Ghanem Jawad(*)

Introduction
This paper discusses the subject of ‘Liberal Islam’ through two issues which we believe serve as a basic portal to rapprochement, and these are ‘Islam and the West’, and ‘Islam in the West’. We will go into some detail on the second issue, represented in the Islamic Movement in the West, and we will try to indicate the first briefly by raising questions in the hopes of attuning it for future detailed discussion. It is the issue of the relationship between Islam and the West and the resulting modernization of the concepts, ideas, perceptions, and community relations between the entities in each society, in addition to the character of the international relations and social, cultural, economic and political growth that we encounter from the West.

The issue of ‘Islam in the West’ is connected to the presence of Muslim communities and their movement towards incorporation into the structure of western communities, i.e. that Muslims living in the West adopt the values of democracy and pluralism and the right to difference and peaceful co-existence and all that strengthens the values of communal living. These values have begun to be discussed in Western circles at the present time as a result of the increase in the numbers of Muslims and the increased illegal immigration to European countries from the states of the Islamic world, as well as the increase in acts of violence and armed attacks that are carried out by members of the Muslim community.

In return, the Muslim communities have their priorities and problems, which are represented in the escalation of religious and racial discrimination and the flaring-up of religious intolerance, which cause more social marginalization and isolation for Muslims. In addition, there are the stances which those Muslims believe the West has taken towards the Islamic World, that sometimes descend into the overbearing and unjust use of military might, the strategy of political and economic pressure on the ruling regime, and the combating of Islamic political movements.

The study tries to reveal first and foremost the possibility of deriving points of liberal rapprochement by means of interpreting foundational concepts and principles in Islam. Is it possible to find some of the values of liberalism in the foundational religious texts that can be used to draw proximities between them and between Islam? How much has the extent of the relationship between liberal Islam and political liberalism, and the capacity for crystallizing the liberal Islamic trend been discussed? Do the Islamic peoples have traditions and experience that can be used as reference points? Lately questions have been asked about the ability and perseverance of the Liberal Islam trend to maintain the fine balance between liberalism and religion. Is it possible to impose a firm intellectual framework on the theoretical Liberal Islamic formula using the connotations and expressions proposed by the Islamic centralist or moderate or revivalist trend which convey a sort of liberal interaction with Islam in many Islamic states? Do the many ideas and interpretations from modern Islamic intellectuals such as Muhammad Saleem al-Awa, Ahmad Kamal Abu al-Majd, Tariq al-Beshri in Egypt, Dr Muhammad Shahrur in Syria, the scholars Muhammad Hasan al-Amin and Hani Fahas in Lebanon, Shaikh Muhsin Kadiyur, Dr 'Abdul Karim Sarush, Mustafa Malikian in Iran, the Liberal Islam coordination trend in Indonesia, revivalist groups in Malaysia, the progressive Islamists in Tunisia (Professor Salah ad-Din al-Jurishi's group), Saâdeddine El Othmani, President of the Justice and Development Party in Morocco, as well as other Islamic and Reformist bodies in the Islamic world – do they clarify Liberal Islam in one way or another? Or is Liberal Islamic theory clarified through active practice as attempted by the former Iranian reformist President Sayyid Khatemi?

The Beginnings of the European Islamic Formation
One of the characteristics of nations in their phase of civilisational ascent is that they open up to other nations through cultural exchange and contact, and thereby the civilization interacts with and cross-pollinates the values and concepts of another, generating civilisational movement amongst activists. New values and concepts appear, causing other values to fall away in the process. This is what happened to the Islamic civilization in its interaction with Indian, Persian, Greek, Roman and Pharaonic civilizations, and this interaction resulted in a distinct Islamic civilization. We present this historical example to show the possibility for civilisational interaction between the Islamic world and the western world, noting that one of the props for this interaction is the presence of Muslim communities in the West.

The presence of Muslims communities in the West stirs up many issues that are connected to assimilation in Western society. If these communities isolate themselves in private enclaves then they become closed communities, increasing their estrangement from the society under whose auspices they live and increasing their lack of knowledge of the Other. Additionally they give a distorted impression of Islam and of Muslims. Communities that adhere to this model give us a society that is ruptured and lost between two identities and two cultures; the Muslim individual experiences the negative dimensions of both without being enriched by the quality of pluralism. This is a dangerous phenomenon which must be confronted and defeated. It has been established by societal experience that intermixing and engagement, even within simple borders, creates a common understanding and horizons that engender respected values reflecting the general conditions in one form or another. Intermixing disperses from Islam the notion amongst Westerners of fear, mistrust and terror, and causes them to deal with Muslims in real life everyday situations. It is possible that many young Muslims who have been brought up in a Western environment as citizens may have felt the tangible plus points of integration in general.

