In the last few years, Islam, Islamism and political Islam have become new brands of academic and policy interests in western countries. Well-funded government think tanks in Europe and the US are drawing upon academics as well as representatives from their local Muslim communities in an attempt to dissect, distinguish and sanitize the politics from Islam. Presumably this is a means of dealing with global faith-based violence. It's a useful political tactic for western governments to appear to be 'doing something' other than fearing, arresting or bombing suspect terrorists. It also helps them avoid accusations of being Islamophobic. However, the process of research and offering courses on the subject is an exercise that is sometimes interesting, other times amusing and often disturbing.
In the United Kingdom for example, nearly every university is offering (very expensive) courses that analyse Islam as a practice, or organising conferences that attempt to 'frame' Muslims as political communities in and outside of the Muslim world. They are also funding several doctorates in this regard. As scholarship goes, this is a valuable exercise as some of this research attempts to debunk myths and challenge orientalist interpretations of existing literature on Islam and Muslims. However, in their wake, these projects are problematic when they begin to get articulated into policy and become applicable to those of us who actually live in the Muslim world.
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8:21 PM
Moderate Islamist here
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