 Great. Well, welcome everybody. Good afternoon and thank you for joining this issue briefing on an important subject of the evolution of political Islam. One could be forgiven for thinking we look strictly at the long term here at the World Economic Forum with our theme this year of Mastering the Fourth Revolution, but we'll say we have to have one mind firmly in the present and security and stability in the Middle East and North Africa region as well as other regions elsewhere as of paramount importance in 2016 just as looking forward into the future and the challenges we face in the long term looming on the horizon. So, political Islam, what does it mean? I have three experts, all diverse views that hopefully we'll be able to explore this issue. We also have questions coming in from social media and we'll hopefully have questions from the floor too. Those of you unfamiliar with the format here of issue briefings, we have brief remarks by our three panelists and there will be time for questions and hopefully we'll have a slightly chaotic free flowing conversation. I'd like to encourage all of you to butt in and enter the conversation at any point whatsoever. We only have half an hour. It's not a great deal of time and it's an important subject so we'll get started straight away. I'll just introduce my three panelists. I'm going to start by asking Mr Ahmad Aravani, the President and Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and the Middle East in the USA. He's also a member of our Global Agenda Council on the Role of Faith and he also teaches at the Catholic University in Washington DC. I'm going to start off by asking Ahmad about what political Islam means to him in 2016 and how it can be fully exploited to create an ideal political system. Asma Abu Mazid, a researcher and advancement fellow at Internet2 based on the Gaza Strip. I'm proud to say a member of our Global Shaper community in Davos for her first time and I'm going to be asking Asma for her take on what the youth generation, the millennials, see as political Islam in its successful form. And again we have another Shaper, Yuma Nafal who was also a member of the media, correspondent in Beirut for Future Television, a Lebanese channel. I'm going to be asking her about the challenges as she sees it to political Islam both in terms of perception but also in terms of reality. Ahmad if you would start please. I'm very keen to hear your view on what is political Islam to you and how it can be best exploited. Thank you and good afternoon everyone. It's my great pleasure to be here today. In this very short time I'll try to define political Islam the way I think and the way I understand it. Political Islam, before talking about political Islam, Islam by itself unlike other religions or at least unlike some religions, from the beginning the founder of the religion was able, Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, was able to establish a government and build a political society, social society, a new life based on laws and rules. That led the Muslim after him, the Muslim followers after him to follow his life and his example as an example for their own life and their societies. So they tried during the history by establishing Islamic states, by getting involved in a different part of daily life of the people to show from religion a religion that involves in every aspect of human life including the political life of every person within Islam. So if we took this term as a general that means Islam plays role in the political life of every Muslim whether they have an Islamic state or not. Muslim highly encouraged to get involved in political life of their own countries or their own nations. That's how political life in general means. However, some people maybe some Westerners or some others taking this term in a very narrow, very narrow sense of that and applies only to part of Islam, trying to maybe disconnect or isolate the rest of the others, applying to those people who only seeking within the Islamic societies just establish even with force, even with fighting like the one what we see in ISIS and others to impose their political views on others even to non-Muslims and that's called political Islam. So it depends really on from which perspective are you looking for, but from the way I look it, Islam is integrated with politics, with morality, with everything. A Muslim person has responsibility to be active in every part of his life, including political matters and the politics here I mean a more general sense as I'm looking at as an art of taking care of your daily affairs, which includes also a political system, but is not limited to a political system is more wider and the body politics of each society is also part of this political Islam. Asma, what does it take your different generation, of course, you've grown up in the Gaza Strip, you live in London I believe right now? D.C. Apologies. What's your take? How do you agree with this perception of political Islam? Well to me, like when we talk about religion and politics it's something that has been talked about like and it has been in a place since ages and since centuries as well, but the main and for me when we talk about religion it's about giving meaning to life, it's about the values, the reflection, the inspiration that guides our life and when we talk about politics we are talking about the rules and the policies that regulate our social lives and like in theory these two things when they work together then we will have a really strong society that care to each other and it's inclusive however we should not neglect that there are also some people who interpret the religion in