Reforming Islamic Education in Afghanistan: Political and Strategic Implications
Practical information
This seminar welcomes John Butt, a prominent Islamic scholar, founding director of PACT Radio (Pak-Afghan Cross-Border Radio Training Program), and founder of the Jamiyat'al-Uloom'al-Islamiya, an Islamic University in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
Originally from the UK, John Butt has lived in South Asia for the last 40 years. He graduated from Darul Uloom Deoband, the pre-eminent Islamic seminary in South Asia - the only European ever to have done so. Since graduating from Deoband in 1984, he has pursued a career in the media, and in 1994 he founded a long-running BBC radio soap opera - "New Home, New Life" - for Afghanistan. He also visits Cambridge, UK, periodically, where he is Muslim chaplain.
Chair: Gilles Boquérat, Head of the India and South Asia Program at Ifri.
Other events
Nuclear Sharing in Europe: A Contested Policy That Endures
Since the end of the Cold War, the number of US nuclear weapons stationed in Europe has fallen more than seventy-fold, yet their presence in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey remains a quiet pillar of NATO's deterrence posture. This "nuclear sharing" arrangement, central to the Alliance since its founding, has long been contested by public opinion, political parties, and civil society across Europe, without ever being abandoned by host governments. This paradox lies at the heart of the seminar: why does such an unpopular policy persist?