On Dec. 20 and 21, the Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy (CSID) organized a forum, held in Riyadh, in cooperation with the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies.
CSID (www.islam-democracy.org) is a nonprofit organization, based in Washington, D.C., dedicated to studying Islamic and democratic political thought and merging them into a modern Islamic democratic discourse. CSID’s day-to-day operations are overseen by its President Radwan Masmoudi.
The organization was founded in March 1999 by a diverse group of academics, professionals and activists, both Muslim and non-Muslim, from around the US who agree on the need for the study of and dissemination of reliable information on this complex topic. CSID has no agenda other than the production and dissemination of rigorous research into Islam and democracy. However, its members are united in the conviction that this subject has been widely misunderstood both in the West and the Muslim world and that this fact has caused much discord among Muslims and continues to hamper attempts at cross-cultural dialogue today.
The organization works to produce scholarship that clarifies to what extent Western principles are permissible from an Islamic standpoint in the hope that this will spread knowledge in the Muslim community and better equip it to deal with today’s challenges. At the same time, CSID strives to improve the mainstream American community and policymakers’ understanding of Islam’s approach toward individual freedom, civil rights and political pluralism by producing scholarship that counters widely held prejudices and misconceptions.