A Fundamental Fear-Eurocentrism and the Emergence of lslamism
At first this book looks like another eye-catching, fear-mongering title about Islam. Are these books promoted by profit-hungry publishers or by underpaid fretful academics? Or has Islam become fair game for a wider unrestrained academia replacing the Orientalist school with newer analytical tools?...
Guardado en:
| Autor principal: | |
|---|---|
| Formato: | article |
| Lenguaje: | EN |
| Publicado: |
International Institute of Islamic Thought
1998
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://doaj.org/article/10ee0ef629434540aa2e11aad1abf159 |
| Etiquetas: |
Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
|
| id |
oai:doaj.org-article:10ee0ef629434540aa2e11aad1abf159 |
|---|---|
| record_format |
dspace |
| spelling |
oai:doaj.org-article:10ee0ef629434540aa2e11aad1abf1592021-12-02T17:26:07ZA Fundamental Fear-Eurocentrism and the Emergence of lslamism10.35632/ajis.v15i1.22072690-37332690-3741https://doaj.org/article/10ee0ef629434540aa2e11aad1abf1591998-04-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ajis.org/index.php/ajiss/article/view/2207https://doaj.org/toc/2690-3733https://doaj.org/toc/2690-3741 At first this book looks like another eye-catching, fear-mongering title about Islam. Are these books promoted by profit-hungry publishers or by underpaid fretful academics? Or has Islam become fair game for a wider unrestrained academia replacing the Orientalist school with newer analytical tools? Some preliminary remarks, or a contextualization, might be useful here. Whatever its “resurgent” form, Islam is presenting something of an enigmatic challenge for all. From the bazaars of the East to the sidewalks of the West, it refuses to lie down or go away. Attempts to discount it, ignore it or even suppress it have not succeeded. This hauntingly recurring phenomenon (p. 1) needs to be relabeled and reassessed. But the doubt lingers that representing it as “terrorism,” “theocracy,” “obscurantism,” “fundamentalism,” or “religious extremism” has muddied waters even more. Feeding popular fears with such preconfigured terminology has neither satiated curiosity, quelled fears, nor brought anyone closer to the truth. Compounding the picture is the “location” of the writers of such works: the world-view, epistemology, discourse theory, or narrative framework from which they approach Islam. The much-heralded objectivity of academia is sacrosanct no more. Relativity, subjectivity, and the actor’s point of view are in vogue. Old Orientalist views and definitions of the non-Occidental world are being overwhelmed by an array of (neo-Orientalist) analyses from a variety of discourse perspectives. These analytical tools, even if applied with some success to their own societies and disciplines this past century, don’t seem to have much of a shelf life while some are less effective than others: positivist assertions fast give way to realist or inteqretivist ones; modernist perspectives to postmodemist ones; and structuralist interpretations to poststructuralist ones. And when applied to Islam and Muslim societies, the results of these approaches can be bewildering (as shown by Rushdie’s Satanic Verses), and so can their effects (as shown by Huntingdon’s Clash of Civilisations prognostication). From its side, the Muslim world is all the more perplexed at the persistence of such stereotypical labeling and analyses. Generally unfamiliar with these “new” tools, their reaction is either to ignore this “demonology of fundamentalism” (p. 16) or to interpret it as another of the West’s conspiracies against Islam. Sometimes it results in outright hostility (as shown by Khomeini’s fatwa and Bradford’s book burning) or crude attempts at redress in reciprocal terms (as in Akbar Ahmed‘s Postmodernity and Islam). To western experts, such reactions can only seem woefully inadequate. Furthermore, the apparently monolithic scenario of western experts with their western critiques of the non-West is complicated by the emerging presence of nonwestern migrants and their offspring on the westem academic scene. Taken ... A.M. AsmalInternational Institute of Islamic ThoughtarticleIslamBP1-253ENAmerican Journal of Islam and Society, Vol 15, Iss 1 (1998) |
| institution |
DOAJ |
| collection |
DOAJ |
| language |
EN |
| topic |
Islam BP1-253 |
| spellingShingle |
Islam BP1-253 A.M. Asmal A Fundamental Fear-Eurocentrism and the Emergence of lslamism |
| description |
At first this book looks like another eye-catching, fear-mongering title about
Islam. Are these books promoted by profit-hungry publishers or by underpaid
fretful academics? Or has Islam become fair game for a wider unrestrained
academia replacing the Orientalist school with newer analytical tools? Some
preliminary remarks, or a contextualization, might be useful here.
