By Nina zu Fürstenberg and Giancarlo BosettiBassam Tibi, born in Damascus in 1944, emigrated to Germany as a young man and spent most of his life there teaching at Göttingen University. He has also taught at Harvard, Cornell, Princeton and Berkeley, as well as in Asia, Africa, Indonesia, Sudan and Egypt. In his studies he has analysed Islamic extremism and Muslim culture, comparing them to the values of tolerance, democracy and human rights.