Dr. Hassan Abedin of the OCIS, one of its aims was to
bring together Muslims from the West and the Islamic world. This focus
was both very complex and also very successfully achieved in the
program.
Yasmeen
Daifallah of Egypt found “the most stimulating and novel dimension I
have encountered in this Muntada is my encounter with Western Muslims.
It countered the stereotype I had. To come here to find that these
people have struck the balance of being part of the whole and yet
retaining their own identity and belief system has been the most
profound part of the Muntada.”
Muhamed
Al-Nurry, who is from the United Arab Emirates, found the status of
British Muslims to be particularly encouraging. “They can be an
example for Muslims around the world, even those in the Islamic
countries, because of the freedoms and the privileges of democracy in
Britain.”
Xjabir
Hamiti added that Islam in Europe has a centuries-long history, and
that the Muntada’s focus on Muslims in Britain could usefully be
related to Muslim life in other Western countries.
Another
of the larger questions is the issue of diversity among Muslims. From
the perspective of the OCIS, Dr. Abedin observed, “The desire was to
have as much diversity amongst participants as possible. We wanted
representatives from every Muslim country.” He explained that the
value of such diversity was “to provide exposure to future Muslim
leaders to debates, issues, successes, challenges that we all faced
regardless of ethnicity or culture.”
As
Mohammed Haider Ali of Bangladesh stated, “The main issue is
sharing. The problems will always be there, but there is no particular
solution. The method is always changing.”
To
address such evolving problems presents a challenge to Muslim leaders,
according to Abeer Khraisha of Jordan. It means that “we need
the scholars to be more open, more liberal, more creative,” she
asserted.
Dynamic
Diversity
Diversity
also has another dimension. One question raised often in the course of
the Muntada was the nature of the Ummah (community of Muslims) and the
implications of numerous views on Islam in the Muslim world.
In
a contemporary world which is often fearful of or hostile to Islam,
how do Muslims respond to a diversity of views and perspectives among
themselves? Is diversity to be accepted and even welcomed, or seen as
a source of fragmentation and weakness?
“At
times the differences among Muslim communities are a blessing, but it
can become a point of conflict rather than diversity,” was the view
of Abeer Khraisha.
On
the other hand, the relation of difference to unity raises questions
about dialogue itself. Professor Piscatori noted, “Multi-vocality
within Islam is a fact. The question is, do we allow the validity of
multi-vocality?”
Syahrul
Hidayat of Indonesia, too, addressed this theme of many perspectives.
He believes that “the important point of the Muntada is that we
Muslims can learn that we are different from one another. What we have
to learn is that Islam is not monolithic. There are lots of
interpretations, four interpretations of fiqh, for example. We
are different, but we can make relations, cooperation and action from
that starting point.”
A
view strongly articulated by representatives from Southeast Asia
continued to engage with the theme of dominant perceptions of Islam.
‘‘I think the issue of how to see Muslim identity or culture is
very important. People think that Muslim identity is an Arab identity.
But is it?” Rahmawati Hussein of Indonesia asked. In effect, the
diversity of origins, perspectives and cultures among the participants
provided a corrective to the notion that “discussion of Islam means
discussion only about the Middle East,” she continued.
Muslims
and Other Faiths
Another
important theme that arose in discussions is the relation of Muslims
to other faiths and to secularism. In countries like South Africa,
Muslims are a small minority who live alongside people of other faiths
within a largely secular public space, and through mobilization,
careful engagement and negotiation with the state, have moved toward
the recognition of Shari`ah in personal law. The experience of
Muslim-majority states in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia and
Indonesia, is also significant, since they have substantial non-Muslim
minorities.
Syahrul
Hidayat believes that the way in which Indonesians have dealt with
this reality is instructive to Muslims in other parts of the world.
“The characteristic of my country is pluralism. Muslim life in
Indonesia is tolerance. They can tolerate other values.”
Hadeel
Treiki of Libya also addressed the issue of the boundaries of
religious identities. She voiced a concern that to define Muslim
identity as having closed boundaries between the self and the other
runs the danger of being impervious to true exchange and dialogue.
Ibnu
Anshori is certain that such exchange is necessary. “For Muslims
around the world to create communication with the non-Muslim world is
very important.” Offering a different vision of Muslim identity, he
believes that “being Muslim is a process. This means you should
appreciate other people.”
Syahrul
Hidayat outlines a similarly expansive approach, and concludes that in
this way Muslims can contribute valuable perspectives to others, as
well as receive them.
Talal
Malik, who is from Britain, reflected on the promise of further
interaction between Muslims in the West and elsewhere in the Muslim
world. “I believe an intellectual revival in Islam is likely to
emerge from an interaction between Muslim academics in the West and
those in more traditional Muslim societies.”
On
the personal level, the depth of friendships among participants is
striking. Yet, as Syahrul Hidayat pointed out, “If in the future we
only make conversations in email, that is not enough.” At the
intellectual and academic levels, for each of the participants the
seminars have spurred interest in new topics. These have generated
potential collaboration on research projects, for example, on Shari`ah
in various contemporary contexts, on notions of sexuality in Islam, on
ethnography, about madrasahs, and on the varied experiences of both
minority and majority Muslim populations.
At
the final session on Friday, 29 August, delegates thanked the British
Council and the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies for the opportunity
to attend this imaginative and sophisticated program. Many plan
individual and collaborative initiatives to carry forward the momentum
established during the month they spent at Oxford. The alumni from the
inaugural Oxford Muntada will continue their interactions across
distance and time-zones. In doing so, they will create new common
rooms across the world.
**Gabeba
Baderoon , South African Journalist
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