Abstract
This article looks at the role that faith-based diplomacy has come to play in Qatar's diplomatic relationship with the West, and the U.S. in particular. Situating the case of Qatar in the context of wide-ranging Muslim efforts to address the theme of interfaith on the world stage, I argue that in a post-9/11 geopolitical climate, faith-based diplomacy in general and interfaith dialogue in particular are best understood in terms of a broader politics of representation. This article contributes to the typically Western-centric and Christian leaning literature by offering an account of the place of faith-based diplomacy in the foreign policy of a Muslim-majority country.
ORCID
John Fahy http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7669-4913
Notes
2 The term “Muslim world” is not unproblematic (see Aydin Citation2017). Following Jeffery Haynes (in this issue), the term refers broadly to the ummah (a transnational community of Muslims that share religious, cultural and civilizational characteristics).
4 Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2013-05-02/qatar-attention-starved-teen-of-the-middle-east.
10 Source: http://www.qatarconferences.org/about-us.html.
11 Qatar National Vision, p. 209-210. Source: https://www.mdps.gov.qa/en/qnv1/pages/default.aspx.
12 Qatar National Vision, p. 23.
13 Source: https://www.unaoc.org/who-we-are/.
16 In 1989, in response to the publication of The Satanic Verses, Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran issued a fatwa calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie on charges of blasphemy. This incident catalyzed wide-ranging debates about Islam and modernity.
17 Source: https://www.isesco.org.ma/.
18 Source: http://www.aalalbayt.org/en/index.html.
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John Fahy
John Fahy is a Research Fellow at Georgetown University, Qatar and the Woolf Institute, Cambridge, where he leads a comparative project that focuses on interfaith initiatives in Delhi, Doha and London.