Reconstruction of Islamic Religious Education to Encountering Terrorism and Islamic Radicalism

Ideological Basis for Islamic Radicalism and Implications for Deradicalization

The flavor du jour in discussions of Islamic terrorism features a de-emphasis on the ideological component, drawing instead upon epidemiological and criminological concepts; approaching Mexican drug gangs and Islamic extremists as being more similar than they are different. This aids a network scrutiny and suggests buy-out rather than ideological deradicalization. Such new abandonments of the i...

Antecedents of Islamic Political Radicalism Among Muslim Communities in Europe

R ecent years have witnessed a rapid proliferation of radical Islamist activity in western Europe, from MI5’s claim in 2006 of 30 incipient “terror plots” and 1,600 individuals under surveillance, to actual terrorist atrocities in European cities, the most infamous and deadly of which included the transport network bombings in Madrid in 2003 and in London in 2005. Concomitantly, both the media ...

Islamic Education in Bangladesh

Mumtaz Ahmad is professor in Hampton University’s Department of Political Science. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ “Fundamentalism Project,” Dr. Ahmad has been a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Fellow of the American Institute of Pakistan Studies and the International Institute of Islamic Thought, a Fulbright Professor in Bangladesh and Pakistan, and a Vis...

An Islamic Perspective in Managing Religious Diversity

This paper examines the concept of “diversity” as mentioned in the Qur’an and how commonalities in diverse religions may be used as a model for civilizational dialogue towards achieving harmony. This study reveals that religious and cultural diversity are laws of nature which cannot be changed while the concept of “identity” is a contested issue in modern discourse. Results also show that peace...

Toward a Post-Orientalist Approach to Islamic Religious Studies