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Peking University, Nov. 3, 2012: In contemporary world politics, sectarian conflict in the Middle East is one of the most heated issues. There’s news about the Middle East chaos almost every day. As an expert in Islam research, Professor Wang Yujie delivered a speech about sectarian conflict in the “Faith and Society” panel session of Beijing Forum 2012 on November 3.

In Professor Wang’s opinion, though sectarian conflict is rampant in the Middle East nowadays, it is not the major reason for the chaos in this area. “Sectarianism is not the only reason for their unity or split. In fact, national interest is the key.”

As is known to all, the Middle East is subjected to not only conflicts between Islamists and the Jewish, but also conflicts between sectarians (different factions within a religion). In most cases, conflicts among sectarians are more intense than those among different religions. “This is not uncommon in the history,” explained Professor Wang,” Conflicts are more likely to intensify within a religion when its believers egotize.

“Also sectarian conflict is not a unique phenomenon of Islam. In the history, many religions other than Islam, like Christian, Catholics, Protestantism, all have undergone such a period. Since now the Middle East is under the construction of modern nations, it is inevitably exposed to instability, thus the religious issue seems more conspicuous.”

Specializing in Islam, Professor Wang once worked at Georgetown University as a visiting scholar. As for this experience, she mentioned that, “Though we Chinese did a great job in researching about Islamism in China, we are not very good at comparative study about Islamism around the world. The U.S. has a long history in the Middle East study. In terms of this part, we need to study from them. We need to study abroad to broaden our horizon.”

Wang Yujie is a female scholar studying in Islam. Born in 1970, she obtained her Ph.D degree from Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). She’s now working in the Institute of World Religions, CASS. The book History of Islam in Iran is her master piece.

Reported by: Wu Cuiting
Edited by: Chen Long