COVER STORY

“A defective education strategy was a major factor in the spread of the “takfir” ideology among young Muslim men and women”, say scholars who spoke at a seminar on the phenomenon, in Madinah recently. Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Interior Prince Naif, opened the three-day conference on the “Phenomenon of Takfir” (the practice of branding those who do not agree with one’s beliefs as infidels).
More than 150 scholars from Muslim countries discussed the causes and consequences of “takfir” and its remedies at the event organised by the Prince Naif International Prize for the Sunnah of the Prophet and Contemporary Islamic Studies. Ahmad Hassan Al-Qawasima and Abdul Shafi Ali of Egypt said they found in a study that most students believed that unscientific education was the cause of “takfir” tendencies among youth. The two researchers surveyed more than 300 students at King Faisal University for the study. While many students attributed the spread of the “takfir” ideology to teachers, others blamed the school environment and the curriculum for breeding the mindset.
King Abdullah said in his inaugural speech read out by Prince Naif that Muslims never resorted to violence or extremism to spread the message of Islam. “Anyone who does not believe in moderation is burning himself with the instruments of extremism,” the King warned. Algerian scholar El-Arabi Al-Farhati said in his paper that all religions basically divided mankind as either believers or infidels since the early times. Saudi woman researcher, Afaf Mukhtar attributed the phenomenon to the wrong interpretation of Islamic texts. Moroccan academic Ahmad Bou Oud traced the origin of the phenomenon to the “Age of Ignorance” prior to Prophet Muhammad(Pbuh). Insaf Al-Maymouni of Jordan stressed the role the media can play to protect the growing generation from the menace of “takfir”.

Scholars from across the United States will be gathering at Indiana University (IU) Bloomington in the last week of September 2011, to share the latest policy-relevant research and to advance discussion of research methods to study the affairs of Muslim minorities in the West.
The conference, “Muslims in the United States and Europe: “Islamophobia, Integration, Attitudes and Rights,” is to be held at the University Club of the Indiana Memorial Union. One of the presenters at the free event will be Justin Gest, a Harvard College Fellow in the Department of Government at Harvard University and author of the book, Apart: Alienated and Engaged Muslims in the West. The book looks at why some young Muslim men become radicalized, while others become apathetic when faced with barriers to integration.
Other presenters will include scholars from the University of California-Berkeley, Grand Valley State University, Middlebury College, Reed College, Rutgers University and City University of New York. They will examine the differences between how Muslims have succeeded in integrating themselves into American society as compared to across Europe.
“American Muslims, on an average, are very successful and well integrated into American society, but they face a glass ceiling in politics and have become the target of hateful rhetoric by politicians,” said Abdul Khader Sinno, IU associate professor of political science and Middle Eastern studies, and the conference organiser. “While Muslim politicians get elected more frequently and are more visible in Europe, European societies are becoming Islamophobic. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as attempts by al-Qaeda to attack targets in the West have galvanized anti-Muslim feelings,” he said.
The conference is sponsored by West European Studies, the Center for the Study of the Middle East, the Office of Women’s Affairs and the departments of political science and Near East languages and cultures in IU’s College of Arts and Sciences.