The calls spread by those who support secluding Islam and Muslims are a result of their inability to co-exist with other religions and cultures, and these ideas have started to be propagated amongst Conservative trends in the West. These calls, whether delivered by those who thought them up or by those who adopt them, do not withstand criticism or historical experience which prove them false when we find coexistence and solidarity within Western communities where minorities from different minorities of the world are found as well as laws and systems for managing difference in peaceful and ethical ways. Therefore all of these ideological and extremist calls have met with failure.

On the contrary, the settling of millions of Muslims in the West has directly affected their new societies; mosques have become commonplace and the sound of the call to prayer is normal. Muslims are to be found within neighborhoods and streets offering the best of Arab/Islamic cuisine, and Arab-style cafes present Arab products to Western customers are widespread. Muslim girls wearing the veil have become more common, as have Islamic and Arabic associations, schools and centres. These phenomena have increased the Arab-Islamic cultural sphere in television programs and newspapers. These changes are social facts and they are also considered a development alongside the increase of Islamic investments and interests in different economic fields.

Many members of Western society have not easily accepted this situation, and calls have been advanced to prevent the influx of immigrants and to stop the encroachment of their cultures, and to preserve the purity of Western customs and their traditions. The view of Islam and Muslims in West started to take two different levels, the first hostile, and the second accepting. There are many instances which express this contrast, and for example we encounter them directly in the media.

However, what is certain is that reciprocal cultural relations between civilizations in their essence and the maximizing of those relations is the responsibility of all parties involved, and this does not exclude Muslims themselves. They must prepare their specific roles, and interact with the societies of which they are part by means of assimilation in those human groupings. The presence of Muslims communities in the West has produced two different trends of social and cultural movement:

The first trend is negative. It is represented in the minority of Muslims who manifest themselves in extremist fanatical fundamentalist organizations with tendencies towards bloody and revengeful protest against the West (such as the bombings in Paris, Madrid and London), as a reaction against Western policies towards Arabs and Muslims as seen by those organizations. They rally around some of the partial learning of the religious and Sharia sciences from a humble religious school, with a restrictive Salafi vision, and at the same time, most of the hardliner proponents of scholarship in the West are unfamiliar with the Arabic language and even with the language of the Western state in which they live, and they do not possess the particular characteristics of the societies in which they have lived. So they issue misguided fatwas to their followers which regard as lawful acts which are blatantly prohibited in religion, encouraging the killing of innocents and criminal bombings of public facilities. Moreover they produce fatwas that allow the theft of the money of those countries which have accommodated them, fed them when they were hungry and given them safety when they were afraid. They seize all that they can by theft, forgery or trickery, or any other means. This destructive mentality stains the image of Islam, and harms the Muslims communities, giving them a reputation as groups who do not respect values or morals, and do not recognize contracts or charters. Those turbaned propagandists are the masters of ignorance, to whom the correct hadith applies: 'they issue fatwas without knowledge; they are misled and they mislead.'

These groups cite their adherence to Islam but they do not possess a political theory to identify the features of their perspectives, nor do they have a political programme which strives to carry it out. They commit violent acts, aiming to bring chaos in the burning furnace of civil unrest.  Their culture emanates from a backward and inflexible view of the religious text. These groups have exploited some of the benefits of the Western system which are absent in our region, such as the right to political sanctuary based on a respect for human rights, and offering financial grants as a form of life support for immigrants as well as offering semi-free accommodation and receiving medical, legal, educational, training and vocational services without charge, enabling the refugee to become qualified for work. Some of them enter freely into work or political activities in order to undertake their actions which contravene the simplest of Islamic principles.

