A professor at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies discussed the goals of political Islam in a lecture that took place Nov. 1 at in the George Ignatieff Theatre in Trinity College.

“The Bin Laden movement is probably the greatest disaster to overtake Islam in the 20th century,” Roger Owen said. “It brought down the wrath of the international community on Islamic countries.”

He also noted the terrorist attacks represented the failure of Afghanistan’s al-Qaeda fighters to win victories in the countries from which they came, like Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.

The lecture was part of the “World of Islam” series on the cultural, historic, artistic, political and philosophical complexity of Islam, a monthly lecture programme that will continue until June 2003.

Owen, the author of State, Power and Politics in the making of the Middle East, began the lecture by saying: “Some issues are purely religious” and some are purely political, and that there are “boundaries between political and religious issues” when discussing Islam.

He then went on to discuss the present state of political Islam like the Taliban in Afghanistan, the 1979 Iranian revolution, and Saudi Arabia. Owen put special emphasis on Saudi Arabia and Iran, which, Owen stated, are “not so easily written off.”

Reform movements in these last two countries were discussed at length. In Iran, Owen said, reformers are trying to “repluralize Islam and go back to currents in Islamic history where there was a greater tolerance [and] diversity.”

In Saudi Arabia, Owen observed, “The process of rethinking the basis of a state which is based on the association of the ruling house and religious personnel is very much in-train.” The rethinking, he added, was due to the scrutiny Saudi Arabia faced after 9/11.

“Islam still has a greater power for popular mobilization than any other force within these societies,” Owen said. “In fact, it is also widely recognized that Islamic influence at the social setting is spreading.”

Owen went on to discuss why he thought people are rallying to political Islam in Turkey, Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East.

“It is widely assumed that the Islamic world is in some sort of a crisis due to a failure to provide basic needs.

“Some people believe that there must be some sort of democratic system implemented so that people negotiate a better way forward.”