“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  

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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