Islam and Society in the Twenty-First Century

The Twenty-Ninth Annual Conference of the Association of Muslim SocialScientists took place October 13-15 at Georgetown University inWashington, DC. The event was titled Islam and Society in the Twenty-First Century and was cosponsored by John Esposito’s Center for MuslimChristian Understanding.Most members of this organization, old and new, considered this AMSSconference among the most successful for several reasons. It scored the bestattendance record in years and the presence of a new generation of bothmale and female Muslim academics. Participants commented positively onthe high quality of papers. The quality and quantity of the presenters andaudience members confirmed that the presence of Muslims in western academicinstitutions is growing.The conference was an international collection of Muslim and non-Muslim scholars with eighty academic papers and over ninety participantspresenting throughout the three-day event in panel sessions and roundtables.Running parellel to the academic session were community issues panels thatdrew in those who were interested in policy-related matters pertinent to theMuslim community. The academic participants of the conference reflectedupon topics that ranged from conceptual and theoretical issues to area andstrategic studies. Some of the themes explored were gender, global warming,globalization, Islamic law, Muslims in the West, cross-cultural communication,family and society, political theory, economics, Islamic philosophyand strategic studies panels on Pakistan and Afghanistan.The conference featured two plenary sessions that provided seminalscholars an opportunity to reflect upon issues facing Muslims in the newmillennium. Islam, Pluralism, and Democracy, moderated by KamalHassan (Rector of the International Islamic University of Malaysia), featuredMurad Hofmann, Abdel-Karim Soroush (Director of Institute ofEpistemological Research, Tehran), John Voll (Georgetown Univeristy),and Mumtaz Ahmad (President of AMSS). The session encouraged academicscholars to have a reflective rather than apologetic approach regardingIslam and to deflect questions from haw Islam is compatible withdemocracy to what type of democracy is compatible with Islam ...