Linked with About Jihad, Islam and Politics, and with Nur Euro-Islam sollte in Europa Platz haben!.
Bassam Tibi, born 1944 in Damascus, is a political scientist of Syrian origin with German citizenship known for his analysis of international relations concerning Islamic countries and civilisation. Being a Muslim himself, he is considered to have a more fair and unbiased view of Islam. He studied in Frankfurt am Main and habilitated in Hamburg, Germany. Since 1973 he teaches international politics at Göttingen University. In 1982 he was Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, and is currently an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. He has done research in Asian and African countries. He publishes in English, German and Arabic. (See more on wikipedia).
Read the article ‘Islamism, Peace, and the Maghrib‘, by Bassam Tibi.
Bassam Tibi – Syria.
Read the article ‘Bassam Tibi joins Advisory Board for the international Stories of Faith Project‘, July 21, 2006 on OpenPR).
Professor Tibi is board member of many significant institutions and the recipient of many prizes. The then President of Germany, Roman Herzog, awarded him in 1995 the highest Medal of the State/First Class for his accomplishments.
In 2003 he received the annual prize of the Swiss Foundation for European Awareness. (Read the whole long article on wwwuser.gwdg.de).
The German language term Leitkultur is a politically controversial concept, first introduced in 1998 by the German orientalist Bassam Tibi. It can be translated as ‘guiding culture’ or ‘leading culture’, less literally as ‘core culture’ or ‘basic culture’. Tibi himself saw it as a form of multiculturalism, but from 2000, the term figured prominently in the national political debate in Germany about national identity and immigration. The term then became associated with a monocultural vision of German society, with ideas of western cultural superiority, and with policies of compulsory cultural assimilation. Bassam Tibi first suggested a ‘Leitkultur’ in his 1998 book ‘Europa ohne Identität’ (‘Europe without identity’). He defined it in terms of what are commonly called western values, and spoke of a European rather than a German ‘Leitkultur’. « The values needed for a core culture are those of modernity: democracy, secularism, the Enlightenment, human rights and civil society. » (B. Tibi, Europa ohne Identität, p. 154). These core values are similar to those of the ‘liberal-democratic basic order’ (Freiheitlich-demokratischen Grundordnung) which is considered the foundational value of the post-war Federal Republic of Germany, and the unified German state after 1990. Tibi advocated a cultural pluralism based on a value consensus, rather than monoculturalism. However, he also opposed a value-blind multiculturalism, and the development of ‘parallel societies’ where immigrant minorities live and work, isolated from the western society around them. Tibi advocated a structured immigration policy, and opposed illegal immigration into Germany. (Read all the rest on this english wikipedia).
Source International Herald Tribune (France), Reference ”Jihadism’s roots in political Islam”, by Bassam Tibi, International Herald Tribune, August 30, 2005 – Summary After a terrorist attack perpetrated by jihadiists two kinds of reactions are expected: some affirm the attacks have their roots in Islam whereas the others, especially the Muslim and the political correct westerners, affirm terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. Both sides are right. Perhaps, terrorism has nothing to do with Islam but it is inspired by Islamism, that is, a political analysis of Islam. The very same jihadiists consider himself non-state combatants who have an irregular war against non-believers. They consider their acts are justified by the new interpretation of the Jihad developed by Islamism. Jihad is extremelly defined in the Koran and terrorism has nothing to do with it. However, affirming that Jihadism has nothing to do with Islam is false because Jihadiists see themselves as real believers. That is the reason why the debate regarding terrorism’s Islamic nature or not is meaningless. Jihadism is a new direction of the Islamic civilization and it is necessary to work with the Muslim community to find out who the Jihadiists are. These are the followers of Hassan Al-Banna and de Sayyed Qutb’ ideas who laied the foundations of Islamism. I am an inmigrant Muslim in Europe and I reject the idea of the “clash of cilizations” but there is a war of ideas, a war of pacific and democratic movements against the global Jihad. (Read on Voltairenet.org).
