Conference: Formation of Normative Orders in the Islamic World
In his last large collection of poems, which he entitled the “West-Eastern Divan”, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, after whom our university is named, wrote the following lines:
Wer sich selbst und andere kennt,
Wird auch hier erkennen:
Orient und Okzident
Sind nicht mehr zu trennen.
Those who know themselves and others
Will realize here, too,
That the Orient and the Occident
Have become inseparable.
As researchers who are part of the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”, we regard Goethe’s approach as an incentive to look into our shared history and present, as well as into the development of normative orders in the Islamic world, in an interdisciplinary group of scholars – both Muslim and non-Muslim – from various countries of the Orient and Occident.
We all live in a world that is undergoing profound political, social, and economic changes, in an entangled modernity characterized by new perils and new conflicts. The persistency of old troubles, violence legitimated by religion, racism, imperialist wars, the marginalization of minorities, the persecution of political opposition, the oppression of women – all these make up the ugly side of our young millennium. On the other side, however, there are many encouraging efforts to get justice, emancipation, and the social participation of marginal groups enshrined in normative systems, and to ban discrimination and violence. In the course of the conference, we will inquire about how to support positive developments and how to counteract negative ones. We will discuss the normative foundations prerequisite for peaceful coexistence in a multicultural and multireligious society, and possible ways to root these in politics, legislation, and in the awareness of the population. By using examples of recent developments in Asia, Africa, and Europe, we will discuss the difficulties, countermovements, and structural obstacles inherent in such processes. We will address narratives used to legitimize ethnic, religious, social, or gender-based exclusion, as well as approaches aimed at overcoming discourses of dominance. We will look into problems related to gender justice and to liberal and feminist reinterpretations of the Qur’an and Sunna, and we will broach family law reforms in various Islamic countries and the European controversy about women’s and sexual rights versus cultural rights. We will talk about the role played by Islam – and other religions – in state and society, and discuss the question of whether secularism is indeed a phenomenon unique to Europe, as has been stated by Habermas.
The conference contributes to a process of mutual academic understanding between the so-called East and the so-called West, or, in Goethe’s terminology, the Orient and the Occident. It brings together scholars from various countries and disciplines, in order to encourage interdisciplinary discussion and to deepen the understanding of Islam in Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. By hosting this conference in Frankfurt, we also wish to take a stand on anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim prejudices, and work together for the establishment of an interfaith dialogue on global justice, human rights, and peace.
