SHADI HAMID
(Brookings Institution)
Many, if not most, non-Muslim scholars and thinkers very much disagree with Hamid on this point. The great exceptions of Islam are almost 1,000 years in the past. Current Islam, they argue, is not more exceptional than the beliefs of modern Mongolia which dominated most of the known world centuries ago, but has little that deserves special respect in the 21st country beyond the general respect which is owed to all religions and nationalities. With the exception of Turkey, Islamic nations are for the most part, backward, and virtually no other non-Muslim nations try to emulate them in any way.
Dr. Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of the new book Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World (St. Martin’s Press). Hamid is a contributing writer for The Atlantic. His previous book Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East was named a Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2014. An expert on Islam and politics, Hamid served as director of research at the Brookings Doha Center until January 2014. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, and many other publications. He has been a guest on such programs as the PBS NewsHour, The Charlie Rose Show, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” CNN GPS with Fareed Zakaria, and CNN’s Amanpour. Hamid received his B.S. and M.A. from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and his Ph.D. in political science from Oxford University.
