New Publication: Caring for the "Other" as one of "Us"

Dear readers,

I am pleased to notify you on the release of a new book I contributed to.

Abraham's Children: Liberty and Tolerance in an Age of Religious Conflict has been released by Yale University Press. It brings together 15 Jewish, Muslim and Christian scholars, activists and politicians to challenge and urge their co-religionists to follow a path of peace making in an age of conflict.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu endorsed the book with the following statement: "Tolerance is in all-too-short supply in our world. Most attempts to cultivate greater tolerance urge us to set aside our differences, including our religious differences, and focus on what unites us. Many people find it difficult if not impossible to do that. The authors in this collection, each one a leading member of one or another of the Abrahamic religions, take a strikingly different and fresh approach. Each one probes the resources of his or her own religion to make a case for tolerating one's fellow human beings even when one disagrees on important matters. Over and over I had the experience of scales falling off my eyes. It would be hard to exaggerate the importance and promise of these fascinating essays for advancing the cause of tolerance."

 Below is the full list of contributors.. 

Intro: Kelly Clark

Jewish Voices: Einat Ramon, Dov Berkovits, Leah Shakdiel, Arik Ascherman, Nurit Peled-Elhanan

Christian Voices: Jimmy Carter, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Ziya Meral, Hanna Siniora, Miraslov Volf

Muslim Voices: Abdurrahman Wahid, Hedieh Mirahmadi, Fethullah Gulen, Rana Husseini, Abdolkarim Soroush

New Essay: International Religious Freedom Advocacy in the Field

A new essay where I survey how religious freedom advocacy is done today, how and where it differs from regular human rights advocacy work, what challenges it faces and its future.

"International Religious Freedom Advocacy in the Field: Challenges Effective Strategies and the Road Ahead", The Review of Faith & International Affairs; Volume 10, Issue 3, 2012;

Access the essay here!


Opposition Party Job Vacancy- Apply Immediately


Published on 8 August 2012


This is an urgent call for applications for an urgent vacancy in Turkish politics. Turkey is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and an increasingly vital player in its region and in global affairs.

Turkey is currently looking for a political party to enable it to fulfill its increasing potential for democratic growth and global reach and address certain structural and social problems that have the potential to derail a historic opportunity to leap forward.

About the job:

The role of a robust opposition party is one of the most important elements of a healthy democracy. Although it does not have an executive power, it is a vital safety net and accountability point in balancing the performance of a ruling government.

An opposition party monitors policies and actual performance of the ruling government closely, analyzing their short and long-term implications and providing the public with clear points on a government’s shortcomings and their alternatives.

Where necessary for the best interest of the country, an opposition party affirms policies of the government and works closely with its own constituency to advance them. While this might seem like a win for the ruling party, in the long run it only strengthens the credibility of the opposition of the party.

An opposition party closely monitors the wishes of the entire country, not merely a thin slice of the public who are committed voters. This is vital in strengthening the party’s reach, limiting the unchecked influence of a ruling party and developing alternative policies that the public would support.

About you:

Your party must have closely read and internalized the job description above and perform accordingly. This is not a literary post for delivering untruthful but creative talks.

Previous political experience is not necessary. In fact, if you form a new party, it is much better than thinking you can reform a party that has been fixed in myopia for decades.

You must be able to use discourse that is not character discrediting and personal street-fight style verbal attacks on the ruling party, but actually focus on policies and performance.

You must have something to say beyond referring back to 1923 or any other glorious past. You must focus on Turkey’s future and include not some but all of the citizens of Turkey in that future.

You must move beyond 20th-century classifications that do not have much value today, including “left,” “right,” “social democracy” and “laicite.” The Turkish public moved on from these some 15 years ago.

You will have a leadership team that reflects all of the ethnic, religious and cultural spectrum of Turkey and appoint them not because they are loyal to the party leader but are actually qualified and energetic people that can do the job.

