December 13, 2013

The Muslim Public Affairs Council’s 13^th annual convention is this Saturday, Dec. 14 at the Long Beach Convention Center. This year we will celebrate “25 Years on the Road Less Traveled.” In keeping with MPAC’s tradition is to explore themes and tackle issues that impact the American Muslim community by bringing together leading policy-makers, academicians, faith and thought leaders and artists. The conversations will be nothing short of dynamic.

In addition to exploring arts and identity, innovation and the future of Islam, the final panel of the day, “Is There a Future for Political Islam?” will analyze contemporary Islamic political movements within fledgling democracies.

Though many contemporary Islamic movements have launched and erupted across Muslim-majority countries, most of them have struggled to attain political authority in their local regions. In the past, military dictatorships and oppressive social and political conditions have been the obstacles in their attempt to rule. However, what is their future?

Our nation’s leading experts -- Dr. John Esposito, professor of religion and international affairs and Islamic studies at Georgetown University; Dr. Hamid Mavani, author of “Religious Authority and Political Thought in Twelve Shi’ism: From Ali to Post-Khomeni”; and Haroon Moghul, a New America Foundation fellow and Ph.D. candidate in Columbia University’s Department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies -- will analyze and provide a critique of these movements vis a vis their momentum, orientations and aspirations. In addition they will determine if their outlooks fall within the Islamic guiding principles of governance such as the social contract with the governed, justice, mercy and human dignity.

The establishment of Islamic political movements requires them to be given agency and a chance for their reality to be critiqued, understood and developed. Their policies should be criticized, the diversity of the issues they work on should be challenged and they should be treated with the understanding of their nuanced differences – not all Islamic political movements are the same and they should be evaluated like any other political movement around the world. 

Moreover, the classical juristic rule has been to maintain a wall of separation between the religious scholars (ulema) from the state, and that line has been blurred, if not eliminated, in most Muslim-majority countries. In fact, in Tunisia, the leading Islamic figure, Rachid Ghannouchi, stepped down from authority to prevent further clashes with both secular groups on the one side and religious extremists on the other.

Is there a vision for reconciling Islamic religious authority with secular rule, or is that region destined for the theo-democratic model we see with contemporary Islamic movements? This Dec. 14, we will engage in these conversations and more; to be part of the dialogue, please visit, 25 Years on the Road Less Traveled.