Ein zweiter wikipedia-Artikel: Excerpt: … Im Rahmen seines umfänglichen publizistischen Schaffens hat Tibi mehrere Begriffe geprägt oder mitgeprägt, darunter europäische Leitkultur, Parallelgesellschaft, Euro-Islam und „Scharia-Islam“. In dem Essay Traum von der halben Moderne, einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit den Entwicklungstendenzen der islamischen Staatenwelt, unterscheidet er zwei Aspekte: Zum einen die institutionelle Moderne, welche Wissenschaft und Technik sowie die traditionellen Lebensbereiche besetzt, und zum anderen die kulturelle Moderne, die für freiheitliche Grundwerte, Menschenrechte, Demokratisierung und Chancengleichheit steht. Die halbe Moderne ist demnach eine partielle Modernisierung insbesondere auf den Gebieten Wissenschaft und Technologie bei gleichzeitiger Ablehnung kultureller westlicher Einflüsse. Angesichts ausgreifender islamistischer Strömungen hat Tibi 1998 in seinem Buch „Europa ohne Identität“ eine „europäische Leitkultur“ gefordert und im Rahmen der Diskussion über die Integration von Migranten in Deutschland diesen Begriff gegen einen wertneutralen Multikulturalismus ins Feld geführt, auch um der fortschreitenden Ausbildung von Parallelgesellschaften entgegenzuwirken. In diesen Zusammenhang gehört auch seine Forderung, die in die europäischen Staaten eingewanderten Muslime müssten sich zu einem die jeweiligen Rechts- und Verfassungsordnungen ihrer Aufnahmeländer respektierenden Euro-Islam bekennen. 2000 wollten die CDU und ihr nahestehende Medien (Focus) ihn als Unterstützer ihrer Forderungen nach deutscher Leitkultur interpretieren. In seinem 2005 erschienenen Werk „Mit dem Kopftuch nach Europa?“ markiert Tibi deutliche Vorbehalte gegenüber einem EU-Beitritt der Türkei, die er in der gegenwärtigen Verfassung nicht auf dem Weg in die europäische Wertegemeinschaft sieht … (siehe mehr: zweiter wikipedia-Artikel).
Dr. Basam Tibi, 1944 in Damaskus geboren, studierte Sozialwissenschaften, Philosophie und Geschichte in Frankfurt am Main und ist heute Professor für internationale Beziehungen an der Universität Göttingen sowie ab 1998 Bosch Harvard Fellow an der Havard University. Er gilt als Begründer der « Islamologie », einer sozialwissenschaftlich ausgerichteten Islam-Forschung. Zu seinen aktuellen Veröffentlichungen gehören u.a. « Im Schatten Allahs » (1994), « Krieg der Zivilisationen » (1995), « Der wahre Imam » (1996), « Pulverfaß Nahost » (1997) und « Aufbruch am Bosporus » (1998). (Siehe Tendenzen.de).
Books:
- « Arab Nationalism : A Critical Enquiry. » Translated by Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981.
- « The Crisis of Modern Islam : A Preindustrial Culture in the Scientific-Technological Age. » Translated by Judith von Sivers. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988.
- « Arab Nationalism : A Critical Enquiry. » Translated by Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett. 2nd ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990.
- « Islam and the Cultural Accommodation of Social Change. » Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990.
- « Conflict and War in the Middle East, 1967-91 : Regional Dynamic and the Superpowers. » Translated by Clare Krojzl. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993.
- « Arab Nationalism : Between Islam and the Nation-State. » 3rd ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.
- « The Challenge of Fundamentalism : Political Islam and the New World Disorder. » Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998; updated edition 2002. ISBN 0-520-23690-4 Author’s abstract: http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/6525/6525.abs.html.
- « Islam between Culture and Politics. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York Cambridge, Mass: Palgrave, in association with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Harvard University, 2001.
- « Crusade and Jihad: Islam and the Christian World » Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, München, Random House GmbH, 2001 ISBN 963-13-5238-2.
- « Conflict and War in the Middle East: From Interstate War to New Security (Paperback). » Palgrave Macmillan; 2nd edition (December 15, 1998) ISBN: 0312211511.
Articles:
- « The Renewed Role of Islam in the Political and Social Development of the Middle East. » Middle East Journal 37, no. 1 (1983): 3-13.
- « Islam and Modern European Ideologies. » International Journal of Middle East Studies 18, no. 1 (1986): 15-29.
- « Islam and Arab Nationalism. » In Islamic Impulse, ed. Barbara Freyer Stowasser, 59-74. London ; Washington, D.C.: Croom Helm ; Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, 1987.
- « The European Tradition of Human Rights and Culture of Islam. » In Human Rights in Africa Cross Cultural Perspectives, ed. Abdullahi Ahmed An Na`im and Francis M. Deng, 104. Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 1990.
- « The Simultaneity of the Unsimultaneous – Old Tribes and Imposed Nation-States in the Modern Middle East. » In Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, ed. Philip S. Khoury and Joseph Kostiner, 127-152. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
- « Islamic Law/Shari’a, Human Rights, Universal Morality and International Relations. » Human Rights Quarterly 16, no. 2 (1994): 277.
- « The Worldview of Sunni Arab Fundamentalists : Attitudes toward Modern Science and Technology. » In Fundamentalisms and Society, ed. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appelby, 73-102. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
- « War and Peace in Islam. » In Ethics of War and Peace, ed. Terry Nardin, 128-145. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
- « The Fundamentalist Challenge to the Secular Order in the Middle East. » Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 23 (1999): 191-210.
- « Post-Bipolar Order in Crisis: The Challenge of Politicised Islam. » Millennium 29, no. 3 (2000): 843-860.
links:
more books about Islam on Amazon;
Islam und Terrorismus, ein Interview;