First Meeting for New Group on Middle East and African Studies Places Islamic Extremism at Center of Its Agenda

By Richard Byrne

Washington

Islamic extremism was the dominant topic this past weekend at the first conference of a new organization for scholars of the Middle East and Africa. The Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, or Asmea, was formed last fall by two conservative academics as a scholarly counterweight to a much-larger group of Middle East scholars.

One of the new group's founders, Bernard Lewis, serves as its chairman. A professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University,