Delicate Debates on Islam: Policymakers and Academics Speaking with Each Other

In this important volume, a broad range of scholars and policymakers, including former NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Dutch politician and former mayor of Amsterdam Job Cohen, have come together to explore how politicians and scholars in the West approach Islam. Many Western countries, including the US and the Netherlands, have seen an increasing polarization of opinion in the past decade, with some public figures and members of the mainstream media embracing stereotypes in lieu of a real understanding about Islam as a religion and a culture. This wide-ranging collection also touches on sensitive issues such as human rights violations and the position of women in Islam, and it furthers the conversation about the West’s relationship with Islam, by creating a more subtle and sophisticated depiction of the religion and its adherents.