The increasing sectarian conflict in Iraq and the rise of Islamist parties like Hamas and Hezbollah have put American efforts to democratize the Middle East on hold and raised doubts among experts and policy makers about whether democracy is compatible with the Muslim faith. But in a campus appearance yesterday afternoon, former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim offered an ardent defense of democracy in the Muslim world, telling a standing-room-only crowd in Bechtel Conference Center that "men and women are born free, even in the Islamic construct."

Alternating between serious and sporting through his two-hour speech, Ibrahim broached many of the issues aggravating relations between Islam and the West, including gender relations, American foreign policy, cultural assimilation in Europe and Pope Benedict XVI's recent comments about Islam. However, he was most outspoken regarding his home country - he was a political prisoner in Malaysia for over four years - and rejected the race - and religious-based affirmative action policies that benefit the Malay majority there.

Returning repeatedly to the topic of Muslim democracy, Ibrahim drew from historical references and personal experiences, citing the democratic regimes of Indonesia and Iran of 1950s.

"There was no debate then whether democracy was compatible with Islam," he said. "Fifty years later, we have our leaders in the Muslim world telling us we're not ready."

The fundamental nature of democracy and human rights is universal, Ibrahim emphasized, adding that problems begin with cultural miscommunication.

"We have to debunk and reject the notion, held by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, that to support democracy and freedom is to support America, "he said. "And it is important for Americans to realize democracy is a value cherished as much by Muslims as it is by Americans."

"Misperceptions are unfortunate," he added, elaborating on his impressions of American culture. "This is a country full of contradictions. The level of sophistication and intellectual flavor is unparalleled. So why must people be so prejudiced? Why is misunderstanding so pervasive? To say that Muslims are entirely anti-America is wrong."

Ibrahim offered scathing criticism of his fellow Muslims for violent reactions to both the publication of caricatures of Mohammad in a Danish newspaper in 2005 and to the more recent comment by Pope Benedict XVI referring to elements of Islam as "evil and inhuman." The cartoon spawned riots killing 139 in Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan and Afghanistan, while the Pope's remarks fueled a maelstrom of controversy, including the firebombing of Catholic churches throughout the Middle East and the shooting death of a nun in Somalia.

"There is a right to disagree but no one has the right to cause destruction or destroy life," he said. "No one has the right to call for the banning of newspapers."

Acknowledging that his comments were not necessarily indicative of Islamic public opinion, he said, "This view may not be shared by all Muslims, but I am prepared to confront them."

Ibrahim's penchant for speaking his mind and sticking to his principles has dogged the leader through a career of controversy. As a young Malaysian activist in the 1970s, he was arrested during a student protest and spent 20 months in a detention camp. Following a meteoric political ascent, he was named Deputy Prime Minister in 1993, and many expected that he was Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohammad's chosen successor.

But their relationship turned sour, and in Sept. 1998 Ibrahim was stripped of party membership and incarcerated under charges of corruption and sodomy. The charges were eventually overturned and he was released in Sept. 2004.

Regarding Malaysian politics today, Ibrahim expressed distaste toward his nation's system of bumiputera - a system of economic and social policies designed to favor ethnic Malays.

"I reject affirmative action based on race," he said. "Our policies should benefit the poor and the marginalized."

Finally, he described the need for engagement between the Islamic world and the West, criticizing the "extreme" foreign policy of the United States and its refusal to negotiate with regimes like Hamas.

"That policy is flawed," he said, adding that "to refuse to engage is a recipe for disaster."

Divorce proceedings bring out the worst in people. When Abdul Rahman tried to get custody of his daughters in Kabul, Afghanistan, his wife's family told the court that he was unfit to care for his children because he had converted from Islam to Christianity some 16 years ago. A zealous prosecutor, hearing of the case, charged Mr. Rahman with apostasy, a crime punishable by death under some interpretations of Islamic law. If Mr. Rahman does not repudiate Christianity, the judge in the case has said, he will get the death penalty.

Mr. Rahman's case is a discouraging illustration of the uneasy balance between the democratic norms Afghanistan's Constitution enshrines and the conservative Islamic values its judiciary upholds. On the one hand, the Afghan Constitution states that "followers of other religions are free to exercise their faith and perform their religious rites within the limits of the provisions of the law," and it requires the state to adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which clearly protects freedom of conscience and the right to change one's religion.