Application process:

Please apply immediately, especially given that the next two years will witness tremendous tensions both in Turkey and internationally. While some paperwork and an outdated political party law might seem to be the main challenge for you, your main test is not on getting a legal status and publishing banners and advertisements. You will only get this job when you win the trust of the Turkish public and only remain in office as long as you perform along the lines mentioned above. Remember, this is a fixed term contract and not a tenure.

Getting Iran's Nuclear Program Wrong, Very Wrong



Published in Huffinton Post UK, 10 May 2012

What is the aim of Iran's insistence on advancing its nuclear program? The question might seem odd, or an unnecessary elaboration of a question answered long time ago. However, recent developments in the region and negotiations with Iran have highlighted the urgent need to stop and ask the basic questions once again and formulate responses suiting the current conjuncture.

It is clear that while it is still a long way ahead, Iran's nuclear program ultimately aims to be able to reach at least to a level where it could weaponize its nuclear stock. There are two major reasons why a country would want to do that, and in the case of Iran, those two main reasons have been debated ad nauseam.

The first of these is deterrence. The potential to have nuclear weapons, if not having some, would strengthen Iran's sense of security and stand against other countries in the region which it deems to be a potential threat or competitor.

The second is aggression, a reason continually spoken of by the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and a host of voices in the West. In this reading of Iran's nuclear ambitions, the ultimate goal is actually attacking Israel and threatening the region.
Since no sane human being would clearly pursue such a path, it is said that the religious framework of the regime as well as Ahmadinejad's bizarre references to millenarian visions mean that if Iran was to have nuclear weapons, it would use them even though it would also mean the destruction of Iran itself. After all, once you believe in a hidden imam and a mahdi, what would stop you from taking the world down with you?

Both of these explanations, however, assume that the nuclear program is exclusively about Iran's foreign policy. While it is true that deterrence is a major motivation, there is a less spoken but equally important domestic reason: legitimization.

Ever since the initial euphoria of the 1979 revolution, the regime has been in need of dialectic external pressures to be able to maintain its power. Since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini and the end of Iran-Iraq war, the regime has faced a powerful routinizing process, a fate well known by social scientists.

The emotive momentum of the revolutionary project and an actual armed conflict gave way to the banal challenges of running a country, crippled with a weak economy, poor international relations and chaotic governance. Since, accepting such a poor outcome of the promised glories would undermine the foundations of the regime's public image, everything that has gone wrong has been said to be the undertakings foreign powers.

Therefore, the regime needed the nuclear program to remain elusive and non-conclusive but operational, not so much so that it could reach the capacity to fulfill its weaponization, but because by creating a tension with the 'Great Satan-U.S.,' it was able to brush all of its malfunctioning, corruption and idiocies under the carpet and unite Iranians in support of the regime against a common enemy.

During a trip to Iran at the height of Bush versus Ahmadinejad verbal threats and declarations of evil intent of the other, dozens of Iranians told me that while they do not like Ahmadinejad and his crazy rhetoric, nevertheless they support him because he has stood against Bush Jr., who seemed fixed on attacking Iran.

This has always been the case and will always be so. Outside threats have a way of legitimizing the regime that has lost so much credibility in the eyes of many Iranians. Yet, when they perceive a threat against their country, they rightfully opt for protecting it. Thus, even though the international pressures are hurtful, many Iranians still see an imperial foreign aggression in the face of Iran's attempts to produce nuclear energy and if necessary have a deterrent against Israel, where politicians seem to daily urge the world to attack Iran at once.

If this reading is true, then negotiations with Iran cannot simply be a matter of nuclear armament pressured by clear threats. The mimetic escalation of stand off must be defused, as the more the regime finds itself as a 'victim' of Western 'imperialism' the more it entrenches its hold on Iran. What seems to matter to Iran's rulers most is not the end goal of weapons, but the very process of tension with the outside of world. If we simply focus on stopping Iran from having nuclear weapons, the regime might in fact stand to gain more in the end.

