Re-Imagining the Other

Culture, Media, and Western-Muslim Intersections

M. Eid, K. Karim, M. Eid, K. Karim

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137403667
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

The twenty-first century exploded into the global imagination with unforgettable scenes of death and destruction. An apocalyptic 'clash of civilizations' seemed to be waged between two old foes - 'the West' and 'Islam.' However, the decade-long and ruinous 'war on terror' has prompted re-assessments of the militaristic approach to Western-Muslim relations. A growing number of academics, policymakers, religious leaders, journalists, and activists view the struggles as resulting from a 'clash of ignorance.' Re-imagining the Other examines the ways in which knowledge is manipulated by dominant Western and Muslim discourses. Authors from several disciplines study how the two societies have constructed images of each other in historical and contemporary times. The complexities and subtleties of their mutually productive relationship are overshadowed by portrayals of unremitting clash, thus serving as encouragement for the promotion of war and terrorism. The book proposes specific approachesto re-imagine the Other in order to mitigate Western-Muslim conflict.

Chapter 1

Imagining the Other

Karim H. Karim and Mahmoud Eid

The relationship of “Judeo-Christian” and Muslim civilizations is like that of amnesic siblings: both have trouble remembering the Self’s kinship with the Other. Memories of their shared Abrahamic parentage appear to be lost in a foggy haze; yet, they persist in an old sibling rivalry. Ironically, each imagines the Other to be alien in values, even though Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share a fundamentally core vision about humanity’s relationship with God and about the necessity of universal ethics to order human relationships (e.g., Arkoun, 2006; Armstrong, 1994; Chandler, 2007; Gopin, 2009; Volf, 2011). There are significant differences between the Abrahamic traditions in theology and ritual practice; however, no other three religions “form so intimate a narrative relationship as do the successive revelations of monotheism” telling “a single continuous story” (Neuser, Chilton & Graham, 2002, p. viii) that runs from the Old Testament to the New Testament and from the Bible to the Qur’an.

Not only do the worldviews of these religions have a common basis, but their historical relationships are also profoundly intersected (e.g., Goody, 2004; Hobson, 2004; Matar, 2003). Despite the contemporary characterization of “the West” as primarily “Judeo-Christian,” Muslims have been integral to the evolution of European civilization. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment would not have been possible without the vast infusions of knowledge from Muslims in the later medieval period (e.g., Al-Rodhan, 2012; Belting, 2011; Garcia, 2012; Tolan, Laurens & Veinstein, 2012). Among the vital contributions of numerous Muslim scholars is the influence of Ibn Rushd (known in Latin as “Averroes,” d. 1198) on the development of European philosophical rationalism, Ibn Tufayl (“Aben Tofail,” d. 1185) on epistemology, Ibn al-Haytham (“Alhazen,” d. 1040) on scientific empirical observation, al-Khwarizmi (“Algoritmi,” d. 850) on mathematics, Jabir ibn Hayyan (“Gerber,” d. 815) on chemistry, al-Razi (“Rhazes,” d. 925), al-Zahrawi (“Abulcassis,” d. 1013) and Ibn Sina (“Avicenna,” d. 1037) on medicine, and al-Idrisi (d. 1165) on geography. As Hobson notes in this book, the rise of Western civilization would not have been possible if not for Europe’s borrowing from the scientific and technological advancements produced by Muslims. The “voyages of discovery” would have not occurred without the vital transfers of maritime knowledge and instruments necessary for long sea journeys.

Muslims also owe important debts to other civilizations. Islam’s cosmology was drawn from the sacred histories of its Abrahamic antecedents. The Prophet Muhammad was clear on his message’s close connection to the Judaic and Christian traditions. Jack Goody’s chapter in this book discusses how early Muslims adopted the cultures of existing civilizations neighbouring the Arabian peninsula. The formulation of Islamic philosophy, theology, and law was significantly indebted to learning acquired from Jewish and Christian teachers (Fakhry, 1983). The followers of Judaism and Christianity as well as those of other religions played a significant role in “Islamicate” civilization (Hodgson, 1974).¹ However, the contributions of each to the other have generally been written out of Western and Muslim societies’ respective historical memories. This has promoted a cultural ignorance that has had the consequence of seeing each other as profoundly alien.

The vital role of Muslim philosophers and scientists is generally presented as a mere footnote in contemporary narratives of Western history, and the Jewish and Christian foundations of Islamic creeds remain largely unacknowledged by Muslims. On both sides, educational curricula, popular history, and the media are largely silent about the interdependent development of Western and Muslim civilizations. Their reciprocal tendencies of viewing the Other with suspicion does not allow for the inclusion of the history of mutually beneficial and productive relations stretching over 1,400 years. On the other hand, the intermittent conflict between them is singled out as a primary form of engagement between the two. These mutual perceptions are not unique to the relationship between Western and Muslim societies; they are typical of the social constructions (Berger & Luckmann, 1966) that shape the ways in which human beings view each other (Vuorinen, 2012). However, the primary images of the Other reciprocally held by these two groups have had a global impact on promoting major conflicts in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

It is human tendency to imagine the world as divided into the Self and the Other. Such concepts operate in the mind as primary organizing ideas that shape discourse about relationships; they are cognitive frameworks that we use to compartmentalize information about the world (van Dijk, 1980). The mind is constantly receiving information through the senses and would be quickly overwhelmed if it was not grouped into separate cognitive categories. Concepts of Self and Other are primary forms of such mental compartmentalization (Karim, 2001). Human beings and nonhuman entities such as institutions, technology, nature, and divinity are placed into the categories of either the Self or the Other in the process of determining one’s relationship to them. Whereas this categorization enables one to develop identifications of various entities, the relationship between Self and Other is not necessarily that of an essentialized binary in which they are closed off from each other.

