Islam and the West: Muslim Voices of Dialogue
| Author | John L. Esposito,John O. Voll |
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/03058298000290031301 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
© Millennium: Journal of Int ernational Studies, 2000. ISSN 0305-8298 . Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 613-639
613
Islam and the West: Muslim Voices of
Dialogue
John L. Esposito and John O. Voll
Throughou t the Muslim wo rld, Islamically o riented intellect uals have transformed
Muslim pol itical discourse in ways that are highly vi sible in both domesti c politics
and in international relations. Islamic activist intellect uals are prominent in
determining policies and the ways they are expressed and conceptualised in the
Muslim world at the b eginning o f the twenty-first century . Anwar Ibrahim, the
former Islamic student activist, became d eputy prime ministe r of Malaysia, and
although he is no w in jail, he continues to be a vital politica l and intell ectual force
in the coun try. The preside nt of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mohammad Khatami,
is a scho lar-politician wh ose polic ies reflect the re-articulation o f the ideals and
goals of the Islamic Re volution in Iran th at he and other intellectuals like Abdel
Karim Soroush have undert aken in recent years. Abdurra hman Wahid, the
intellectu al lead er of one of the largest Islamic o rganisations in the world, is
president of Indonesia. The thought and political careers of t hese thre e Islamic
activist intel lectuals illustrate the transformatio ns in Islamic visio ns of internat ional
politics.
Activist religio us intellectuals througho ut the world have helped to t ransform the
dynamics of inte rnational relations as well as the nat ure of politics within their own
societies. As intellectuals, t hey are creating the ne w concepts and vocab ulary in
which polic ies and programs are arti culated.
This paper argues that Muslim activist intellectuals like Anwar, Khatami, and
Wahid were especially significant in the final decades of the twentiet h century in
creating new percept ions of gl obal interaction s. In partic ular, reacting against the
Jihadists view of the world, they have been especially important i n definin g the
terms of in ter-civilisational dialogue from an Islamic persp ective. In differing
ways, their idea s and ca reers reflect the major dynamics of both the clash of
civilisations and inter-civilisational dialogue.
Like other ideologically committed intellectuals throughout the world, thinkers
in explicitly Islamic organisa tions and move ments do n ot p resent a mo nolithic
vision of the world. T here is much disagreement and debate and th e li nes of
argument parallel the lines of intellectual conflict elsewhere. However, even in
their disagree ments, they provide an emerging Islami c d iscourse (not a single
This article is based on ou r longer study, Makers of Contemporary Islam (New York : Oxford University
Press, forthcoming).
Millennium
614
ideolog y) that sets to redefine the internation al ro le and posi tion of Muslim
communities.
In policy deb ates and in the disagreements over i nterpretation of policies, two
significant perspectives for v iewing internationa l relations have emerge d. One can
be defined as the ‘conflic t vision’ of global relations and the other is the more
complex vision o f ‘dialogue’. The most widely kn own expression s of these
perspective s, especiall y as they relate t o the place of the world of Islam in the
internatio nal system, are portrayed i n the debates over wh at Samuel Hunting ton
has called ‘t he clash of civilisatio ns’ and what his cri tics have termed ‘the dial ogue
of civilisations’. Among Isla mic intell ectuals in the seco nd half of t he twenti eth
century, advocates of both ‘clash’ and ‘dialog ue’ visions have strong and high ly
visible voices. Their de bates wit hin the M uslim world are part of the broader
dynamic of t he significant role of religion and religio us faith in defining the nature
of internati onal relations in the co ntemporary world.
Political Isla m and Internationa l Relations
One of t he major global dev elopments of the late t wentieth century was t he
‘resurgence of religi on’, a major and highl y visibl e pa rt o f the phenomen a of
civilisatio nal clash and dialogue. These deve lopments run counter to a vital part of
what had been the a ccepted visio n of the processe s of modernisation: t he theory
that d escribed secularisa tion—that is, the perso nalisation of religion a nd the
separation of ‘religi ous’ ac tivity from the secular/political public arena— as an
inherent and inevitable part of the proc ess of modernisa tion. The secularisat ion
hypothesi s had important i mplications for understand ing the system of intersta te
relations that emerged by t he middl e of the seventeenth century. The T reaty of
Westphalia (1648) ‘is generally recognized as the beginning of the modern system
of nation -states’1 and this Westphalian syste m was seen by many schola rs a s
representing ‘the termination of th e significance of “t he sacred” in world history’.2
The reco gnition by pro minent scho lars like Peter Berger, who was a key figure in
articulatin g secularisati on theory, tha t ‘a whole body of literature by histori ans and
social scientists loosely labelled “secularizat ion theo ry” is essentially mistaken’
has profound implications for understanding contemporary international relations.3
This ‘desecularisation’ becomes an important dimension of the intellectual and
historical context in which the
1. James N. Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory o f Change an d Continuity (P rinceton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1 990), 10.
2. Roland Ro bertson, ‘The Sacred and th e World System’, in Th e Sacred in a Secular Age, ed. Phillip
E. Hammond (Berkeley, CA: Uni versity of California Press, 1985), 349-50.
3. Peter L. Berger, ‘The Desecularization o f the World: A Glo bal Overview’, in Th e Desecularization
of the Wo rld: Resurgent Religion an d World Politics, ed. Peter L. Berger (Washing ton, DC: Ethics and
Public Policy Center, 199 9), 2.
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