The Second Trend is in concert with western values as a result of the social interaction between Islam and the West. The proponents of this trend have found many Western values which have their counterparts in Islam. The ideological, philosophical and value dimensions of a large number of these values find overlaps in our Islamic civilization which are recognized to have been brought about by overlaps or an accumulation of human knowledge, which paved the way for what is known as 'Liberal Islam'. This provokes discussion and debate within religious circles, even though it is based on faith in the tenets of Islam which are clearly and rationally characterized (the precepts and sub-branches of the religion as observed by Muslims). These include faith in God the Almighty, the Prophesy of al-Mustafa (the Chosen One), and the practices of worship associated with the Muslim. This does not mean that interaction with non-Muslims leads to concessions that encroach on the substance of the religion to give in to the prevailing custom or sweeping tend. One of the priorities of Liberal Islam is the confirmation of and commitment to moral responsibility in the path of working with others whoever they may be: commitment to genuineness in transactions, precision in promises, and respect for human life irrespective of the individual's belief or pagan origins or politics. This is in substance what differs from norms amongst Muslims in the East, in addition to the collection of jurisprudential rulings related to the issues of daily life and personal circumstances derived from their Western situation, stimulating the 'understanding of the minorities or the guidance of the émigré'.

The prevailing climate in Europe has pushed Muslims over many years to incline towards reconciling themselves with its values. Europe today is no longer a colonizer and it is not the Europe of the Crusader Wars, nor is it of the Europe of the nineteenth century, in search of markets in which to sell its products and values and seize the resources of the people. It is not the Europe of the two World Wars or the Cold War in the twentieth century… the Europe of today is sympathetic towards Arab and Islamic issues and this has been clarified by the increased support for the Palestinian issue and protection for Muslims in Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in the support and financial aid extended through the Euro-Mediterranean agreement. It is a Europe of pluralism in terms of the diversity of the composition of its people and the richness of its culture. The European Muslim has come to terms with, interacted and dealt with the achievements of Western civilization, at the forefront of which is democracy on the political plane, the free economy and human rights from the civic perspective, and the rule of law and civil liberties on the social level. These include freedom of believe and freedom to practice religious rites. Muslims have found aspects in these concepts that are supported in Islam with the presence of exceptions in one or two countries, and European Islam has launched itself from this grounding in participating without an inferiority complex in building the new Europe.

For the most part, this change can be explained in the positive activity of Muslims in the West resulting from integration in and interaction with their host societies, and their starting point from Islamic concepts in working with others. In their capacity as native citizens, as in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania and a number of other European states, or as those who have gained the citizenship of the country in which they have settled, they contribute in building the country in which they live. They have had an active role in the patronage of the issues of their countries of origin at the same time because they can see issues more objectively and because they have gained experience and organisational powers, and they have left the politics of non-interest and indifference because they have been liberated from the closed nature that cocooned them previously within Muslim-pagan minorities. They have shed that seclusion by taking the initiative in establishing a clear leadership to represent them and they have striven to interact with sectors of Western society. They have taken their positions in spheres of public life skilfully, and they have revealed the need to organised themselves through the composition of institutions and leagues that talk in their name, because the official and local authorities and media deal with institutions and centres, and they do not deal with individuals. They want to know who are the ones authorized to speak in the name of Muslims in European countries in order to cut off the ignorant and obtrusive individuals and to isolate them from Muslim society.

However, Muslims in the West still face many problems of assimilation that have not yet been settled, such as citizenship and gaining Western nationality, working in government agencies, the army and police, reviewing non-Islamic civil courts, and membership in political parties to achieve the interest of the émigré community. One of the subjects that has not yet been settled and which provokes a broad debate amongst Muslims is whether the participation in Western political life is legitimate, and equally, another is whether voting for non-Muslim candidate or supporting or joining non-Islamic parties is legitimate, and another still is whether paying taxes to governments whose foreign politics are not supportive of many of the issues of the Islamic world is legitimate. All of these issues need religious direction and the invention of new jurisprudential regulations which Muslims where not familiar with in the motherland.

One of the important accomplishments made by Muslims in Europe is the emergence of the European Council for legal opinions and research, which identified its mission as working towards the ‘unity of fatwas’ in European countries as much as possible by means of consensus and communal research and collective Ijtihad [judgement] – which today has become a religious duty and necessity in the lives of Muslims - in conformity with was said in the introduction of the book ‘Decrees and Fatwas of the European Council for Legal Opinions’, the first and second collections. The Council has thus become a religious reference point for the majority of Muslims in Europe, relying on the required precepts in issuing fatwas, according to the following text from the same source: ‘It is the purpose of this Council to be ‘an authentic religious authority’ for the local authorities in every country, and this fortifies the position of Islamic communities and strengthens their support. Our jurisprudents – May they have God’s Mercy – have resolved that the fatwa changes in accordance with time and place, and the greatest aspect of the changing of place is the divergence of the Dar al-Islam from other empires. Consequently the treatise of this Council is to facilitate and not to make more difficult its fatwas for them, and to be inclusive not alienating in its call, and to maintain the people in the framework of religion, even if at the base line of Islam. The Imam Sofyan al-Thawri, (God be with him) said: ‘wisdom  [or Islamic jurisprudence] is licensed by confidence, but extremism is something that everyone is capable of'.