their own way and they use their religion as a way to attract people and to their own benefits that's why we are saying this upuse of power, upuse of people's intention as well but as someone who actually grow up in Gaza and now is living in D.C. what was more worrying for me is how the western societies look at political Islam and at Muslims. I never feared all my life in Gaza other than the Israeli bombing but like in normal life and my interaction with the government with Hamas I never feared for my life however when I was in D.C. which is supposed to be a free country democratic country in the first month I had the three accidents of harassment because I'm a Muslim and because my Islam shows because of the way I dress I had people harassing me by words people coming to me in the bus and saying are you gonna blow up this bus and people also shouting at me and scaring me so this is not only me there are so many Muslims in their own countries and outside they are being scared and worried about this reflection so it keeps always wondering why the action of just a smaller group that does not represent the majority is actually generalized in the media generalized everywhere why a human being does not take the effort to know the other whether he's a Muslim whether he's a Christian or any other religion you know maybe drawing on your role in the media maybe drawing on your role as a global shaper as a young person the the viewpoints we've heard are painting a picture of a strong inclusive safe caring society and yet as Azmar says there isn't in some places an image problem if you will with political Islam it's not always interpreted in that way right I I just want to add to what Mr Irvani said and Azmar yes political Islam which if we were to define it a friend of mine Tariq Osman he's an Egyptian analyst he defined it in a in a way that I really liked he said it was the implementation of and representation of Islam in society and politics and today when we look at political Islam yes it is facing somewhat of a crisis many challenges and like Azmar said there is a group if you will of a loud group of people wreaking havoc in the name of Islam they are spreading fear by using by committing atrocious acts in the name of Islam and scapegoating a whole community but we cannot scapegoat a whole community of 1.6 billion people based on the loud actions of a group that seems to have completely withered away from what Islam is supposed to be to start with and to go back to what you were saying about how in the US this idea of xenophobia I mean in the news today we hear Republican candidate Donald Trump talk about wanting to ban Muslims from entering the US and that's you know that can only create more terror because when you are going to tell a whole community well you can't come to the US which is supposed to be the land of the free it's going to perhaps drive more terror because you're excluding and you're you're you're basically treating them as outcasts which is not what it's supposed to be you're supposed to it's it's a difficult I understand it's a difficult thing to try to get moderate people to talk to get moderate people who understand Islam and who are Muslims living every day like the rest of people going to their jobs coming home to feed their children it's it's not just about what extremist groups do and I understand that it's hard for those moderates to get up and talk and speak up because a lot of them I think are scared of of the reactions because of the the constant portrayal of Islam in the media so yes there are challenges and it's it is a difficult time for political Islam but I do believe that there is hope in the future I do believe that today's topic is actually millennials and political Islam and when we speak of millennials we speak of those young people who started the Arab Spring five years ago by protesting by using social media to call for reform and change and there was a very interesting poll taken last week but it's called the Zogbi research poll services poll and it basically surveyed 3,754 Muslims young Muslims men and women from the Mina region and the the polls results were that three quarters of these young people feel that ISIS is a complete perversion of Islam and does not represent them and they blame a lot of them blame their governments for these extremist groups and the failures of those governments which is very interesting when you think about it because five years ago in the Arab Spring and we had Nobel Peace Prize winners from the National Dialogue Quartet this morning in this very same room talking about the the experiences of building a multi-stakeholder coalition of business of civil rights activists of of labour unions and and and working together collectively to ensure a democratic transition and there was lots of hope there and political Islam was perhaps not perceived the way it is today and today it's different so perhaps looking at that narrative what has changed over that time how come how come the acts of ISIS have been allowed to dominate and overtake the narrative if you allow me well the problem is that when you talk about young people when you don't empower young people to actually speak up when you grow up in an environment where the only thing you have to do is just you have to follow the rules and not to have an understanding of what is happening not to question things not to think and have your own interpretation so you will end up having the interpretation of the Islam or the religion by one group that is being dominating the whole spectrum or the society and like for example in Gaza religion was it's considered the like the the gate for people to come out