"Global development has robbed many people in traditional societies of their concept of honor and dignity," and they have reacted by adopting "a perverted notion of honor," asserted Akbar S. Ahmed of American University at the March 10 Center seminar "Islam and the West: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor World." While not unique to Muslim countries, this "ambiguous notion of honor" is pervasive among Muslims today—especially young, angry, illiterate, unemployed men "looking for a cause" in their disintegrating societies. Divorced from all constraints of chivalry, it exaggerates group loyalty, "propels men to violence" and vengeance, and has put Islam "on a collision course with the other world religions."

Ahmed pointed out that Muslim radicals may follow Islam’s injunctions regarding prayer and ritual, but they entirely ignore its stringent demands for basing social relations on the principles of "justice, compassion, and knowledge." The traditional Islamic aim of creating societies of "equilibrium" is now lost in the chaos and conflict arising from modernity. To find the way forward, he said, we must "begin the process of the dialogue of civilizations" by recognizing "that it is really the same God we’re talking about." America should also approach its Muslim community—potentially its "greatest asset in the war on terrorism"—with less suspicion, with careful respect shown to the Prophet Muhammad, and with a genuine desire to understand Islam.

Adding to Ahmed’s plea for religious understanding, Center visiting scholar James Bowman made a plea for understanding the Islamic world’s "language of honor," something that the Western world is "long out of the habit of using." He noted that in the wake of September 11, President Bush used the language of morality—"of good and evil"—rather than the language of honor. "It’s important to stress the difference between morality and honor," Bowman said. "Morality is universal; obligations of honor are to a particular society, not to the world in general, not to mankind." Whether Islamic society "will move in our direction" remains a big question, he said. The role of women is "very much bound up with the honor culture" and has not changed, particularly in the Arab world, as it has in the West.