The task of the Western Muslim is to adapt to the society that nurtures him, whilst retaining his affiliation to Islam as a set of religion, civilisation, history and religious identity, and participating in building the modern Europe. This was the experience of thousands of Turks who took part in building Germany, in addition to millions of Muslims from the Arab Maghreb in France who even participated in the resistance against Nazism, let alone British Muslims from the peninsula of the Indian sub-continent and Arab countries who took part in building Britain, and the hundreds of Muslims who have worked in teaching positions even at collegiate levels, including those have been promoted to jobs in many of the ministries and governmental and local departments and have become representatives in the parliaments of their European countries. There is nothing strange about this because we are the children of a civilisation that participated in human development and moved to Europe through al-Andalus. It suffices to look at the widespread of the Arab numerals' system in the West to prove this.

Discussion is now ongoing over ‘Liberal or European Islam’ in Western circles and Muslims in the West as a fundamental component of the identity of millions of Muslims living in Western countries. The term has become common currency in response to the particularities of the Western democratic secular state and in particular its respect for minorities, its guarantee of the rights of religious and racial groups, its preservation of their distinctive features and requirement of internal security for Western society as a necessity for the continuity of positive communication with Muslims (and other immigrants). The West needs them to participate in enriching its local culture and to continuously provide new customs and values. Liberal Islam is distinguished by the fact that it has leapt above the Islamic doctrinal affiliations and struggles and it steers clear of restricting its interest to trivial matters with a narrow geographical dimension, because its first concern is to take on the communal challenges that face all Muslims in the West and not searching for solutions to the problems and difficulties in Muslim countries, even if this comes under its sphere of interest.

Liberal Islam is a concept that is intrinsically considered one of Islam's expressions of its renewal, resulting from the intellectual works in the legislative tenets of the religion, at the forefront of which are the Holy Quran and the Prophetic Sunna, with the aim of revealing the ideas and opinions it contains and the visions in conformity with the requirements of the situation in which the individual lives. The individual is in a state of constant renewal, and renewal is a necessary attribute of the Islamic religion as it is conceived by a group intellectuals and Ulama and researchers who rely on what is recounted in the Prophetic hadith 'God sends to this nation at the beginning of every hundred years one who renews the religion of the nation'. Renewal does not mean the addition of another legislative authority, or a modernisation that changes the texts of the Quran, rather the understanding of the Quran and the Sunna is methodological, penetrative, extensive and interpretative, within the recognised rules in the precepts of Islamic research, by means of intellectual efforts into both of them, and the formation of new relations between their terms by means of which it is possible to reveal, and moreover to generate more concepts and treatments. This means looking into the Holy Quran, and the result of this investigation of the Quran and the Sunna is what we term today as 'Islamic thought' as the fruit of interaction between the Muslims' rationality and the regulations of the ageless religion, which means that it is human thought which is non-sacrosanct and open to discussion and criticism.

Liberal Islam encompasses and coexists with the concepts of Western civilisation, in a spirit of greater tolerance, free from the 'Western-phobia' that our people in the Islamic East harbour, fearful of the Western domination, whereas European Islam inclines forcefully towards rationalism and towards focussing on constructing shared worldwide values between all of mankind, such as the right to life, justice, equality, freedom, democracy and sacred lifestyle. Liberal Islam works in a more civilised way with women and their issues, since Muslim women are active in the West more than in the Islamic East and work in all fields, and it has entered into political life and participation in decision-making through Muslims' membership in the different political parties, the political denominations and trends competing in general and local elections in an attempt to support the affairs of the Muslim. Liberal Islam considers that the coexistence of religions and cultures in a climate of tolerance and social security which increases adherence to bilateral, religious and social ties, and it does not attempt to Islamise Europe and change it from the 'Dar al-Ahd wa al-Dawa' [the land where the call to Islam is propagated] to the 'Dar al-Islam' [land of Islam itself]. Rather it interacts with the mechanisms of integration and assimilation with the Western society.