from the situation they are and the problem in the Arab world is that there are so many factors influencing youth economic political war conflict so there is no way they can have more voice in discussing things openly that's why we are finding like people are suffering from extreme religion regimes from oppression and if you don't have these opportunities it's not like the U.S. or in Europe you can speak your mind so in in such situation it is it is only an outcome that we are reaching to the status that we are have in the minority I agree with what you said and just adding to to this I think that the what we are witnessing today in the Middle East which is now unfortunately full of crisis in different ways during the last few years is related to many factors and have many causes including the lack and crisis in the leadership of these countries the political system they have even they some of them they call political state Islamic state which is not really we know that and also the lack of job opportunities economic crisis and problems which every day people are watching and also the injustice which is happening in the region double standard policies which is coming from everywhere and and and people are feeling it in their daily life making all these people to lose their hope more than before to listen to some of the voices that they are calling themselves they're true Islam and real Islam and then to go to the situation that we are witnessing today these people who are calling themselves like the Islamic state and they are saying whatever I mean whatever the others had have done or not representing Islam and we are true Islam they are taking advantage of this problem and defects within the ummah within the society of the muslim countries and then by that reason you will see the thousands of people of the muslim youth generation are living their homes and going there to become a martyr to become to become part of that Islamic state societies that is wrong but that's the fact that is happening so there are responsibilities there are lots of responsibilities for muslim scholars for muslim thinkers for clergy's for imams for west thinkers for western thinkers for everyone to come for business leaders they have to contribute their shares they have to pay their shares as well to come and bring education bring job opportunities to the people and in that time then the education can play its role and and give a new kind of understanding to these people that now embracing in a very wrong way the wrong slogans in the name of Islam in their life and if I may add to that it's true that also muslim scholars they need to revise the way we interpret Islam because Islam is actually a religion that fits every time and it's wrong to take the interpretation that's fit a century ago and implemented the same as now this is one thing another thing is that if you look at the people who are joining extremists a group they are joining because these extremists a group are living are giving them purpose are giving them a meaning are actually including them are actually valuing the their drivers it's the same I was discussing that with a shaper Nadia global shaper and we were talking about this and we mentioned how for example why people are also joining gangs in the US why people are also joining extreme groups in different countries it's not because that's that's what they want nobody grow up and say oh I want to be a gangster no one everyone has their own dreams but when you are left with this only option especially in countries where conflict is the constant thing that you grow up with of course you will have tendencies of extremism and if there is no one who can help you in actually dealing with these tendencies then you will turn up to the only option that they have and extreme group it gives these people meaning it gives them jobs it gives money at least it helps them to have food on their table or in the their family's table as well I mean just add to what you both were saying if I may it's I agree there is a there's a sense of belonging that these young people are looking for that they find in these extremist groups and of course to blame is the society that they live in it's not just what we didn't mention is that it's not just in Arab countries a lot of people that are joining ISIS come from you know in Europe for example Belgium and France have a high number of nationals that are joining ISIS you know and now with the migrant crisis we can't ignore that in the future there's going to be a significant Muslim population in Europe I think 10 percent of Europe is going to be Muslim by 2030 or 2050 and there needs to be a dialogue for tolerance and mutual understanding and mutual coexistence which is very important if things are to go forward hopefully in a peaceful way because yes there are lack of opportunities I don't I don't think just that is going to allow somebody to go to extremist group I think it's also what Asma said it's they lure you with um a better life money the sense of belonging which they're looking for as well the youth all the indicators are pointing towards economics here aren't they whether it's a sense of belonging whether it's of losing hope because one doesn't have the job or the skills to to succeed or to thrive in prosper so I suppose my question is how can we channel the positive aspects of Islam to create the institutions needed for this fundamental growth to take to take root of the world economic reform of course we publish competitiveness reports every year we look at the long-term drivers of prosperity the institutions that are required the education the environment how can we channel Islam to