By Nishad Karulkar and Evan Kilmer
It is an understatement that the relationship between the West and the Muslim World over the past 20 years since 9/11 can be described as tense. The United States has been involved in two direct wars with Muslim majority nations since 2001 and Islamophobic sentiments have grown strong roots.
On top of this, Islam, its practices, and history remain misunderstood in many sections of the American and other Western societies. Islam is currently the world’s second-largest religion with 1.91 billion adherents, comprising 24.9% of the world’s population. Many experts say continued isolation of Muslims by the Western World, particularly by the United States, would be an unwise decision and only contribute to further hostility from a significant portion of the world.
In Ambassador Akbar Ahmed’s “World of Islam” class at American University, School of International Service, students are taught about the history and ideals of Islam, the importance of intercultural communication between the Western and Islamic Worlds, and how these relate to the current world and global political climate. It is a popular course and this term it was full beyond capacity. In Ambassador Ahmed’s course, students are encouraged to embrace the Socratic method, taking a different approach to analyzing history and events through active collaboration and cross-cultural dialogue.
The Socratic method encourages a dialogue based on facts between the teacher and the pupil which helps clarify intellectual issues and assists learning.
Through his own lectures and hosting several guest speakers with knowledge and backgrounds in various core issues affecting Muslims, students of the course are offered a diverse and extensive perspective on Islam. These perspectives help us understand the challenges that the Western world and the Muslim-majority nations face currently. On the afternoon of September 17th, we were happy to welcome the first honorable speaker for the Fall 2021 Semester, Mr. Mowahid Shah.
Mowahid Shah is a Pakistani-American attorney at law, a member of the D.C. Bar, the Lahore High Court Bar, and the U.S. Supreme Court Bar, author, as well as a former policy analyst and counsel to Senator James Abourezk and the Prime Minister of Pakistan. The topics of interest for both Mr. Shah and the class ranged from popular discourse on the recent American withdrawal from Afghanistan to the western exclusivity of Islam in international politics. As the first speaker of our semester, Mr. Shah’s lecture excellently built on the objectives of our class in promoting intercultural and religious dialogue concerning Americans’ common misinterpretations and fears of Islam.
Setting the stage during an America that is well-into the War On Terror, Mr. Shah presented the class with the four distinct critical flashpoints for modern Western-Islamic tensions. First, he discussed the persisting issue of the West’s post-war failure to effectively designate a homeland for the Palestinian people.
As the second flashpoint, the prominent lawyer and former policy analyst raised the polarizing issue of Kashmir in South Asia, a region that has been disputed between the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and predominantly Hindu India since the British failed to effectively settle it during Partition. The region was initially assigned to the last ruling Maharaja of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 to pick which new South Asian country Kashmir would cede to, as the princely state’s ruler was Hindu but his subjects largely Muslim. Since then, multiple wars have been fought over the valley, not to mention the countless border skirmishes that continue to plague the line of control. Today such border disputes only reinstigate fears of the very real threat of nuclear war.
The third underlying cause for Western-Islamic tension that Mr. Shah emphasized was the Muslim world’s repeated (at times legitimate) speculation of American and Western backing of corrupt elites and leaders within the Islamic World. And it does not help that Islamic caution of Western-backed leaders has proved entirely valid at times, as evidenced by the American coup that instated corrupt authoritarian leaders like Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1953 Iran or even more recently in Afghanistan’s own Ashraf Ghani.
The final and most critical flashpoint argued by Mr. Shah is the status of representation for the Islamic world, specifically Muslim majority nation-states in Western-dominated international institutions. The first international organization where this is evident is the United Nations. Currently, no Islamic nation constitutes one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, even though Islam makes up just under one-fourth of the world’s population.
As scholars learning about this strained history between the West and Muslim world, we examine these issues through the lenses of a post-9/11 America. An America, where even two decades later, many continue to categorize the nearly two billion practitioners of Islam to be at war with the fundamental freedoms of the United States.
The promotion of perspectives from intellectuals like Mowahid Shah who grow up in and understand the Muslim world is imperative in fighting the propagated ignorance of the past. These dilemmas are oriented in critical geopolitical conflicts including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and India-Pakistan’s Kashmir dispute, whereas the lack of progress can be partly attributed to the deficient political representation in international governing bodies.
The Muslim World among many of the non-western powers has developed distrust for the West for its historical meddling and various subjugations during the colonial period. With the U.S. perspective on combating militancy since the 9/11 terror attacks and emerging geopolitical issues well-known to many of us, Mr. Shah’s opening talk in the course set a high standard and we were off to a great start and learning experience.
About authors:
Nishad Karulkar is a 19-year-old sophomore pursuing a major in International Studies at American University studying at the School of International Service. His goal is to attend law school but his current research interests are focused on the effects of colonialism, specifically in South Asia, and what the path to peace is between India and Pakistan.
Evan Kilmer is a 20-year-old Junior at American University with a major in International Studies in the School of International Service. His focus in school is on Foreign Policy and National Security with a regional focus on Europe and the Middle East. In the future, he hopes to work as a foreign policymaker or member of the intelligence community. This is the second course he has taken with Ambassador Ahmed.
Editor’s Note: Thoughts expressed by contributors in the op-ed section are entirely their own and do not necessarily represent the editorial policy of Views and News.