In the process of its interaction with Western society it relies on multiple religious premises. These include:

1)      The principle of the worldwide nature of Islam and its discourse directed          towards all of mankind, not limited to one place or one people, for as the    Holy verse says: 'We have sent you to all of the people to bring glad tidings and to warn' [verse 28, Chapter Saba].

2)      The earth is inherited by the worthy servants of God wherever they are found: 'We have already stated in the Zabur (Psalms) after (stating it in) the Reminder (the Torah) that My worthy servants shall inherit the earth’. [Surat al-Anbiya: 105]. God the Almighty guaranteed Muslims master on the earth, and how can mastery occur without assimilation, study and the acquisition of experience?

3)      The holy verse is clear in its evidence that Muslims are given authority on earth and it is a complete field in which Islam manoeuvres: ' God promised that those amongst you who have faith and work good deeds will inherit the earth, just as those before them inherited the earth and He will empower them in their religion which He has approved for the, and that He will surely reaplace their fear with security. They will worship Me (alone) and no other god…' [Surat an-Nur:  55].

4)      Mankind is God's creation and it is all one family wherever it settles. All of mankind are the dependents of God and the closest to Him is the one who is best to His dependents, without the stipulation of any other conditions to being close to God, as it is said in the hadith: 'Men are the dependents of God and the closest to Him is the one who is best to His dependents'.

5)      The entire earth without restriction is a place of prayer and purification, as it is said in the Prophetic Hadith: 'the earth has been made a place of prayer and of purification for me'.

6)      Acting justly and cooperating: ‘help one another in righteousness and in warding off evil’, [Surat al-Ma’ida: 2] in doing good and defending what is best: ‘Repel [evil] with that which is best, and lo, the person between whom and you thee is enmity will behave as if he were your warm-hearted friend’. [Fussilat: 34]. Debating judiciously and preaching what is best: ‘Debate with them with that which is best’ [Surat al-Nahl: 125], and acting with piety and fairness in the relation of Muslims with non-Muslims.

7)      Making things easy and not difficult in relations with non-Muslims.

8)      Making good use of international legislation such as human rights and other contracts that give rights and freedoms to the individual on the basis of his humanity, irrespective of his religion.

9)      Making good use of the Western political secular regime that necessitates neutrality towards the doctrines and cultures of the citizens and treats them all with a spirit of equality.

10)    The famous Prophetic Hadith in the call to Ijtihad [independent judgement] in worldly affairs in general: ‘You know best about the matters of your world’.

11)    Representing the Islamic values put forward in the counselling of the Prophet in his final speech calling for the principles of justice, equality, honour and freedom in Western countries that permit a climate in which the rights of the citizens of different religions and races can be enjoyed.

All of these premises form the grounding for Muslims to put forward their views on Islam in their new homelands.

Day after day this term becomes enrooted, and as Eastern Islam is characterized by emotiveness, mysticism and reliance on the text either for interpretation or as a source of inflexibility, Western Islam is inclining towards greater rationalism. There have been two different readings since the first century of Islam – the Sunni and the Shi’a or Sufi reading, and if we wanted to monitor the movement of Islam in the various Islamic states in the world, then we would find regional classifications, such as Malaysian Islam which has been able to build a progressive state, and the other conservative and extremist Islam such as is found in Saudi or Yemen. On the other hand, Islam in Turkey has been able to intermix democracy and secularism in the form of the ruling Justice and Growth Party at the present time, and it certainly contrasts with the Iranian Islam which relies in its ruling on the authority of the jurisprudents derived from a perspective of the ‘Wilayat al-Faqih’ [rule of the jurisprudent] which grants the just jurisprudent the authority of the supreme president of the state, in addition to further classifications with geographical qualities. Western Islam, which emanated from Muslims working with the reality of Western life and its advanced materialist and civic civilization. These readings of Islam speak of a movement of vibrant interaction between the Islamic religion and the peoples with local characteristics, cultures and languages with which it has settled. It has affected their customs, values and civilization, and the peoples have understood religion in a realistic sense which has sprung up in accordance with their customs, traditions and folklore and has affected the applications of Islam as well. The best example of this is the hijab [veil] of the Muslim woman which differs in every country or the general understanding of religion and its message which differs amongst every people with the observation of the bases of the faith of the religion.

