Islamic Reformulations: Belief, Violence, Governance

In this project, two fundamental research areas within the Global Uncertainties Programme (GU) are investigated. First, how might ideologies and beliefs contribute to "global uncertainty", and what response is appropriate if they do? Second, as some modern Muslim intellectual trends are viewed as creating "global uncertainty" through legitimising global terrorism and violence, what are the potential future directions for legitimate violence in Islamic thought?
(1) GU Leadership activities: Thoughtcrimes and Dangerous Beliefs
Research in the first area cuts across GU, though the natural location is the GU Core Area "Ideologies/Beliefs". By exploring the complex relationship between ideological adherence and action, the project will sharpen the focus of the Ideologies/Beliefs Core Area. Is global security threatened by ideologies? If so, how might dangerous beliefs be identified and their contribution to global uncertainty be assessed and neutralised? Much recent academic research has addressed these questions; responses involve a range of disciplines from psychology, anthropology, law and political science, to history and religious studies. For Gleave, these questions formed the underlying research focus of the "Legitimate and Illegitimate Violence in Islamic Thought" (LIVIT) project; LIVIT research explores the intellectual justifications for violence within the Muslim tradition, and how these justifications have formed the basis for action by particular Muslim movements. In this project, research on the contested relationship between ideological adherence and action will be first synthesised by the team; then, due to the complex nature of these research questions, an interdisciplinary network of expertise, including both academics and practitioners, will be established. This network will meet for two focussed workshops in the project's first year; in year 2, a major high-profile public seminar, entitled "Thoughtcrimes", will be held drawing on the workshops' findings. This event will attract additional network participants (both academics and user/practitioners) to the project, leading to further research synergies and public-facing events in the final year. The research programme aims to have a major impact, raising the level of public debate around these core GU research imperatives. Through this activity, the Ideologies/Beliefs CA will acquire methodological rigour, but this rigour will feed into other CAs (in particular Terrorism and CBRN Weapons Proliferation), thereby enhancing GU's overall coherence.
(2) Islamic Reformulations Research Programme
Gleave's past work (LIVIT and elsewhere) has charted Muslim intellectual justifications for violence over time. This project will extend this research by focussing on the possible developments of Muslim thinking on violence within the current context by reference to past patterns of justification. The current context may be peculiar, but its elements are not unprecedented. The (so-called) Arab Spring has indeed created new possibilities for Islamism generally, and Islamic ideology specifically. The governments in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which self-identify as "Islamic", are experiencing challenges; in each case the debated use of force forms a central element of the challenge. These developments are best understood in the context of previous Muslim notions of violence and its legitimacy; by examining them against this background, the current intellectual landscape of the Muslim world, and its potential ideological trajectories, can be better understood. Research will progress across the three years through research (both independent and collaborative) by Gleave and the researcher, intensive "sandpit" consultations with LIVIT's established expertise base, and a programme of bespoke events for the public and the practitioner/user communities. These activities are designed to raise public awareness and enhance the project's impact inside and outside academia.

The various potential beneficiaries of the project (in both the GU Leadership/Thoughtcrimes and the Research Programme/Islamic Reformulations elements) will engage with different stages of the project's activity programme in distinct ways:
(1) Researchers, scholars and students working in academia will benefit from the originality of the project's ouputs, bringing to light the continuity and discontinuities between classical Islamic thought and the contemporary Muslim intellectual developments on the questions of the justification of violence and its link with legitimate governance. On the more general questions tackled by the Leadership activities, researchers in a variety of disciplines will hopefully be exposed to the various models of how ideological commitment might be linked with uncertainty-causing action. The seminars and workshops will also offer them opportunities to widen their audience and improve the impact potential of their research (see the Academic Beneficiaries section above). This will build on the networks and working arrangements of the LIVIT project.
(2) Those working in the security services (both those involved in counter-terrorism and also those working in deradicalisation programmes) will undoubtedly express an interest in the findings of the project, and benefit from its research approach. This would follow on from similar activity in the LIVIT project, and will include involvement in the seminars and networks established in year 1, contributions to the Thoughtcrimes seminar and other events in year 2, and feeding into the design of the programme of impact activities (training sessions, information design, digested research bulletins) planned for the final year.
(3) The foreign and diplomatic services (not only of the UK but other countries also) will benefit from this, particularly those involved in training and briefing individuals for postings, researchers within the foreign service, and analysts seeking to inform foreign policy. Links already exist in this area through the LIVIT project, and will be further developed in the period of the project's activities.
(4) The benefit to Non-Governmental and Third Sector Organisations working with Muslim communities worldwide will lie in them using the research and engaging with the impact activities planned for year 3 of the project. The research will be presented to these non-academic users in digestible form, and training events around these will be devised for the final year of the project. Those working in areas unrelated to Muslim communities will also benefit, engaging with the project through the GU Leadership activities, particularly the network and Thoughtcrimes seminar. These will cover all ideological movements and their potential to inspire action likely to cause global uncertainty.
(5) One of the principal aims of the project is to raise the level of public awareness of the debates around the inherent "danger" of certain opinions in a liberal democratic context, the supposed "causal" relationship between ideological adherence and "dangerous" action, and (perhaps the most obviously attractive element) the application of these notions directly to Islam and contemporary Muslim thought. Through the media attention which the project aims to capture, and the public facing events and online presence, the project aims to raise the level of public debate about Islamic thought, and its contribution to global uncertainty. This is more than simply dissemination of research results: an attempt to influence the manner in which Islamic thought is described and presented in public discourse (which in a democratic context, will inevitably have policy implications).
By taking ideological and religious debates seriously, and not treating them merely as proxies for conflicts of power, the project will facilitate the coordination of the various GU Core Area activities, and thereby enhance the benefit of the GU programme to its user communities.