Whatever its “resurgent” form, Islam is presenting something of an enigmatic
challenge for all. From the bazaars of the East to the sidewalks of the West,
it refuses to lie down or go away. Attempts to discount it, ignore it or even suppress
it have not succeeded. This hauntingly recurring phenomenon (p. 1) needs
to be relabeled and reassessed. But the doubt lingers that representing it as “terrorism,”
“theocracy,” “obscurantism,” “fundamentalism,” or “religious extremism”
has muddied waters even more. Feeding popular fears with such preconfigured
terminology has neither satiated curiosity, quelled fears, nor brought
anyone closer to the truth.
Compounding the picture is the “location” of the writers of such works: the
world-view, epistemology, discourse theory, or narrative framework from
which they approach Islam. The much-heralded objectivity of academia is
sacrosanct no more. Relativity, subjectivity, and the actor’s point of view are in
vogue. Old Orientalist views and definitions of the non-Occidental world are
being overwhelmed by an array of (neo-Orientalist) analyses from a variety of
discourse perspectives.
These analytical tools, even if applied with some success to their own societies
and disciplines this past century, don’t seem to have much of a shelf life
while some are less effective than others: positivist assertions fast give way to
realist or inteqretivist ones; modernist perspectives to postmodemist ones; and
structuralist interpretations to poststructuralist ones. And when applied to Islam
and Muslim societies, the results of these approaches can be bewildering (as
shown by Rushdie’s Satanic Verses), and so can their effects (as shown by
Huntingdon’s Clash of Civilisations prognostication).
From its side, the Muslim world is all the more perplexed at the persistence
of such stereotypical labeling and analyses. Generally unfamiliar with these
“new” tools, their reaction is either to ignore this “demonology of fundamentalism”
(p. 16) or to interpret it as another of the West’s conspiracies against Islam.
Sometimes it results in outright hostility (as shown by Khomeini’s fatwa and
Bradford’s book burning) or crude attempts at redress in reciprocal terms (as in
Akbar Ahmed‘s Postmodernity and Islam). To western experts, such reactions
can only seem woefully inadequate.
Furthermore, the apparently monolithic scenario of western experts with their
western critiques of the non-West is complicated by the emerging presence of
nonwestern migrants and their offspring on the westem academic scene. Taken ...
|
| format |
article |
| author |
A.M. Asmal |
| author_facet |
A.M. Asmal |
| author_sort |
A.M. Asmal |
| title |
A Fundamental Fear-Eurocentrism and the Emergence of lslamism |
| title_short |
A Fundamental Fear-Eurocentrism and the Emergence of lslamism |
| title_full |
A Fundamental Fear-Eurocentrism and the Emergence of lslamism |
| title_fullStr |
A Fundamental Fear-Eurocentrism and the Emergence of lslamism |
| title_full_unstemmed |
A Fundamental Fear-Eurocentrism and the Emergence of lslamism |
| title_sort |
fundamental fear-eurocentrism and the emergence of lslamism |
| publisher |
International Institute of Islamic Thought |
| publishDate |
1998 |
| url |
https://doaj.org/article/10ee0ef629434540aa2e11aad1abf159 |
| work_keys_str_mv |
AT amasmal afundamentalfeareurocentrismandtheemergenceoflslamism AT amasmal fundamentalfeareurocentrismandtheemergenceoflslamism |
| _version_ |
1718380831597133824 |