ABSTRACT
Beck’s argument is a compelling and reassuring read in Europe, within the European context and construction of how politics work-or don’t work-in an idealized democracy with an operational Fourth Estate (the press) and public sphere. Not yet quite the best of all possible worlds, but not a bad place to start; reassuring because apparently there is already a word for the panacea we crave. The entity of Europe is not easily made cosmopolitan by diktat, of course, although it is already cosmopolitan by virtue of the movement of peoples allowed through and across EU borders. This fl uidity is not available to those beyond the existing borders of the territories of the EU, although this is constantly being enlarged,1 and Beck does not offer an answer to the larger question of how confl icts between large, “almost-cosmopolitan” regions and intraregional faith groups, for example, might be addressed through his model. Nor does he acknowledge competing cosmopolitan systems. The Ummah is cosmopolitan, albeit bounded by religious principle and allegiance, in that it requires transnational and transethnic commitment to the world of Islam. Yet in practice the Arabicization of Islam undermines the cosmopolitanism of the religious project to the extent that certain regional
groups are publicly re-asserting the cosmopolitan possibility of faith. The Sisters in Islam advocacy organization in Malaysia is an example of such resistance:
Sisters in Islam (SIS) is a group of Muslim women committed to promoting the rights of women within the framework of Islam. Our efforts to promote the rights of Muslim women are based on the principles of equality, justice and freedom enjoined by the Qur’an as made evident during our study of the holy text. We believe that for the Ummah (Islamic community) to grow and fl ourish, everyone must have the opportunity to fully participate in all spheres of life. The participation of Muslim women as full and equal partners in the ummah’s socio-economic development and progress is the need of the day. We conclude that it is imperative that the female experience, thought and voice are included in the interpretation of the Qur’an and in the administration of religion in the Muslim world.2
