SE Asian Moslems can help Islam's image

SE Asian Moslems can help Islam's image

JAKARTA (JP): Moslems in Southeast Asia can play an important
role in promoting a positive image of Islam in Western countries,
according to participants at a two-day conference entitled "Islam
and the West in the Era of Globalization."

The seminar was sponsored by Yayasan Paramadina, a foundation
led by noted Moslem intellectual, Nurcholish Madjid, in
cooperation with the Indonesian Association of Moslem
Intellectuals (ICMI), the Goethe Institut and the Dialogue
Foundation.

"Indonesians and other people in Southeast Asia could provide
an example in promoting a positive image for Islam," Bassam Tibi,
a professor of Islamic studies at Goettingen University in
Germany, said.

Tibi, a Jordanian-born expert, said that the tolerance and
openness practiced by Southeast Asian Moslems could help promote
a positive image of Islam to the people of the West.

He said that Islam was not always identical with its image,
which had, he said, been shaped by the Western mass media, which
had frequently shown terrorism and violence involving Moslems.

Olaf Schumann, a professor of Arab and Islamic studies at
Hamburg University said: "what we need in the West is something
to present Islam in a different way."

He said that an image of Islam as a cultural product that
could adapt to other cultural patterns would help to gradually
erase the negative image which Islam currently suffers from among
Western people.

He said that the development of Moslem culture in the middle
ages, crossing Arab territorial borders and entering Southern
Europe and Southeast Asia, had demonstrated the flexibility of
Islam.

"Islam's capacity to adapt itself to cultural plurality has
proven the rich spiritual habits of Moslems," he said.

Meanwhile Dr. Imaduddin Abdulrahim, a member of the ICMI's
board of experts, said Southeast Asian Moslems' numerical
superiority over their Middle Eastern counterparts could help the
former to take the initiative in improving Islam's image.

Imaduddin said the number of Malay-speaking Moslems, which
will reach 200 million at the beginning of the 21st century, was
larger than that of the Arab Moslems, who account for only 20
percent of the world's Moslem population.

Negative

The three speakers held similar views as to the cause of
Islam's negative image in the West.

Schumann said the negative impression had been caused by the
influence of historical events, which had embittered the soul of
the West, whose feeling of superiority was offended by the
ascendancy of Islam from the eighth century until the end of the
15th century.

"The offense apparently cannot be forgotten by Western
nations, even until this the 20th century," he said.

Imaduddin said the negative image had also been promoted by
several Western writers, whose books generally disclosed what
they believed to be the bad side of Islam.

He referred to Dr. Bernard Lewis, a professor at Harvard
University, who since 1964 has issued several warnings about the
resurgence of Islam. Such warnings appeared in Lewis' book "The
Return of Islam" and in other books, including that by academic
John Laffin, "The Dagger of Islam", and, more recently, Samuel P.
Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations".

Bassam Tibi said Islam's negative image had been worsened by a
lack of understanding on the part of the western press of the
effect of their words, which were motivated by commercial
considerations rather than a desire to educate the public through
the presentation of information based on research and objective
observation.

"The press has been very successful in creating an image of
Islam identical to certain countries in the Middle East and Asia
which it considers under-developed," he said.

The seminar also heard a speech by lawyer Adnan Buyung
Nasution on human rights in Islam. (inn)