On the other hand, the Constitution also says that no law can be "contrary to the beliefs and provisions of Islam," and it gives judges broad power to interpret and apply Islamic law. Several schools of Islam do indeed prescribe the ultimate punishment for those who abandon the faith. And so Mr. Rahman's case may well come down to the interpretive leanings of the court.

Moderate Islamic jurists in some countries have attempted to balance or reconcile these often-conflicting interests. In Egypt, for instance, the Islamic Research Center decreed that although apostasy may be a crime, the time period for redemption is limitless - in other words, it is up to the individual, not the state, to adhere to divine will. The former chief justice of Pakistan, which has explicit anti-blasphemy laws, has written that the death penalty for apostasy is not required by the Koran and conflicts with other Islamic values.

Afghanistan's post-Taliban judiciary, however, has shown a propensity to use Islam as a political weapon. The country's chief justice, Fazil Hadi Shinwari, is a hard-line conservative associated with the Islamist parties of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and Burhanuddin Rabbani. He has used the court as a bully-pulpit, issuing fatwas on a variety of issues outside his jurisdiction.

For instance, under Justice Shinwari's leadership the Supreme Court has variously attempted to ban co-education; tried to eliminate a rival to President Hamid Karzai from the 2004 elections; and jailed newspaper editors, all in the name of Islam.

In other words, the court has overstepped its bounds and contributed to the radicalization of Afghan politics in the process. To further his aims, Justice Shinwari has packed the lower courts with judges who have Islamic educations but no foundation in Afghan law or experience in the judiciary.

President Karzai has a unique opportunity to change this. Under the Constitution, Mr. Karzai must appoint a new Supreme Court this month, and he sent his slate of nine justices to Parliament for approval last week. Although the current chief justice has retained his position, there are some very promising choices among the eight other justices. They include known moderates, like the former chairman of the Judicial Reform Commission, Bahauddin Baha, and the deputy minister of justice, Qasim Hashimzai, who led a major corruption investigation involving members of President Karzai's cabinet.

These appointments mark President Karzai's first opportunity to compose Afghanistan's Supreme Court under a fully constitutional government. They are of momentous importance to the country's stabilization and the consolidation of its nascent democracy.

By creating a competent, professional and moderate judiciary, President Karzai will help to establish the rule of law. If, however, the court remains in the thrall of ideology and factionalism, Afghanistan's experiment in democracy will be compromised.

But the new judges will be powerless to reform the system unless they are given the political support and resources to do so. International involvement in Afghanistan's justice sector since 2001 has been inadequate. Both the Afghan government and its donors need a strategic vision for the judiciary's future and the political focus to make it a reality.

The new judiciary will need support to review the qualifications of the lower court judges, facilities to train new judges and functioning courthouses in the provinces. It will need to be able to share information, laws and legal decisions among officials throughout the country and to pay judges a living wage.

We must do more than simply react loudly to the most extreme cases, like that of Mr. Rahman. Instead, we must partner with the Afghans and other democratic governments in the Islamic world as they struggle to promote modernity and the rule of law. This means working with judicial systems on less controversial, bread-and-butter issues like criminal law and property disputes.

We have seen throughout the world, and in our own history, that competent and independent judges will stand up for the rule of law even when their decisions indict the powerful and defend the unpopular. Mr. Rahman's case should remind us of how important it is to help Afghanistan develop such judges if we want its democracy to succeed.

At a time of unusual US interest in south Asia it is useful to see how specialists there look at the two issues explored in this book -- the Kashmir conflict and south Asian nuclearisation. Twelve of the 15 contributors are US-based and therefore it is not surprising that the book is largely by Americans for Americans. But this does not detract from its value for Indians and Pakistanis, because the scholarship is impressive and analyses mostly free of bias. The volume contains 13 essays including a short introductory one by the editors. The remaining 12 are grouped into three parts.

