- +6
Yasmine Farouk, Nathan J. Brown, Maysaa Shuja Al-Deen, …
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"Intissar Fakir"
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"Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
"Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center"
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"regions": [
"North Africa",
"Morocco",
"Tunisia",
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"topics": [
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}Source: Getty
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.
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.
About the Author
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.
- Islamic Institutions in Arab States: Mapping the Dynamics of Control, Co-option, and ContentionResearch
- A Conflict That Time ForgotCommentary
Intissar Fakir
Recent Work
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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