World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies

Barcelona, July 19th - 24th 2010

· NOT_DEFINED date: FRI 23, 11.30 am-1.30 pm

· NOT_DEFINED institution: Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies, US Naval Academy (USA)

· NOT_DEFINED organizer: Brannon Wheeler

· NOT_DEFINED language: English

· NOT_DEFINED description:
Examining examples from the Indian Ocean (including the Gulf), and South/Central Asia, this panel examines how Muslims have (and have not) conceptualized and practiced an open and encompassing “pluralistic” notion of civilization. The included papers take multi-disciplinary approaches drawing upon history, religious studies, anthropology, and political science. The scholarship is represented by two scholars from the Middle East (Oman and Israel), two from south Asia (Kashmir), a US specialist in Southeast Asian Islam, and a US specialist in Quran and Islamic law.

Chair: Brannon Wheeler, US Naval Academy

Paper presenter: Abdulrahman al-Salimi, Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs, Sultanate of Oman, Pluralism in Modern Islamic Thought
Rather than focusing on past history, this paper examines he issue of national pluralism in the Arab world, as the living methods and adaptation of the national unity in many parts of the Arab world has dramatically changed following the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war. The current civil clashes in Iraq raise a question on to what extent the people in this country are capable of adapting and living peacefully in a multi-society nation of different religious and ethnic groups.
These clashes bring us back to the memories of the civil war of Lebanon which lasted for more than 10 years, the Sudanese religious war between the North and the South of the country and lastly Algerian civil war.