The case for privatizing religion in Turkey


Published by Today's Zaman, 9 May 2012

The recent decision by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government to privatize state theaters has caused a wide stir.
While I do believe the state should provide funds for the arts, the state employment of actors and management of theaters were not about the arts but state control of the public and cultural space.
In fact, communist countries have always had a keen commitment to “supporting” the arts and to using them as an important vehicle to influence and control public imagination. Therefore, as painful it is for many in the industry who will lose their jobs, in the long run, the privatization of theaters will provide freedom and market competition necessary for better productions and performance by actors.

There is, however, an elephant in the room -- a much larger, powerful state control mechanism: state regulation of religion. It is really no surprise that the newly founded Turkish Republic saw it vital to establish the Directorate of Religious Affairs and, through it, to regulate and manage the type of Islam it sought to enforce.

The directorate still consumes a giant slice of the state budget, employs all imams in the country and by and large still dictates particular readings of Islam. In the last few years, the official enforcement of a particular creed has been widely challenged and various groups who do not fit into that creed have argued for representation and funds from the directorate. However, these acts are not enough. The directorate must be decommissioned, just like state theaters.

There are two common worries regarding the decommissioning of the directorate. The first one comes from concerned secularist circles, which fear that an end to state regulation would open the floodgates of Islamism and all sorts of problems with religious groups. The second one comes from concerned conservative circles, which fear decommissioning the directorate would mean that clergymen and mosques would not receive funding to perform their duties and thus the practice of Islam would be harmed. As convincing as these concerns sound to their respective adherers, they are both wrong.


The problem with the secularist argument

The secularist argument is fundamentally flawed in its assumptions as to the nature of Islam and the social and political aspirations of a vast majority of Muslims in the country. Again and again, numerous studies have shown how the vast majority of Muslims in the country demand democracy, economic reforms and equality as well as freedom to live according to their conscience, not Shariah law or a return to some previous century.

Those who might fit into the Islamist or fundamentalist categories already have their own religious networks outside of state reach. Rather than enabling them to unleash an Islamization plan, the fast-growing contemporary Muslim civil society in the country would in fact minimize and challenge their appeal for those who feel alienated from the state. In other words, far from it, the end of the state market monopoly and the start of equal state distance from all religions and creeds will create a competitive market that will reward those religious actors who meet what the Turkish public demands, which is clearly reform, freedom and advancement alongside traditional values and personal piety.

The same implications apply to the conservative arguments, too, over what would happen if the state were to stop managing religion. Far from harming the practice of Islam, it would in fact free Muslims to live, think and worship freely and thus increase its vibrancy. Take for example state-managed Christianity in northern Europe, where the clergy is state-employed and churches receive state funds, versus the free-market religious competitions in which Christian churches find themselves in the US.

While Christianity’s public appeal in northern Europe is in decline, this is not so in the US.
One of the key reasons behind this is that the clergy and churches in the US must work hard to provide for the needs of their congregations, as the survival of the church and the clergy depends on their congregations. They must also continually engage with social and philosophical developments and compete with other religious providers, as they cannot take the durability and public plausibility of their beliefs for granted.

In contrast, a clergyman in northern Europe will always be paid as long as he plays the sacramental role of being there and keeping the doors of the churches open, regardless of whether anyone attends the services. It is only thanks to migration and Islam in Europe that slowly northern European clergymen are finding themselves having to learn how to defend their faith and keep their role in society.

This is already observable in how energetic and increasingly influential various Islam-inspired civil society movements outside of state structures are. Obviously, the Directorate of Religious Affairs cannot simply close up shop. However, the creation of foundations that would accredit imams and allow citizens to donate money for their work would solve the problem. The process would be a long, complicated and difficult one. However, it would be the best thing to maintain both the secular nature of the country and the freedoms of Muslims and non-Muslims alike and to negotiate a healthy space for religion, politics and public life.