Engagement with the Other (Karim & Eid, 2014) occurs according to the ways in which it is imagined by the Self. It is common to think of the former as a threat to the latter, but this is not fundamental to their relationship. The Bible exhorts: “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus, 19:18) and the Qur’an encourages nations to “know one another” (49:13). The work of the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1969) was important in initiating the contemporary discussion on radical otherness. However, he does not favor the idea of the Other as a rival or an enemy, which has come to prevail in dominant discourses. In many cases, the Other is the foil that enhances the existence of the Self (Kristeva, 1986). Whether hostile or not, the former is usually the entity in relation to which the latter defines itself wholly or partially, depending on the context of interaction. Human existence is filled with the tension of differences; but this tension is often a creative force that is a vital source of life’s dynamism. The Self, in some cases, may seek to unite with the Other, seeing its destiny as the fulfillment of such coming together. Unions of the male with the female and of the human worshiper with the divine are among the primary themes in art, music, and literature.

The nation is a major entity in which the Self is conceptualized. Benedict Anderson (1991) asserts that nations are imaginary communities because their members, despite thinking of themselves as belonging to the same collectivity, will not personally get to know all of their compatriots. This observation also applies to other large formations such as religious groups. The communal Self can include millions of people with whom the individual identifies. However, the same entities that are accepted as members of the Self can be viewed as part of the Other in a different context. In varying circumstances, the Self can be I, my family, my neighbourhood, my culture, my ethnic group, my religious group, my country, or humanity. Similarly, the Other can be a spouse, an adjacent community, a neighbouring state, or another civilization. The worldview of each culture and the circumstances of its particular discourses at a given time shape the specific identities that are placed within the cognitive frameworks of Self and Other. An entity that is imagined as Other in one situation comes to be seen as part of the Self in an alternative placement; for example, a rival ethnic group is incorporated into the larger Self under considerations of nationalism; similarly, an enemy state’s otherness is diminished in the contexts in which one identifies with all of humanity.²

Circumstance and subjectivity color the lenses through which Self and Other are viewed. These are not objective categories that are determined only by empirical data. They shift in response to changing cultural, economic, and political conditions. Whereas the dominant Western image of Muslims is constructed in terms of an alien Other, history provides multiple examples of personal, social, cultural, political, military, commercial, and intellectual alliances. There were strong liaisons between specific groups of Muslims and Christians during various military struggles in medieval Spain and during the Crusades (e.g., Kohler, 2013; Maalouf, 1984; Trow, 2007). The career of the famous medieval Spanish military hero, “El Cid,” was characterized by a complex series of alliances with both Christian and Muslim forces. Indeed, the hispanicized title “El-Cid” comes from the Arabic, al-Sayyid, “the master,” which is what his Muslim followers called him. In contemporary times, Turkey has been a long-standing member of NATO—the Western military alliance—and was at the frontline of the Cold War because it shared a border with the Soviet Union. Even though Muslims were not unambiguously part of the Western Self in both these cases, they were also not an alien Other.

It is noteworthy that whereas Western history books tend to marginalize the vital part played by Muslims in the revival of learning in medieval Europe, there are some significant acknowledgments of these contributions in certain artistic representations in some important buildings where the Muslim Other is given a place in the Western Self’s ambit. They occur as individual figures in depictions of a series of persons or entities engaged in intellectual pursuits. The School of Athens in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, one of the most famous frescoes by the Italian Renaissance painter Raphael (d. 1520), mainly portrays ancient Greek philosophers—with the sole exception of the image of “Averroes.” The twelfth-century Andalusian thinker is depicted as a dark-skinned figure among the 21 individuals in the painting. This appears to provide a view into a Renaissance artist’s imagination regarding the place of Muslim philosophy in reintroducing Europe to ancient Greek learning (Sonneborn, 2006). The Princeton University Chapel, rebuilt in the 1920s, has beautiful stained glass windows that largely draw from biblical imagery. However, one window portrays al-Razi, a tenth-century Persian physician, scientist, and philosopher and anot...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Content
• Preface
• 1  Imagining the Other
• 2  Religion and Civilization
• 3  On the Eve of the Napoleonic Invasion: Arab Perceptions of the World
• 4  Through Tinted Lenses: Iranian and Western Perceptions and Reconstructions of the Other
• 5  The Clash of Civilizations 2.0: Race and Eurocentrism, Imperialism, and Anti-Imperialism
• 6  Perceptions about Muslims in Western Societies
• 7  A Clash of Discourses: Femicides or Honor Killings?
• 8  Islamic, Islamist, Moderate, Extremist: Imagining the Muslim Self and the Muslim Other
• 9  Religious Conflict, Empire-Building, and the Imagined Other
• 10  Translating Otherness
• 11  Re-Imagining the Other
• About the Contributors
• Index