ISCA Delegation Addresses Nixon Center Conference on
Sufism and U.S. Foreign Policy

Dr. Bernard Lewis (left) listens as Shaykh Kabbani (right) speaks about the role Sufis could play in improving relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world.

On October 24, an ISCA delegation, led by Chairman Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, traveled to Washington, DC, to participate in a groundbreaking conference on Sufism and its implications for United States foreign policy. ISCA was honored to participate in the conference, sponsored by the Nixon Center, which was held at the J.W. Marriott Hotel just blocks from the White House. More than 100 key government officials and representatives from Capitol-area think tanks attended the symposium, which featured presentations by a number of leading academics and foreign policy experts.

The highlight of the event was a keynote panel featuring Shaykh Kabbani and Professor Bernard Lewis of Princeton University.

Shaykh Kabbani told the assembly that America should reach out to the Sufis if it wants to improve relations with the Muslim world.

“They are reaching out to the Muslim and the non-Muslim,” he explained. “It’s a bridge between different cultures.”

However open-minded they might be, Shaykh Kabbani stressed that the Sufis are firmly grounded in Islam.

“There was no one scholar – until recently – that denied tasawwuf (Sufism),” he said.

Professor Lewis also spoke on the inclusive nature of Sufism that transcends mere tolerance. He said that the Sufis “can still play a great role” in establishing more positive and constructive relations between the West and the Muslim world and eliminating the miscommunication between cultures that has characterized the past several centuries.

Dr. Bernard Lewis (bottom left) listens as ISCA Executive Director Hedieh Mirahmadi (top right) speaks about the foreign policy implications of Sufism. Other panelists include (left to right) Dr. Zeki Saritoprak from John Carroll University, moderator Zeyno Baran from the Nixon Center and Dr. Timothy Gianotti from the University of Oregon.

When asked whom the U.S. government should talk to in the Muslim world, Professor Lewis replied simply, “I would suggest they talk to Shaykh Kabbani.”

Other speakers included Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman, Dr. Timothy Gianotti from the University of Oregon, Dr. Alan Godlas from the University of Georgia and ISCA Executive Director Hedieh Mirahmadi.

Dr. Mirahmadi said that, unlike radical Islamists, Sufis are not on a collision course with the West.

“It becomes self-evident then, for our long-term peace and security, to foster and encourage a Muslim world that doctrinally can co-exist in a pluralistic society,” she said. “I’m not asking U.S. foreign policy to invent an Islam that exists that way, it existed that way for 1,400 years.”

Alex Alexiev, senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy, said that the conflict between Sufism and Wahhabism is “a struggle for the soul of Islam.” He said that, since the 1970s, the government of Saudi Arabia has been spending an average of $2.5 billion a year to spread the Wahhabi doctrine around the globe.

Dr. Charles Fairbanks, director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at John Hopkins University, said the spread of Wahhabism has contributed greatly to the rise of militant Islamism around the world.

“Not all Wahhabis are terrorists,” he said, “but all terrorists are, at least, influenced by Wahhabism.”