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{
  "authors": [
    "Intissar Fakir"
  ],
  "type": "legacyinthemedia",
  "centerAffiliationAll": "dc",
  "centers": [
    "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
    "Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center"
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  "regions": [
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Source: Getty

In The Media

Calls to Ban Takfir Will Merely Widen Religious Divisions

Tunisia and Morocco are stuck between competing secularist and Islamist conceptions of the true and ideal nation and the role of religion in it.

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By Intissar Fakir
Published on Jan 29, 2014
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The Middle East Program in Washington combines in-depth regional knowledge with incisive comparative analysis to provide deeply informed recommendations. With expertise in the Gulf, North Africa, Iran, and Israel/Palestine, we examine crosscutting themes of political, economic, and social change in both English and Arabic.

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Source: National

A series of hot-button debates between Islamists and secularists in Tunisia and Morocco are distracting both sides from their countries’ more pressing issues and fuelling already dangerous currents of polarisation.

A key example is the recent discussion about banning or criminalising the practice of takfir – the declaration by one Muslim that another is an apostate, the term for a former adherent who now rejects Islam as a religion.

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This article was originally published in the National.

About the Author

Intissar Fakir

Former Fellow, Middle East Program, Editor in Chief, Sada

Intissar Fakir was a fellow and editor in chief of Sada in Carnegie’s Middle East Program.

    Recent Work

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    Islamic Institutions in Arab States: Mapping the Dynamics of Control, Co-option, and Contention
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      Intissar Fakir

Intissar Fakir
Former Fellow, Middle East Program, Editor in Chief, Sada
Intissar Fakir
Political ReformReligionNorth AfricaMoroccoTunisiaMaghreb

Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

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