100 Questions About Islam
A Video Project
In these videos, members of the British Council’s Our Shared Future Opinion Leaders Network provide facts and commentary about Islam and the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in Western society.
This project was produced jointly by the British Council's Our Shared Future program, the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and first released in August 2011.
In February 2012 the British Council released an additional set of videos to add to the conversation. Watch the new videos and enter our blogging contest here.
Since the early 1990s, debates have swirled within the American public sphere about Muslim and Western nations and the potential for a “clash of civilizations,” a theory proposed by political scientist Samuel Huntington that put religious and cultural differences at the heart of contemporary conflicts, including those between Muslims and non-Muslims. But recently, evidence ranging from public opinion polls to political revolutions has begun to suggest that the values of Muslims and non-Muslims are more often shared than at odds with one another.
Why, then, do Western societies still think that Muslims are so different? Perhaps because when it comes to Islam, Westerners have more questions than accurate answers. For example, what is Sharia law? And what is the role of Islamic women in today’s society? Then there are the more complex questions: What is the role of religion in the public space? And how have the Arab Spring revolutions begun to change that? Why is the “clash of civilizations” narrative still so popular, even though it has been discredited through years of research and scholarship?
Below, Our Shared Future Project Manager Emmanuel Kattan discusses the importance of informed commentary in the public discussion about Islam.