help build this this this grassroots structure that we can build a prosperous society on before I answer your question I just want to add something about these people who are joining ISIS from the Europe mainly I think for these people maybe job opportunities or whatever is an issue but deeper than that is the way they have been treated in the west especially in Europe there is a kind of marginalization that's happening to them there is an issue especially they are talking about us and others they are others they are in the corner and when you have that kind of treatment with the community with the immigrants there is no kind of equal kind of treatment with each other then you will feel that kind of reaction that led them to different kind of activities however so that's highly recommended for European countries try to bring them and try to integrate them within their communities and try to be one family as a human being everyone has a dignity and that dignity must be acknowledged that's one thing now about I mean how if I understood your question that how we can channel I mean in the right way that I think that there are different the time doesn't let us to go in details but in short there are different ways that Muslim can contribute in towards a better life for these people now in terms of political leadership there must be some kind of reshaping and rethinking of the political leadership of the region by giving their own people more opportunity to be part of the political system being decision maker as a kind of a democratic society that the other people around the world enjoying them now the issue of education is highly highly important and must be emphasized more than before now the education is not simply just providing new books or materials those materials are very important and must be refined and rewritten by modern reformist Islamic thinkers which have come within the Islamic traditional system if you brought them from outside then there is a natural reaction towards them so within the Islamic judiciary system within the Islamic Sharia within the Islamic theology we need more kind of reform by using the term they are calling it ish jihad that's also another one now then it comes the role of civil societies it comes the role of other countries to get more involved with these people in the region unfortunately I am just coming from Iraq and the I mean I see that I mean they have been invested a lot in military aspects of this country but there isn't any investment in terms of getting people involved with each other try to educate them try to connect them to the people around the world throughout to give them more hope they are hopeless so the role of media here is very important so encouraging peace encouraging so there are different kind of these issues that I recommend I to to add on what he's saying oh may I please do to add on what he's saying he was talking about the importance of civil society and the importance of obviously and of course leadership is important but if I could give the example of France which we were talking about on the one-year anniversary of the charlie ebdo attack this january an organization called the french council muslim faith which was backed by the government held what they called an open mosque day which allowed non-muslims to go to I think they're over approximately 2400 mosques in France so to go there to discuss with muslims in the mosques what the religion was about what it entails to kind of try to really foster some sort of relationship that is based on mutual understanding as opposed to especially a year after the charlie ebdo attack because it's still in after november it's still very fresh in people's minds so those kinds of movements those kind of events can help there is damage that has been done and we can't deny that but um is it repairable yes I think so is it going to take time definitely we have a question for the can I just ask yeah so I just want to stress about revisiting our own interpretation of Islam and how we interpret Islam that's very important but also I have another point is that actually I'm telling this to the muslims can you please stop apologizing for the mistakes of a group that does not represent you you are not guilty and it's not our fault and these people like ISIS when they commit the crime they don't they don't represent me so why do I have the pressure on me to go and apologize don't apologize you you are only representing yourself so if someone has an issue with ISIS then they should direct this issue to ISIS not to the rest of the muslims another thing media should also stop being biased when someone commit a crime in for example in the US and he's white american he is categorized as having some psychological issues but when a muslim commits crimes he's a muslim and all the muslims will be doomed with him and I think what we are seeing by trump is an example that talks about itself like no one need to explain that and the third thing is that we also need to talk about political religion not only political Islam we also need to talk about political Christianity political Judaism it's all this religion it's shaping our say it is part of our society it is part of how we behave in these societies so we need to talk about this we shouldn't focus on one lens because when we focus only about political Islam we are actually reinforcing the ideas that well Islam is very extreme these are terrorist people that's why we need to talk about it a lot we need to discuss it in the media but we should also discuss other religions so that we can break the barriers and the misconceptions and the stereotypes that is all over the place just went