ISLAMABAD, June 30: International Islamic University, Islamabad, (IIUI) Rector Dr Manzoor Ahmad has said that intellectuals and activists must not be mixed as the former are open to ideas while the latter activists ‘advocate’ ideas that may not necessarily be original or creative.

He was speaking at a roundtable discussion on “Between extremism and accommodationism: the role of intellectuals in the Muslim World” at the old campus of the International Islamic University (IIUI) here on Saturday.

Other discussants included Dr Mumtaz Ahmad, Professor of Political Science, Hampton University, USA; Dr Farid Isaack, South African professor of religious studies, Harvard University USA; Dr As’ad Abukhalil, State University and Dr Malik Badri, practitioner of Islamic psychology, Sudan. The conference was attended by a large number of intellectuals and academicians from the twin cities.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Manzoor Ahmed said an intellectual shall no more be an intellectual if he joined a political party or a government. An intellectual is above all influences and he thinks with absolute independence.

Talking about the challenges before Muslim intellectuals, Dr Ahmed said faith and intellectualism were two different kinds of thoughts however intellectuals in the Muslim world need to develop self-critique, critique of the others and an understanding of others.

Dr Abukhalil, while counting challenges before Muslim intellectuals, said the biggest challenge before us is that people from outside the Muslim world are saying how the Muslims should think. People with hostile attitude towards Islam are presented acceptable to the world and those who have objective approach to Islam and Muslims are discredited.

He said researchers and scholars in western universities were bound to accept some ‘generally accepted ideas’ otherwise they could not move forward in their fields. At the same time, continued Dr Abukhalil, Muslim societies themselves were not appreciative of intellectualism and freedom of expression. There are a large number of countries in the Muslim world where free expression of intellectual opinion is equal to putting one’s life at risk.

Dr Farid Isaack, on this occasion, said the primary job of a Muslim intellectual was to be a true Muslim and not be influenced by region, language, race or nationality. An intellectual is continuously in search of more ideas. The search is stopped once the intellectual seizes to be an intellectual.

Dr Isaack said intellectuals were human beings and they were very naturally influenced by the slogans of their times.

Dr Malik Badri said Muslims, the world over, had accepted some words like terrorism and extremism due to repeated use of such highly objectionable terms by the western media. He said Muslims in various parts of the world were fighting each other only for non-issues.s