The Kroc Institute's Program in Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding (PRCP) convened its first major con-ference on April 12-13, 2002 at the University of Notre Dame. The conference, entitled In Multiple Voices: Challenges and Opportunities for Islamic Peacebuilding After September 11, explored the heterogeneity within the house of Islam by surveying and analyzing the disparate reactions to the events of September 11. Participants also identified the renewed opportunities for peacebuilding and conflict transformation available within the Islamic tradition.

The conference was the culmination of the PRCP pro-gram for the 2001-02 academic year. Each of the PRCP's four Rockefeller Visiting Fellows, seven Notre Dame faculty and seven invited scholars presented papers at the conference. Participants addressed various aspects of Islamic peacebuilding and presented case studies of local Muslim responses to the events of September 11 in conflict areas such as Palestine, Chechnya, Daghestan, Pakistan, Kashmir and the Philippines.

In his keynote address, UCLA Professor of Islamic Law Khalid Abou El-Fadl called on Muslims to take up the invitation of the Qur'an to engage in "a collective enterprise of goodness" with non-Muslim societies that is built on a desire for respect rather than fear. Louay Safi, President of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS), in a paper entitled "Islam's Jihad for Peace," argued that it is "very crucial to expose the confusion of those who insist that jihad is a holy war and who place doubts on Islam's ability to support global peace." In Multiple Voices Conference explores Islamic peacebuilding after September 11 According to Safi, the broader Qur'anic concept of jihad is "consistent with world peace."

In one of the more provocative papers, which brought into sharp relief some of the most contentious issues in the study of contemporary Islam, Rockefeller Visiting Fellow Thomas Scheffler argued that contrary to current academic opinion, "the jihadi ideology developed by Bin Laden and his lieutenants is neither apocalyptic, fringe or apolitical." He furthermore suggested that Bin Laden's popularity is not rooted in "apocalyptic terrorism," but, on the contrary, "in its appeal to well-established innerworldly eschatological thought in orthodox Sunni mainstream Islam." Scheffler's conclusion was that the reluctance of mainstream Islamic theology to "accept the loss of temporal power and/or to cultivate other, spiritual, sources of power" is a major obstacle in the way of sustainable Islamic peacebuilding.

In her response, Asma Afsaruddin, Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at Notre Dame, argued that "many Muslims share the extremist's resentment over specific American foreign policy measures that result in unqualified support for Israeli occupation and repression of the Palestinian people." However, she contended, the vast majority of Muslims have not resorted to terror to express their sorrow and outrage in these cases. "To state that there is no difference between those who espouse and use terror and those who do not and would not condone its usage to redress these injustices is a gravely flawed conclusion."

Graham Fuller, former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, called for a shift and reorientation of American foreign policy in the Middle East in order to provide an antidote to Islamic extremism. He observed that the war on terrorism has three objectives: to punish those who have committed or supported terrorism, to deter future acts of terror, and to address the socio-economic environment which leads to acceptance of terrorism. While U.S. policy will likely succeed in achieving its punitive goals, and may have some success at deterrence, virtually no attention is being given to addressing the root causes of terrorism. Thus, "the net affect may be to exacerbate problems in the long term," he concluded.

Conference Program Keynote Address A Just Peace and its Requirements: The Classical Sources of Islam Khaled Abou El Fadl "Regional" Responses to September 11 (Part 1) Palestine: Mohammed Abu-Nimer Chechnya: Anna Zelkina Daghestan: Tamara Sivertseva Response: Patrick Gaffney "Regional" Responses to September 11 (Part 2) Pakistan: Muqtedar Khan Kashmir: Cynthia Mahmood Philippines: Amina Rasul-Bernardo Response: Daniel Philpott Changing Views of Violence with-in Islam Islam's Jihad for Just Peace: Transcending the Classical Notion of Jihad Louay Safi Apocalypticism, Innerworldly Eschatology, and Islamic Extremism Thomas Scheffler Sufi Conceptions of Jihad Hakan Yavuz Response: Asma Afsaruddin Islamic Resources and Opportunities for Peacebuilding Muslim Women and Peacebuilding Azza Karam Inter-religious Solidarity and Peacebuilding: The Case of Muslims in South Africa A. Rashied Omar Islamic Resources for Peacebuilding Mohammed Abu-Nimer Response: John Paul Lederach Closing Address Foundations and Implications of the U.S. War on Terrorism Graham Fuller.

The PRCP Co-ordinator, A. Rashied Omar, presented a paper on interreligious peacebuilding which argued that the dramatic events of the past year have ironically created renewed opportunities for inter-religious solidarity in the United States. He identified a number of critical challenges, which interreligious activists need to face in order to transform this newfound interest and energy into a sustainable movement for peace. "The interreligious movement in the United States has contributed to the difficult process of healing in the post September 11 period. However, it needs to become a grassroots move-ment and to find intrinsic sources of religious inspiration in order to make a difference to relations within the broader society" he said.

The success of this inaugural PRCP conference will no doubt provide a useful model for future events. The PRCP plans to publish the revised papers presented at the conference. According to Kroc Institute Director Scott Appleby, who will edit the volume, "The volume will provide a state-of-the-art discussion of the themes addressed in the conference. Our primary audience is the educated general public." The success of this inaugural PRCP conference will no doubt provide a useful model for future events.

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