Leading Shia theologians from Iran and Iranian academics, who often find themselves excluded from the developing dialogue between the Western world and Islam, have taken part in a seminar in Cyprus on "Political Islam and the West", which was organised by the Centre for World Dialogue, founded by an Iranian-born Cypriot, Mr Hossein Alikhani.
Also taking part were dissident Iranian scholars, as well as experts from Tehran and independents from the Iranian diaspora.
Participants from Tehran included Ayatollah Mohammad Mojtahed-Shabestary, a professor at Tehran University; Mrs A'zam Taleghani, a women's activist who was banned from running for the Iranian presidency in June by the clerical Council of Guardians; and Dr Abdol Karim Saroush, a British-educated progressive philosopher who challenges the credentials of the clerics to both rule his country and interpret Islam.
Although Dr Saroush, the leading Islamic reformer in Iran, has lost his job and been banned from lecturing, he said things were changing, particularly since the inauguration of President Muhammad Khatami in August.
The seminar tried to exorcise the spectre of an "inevitable clash" between the inherently "incompatible civilisations" of Islam and the West, a spectre raised by Dr Samuel Huntington, of Harvard, at the seminar and in his book, The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order.
Dr Saroush dismissed the notion that Islam and Christianity were incompatible by showing, in philosophical terms, that they belonged to the same universe of discourse.
Prof Reza Sheikholesami, of Wadham College, Oxford, argued that Westerners and Muslims were after the "same thing, economic prosperity". Competition for resources and power had produced the clash, he said.
Dr Graham Fuller, of the US Rand Corporation, agreed, citing "oil and neo-colonialism" as major factors, while disputing Dr Huntington's contention that the clash was based on religion and culture.
Dr Enzo Pace, of Padua University, said the Vatican was engaged in a major effort to achieve coexistence with the Muslim world.
The president of the Russian Centre for Policy Evaluation, Prof Anatoli Gromyko, asserted that Russia, with a population of 15 million Muslims, could not subscribe to the theory of the "clash" as Russia was in the advantageous position of being both Christian and Muslim.
