By Ayesha Ahmad, IOL Washington correspondent

WASHINGTON, October 15 (IslamOnline) - Education, both in Muslim countries and for non-Muslims in the West, is a key factor in the reformation of Islamic thinking, a panel of scholars said here over the weekend.

“An average American university has more books than probably the vast majority of Muslim countries [books] put together,” said Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun chair of Islamic Studies at American University.

Speaking at a fundraising dinner held by the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID), entitled, “Does Islam need a reformation?” Ahmed and three other scholars outlined some of the problems in Muslim societies that compel reformative thinking.

Ahmed called attention to the “condition of education” in Muslim countries, saying that the current situation failed to live up to the Islamic standard set during the better periods of Islamic civilization.

Of all the aid money pumped into the Muslim world from other countries, he said, “the emphasis [of the aid] should be on education.”

Dr. Abdulaziz Sachedina, a religious studies professor at the University of Virginia, saw the need for “education of our religion in a new way,” because the minds of thinkers in Muslim countries are closed to new thinking.

“We’re talking about the authority of the texts,” he said, referring to the abuse of holy texts like the Qur’an and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). “When the minds become closed, then the texts become closed. When the minds become open, then the texts become open.”

Sachedina spoke about a recent trip to Iran, in which he noted that the youth - who make up more than half the population - seem indifferent to the religion, while “the religious establishment has lost its credibility with the educated public whom it can convince.”

Using the example of his experience in Iran, he said that the main need for reformation lay in the fact that the Muslim community “does not want to hear the language of moderation… of responsibility and accountability… The constant effort in our community is to obstruct the mind to think.”

Panelist Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, talked about reform within Islam from the perspective of the reformation of other religions, including his own: Christianity.

He explained that the need for government and societal reform was not exclusive to Muslim countries, as some anti-Islam activists try to say, but that reform within the Muslim world would have to come from within the religion and its holy books.

“It’s up to every single religion to go back to its roots,” he said.

Another panelist, Dr. Judith Kipper, co-director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, stressed the need for Muslims to “stand up and be accountable,” and to inform others about their faith.

“There is no clash of civilizations, as far as I’m concerned,” she said, “but there is a massive, massive clash of misunderstanding.”

Kipper said that there was a need for Muslims to be accountable for the problems within their community. It is difficult to say “that there is nothing intrinsically negative for Americans in Islam,” she said. “How can I explain that there are so few voices standing up for a moderate, modern interpretation of Islam?”

Americans discovered Islam with the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, she said, and without help from Muslims, they will continue to see Islam as it is portrayed in more extreme positions.

“The question of educating others about who you are is extremely important,” she said.