Doha-the center of reformist Islam? Considering radical reform in the Qatar context: Tariq Ramadan and the research center for Islamic legislation and ethics (CILE)

In 1993, the Palestinian intellectual Edward W. Said (d. 2003) was invited by the British Broadcasting Corporation to deliver the prestigious "Reith Lectures."¹ During his reflections on the role of the intellectual in civil society, he highlighted the risks of the ever-increasing professionalization of the academy and the subsequent potential for intellectuals’ co-option by establishment interests. Comparing the place of the contemporary cultural and social critic to that of an "insurgent," Said argued for his peers’ need to continue what Michel Foucault termed "a relentless erudition," while endeavoring to maintain their independence on the basis that, as he put it, "there is something fundamentally unsettling about intellectuals who have neither offices to protect nor territory to consolidate and guard."².