Those for whom the term [Liberal Islam] is popular currency believe that there is a European Islam which is the faith and religion of millions of Muslims who have lived for many centuries in Europe. It is first and foremost their original homeland and source of their culture. Secondly, the geographical proximity of Muslim countries has facilitated it in intermixing and interacting the values and languages in such as way that they find a realistic embodiment of many Islamic principles and values. Thirdly, the increased immigration of millions of Muslims to Europe in what some know as ‘the silent occupation’ has altered the mould of social and political relations as well as daily life interaction to the extent that Arab cuisine and certain customs and Muslim traditions in the form of European life. Fourthly, Liberal Islam has affected the politics of colonialist states and their pertaining culture. Fifthly, the economic relations arising after the colonial phase have caused greater coherence and even more settlement after the national state failed in achieving its project.

The term 'European Islam' solves the problem of identity for the Muslim, in keeping with the prevalent situation in Europe, and the Muslim is liberated of his 'Who Are We?' complex, creating a self-assured personality whose fidelity to the country in which he lives is deepened. At the same time he works to support the issues of his original homeland without accusation or distrust, working from a basis of a realm of conscience that has faith in the spiritual values bequeathed to the Muslim by his religion, and not merely on the basis of inspiration from the logic of material civilization. Preserving identity is not done through seclusion, and indeed seclusion causes even greater complexes, and equally leads to fanaticism. Rather, preserving identity is done through social partnership with the Other, because it permits the opportunity of self-discovery, and consequently the revelation of identity as a clearly recognized and precisely defined value. This revelation of identity is more in need of a diverse centre than a homogenous one.

The Liberal Muslim develops the capacity to practice independent criticism of his conditions and his own actions whether as an individual or as a society, from a general European social context which obliges the individual to make a revision of himself in order fit in with the environment of daily life, and to work with the laws and practices controlling the individual's movement. The body of Muslims work to form a the bridge between the Islamic culture, rich in ethical and spiritual values and concepts, and the materialist modern Western culture in order to reinforce the bonds of trust between the two sides and to reduce the policy of accusation and rejectionism that sometimes befalls the relationship between them. This is besides the role of the Liberal Muslim as an ambassador of his culture and intermediary who conveys the characteristics, customs and even popular folklore of the Eastern society.

The presence of Muslims in the West as fully qualified citizens in their capacity as participants in every aspect of life and their bearing the same duties as all other citizens has become a necessity in the age of globalization for the participation in the creation of a future based on development and peaceful coexistence between peoples.

There has not yet been a reconciliation with American values that treat Islam and Muslims with an element of unease. In the first place, it is a country of immigrants who are usually characterized by strict adherence to their religion. In the second, there are strong political/economic pressures for a monopoly of American support to Israel and for generating obstacles in front of increased Arab/Islamic influence, by means of presenting a stereotyped image of Islam. Thirdly, the events of 11 Septemer and the subsequent allegations formed a negative picture of Islam and put all Muslims into the same basket. For this reason there was a focus in conversation on 'European Islam' causing European Mulsims to become aware of this situation and to work for the victory of their Islam, making it a reality by which to regulate their daily life, and otherwise their adversaries would work in all means possible to treat them as foreign alien and parasitic element. A number of European agencies do not want European Muslims to be assimilated as rightful citizens, because that would be a danger that would be felt in their effect on Europeans, and moreover they push Muslims towards being extremists in order to facilitate restricting them and preventing their influence in society from spreading. 

The issue of 'Islam and the West' can be summed up between two terms which cannot be compared because of the natural structural divergence between them, and it was necessary to identify the indicative levels of these two terms. Islam is an ideological spiritual and divine religion whose fundamental base is faith in the One God the Creator, His message and the Last Day, which contains ethical and civilisational values and principles that surpass geographical boundaries. Islam has spread through nations and entered into many cultures and adapted with the different social customs, traditions and rites of those nations.

On the other hand, the term of ‘the West’ from a geographical perspective indicates geopolitical facts for people living in the West of the world map (even if Japan, Austraila and Korea happen to be in the East of the World, then their political regimes and civic nature are of a Western slant) in specific and multiple states. They are governed by governments with differentiating political regimes which possess a secular civilisation formed from a cultural grounding grouped around the Christian and Jewish religions.

