For a Ukrainian reader living in wartime, a lecture at Yale on Islam’s Golden Age may at first glance seem far removed from the reality of the front.
But the person giving this lecture is not just a specialist in history. Frederick Starr is one of the key architects of how Washington thinks about Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia – the entire southern belt around the Russian Federation. He is the founder and long-time chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute (CACI), a Washington-based think tank, and a long-standing expert on Russia, Eurasia, and the post-Soviet space.
In 2023, Starr published an analytical paper, “US Policy in Central Asia through Central Asian Eyes” (Silk Road Paper), in which he explicitly proposed turning the C5+1 format into C6+1 by adding Azerbaijan to the five Central Asian states as the western “anchor” of the East-West corridor and the linking element between Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
He argued that, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is precisely the Caspian axis “Central Asia - Azerbaijan” that becomes critically important for bypassing Russia and for a new configuration of Eurasia’s energy and transport routes. Today we see how this logic is moving from analytical papers into practical policy: The historic C5+1 summit at the White House on Nov. 6, 2025, and subsequent statements about transforming the format into C6+1 with Azerbaijan’s participation, as well as the decision by the Central Asian heads-of-state summit to invite Baku as a full-fledged participant, coincide with the architecture Starr described back in his 2023 paper.
Starr has advised several US presidents on Russia and Eurasia and was one of the authors of the first comprehensive strategic assessment of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His work directly influences how the American political and intellectual elite see the post-Soviet space – including Muslim regions that today are critically important both for Russia’s war effort and for the future security architecture around Ukraine.
When such a person explains what exactly was “not translated” in Islamic history, he is at the same time outlining what Washington expects – or does not expect – from Muslim societies on Russia’s periphery today. That is why, now that the war is embedded in a broader geopolitical process of forming a new political architecture for the whole of Eurasia, it seems important to me to listen closely to Starr.
His lecture is not only about the distant Abbasid past; it is also about the mental maps political elites in Washington use when dealing with today’s Eurasia.
What saddens me is something else: that similar lectures are rarely heard in the Islamic world.
It is important to say this at once: I regard Frederick Starr with sincere respect as an elder mentor. For me, his lecture is an example of an academic discussion. He approaches the subject as a historian, carefully laying out where the Islamic world made great leaps forward, and where entire layers of questions have remained unexamined. I am glad that this conversation is taking place at all. And at the same time, I am saddened that it is heard so rarely within the Islamic world.
1. Joy at the conversation and a faint sadness at the lack of response
Most of the facts Starr cites can be discussed and refined, but they are hard to dismiss outright:
- Yes, the Muslim civilization of the Golden Age translated medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and logic with enormous enthusiasm;
- Yes, Greek political thought, tragedy, and comedy almost did not enter this flow of translations;
- Yes, questions of power, law, and the structure of society were to a large extent regarded as already resolved by Revelation – the Qur’an and the Sunna – and as not requiring “politics” in the Greco-Roman sense.
One can argue over the details, but the very framing of the issue is entirely legitimate and presented in a correct academic form. I see the lecturer’s attempt to understand how the intellectual trajectory of the Islamic world took shape. I am glad that at Yale, Islam is discussed not only in the context of terrorism and conflicts, but in terms of translations, texts, and ideas.
What saddens me is something else: that similar lectures are rarely heard in the Islamic world – from the lips of Muslim scholars, ulama, and intellectuals. I would like to see the same kind of analysis of “untranslated books” and unasked questions delivered in Cairo, Riyadh, Karachi, Jakarta – and received there as naturally as Starr’s lecture is received at Yale.
2. Islam as part of the state apparatus
In my view, one of the reasons why such discussions are hardly audible in the Islamic world is that in many countries, Islam has been institutionalized as part of the state. We know this architecture well: ministries of religious affairs, state muftiates and councils of ulama, religious structures de facto built into the vertical of power.
In such a system, Islamic scholarship often turns out to be bound not only by the theological tradition, but also by the logic of the state apparatus. A theologian becomes at once a scholar and a bureaucrat, and his freedom to discuss sensitive political and legal topics is inevitably constrained.
This does not mean that there are no thinkers in the Islamic world who pose difficult questions – they do exist. But the space for an open, public academic discussion of how Revelation, the state, and civil society relate to each other is still noticeably narrower than one would wish.
Against this background, Starr’s lecture appears not as criticism, but rather as an external mirror in which the Islamic world can better examine its own weak points. And precisely because it is structured calmly and respectfully, one does not feel like turning away from this mirror.
3. Untranslated books and unwritten texts
Starr speaks about the books that were not translated in the 9th-11th centuries: Aristotle’s “Politics,” Thucydides, Polybius, the Greek tragedies and comedies. This historical story really does explain a great deal.
