Why? – To Facilitate Trust and Coexistence

IIPC is founded on the realization that global coexistence is being threatened by gross mistrust and differences between entrenched traditional values, mostly defined by different spiritual beliefs and practices, and modern secular leanings. People differ in their attitudes towards religion and religious practices, in viewpoints about the extent to which religion should play a role in organizing and regulating civil society and in all endeavors of their daily life. People differ in viewpoints about whether religion should even have a role in moral and practical laws and to what extent, if any. This divide is what led historians and political scientists, like Basil Mathews, Bernard Lewis and Samuel P. Huntington, to theorize and express their views about what they call “The Clash of Civilizations”, with specific reference to Western and Islamic cultures. Recent violent socio-political events around the world involving Muslims have amplified this notion and aggravated the mistrust that already exists between the West and the Muslim world. However, Muslims in the West are generally in a unique position to change this prevailing, dominant, albeit false, narrative of violent Islam in ideology and practice, into something which reflects the true teachings and practices of both Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and traditional Islam.