Georgetown University’s Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU), an academic center focused on Muslim-Christian relations, launched a new research initiative on rural Muslim communities Feb. 17.
The Mountain Societies Initiative (MSI) aims to explore the ethics, development and social life of Muslim groups within rural communities in Central Asia. The research initiative, led by professor Shenila Khoja-Moolji, is a two-year project that begins with an expert speaker series March 10 and will include a conference as part of its goal to produce research about the underrepresented subfield in Islamic scholarship.
Khoja-Moolji, who has studied mountain societies for 15 years, said the initiative will examine how regional and geographical conditions influence Islamic tradition in Central Asia.
“The Mountain Societies Initiative grew out of my long-standing interest in the ethical, cultural and developmental questions that take shape in high-altitude regions that remain underrepresented in mainstream scholarship,” Khoja-Moolji wrote to The Hoya. “With support from ACMCU, I wanted to create a platform at Georgetown for sustained conversation about how topography, fragile terrains, and shifting social and technological conditions shape everyday life.”
“The initiative also reflects a commitment to learning from communities whose histories, cultural forms and institutional worlds complicate familiar narratives about Islam, development and modernity,” Khoja-Moolji added.
Khoja-Moolji said the initiative has three core goals: facilitating dialogue, collaboration and sparking student interest and involvement.
“First, it convenes scholars and practitioners working on Central Asia’s mountain regions to deepen research conversations on ethics, development and social life in these settings,” Khoja-Moolji wrote. “Second, it builds pathways for collaboration with the University of Central Asia, since UCA is doing foundational work in these regions, and there is a strong opportunity for intellectual exchange between UCA and Georgetown.”
“Third, it expands learning opportunities for Georgetown students by bringing this scholarship into our academic community through public talks, classroom integration, and, where possible, collaborative teaching and student engagement,” Khoja-Moolji added.
Khoja-Moolji said the speaker series will foster academic discussion among differing fields of research.
“The speaker series helps establish a shared set of questions for an understudied region and draws together multiple fields that do not always speak to each other,” Khoja-Moolji wrote. “The series centers on four themes: memory and social life; cultural heritage and the arts; governance and mobility; and climate change and rural livelihoods.”
Jonathan Stupple, the ACMCU’s director of programs, said the initiative aligns with the ACMCU’s mission in enhancing the West’s understanding of the Muslim world.
“Dr. Khoja-Moolji’s Mountain Societies Initiative is a perfect fit for the type of research we support, as it tackles questions relating to ethics, development and social life of societies while relating such questions to ongoing debates in the social sciences,” Stupple wrote to The Hoya. “Academic discourse rarely examines what lessons can be learned from Muslim-minority or -majority contexts.”
Nader Hashemi, ACMCU director, said the initiative falls within the ACMCU’s broader mission of studying Muslim and Christian societies and their cultural interactions.
“When you talk to most people, I think both on campus and just generally people who are not specialists, and you ask them ‘Where is the Islamic world, where do Muslims live?’” Hashemi told The Hoya. “They’ll say the Middle East, maybe North Africa. If they’re smart enough, they’ll say Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Malaysia; they won’t say Central Asia.”
“It’s an understudied part of the world just generally, but also in the context of Muslim-Christian relations, so that’s why I think it’s a very unique, important research project that’s being developed here,” Hashemi added.
Stupple said this initiative is particularly important in addressing misconceptions and marginalizations of understudied communities, such as mountain societies.
“While this point should be obvious, humanity includes all religions, communities and societies,” Stupple wrote. “As the world we live in is defined by increasing polarization and marginalization including at home, initiatives like this one that seek to foster mutual understanding and learning predicated on truly universal conceptions of humanity are more vital than ever before.”