But the principle is the same: One cannot speak seriously about something without immersing oneself in it fully.
But today, in the 21st century, a new category appears for us – unwritten texts.
I mean the books and articles that could emerge in the Muslim world, but often do not:
- because the author understands in advance that there are topics it is “better not to write about.”
- because universities and theological centers rarely enjoy reliable guarantees of autonomy
- because a serious discussion of the political role of Islam and of criticism of power from religious positions can be perceived as risky.
Here it is appropriate to recall al-Ghazali. In “Deliverance from Error,” he frankly explains why he engaged with philosophy at all before criticizing it. First understanding, then polemic. Al-Ghazali emphasizes:
“I understood very well: It is impossible to expose the distortions in any science without mastering it deeply, at the level of its greatest experts, or even surpassing them. Only in this way can one hope to identify its weak points. But I do not know a single Muslim scholar who has chosen this path. I realized that trying to refute any doctrine without understanding it and without knowing it thoroughly is to argue with one’s eyes blindfolded.”(Al-Ghazali, Deliverance from Error (al-Munqidh min al-Dalal), trans. R.J. McCarthy (Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2001), p. XX.)
This is a very precise formula of intellectual honesty. Al-Ghazali is speaking about Greek philosophy; Starr is speaking about the political dimension of Islamic history. But the principle is the same: One cannot speak seriously about something without immersing oneself in it fully.
Today we lack precisely this kind of readiness – not only for polemic, but for deep, honest study of our own painful topics. In this sense, the question now sounds not only like this: which Greek texts did Muslim scholars fail to translate in the past? It sounds more broadly: which of their own questions have Muslim scholars still not dared to examine in the format of a normal academic discussion?
4. Freedom of expression as a condition for theological conversation
In my view, freedom of expression in the Islamic world is not only a political-legal issue, but also a theological one. Within the Islamic tradition, there has always been tension between several values: the unity of the umma and the fear of schism (fitna), obedience to authority within what is permitted, the duty to speak the truth and bear witness to injustice, and so on.
The way we balance these values in practice largely determines whether discussions like Starr’s lecture are possible in the Muslim world, or whether they remain the preserve of exile and external centers.
If a scholar, journalist, or theologian feels that, for an honest analysis of contemporary political realities, he may lose his chair, his access to an audience, or even his freedom, he will naturally be more cautious than a professor at Yale. And this is not a question of “character” or “level of faith”; it is a question of the institutional environment.
What the Islamic world particularly needs today is the opportunity to conduct the same calm, honest, and structured conversations about itself that Starr conducts at Yale.
For the Islamic world to have its own “Starrs” – Muslim scholars who can speak about the political dimension of Islam calmly, professionally, and publicly – a certain culture of free speech is needed. And not as a “Western fashion,” but as part of an understanding of responsibility before God and before people.
5. Jamal Khashoggi and what we still need
In this context, it is hard not to recall Jamal Khashoggi.
He was a man from within the system. He continued to see himself as part of the Arab and Islamic world, did not renounce his identity, and did not call for the destruction of tradition. He was concerned not with “abolishing Islam,” but with giving societies the possibility to develop, to criticize power, to speak about painful topics.
His last article was titled, “What the Arab world needs most is free expression.”
For me, this phrase does not contradict what Starr is saying, but complements his thought. Starr shows which texts the Islamic world did not translate and which questions it bypassed in the past. Khashoggi reminds us that without freedom of expression, the Islamic world today will also be unable to carry out the work Starr is talking about. But all this requires what Khashoggi wrote about: The minimally necessary space for an honest conversation.
Instead of a conclusion
Frederick Starr’s lecture, for me, is not an indictment but an invitation to serious conversation. I am grateful to him as an elder mentor for raising a topic that has long needed calm and professional discussion.
I am glad that this conversation is heard at Yale and in English, but I am saddened that it is so rarely heard in the Muslim world – in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Malay. I would like to see the day when similar lectures are delivered by Muslim scholars, in a normal academic format, without fear and without the sense that the mere posing of the question is already a risk.
Jamal Khashoggi wrote: “What the Arab world needs most is free expression.”I would carefully broaden this statement:
What the Islamic world particularly needs today is the opportunity to conduct the same calm, honest, and structured conversations about itself that Starr conducts at Yale.
Then his lecture will cease to be the monologue of an outside observer and may become the beginning of a genuine conversation – first and foremost between our own fears and our faith, and only through this internal dialogue between history and the present, between Western academia and Muslim thought.
Only when we dare to have such a conversation with ourselves will everything else become possible: a whole shelf of books still unwritten, and honest discussions of politics, law, and freedom within the Islamic world.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.