The four essays in the first group (Pakistan: Politics and Kashmir) are "Islamic Extremism and Regional Conflict in South Asia" by Vali Nasr, "Constitutional and Political Change in Pakistan: The Military-Governance Paradigm" by Charles H. Kennedy, "The Practice of Islam in Pakistan and the Influence of Islam in Pakistani Politics" by C. Christine Fair and Karthik Vaidyanathan, and "Pakistan's Relations with Azad Kashmir and the Impact on Indo-Pakistani Relations" by Rifaat Hussain.

Vali Nasr provides a succinct account of how Islamic fervour and Islamic extremism grew in Pakistan after 1971 and how political players in the country, especially the army, tried to make use of it for domestic political and foreign policy gains. He provides a good analysis of how the Pakistani elite is torn between de-emphasising Islam for the sake of socioeconomic gains and stressing it for political advantage. In case of the army there is the additional factor of "jihadi" usefulness in pursuing regional strategic aims.

Charles Kennedy presents an interesting analysis of how the army captures power and holds on to it. He shows how Ayub Khan, Zia-ul-Haq and Musharraf have adopted essentially the same approach in this regard -- following the stages of making things legal, eliminating political opponents, becoming president, stressing local government, intimidating bureaucracy and judiciary, fixing the constitution and orchestrating elections. Two key observations he makes at the end are "the failure to develop a stable constitutional system is the fault of both Pakistan's military and civilian leadership" and that "constitutional stability can only be achieved if there is an accommodation between the interests of the two sets of actors."

Christine Fair and Karthik Vaidyanathan have tried to assess the influence of Islam in Pakistan partly on the basis of three polls conducted to gauge Muslim reaction to war against terrorism, and partly on the basis of interviews. Two noteworthy conclusions of the authors are that there is little popular support for extremist Islam in Pakistan (the good performance of MMA in the 2002 elections is rightly attributed to the political vacuum created by Musharraf and strong post-9/11 anti-Americanism), and that the Pakistan military's current effort to control, rather than eradicate, terrorism cannot work.

Rifaat Hussain has given a detailed account of India-Pakistan relations during 1979-2004, but his effort to explain Pakistan's relations with "Azad" J and K does not go beyond the little that is generally known. The lack of detailed, unbiased information about the society and politics of "Azad" J and K, which Pakistan pretends is not under its thumb, and of northern areas, which Pakistan has unabashedly incorporated into itself, is a major knowledge-gap that handicaps the search for peace in J and K.

The four essays in the second group (India: Politics and Kashmir) are "Who Speaks for India? The Role of Civil Society in Defining Indian Nationalism" by Ainslie T. Embrie, "Hindu Nationalism and the BJP: Transforming Religion and Politics in India" by Robert L. Hardgrave Jr., "Hindu Fundamentalism, Muslim Jihad and Secularism: Muslims in the Political Life of the Republic of India" by Barbara D Metcalf, and "Jammu and Kashmir in the Indian Union: Politics of Autonomy" by Chandrashekhar Dasgupta.

In his essay Ainslie Embrie has tried to explicate the complex relationship between the state and civil society in India. The tension and overlap between secular and Hindu nationalisms have been presented with deep understanding. The Gujarat massacres of 2002 have been explained in relation to the various constituents of the Sangh parivar. Indian attitudes to matters of sub-nationalism have been explained not only in relation to Kashmir but also to the north-east and Punjab.

Robert Hardgrave's essay covers much the same ground although the focus is more squarely on the BJP and the RSS. He speaks of sections within the RSS that want to align "Hindu" India with the west against Islam. At the same time he underscores how the demands of power have moderated the ideological temper of the BJP. Both Embrie and Hardgrave have written with western readers in mind and much of the ground they have covered would be familiar to Indians.

Barbara Metcalf's essay about Muslim Indians draws attention to the fact that the post-9/11 war against terrorism evoked no response from them, unlike the case with Muslims elsewhere. She has explained thoughtfully the reasons for this as well as for the rise in anti-Muslim sentiments in India from the 1980s. The contents of this essay can provide useful insights to Indians and Pakistanis. Metcalf warns that Hindu extremism can help recruit Muslim terrorists in Pakistan and Bangladesh and, in the long run, possibly within India itself. She also makes a case for declaring organisations like the VHP "terrorist" in the light of Gujarat killings.

