Khalid Duran

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Khalid Durán is a specialist in the history, sociology and politics of the Islamic world. He studied Middle Eastern languages and Islam in Bosnia and Morocco, and sociology and political science at the universities of Bonn and Berlin. In the 1970s, he worked at Pakistan's Islamic Research Institute and traveled extensively in the Middle East and South Asia. He has been a visiting professor at universities in Pakistan, Austria, Germany, Scandinavia and the United States, teaching at departments of anthropology, history, religion and sociology. He is the author of five books and numerous articles on Islamic Religion, the Middle East, North Africa and Central and South Asia, covering both history and current affairs.

[edit] Quotes

"Durán was trained in Middle Eastern languages and Islamic studies in Morocco, Bosnia, and Pakistan. From 1961-1968, he studied political science and sociology at the Universities of Bonn and Berlin. The topic of his Ph. D. dissertation was 'In Quest of Muslim Identity: Ahmad Amin -- A Liberal Egyptian Historian, Language Reformer, and Muslim Reformist, 1886-1954".

"From 1975-1977 Durán conducted field studies on Muslim society in transition. He was a Senior Fellow and Researcher with the German Institute for Middle East Studies (Deutsches Orient-Institut) in Hamburg from 1978-1986. In 1984-'85 he was also working with the Tokyo-based UNU (United Nations University). As a result of his previous work with Pakistan's Islamic Research Institute Durán was invited, in 1984, by the Tokyo-based UNU (United Nations University) to be part of a team working on a project titled 'Islamic Perceptions of an Ideal Society.' His assignment was a study on 'Islam and the State.'

"Since 1986, Durán has been a Visiting Professor of Middle East Studies at a number of universities in the United States, including Temple University (Philadelphia, PA); American University (Washington, DC); University of California, Irvine; University of Louisville, KY. He also taught courses on Islamic culture at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC; 'Political Islam' at the University of Oslo; and served as a Researcher at Freie Universität Berlin. He worked as an Associate Scholar with the Foreign Policy Research Institute (Philadelphia) and the Institute for International Studies (Washington, DC).

"Durán is editor of TransIslam Magazine, (initially TransState Islam) a quarterly journal analyzing Islam-related political and sociological developments in a global perspective. He is President of the IbnKhaldun Society, a cultural association and forum of independent Muslim intellectuals.

"Durán is a frequent commentator on Voice of America, in the Spanish program of CNN and European radio and TV stations, such as ZDF (German TV). He has lectured at the National Defense University, the Pentagon and the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.

"Durán has testified on Capitol Hill, in the Swedish Parliament and the German Bundestag, on topics such as: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bosnia, Iran, Sudan and terrorism."

[edit] The political epithet Islamofascism

Main article: Islamofascism

According to The Guardian's Albert Scardino, Duran coined the term "Islamofascism":

Fascism is coming back into fashion, at least in the propaganda wars. For the right, it comes in the shape of a new word: Islamofascism. That conflates all the elements into one image: suicide bombs, kidnappings and the Qur'an; the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan; Iranian clerics and Hitler.
…
Use of the term to describe Muslim clerics and stateless terrorists has neatly pre-empted any chance of labelling Bush a fascist - no matter how many suspects are kidnapped by the US authorities and tortured; no matter how impervious the border; no matter how effective the use of propaganda to destroy the opposition; no matter how many countries are invaded on false pretenses; no matter how strongly a minority religion may become a mark of guilt.
—Albert Scardino, "1-0 in the propaganda war", The Guardian, February 4, 2005.

Note that the origins of the term Islamofascism are contested. Malise Ruthven used it in an article published in The Independent of 8 September 1990 (p.15), which gives him priority over Duran and other figures to whom it has been attributed.