The concept tries to find a relationship between the two sides who are both stained with a sort of turbulence, stirring up precautions, misgivings and fear within both sides, in spite of the conviction in some Western circles that it provokes feelings of the impending danger posed by Islam and Muslims, without distinguishing between Islam as a message and divine religion and between the interpretation of it by some extremist Muslims. The incentives for political Islam to achieve power or to oppose Western policies which are viewed, as extremists see it, with doubt and suspicion as Crusader Colonialism with regard to Muslims, particularly after the events of 11 September and the subsequent crises which increased the level of hatred between Muslims and Western states. The term has been propagated and continues to be circulated to investigate the nature of relations between ‘Islam and the West’, in spite of the escalation of the campaign against this term, and it generate a trend which requires identification of what is meant by the West, and what is meant by Islam. Most of the criticism from Muslims is directed against the Americans, and against many American policies on Arab and Islamic affairs, and not against the European states.

A commitment to dialogue approach as the basis for development of the relationship between Islam and the West dispels much of the misunderstanding, and helps to solve many of the problems between the two sides to avoid collision. Therefore it is necessary to dedicate efforts to establishing and continuing dialogue, and working to deepen the connections of mutual understanding, internal dialogue between the people of one religion and one nation and one civilisation. Since the emergence of the theory of the clash of civilisations we have not seen any civilisational clashes such as the originator of the theory predicted. Rather we have witnessed the opposite: a bloody clash between the people of one civilisation. Within every civilisation there are multiple and diverse entities of nationalist groups, doctrines and political trends who have competed bloodthirstily with all the weapons in their possession. We have seen a return to Jahili [pre-Islamic] days and the barbarism of beheadings and savage mutilation of bodies as in Algeria and Iraq and the destruction of vehicles and   blind explosions as in Pakistan, Beirut, Casablanca, Bali and Riyadh and in different parts of the world amongst Islamic countries recently.

The establishment of Islam on a Liberal grounding or an understanding of Islam from Liberal perspectives can contribute in an active way towards easing tensions and struggle between the religious sects and groups and preventing the outbreak of a destructive civil war that takes religion, ideology or nationalism as a justification for its outbreak, just as Europe suffered from the bloodthirstiness of religious wars in previous centuries, and millions were the victims of World War II under a pretext of piety and nationalism. In our region we must study and get away from repeated wars with Israel and the Lebanese Civil War in which the killing took on a religious identity in some of its phases as well as the gratuitous killing amongst all sides of the conflict in Iraq.

The current conditions in Iraq call for efforts to be expended by all sides with a link in the relation between the Arab World and the West in order to start the process of dialogue and mutual understanding, and we appeal for the establishment of a culture of tolerance that requires recognition of the other and his culture, and the discovery of means of agreeing on ways to live together and cooperate through agreements and contracts of international partnership.

We need the religious leaderships to make it their responsibility to manifest the role of religion in realising peaceful co-existence and preventing internal collision or between human societies, depending in the first instance on their ability to know how to deal with the dissimilar Other and to explain the religious concepts with a humanitarian and tolerant perspective. Religion was discovered to serve man and not to destroy him or to complicate his life. The most dangerous threat to human existence is religious fanaticism, and the transferral of religion into a tool of overpowering authority which has caused the generation of crises such as 'extremism', 'fanaticism' 'terrorism', organised crime, ethnic cleansing and the oppression by the powerful of the weak on the level of individuals, societies and peoples.

What we are calling for is increased efforts to be expended in establishing internal dialogues between people of the one religion and the one civilisation which contains many different religions, ideologies and sects, and opens up general discussion on existing problems. It is necessary to open up the dossiers of the differences that are currently not talked about between different religions and sects. At the same time we must overcome generalised rulings, for not all the West is Christian, and not all Americans support President Bush, and not every Muslims thinks in the same way as Bin Laden. Internal dialogue is needed at the same level as dialogue with the West, because it aims to bridge the internal gap between those social entities, and it is one of the priority requirements for public dialogue with the West.

If there is no peace between the sects and nationalist groups and trends or political trends then there is no dialogue between them, and there is no dialogue between parties, ideologies, nationalist groups and religions without serious studies and objective research which deepen each side's understanding of the other in order to make mankind confident in shared global values in all humanitarian civilisations, represented in the values of civilisational diversity built on respect for the right to life and ideological, cultural and political pluralism and the prevalence of the principles of equality, social justice and lasting development in all of its forms. This confirms the commitment to human rights' values and the abandonment of political and religious violence, and the end to discrimination, extremism and fanaticism, by means of activating the mechanisms give control to the logic of dialogue over the logic of conflict. On this basis we call on all of the religious UIama not to be part of the problem but to be part of the solution by coming forward to combine efforts in order to provide a correct understanding of religion whereby social and spiritual life relies on the spirit and essence of religion.