Chandrashekhar Dasgupta's essay on J and K and autonomy is "balanced" by Indian standards. He writes that New Delhi should "accommodate Kashmiri demands for autonomy to the maximum extent compatible with the legitimate regional interests of Jammu and Ladakh and with the requirements of democracy and good governance in the state as a whole. The interests of Jammu and Ladakh can be protected by a mix of regional autonomy; devolution of power to lower (district, sub-divisional and panchayat) levels; and an equitable inter-regional revenue-sharing formula." But while offering this sound advice, Dasgupta has carefully steered clear of examining its practical implications.

The four essays in the final group (India's and Pakistan's Nuclear Doctrines and US Concerns) are "The Stability-Instability Paradox: Misperception, and Escalation Control in South Asia" by Michael Krepon, "Pakistan's Nuclear Doctrine" by Peter R. Lavoy, "Coercive Diplomacy in a Nuclear Environment: The December 13 Crisis" by Rajesh M. Basrur, and "US Interests in South Asia" by Howard B. Schaffer. In the reviewer's view, this is the most interesting of the three sections in the book and merits careful reading in both India and Pakistan.

Michael Krepon has explored the ramifications of the use of force by south Asia's nuclear-armed adversaries. He stresses the danger emanating from the two sides drawing (largely for public consumption, in the reviewer's view) opposing lessons from tests-of-will like the Kargil war and Operation Parakram. A useful point to note is how Krepon has, over the years, shifted stress from nuclear confidence building measures(CBMs) to conflict resolution in reducing nuclear risks in south Asia. This can be seen from the following sentences in his concluding paragraph: "Much could go badly wrong on the subcontinent unless Pakistan's security establishment reassesses its Kashmir policy and unless New Delhi engages substantively on Islamabad's concerns and with dissident Kashmiris" and "The best chance of defusing nuclear danger and controlling escalation lies in sustained and substantive political engagement." Nuclear CBMs can only do so much.

Nuclear Doctrine

Peter Lavoy's essay is a good piece on Pakistan's nuclear doctrine. He has listed eight separate "uses" for Pakistan's nuclear weapons. In specific relation to India, there are four, viz (i) Last resort weapons to prevent military defeat or loss of territory; (ii) Deterrent to conventional military attack; (iii) Facilitators of low-intensity conflict; and (iv) Tools to internationalise the Kashmir issue. He has drawn attention to the fact that Pakistan's nuclear "redlines" are vague which, the reviewer might add, is true of all countries that reserve the right of "first use."

Rajesh Basrur's essay is about the coercive and nuclear dimensions of Operation Parakram. His narrative of events, diplomatic moves and public statements is valuable for separating chaff from wheat. He has drawn attention to how much India's "compellence strategy" was played out through the US, which had forces in close vicinity. During the confrontation both India and Pakistan sought to "create a fear of nuclear war in the global community, especially the US". He also highlights the fact that India decided to withdraw its forces when Pakistan ceased "responding" to Indian pressure.

The book has no conclusion. The last essay is by Howard Schaffer on US interests in south Asia. Schaffer writes about how the relatively low US interest in the India-Pakistan hostile relationship began to climb in the 1980s when the threat of nuclear war entered the calculus. He says "The US has now come to regard Kashmir less in terms of the equities of the issue -- the lot of the Kashmiri people, the morality or immorality of the insurgency in the Kashmir Valley. Instead it sees the dispute primarily as a tinderbox that could be the flashpoint of a nuclear conflagration." He concludes his essay with the comment that "Washington's view of US interests in the region and the way it goes about promoting them" is unlikely to become more consistent than in the past. Both are valid observations and Indians and Pakistanis would do well to mull over their many implications.

It is not stated in the book, but this volume had its beginnings in a conference at the Asia-Pacific Research Centre in Stanford in early 2003. This was soon after Operation Parakram and before India-Pakistan relations began to thaw in late 2003. Although contributors have updated their narratives to mid-2004, the milieu in which the arguments have evolved was a period of considerable tension. The peace possibilities that have opened up in early 2004 and have got slowly augmented since have, therefore, not been adequately factored in. The book has avoided making any kind of prediction about peace prospects in south Asia although the very title of the book leads the reader to expect some exploration in this area.