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Our Mission

New York University Center for Dialogues: Islamic World – U.S. – The West was established in the aftermath of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, which highlighted the urgent need for greater communication among and about the Islamic World, the United States, and the West. With the attacks focusing the world’s attention on extremist movements in the Middle East and Islamic Asia, political commentators have been seeking, and often failing, to explain the political and social roots of these movements and their accompanying grievances against the West and the United States.

The Center was launched as a structured forum for sustained dialogue involving voices from the various religious, intellectual, economic, and political sectors of Islamic and American / Western societies, including those non–elite Islamic figures with proven credibility in their communities who are too often unheard in the West.

Based on this sustained dialogue, the Center is committed to a number of academic, policy, and outreach activities, including conferences on a variety of critically important topics today—the clash of perceptions, elections, the nature of authority in the Islamic world and in the West, Muslims in the West, the role of the media, and education, among others.

The Center is unique among comparable institutions at American universities for combining public outreach and international conferences, academic study, and policy review and recommendations. Government leaders and other relevant authorities and organizations, including media decision–makers, attend the meetings in order to help effect policy change and alter public perceptions. Findings from the Center are also published as policy papers, as well as in book form, and are disseminated to educational institutions worldwide for use by students, faculty, and researchers.

Moreover, the Center for Dialogues is creating a network of leaders who will continue to communicate with and consult one another for years to come—a valuable network for negotiating peace in times of crisis.

After nearly nine years of activities, the Center for Dialogues has established a reputation as a serious and important institution, grounded in solid scholarship and objective analysis. The Center’s activities are making an impact, its conferences are widely discussed in international policy circles, its publications are used as educational material in university classrooms, its network of peacemakers is growing — with tangible evidence that important links are being forged as a result of its activities, its staff are sought after to contribute to the institution’s perspective through conferences, advisory panels, and in the media, and fundraisers are showing recognition and support. Together with Madeleine Albright, Dennis Ross, Richard Armitage, and other eminent American personalities, the Center’s Founder and Director, Mustapha Tlili, served as a member of the Leadership Group on U.S. – Muslim Engagement, which in September 2008, on the eve of the U.S. presidential elections, published a report, "Changing Course: A New Direction For U.S. Relations with the Muslim World". http://www.usmuslimengagement.org

In these difficult times when anger, extremism and misunderstanding appear to have gained the upper hand, the Center for Dialogues’ work is crucial. Through dialogue based on mutual respect, Muslim and Western community leaders can dispel the current climate of anger, check extremist trends, and lay the foundations for a more comprehensive and lasting peace.

 

 

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