through right please I just want to pick up on that point and I took questions your name please for the benefit of our audience sorry Peter Holmes Accord is my name I'm a writer question to all the panelists but picking up on that point that you just made political Islam is what we're talking about I feel we're talking two different languages although we're all talking English when we talk about political Christianity we talk about politics a system for the people being the most important part when people are rising up and they're running Christian politics they're saying that Christians should be the most important value when I hear you talking about political Islam you're still saying that the Islamic part should be the most important part and that's where I'm having a trouble with understanding how you take some parts of Islam and say that's not true that's not appropriate that's not the right Islam and this part is because religions are open as you've said to interpretation to all time so are we really talking about Islam or are we really talking about politics that governs people who are Islamic first of all I think as you know the history of Christianity and at least they are claiming that or there are lots of followers that there should be separation between church and state that's something you cannot find it in Islam at least among the majority of the Muslim there is the integration of the religion and politics you cannot make a distinction between these two but however to what extent then the religion can play its role as a as a political system to run a society and be a government that's an issue over has many different views even among the Muslim there are some Muslims who are part of of supporting that Islam must be involved in politics as well there is integration of politics and religion by politics here I mean the government state which you can see it in Iran for example in Saudi Arabia in other countries but there are some countries who are secular in terms of the governing the society like Turkey or Egypt or others but the society are Muslim and in their daily life politics plays a very important role as a Muslim and they are not like they don't say our religion is just for a personal issue in the closet no they are in daily life very active in a social and political life in the wider society however when it comes to the interpretation of Islam you are right I mean in Islam like any other religion is open to different interpretation no one can stop it so I mean the ISIS they represent they claim that they are representing of Islam we are claiming that we are representing of Islam then here is like a battle like a game that wrestling I can tell you that we have to bring all our evidence we have to bring all our culture and history of 1400 years of rich culture that shows what we believe and what we claim there is no other way they have now why I mean ISIS are grasping soft people attracting because they have the the finest the highest technology of media they're using everything they have money or whatever brainwashing and somehow they are winning the mind so that's our responsibility of other muslims of 1.500 million or whatever we want to say to come ahead and try to talk more it is true my dear sister asked me that they are not representing us but that's what we know but for non muslim for those who are just hearing in the name of Islam and they people are versing or reading Quranic verses so from them they think they are the real Islam is doing this so you are right is our responsibility our obligation to come ahead and try to clarify it and bring some proofs in different ways that this is it but not apologize however I mean if they are doing it in the name of Islam I think we should apologize from these people that this misusing of Islam created this kind of problem for this family we were talking about that yesterday I think there's a difference between condemning and apologizing apologizing means that you're guilty for what they're doing but we're you know we are guilty in somehow to be honest with you in in somehow we have worked less I mean in that term you can be guilty also if we don't care about our families if we don't care about children if we are not very active in our own societies if we are not asking from our leaders if we are not involved in our political system so that gives room for them also to go ahead so maybe a little bit guilty but that's not a big issue to apologize who is guilty that's now our daily responsibility to go ahead and try to work harder your example your presence here as a young ladies or the Muslim ladies that is a good voice that's showing to the whole world that the Muslim women who are very successful in business in political life that's the real picture of Islam on the Muslim woman and that is how as you mentioned that was the the life of the first lady of Islam Hazrat Khadija salamullah aleyha so we are proud of that and we have what to tell the whole people around the world there are lots of ignorance happening and people do not know really and they can make a distinction so that's our responsibilities thank you well we've run very very slightly over time I do apologize for all of those who are busy schedules like our panelists here I think we've learned quite a lot in this past half hour is that I can play a role in building the institutions needed for caring inclusive stable societies it needs to play a role Islam can retake the narrative but it's going to take some time I'd like to thank you all very much for joining us glad to thank you all for joining us here in the room and for watching us live online this session is now over thank you thank you