Shariah in Times of Political Change

Published by Today's Zaman, 24 April 2012

As calls for the adoption of Shariah grow louder across the Middle East and North Africa, many people are frightened. Yet what is frightening is not the prospect of Shariah itself, but the political immaturity of the new actors calling for it and the possibility that they might repeat certain mistakes characteristic of previous hasty reintroductions of Islamic jurisprudence.

There has been enough scholarly work, by both Muslims and non-Muslims, to show that there is no inherent reason to think that the principles of Shariahh set out in the Quran and the life of the Prophet contradict today’s legal and political ideals. The dynamic evolution of laws and regulations across Muslim-majority countries over the last 30 years attest that Shariah is highly adaptable and capable of meeting modern legal, social and economic needs. New interpretations and applications of Shariah are enabling Muslims to live freely according to their consciences within the realities of this century.

What we need to worry about, therefore, is not Shariah but its political utilization. We saw the detrimental outcomes of emotional Shariah politics in the 20th century that harmed Muslims and non-Muslims alike and created serious conflicts and suffering.

For the vast majority of Muslims living in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, cries for Shariah are cries for equality, justice, fairness and moral values in the face of corrupt politicians and regimes. But whenever such genuine calls were used by political elites to maintain their power by purporting to uphold Islam, or used by opposition movements to achieve power with claims of being Islam’s standard-bearers, the result was often disastrous. Few if any of the problems leading to calls for Shariah were solved and, in some cases, things became much worse.


The politicization of Shariah is especially dangerous in transitional contexts where state structures are not strong or are nonexistent. As there is not a single codified and agreed upon written reference as to what the Shariah laws are, when combined with ill-educated, self-declared sheikhs and chaotic political processes, what often follows is the exact opposite of the noble principles of Shariah.

Warning signs in Nigeria
The country that serves as the most important warning sign in this regard for today’s Middle East is Nigeria, where clashes between Christians and Muslims have caused the deaths of more than 15,000 people in the last decade alone and where corruption, inequality and injustice are pandemic problems.
Just as in the Middle East, calls to expand the application of Shariah in Nigeria first emerged in the 1970s. The issue was hotly debated in the Nigerian national assembly in 1978 to no conclusion. It emerged again in 1988, when a group of assembly members from Northern Nigeria demanded Shariah be applied across the entire country. Christians, who comprise half of the population, as well as tribes who hold traditional animist beliefs, refused the imposition of Shariah outside of Muslim-majority regions.

When military rule ended in 1999 with multiparty elections, the sociopolitical and religious tensions that had been brewing surfaced once again. In 2000, the governor of the state of Zamfara, following his electoral promises to do so, unilaterally expanded the application of Shariah beyond personal status matters to all aspects of the legal system, including the criminal code. Eleven other northern states quickly followed Zamfara’s example.

The result was serious human rights abuses and inhumane, hasty punishment -- including stoning, executions and amputations. More insidiously, the change led to the creation of semi-official religious enforcers called the hisba in Shariah states, who sought to regulate minute aspects of personal morality and lifestyle with minimum accountability. These developments triggered riots in Kaduna and Jos, causing serious damage, and set the stage for the widespread ethno-religious violence and political instability that have beset the country ever since.

What is clear in the Middle East is that the years of authoritarian pressure, low levels of education, isolation from global developments and denial of political and diplomatic experiences beyond grassroots opposition have frozen the political and religious horizons of the region. Dwelling on abstract religious discourse with no clear proposals as to how collapsing economies and corrupt political, judicial and security structures will be reformed, the new groups are developing angry politics that alienate and exclude everyone who does not support them. Unless the new political groups in the Middle East catch up with the substantial economic, theological, social and legal advancements achieved by Muslims in other parts of the world, their zealotry will only result in further instability, social tensions and chaos.