Terrorism Conference in Turkey

Posted: Monday, May 10, 2004
Details on the February 2004 conference, "Deciphering and Combating Radical Islamist Ideology," held in Ankara.  [Full Story]

America in Islam
From the upcoming issue of The Public Interest
Posted: Tuesday, March 16, 2004
For all practical purposes, the question of Islam in America is little more than a generation old. Yet it is already extraordinarily complicated and burdensome, both for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, with no signs of becoming any less so. This is true for a number of reasons, the most important of which is that there are not one but two questions: that of Islam in America and America in Islam.  [Full Story]

Religion and Democracy: The American Experience
The John M Olin Program On Politics, Morality & Citizenship Lecture
Posted: Thursday, July 24, 2003
The American experience of the relationship of modern democracy and religion is a very large topic, no doubt too large. But it is an important one, even an urgent one and therefore unavoidable  [Full Story]

Saudi Arabia: Friend or Foe?
Remarks by EPPC President Hillel Fradkin
Posted: Wednesday, July 16, 2003
The purpose of this series-to explore alternative prospects for democracy in the Muslim world and the Middle East-is obviously a very important issue. We are here primarily, I gather, to talk about Saudi Arabia, but I was given a somewhat different task, which was to introduce the discussion by talking about Islam and Democracy.  This is obviously an extremely broad subject, obviously too broad for the time and our immediate purposes which are to focus in on Saudi Arabia. It is necessary, nonetheless, to say something about the question of Islam and Democracy, insofar as the questions and problems are common to the Muslim world.  [Full Story]

America Among the Nations
We will do our duty
Posted: Friday, January 31, 2003
Why do they hate us? President Bush asked after 9/11. Aren't we good and a force for good was the gist of companion remarks.  [Full Story]

Under His Own Vine and Fig Tree
The Contemporary Jewish Approach to Religion in American Public Life and Its Problems
Posted: Friday, November 1, 2002
What should be the role of religion in American public life? What is its place in either the public square or our public institutions? Should it be broad and rich or narrow and austere? Like all other Americans, American Jews have tried to find proper answers to these questions for more than 200 years. They have had a special, though not unique, incentive to do so as the victims of religious persecution and discrimination in other times and places.  [Full Story]

Radical Islam and Global Terrorism
What is it and What are its Causes?
Posted: Thursday, September 26, 2002
Ordinarily it would be proper if I plunged directly into my topic.  By way of beginning I might say something like the following.   To the extent that there is global terrorism, this is now, unlike in the recent past, more or less entirely associated with what has been termed radical Islam.  Up to 30 years ago, global terrorism was Marxist.  I would go on to say that radical Islam is a diverse phenomenon, describe its varieties and go on to enumerate its various causes and assess their relative weight.  [Full Story]

The Twisted Academy: How Academics Get Other Cultures Wrong
Sympathy, Not Grievances
Posted: Sunday, September 1, 2002
One of the most important aspects of contemporary Muslim society is a sense of humiliation and oppression. This is epitomized by the view, still held by a majority of Muslims around the world, that the attacks of September 11 were not and could not have been the work of Osama bin Laden, but were instead perpetrated by the Mossad or the CIA or both.  [Full Story]

Parting of the Ways II: Jewish and Islamic thought and 9/11

Posted: Monday, May 13, 2002
It is a pleasure to be back here at AEI and wonderful to see old friends.  But I can’t help but observe that the circumstances are strange.  If I have understood my assignment correctly I am supposed to speak about medieval Jewish thought and its relationship to medieval Islamic thought and the consequences that flow from that, including contemporary consequences.  I suppose for good measure I might say something about medieval Christian thought.  [Full Story]

Why They Hate Us
The Muslim World Has Fallen Behind
Posted: Saturday, December 1, 2001
Muslim teachings envision a world united under Islam, but in modern times the previously great cities of the Arab and Ottoman Empires have become weak and the Muslim world has diminished politically, militarily, and economically when compared with the progress of European civilization. It is therefore no wonder that Muslim radicals want to destroy the West.  [Full Story]