Notes

1. Born in Córdoba in Spain, he is known in the West as Averroes.

2. He was born in Córdoba, but his family fled Spain in 1148.

4. A term popularized by the Iranian writer and former member of the Tudeh (Communist) Party, Jalal-e-Ahmad, to refer to the negative impact of Western influence. Some translate the term gharbazdegi as “Westruckness.”

5. Malise Ruthven is a former writer and editor with the BBC’s External Services who has lectured and taught at the University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom, and the University of California, San Diego, United States, on the subject of religion as well as the Middle East. He has written for The Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian, among other publications. His Islam in the World (new ed. 2000) lucidly explained the foundations of Islam and the challenges that modern Muslims face. A Satanic Affair: Salman Rushdie and the Wrath of Islam (1990) placed the controversy over Rushdie’s book in the context of an emerging British Islam. His most recent work, A Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on America (2002), questions the Clash of Civilizations thesis but suggests that a radicalized Islam—encouraged by Saudi largesse—has the potential to lead to tension between Muslim and Western societies.

6. Mohamed Sid-Ahmed is a political analyst for Al-Ahram newspaper in Egypt. Originally a Marxist, then a Nasserist, he has, for several decades, applied lucid analysis to such problems as the Arab-Israeli conflict, inter-Arab relations, and Islamic radicalism. He is the author of After the Guns Fall Silent (1976) and other works on the Palestinian question. He argues that Islamic extremism can be explained, but not justified, by the economic, social, and political frustrations of Muslims today.

7. Karl E. Meyer is editor of the World Policy Journal, United States, and author of the forthcoming The Dust of Empire, about Central Asia, its neighbors, and the West. From 1979 to 1998, Meyer was on the editorial board of The New York Times, and before that a foreign correspondent and editorial writer for The Washington Post. His nine previous books include Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and The Race for Empire in Asia, written with his wife, Shareen Blair Brysac. Meyer has been a visiting professor at Princeton, Yale, the Fletcher School at Tufts, and Bard College; he has also been a visiting fellow at Oxford University and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin.

8. Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, United Kingdom, is the first vice chairperson of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security, and Defence Policy of the European Parliament. She has been a Euro MP since 1999, and was previously a member of the British Parliament. She was elected as a Conservative MP in 1987 and became deputy chair of the Conservative Party, but moved in 1995 to the Liberal Democrats. Baroness Nicholson has served numerous voluntary and charitable organizations and been at the forefront of assisting refugees, particularly children, from the marshlands of Southern Iraq. She founded the AMAR Appeal, which has undertaken significant medical and social works in Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon. She is the cofounder of the AMAR-UNESCO Standing Conference, which promotes the cause of better understanding between Europe and the Muslim world.

9. Omayma Abdel-Latif is senior staff writer for Al-Ahram Weekly, the Egyptian newspaper. She is a graduate of the School of Mass Communications of the University of Cairo, and has served as political correspondent for the newspaper. She was seconded to the Detroit News for a short period, and was a Fellow in the Reuters Foundation Programme at Oxford University in 2002. She has covered the Islamic movement in Egypt and elsewhere with an empathetic, yet balanced, approach.

10. Mohamed Talbi of Tunisia, a significant figure in modern Islamic thought, has written on scriptural interpretation, religious epistemology, and dialogue across religious traditions. His ’Iyal Allah [Families of God] (1992) and Ummat al-wasat [Community of Moderation] (1996) present a modernist view that argues that the basic texts of Islam, while containing axiomatic truths, can only be fully understood through their historical contexts. A recent collection of his thoughts, Penseur libre en Islam (2002), makes clear that, although he does not see democracy as an inevitable model, there is nothing in Islamic core principles that precludes it.

11. Religious officials who are “learned” in Islamic law and the religious sciences.

12. “Ancestor” or “predecessor,” used to refer to the virtuous early Muslim community.

13. Haji Mahfuz Haji Omar is head of the youth wing of Partai Islam Semalaysia (PAS), the main opposition party in Malaysia, and comes from the non-’ulama section of the party. PAS calls for the establishment of an Islamic state and the implementation of the shari’ah. He became active in 1979 and came to national prominence in 1998 at the time of the sacking of Anwar Ibrahim, the deputy prime minister. He is a member of Parliament for Pokok Sena (Kedah State), and is also president of ASEAN Islamic Youth Secretariat, which is a coalition of Muslim youth associations and political groups.

14. James Phillips is Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think tank. He is a veteran foreign policy specialist who has written extensively on Middle Eastern affairs since 1978. His prime research interests are Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, international terrorism, and Persian Gulf security issues. Phillips is a former research fellow at the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress and a former joint doctoral research fellow at the East-West Center.

15. Hoda Badran, Egypt, is chair of the Alliance for Arab Women, a nongovernmental organization that was founded in 1987 to improve the position of women in Arab and Muslim society. She is professor of Social Research and Community Participation at the University of Helwan, and is an advisor to the Global Fund for Women. In addition to her NGO work, she has worked on human rights issues within the United Nations system. She has been chairperson of the International Commission on the Rights of the Child, and has energetically advocated the rights of women and children and worked to counter domestic violence.

16. Richard W. Bulliet is professor of history and formerly director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University. With Reeva S. Simon and Philip Mattar, he is editor of The Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East (1996). A scholar of medieval Islam, his Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in Medieval Islamic Social History (1972), The Camel and the Wheel (1975), and Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History (1979) have become standard texts in the field. He has also written on the dilemmas and prospects of modern Islam, examining the possibilities of democratization and theological renewal. His Islam: The View from the Edge (1994) outlines the social, cultural, and political transformations that make today one of the most creative, though uncertain, periods in Islam’s long history.

17. Abdesselam Cheddadi is professor of history at the University of Rabat. As the author of Ibn Khaldun Revisité (1999) and Le Voyage d’Occident et d’Orient (1980), he is the foremost translator and interpreter of Ibn Khaldun, the great fourteenth-century historian of Muslim societies. He is also the translator into French of Marshall Hodgson’s Venture of Islam. Through his appreciation for the forces of historical continuities and change, he has written on the role of education and of ethics in the politics of modern Muslim societies.

18. Hassan Hanafi, professor of philosophy at the University of Cairo, has produced comprehensive interpretations of religion and philosophy. Trained at the Sorbonne but also versed in the classical traditions of Islam, he has written on what he refers to as al-turath wa al-tajdid (heritage and renewal). Once a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, he was also the editor of the short-lived journal, al-Yasar al-Islami [The Islamic Left]. His work includes: Qadaya mu’asirah [Contemporary Issues] (1982–83), Dirasat islamiyyah [Islamic Studies] (1982), and the multi-volume al-Din wa al-thawrah fi misr, 1952–1981 [Religion and Revolution in Egypt, 1952–1981] (1988). Looking at religion from a global perspective, he argues that Western influences should not be overstated, nor should Islam’s ability to liberate individuals from poverty, authoritarianism, and alienation be underappreciated.

20. Based on the word for “religious community” or “people,” this was a system of internal governance of the Ottoman Empire that allowed for communal autonomy.

21. An Islamic reform movement among Russian intellectuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its name derives from usul al-jadid, “new foundations.”

22. The report was adopted at the closing session of the Dialogues conference on October 31, at which not all of the participants were present.