It was the insistence of some Western circles (the West in an ideological sense) on treating Islam according to dual criterion that provoked misunderstanding and confusion in the equivocal relationship based on generalising the lack of trust and mutual misunderstanding between the Islamic world and the West, and substituting the concept of conflict for that of dialogue between Islam and the ruling regimes of the West.

Summary
Religions today are returning with greater force to the social and political field and they have been wrestling with other ideologies for the last half century. Islam has returned as one of the most prominent religions and cultures, working in favour of defending, overlapping and interacting in human societies. Many Islamic organisations in Western countries have participated in forming working groups at a high technical level to master means of communication, dialogue and preoccupation with collaborative public human positions with official and local institutions in Western states at senior levels such as the UN, the European Union and others and the organisation of delegations to meet with government officials and to work with the media and convening conferences and workshops and dispersing fears over the propagation of Islam in Western societies, and to explain the humanitarian elements of the Islamic religion and to clarify its opposition to extremism, racism and hatred, and to rectify the image of Islam.

The values of Islam do not compel others to adopt Islam, and do not impose religious opinion by force or oblige others to practise the rites of worship. Violence is considered a grave offence, and he who takes another’s life wrongfully is like the one who kills all of mankind. Fighting is not permissible except to repulse oppression and defend what is sanctioned. Islam call for mutual understanding and the defence of what is best, and it urges Muslims to establish dialogue with the followers of other religions and cultures. Western Muslims are called on to launch joint projects with their Western counterparts in the nation in order to repel extremist thought in whatever form, racist confrontations and to resist the trend of ethnic cleansing as well as fighting drugs and terrorism in all of their forms, and propagating the concepts of peace and social security and the culture of tolerance. The Western Muslim is more able than any other to play these sorts of roles because he is the bearer of two cultures and two experiences which equip him to be converted into the civilisational bridge between East and West.

We can conclude that the vision Liberal Islam still has a long way to go in order to crystallize its final form, so that it reflects the depth and anchorage of the Islamic presence in Europe. It is necessary to investigate the conception of solutions to the crises in the relationship between Islam and the West by means of building civilisational bridges connecting the cultures of the West and Islam and granting a big role to Western Muslims in building these bridges, since there is no magic cure to confront this stereotyped negative image of Islam that is held by large sections of Western society. What is required is a gradual process of dialogue and reciprocal edification, and Muslims in the West also need to actively comply with this as opposed to being passive recipients. They must have self-confidence in the importance of the role that they are taking on. Currently many Western policies are taking a reactive stance as a result of terrorist attacks, without seriously trying to understand and study the reasons and motives for those ignominious actions, or imposing mechanisms to deal with them by means of a judicious policy that works to assimilate and contain those groups, and consequently empty them of their destructive violent content.

Research Sources:
1)Anjmar Carlson: ‘Islam and Europe: Coexistance or Confrontation?’, translated by Samir Butani, published by Sawt Askanderia.

2)Annals of the seminar: ‘The Representation of Islam in the Western Media’, organized by the el-Khoei Foundation in cooperation with the Islamic Organisation for Education and Cultural Sciences, October 1999.

3)Dr. Annas al-Shaikh ‘Ali, ‘British and American Popular Tales’, research paper published in the ‘Islamiya al-Mu’arafa’ journal, published the World Institute for Islamic Thought – Washington, issue 10, year 3.

4)Yusuf el-Khoei, ‘Muslims in the West: A Case Study of Britain.’ Essay published in al-Hayat London newspaper, December 1999.

5)Ghaleb Hassan al-Shabander, ‘Towards an Islamic Formula in Europe’, published in the London az-Zamman newspaper, March 2001.

6)Ghanem Jawad, ‘A Study of the Relationship between Islam and the West’, presented in the Arab conference against racism, convened in Cairo, July 2001.

7)Mustafa al-Kadhemi, ‘Towards a Islamic European Formula’.

8)Decrees and fatwas of the European Council for Legal Opinions and Societal Studies, the first and second collections.

9)‘The Renewal of Islamic Thought’, Muhammad ‘Abdul Jubar al-Nasher, Constitutional bookmakers for print and publication, London.

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* Director of Cultural Unity and Human Rights in the al-Khawa’i foundation, Iraq/London.