Center of Islam and Global Challenges (IGC)

Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Islam has been largely seen as a problem which we need to study, analyze and resolve. The vision of this center, instead, is to place Islam in conversation with the various global challenges. Rather than perceiving Islam as a problem, the center seeks to highlight the potentiality of Islam in inspiring creative ways to think of the world problems. As living in the same world, the center assumes that Muslims have an obligation to share the responsibility of finding solutions to the challenges that confront humanity, and also that they have a right for their voice to be heard. The terms of Islam and global challenges are used in the broadest sense. Islam is understood as religion, tradition, civilization and culture. Similarly, we refrain from limiting the global challenges to be seven, fourteen, or twenty. Rather, we use the term to signify the contemporary problems that endanger humans as a whole. Climate change, environmental crisis, and peacekeeping predictably come within the purview of the center, but also issues like abnormal justice, ethical degradation and posthumanism remain integral parts of our interests.