Home > Western view of Islam: A troubled history

Western view of Islam: A troubled history

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 15 September 2005
12 comments

Religions-Beliefs History

Sunday 04 September 2005, 17:22 Makka Time, 14:22 GMT

I have spent much of the last four years scavenging for medieval manuscripts, in an attempt to study medieval European representations of Islam.
I am generally averse to sweeping statements, but I will say this: I am yet to encounter a tradition and historical experience as profoundly distorted as Islam’s has been and continues to be to the present day.

And although we are relentlessly pulled away from the ontological why questions, from the arduous exploration of origins and causes, towards the easy fixes of the utilitarian what questions, we must pause and ask why it is that western consciousness perceives Islam in such deeply flawed terms.

Why are negative images of Islam more prevalent than any others? Why is it still acceptable to say things about Muslims that would simply be deemed unacceptable of Jews, Christians, or Buddhists?

That years of inter-faith dialogue have done little to advance a better understanding of the Islamic faith in the western world is an indication of how profoundly entrenched in the Western psyche crude misrepresentations and vulgar stereotypes of Islam are.

Indeed, much of what is said of Islam today is in reality medieval in origin. The terms might have a modern ring to them, but the content remains very much medieval in essence. The roots stretch as far back as the 7th century, to Christianity’s earliest encounter with Islam.

Confronted with the massive military, political and religious challenge of Islam, Christian authors elaborated an extensive body of polemics, apologetics and refutations to combat the growing danger of apostasy among their flock, where legend mingled with fact; myth with reality.

The Christianity that confronted Islam was not a blank page, but possessed its rich and intensely colourful stock of interpretations, symbols and myths. Both consciously and unconsciously, Christians resorted to this enormous repository in their attempt to bestow meaning on the phenomenon of Islam before even getting to know it.

Christianity’s early understanding of Islam was governed by the theoretical and theological models, which regulated the image and position of the other within Christian theology.

Before the emergence of Islam, Christianity had constructed a set of categories that determined the religious other amidst its brutal conflicts with heresies and paganisms.

Islamic challenge

All Christianity did was to summon this arsenal of theoretical models and postulates to combat the new Islamic challenge.

Islam was to be fitted into the existing categories of Jew, pagan and heretic, and elements that did not fit comfortably within the pre-established schema were to be ignored.

To medieval Christianity, Islam was the point of intersection of all these categories, the Other par excellence: a corrupted Judaism, perverted Christianity, and wild natural paganism all at once, both the enemy within and without.

Although Europe’s earliest encounter with Islam dates as far back as the late seventh and early 8th centuries when the Iberian Peninsula was subdued to the Pyrenees and the whole of Provence was conquered, Islam only began to impinge vividly on European consciousness with the first Ottoman campaigns in the heart of Europe.

In an age fraught with the tragedy of religious schism, which fuelled countless political conflicts between papists and reformists, Islam was invited as the symbol of the enemy within.

To the reformists, Islam was synonymous with the whole deviation and moral corruption of the papacy: pride, greed, violence and lust for power and possession. But in order to demonize the new ideas of its enemies, who were rapidly growing in popularity, the Roman Catholic Church could not find a worse charge than Muhammadism.

The Muslim "Saracen" that had haunted Eastern Christians was now replaced by the "Turk" who dealt a powerful blow to Christian consciousness with the capture of the greatest of medieval cities: Constantinople and the collapse of Byzantium.

The Reformation, which had dissolved Christian society into a multitude of warring sects, made it increasingly difficult for 16th century men to subscribe to the concept of "the common corps of Christendom". The religious schisms of the century coincided with what seemed at the time as the irresistible progress of Ottoman armies.

Self- examination

This stimulated a process of self- examination that led members of those societies that came under mounting Turkish pressure increasingly to identify and distinguish themselves from the Ottoman enemy by reference to what was commonly described in humanist and literary circles as "European values".

Writing in the middle of the sixteenth century, Erasmus exhorted "the nations of Europe", no longer addressing them as the constituent powers of Christendom, to a crusade against the Turks.

This heralded the transition from "Europe" as a neutral geographical term to a cultural term of identification; and the shift from "Christendom" to "Europe", from a religious to a secular term of identification.

The Reformation, which may be regarded as the catalyst for the emergence of what we know as modern Europe, was also the bridge via which medieval notions of Islam have been transmitted to us today.

The medieval Christian view of Islam as a deviant, violent, licentious and heretical creed was secularised, stripped of its transcendental character and rearticulated within a modern essentialist philosophy that continues to define the terms of western discourse on Islam, in its mainstream at least.

The correspondence between what is said and written today and the medieval texts we have inherited on the subject of Islam is so striking that I often have to remind myself that it is not the words of a medieval author I am reading, but those of a contemporary writer. True, the language is modern, but its content is largely medieval.

Irony

But equally astounding is the similarity of views of Islam these contemporary writers express, liberals and conservatives, religious and atheists alike. The irony is that ideological divides are meaningless when it comes to the subject of Islam.

As the world was ushered into the era of imperialism, as Europe began its relentless political, economic and military expansion, Islam turned into an object of knowledge in opposition to the Occident as its negative pole.

To assert its uniqueness and cultural superiority in relation to a world it was invading, Europe expelled outside of itself all that it perceived as undesirable and deviant.

Islam and Muslim societies were essentialised into a permanent, unitary and coherent object, understood through a series of contrasts, or dichotomies. Islam became the West’s antithesis, a chaotic realm of raving instincts, emotionalism, irrationality, and despotism that embodied all that the West is not.

Knowledge does not take place in a vacuum. It is both a generator and an effect of power structures and power relations.

To represent the world of Islam as barbaric leads to the logical conclusion that it desperately needs the intervention of the forces of reason and civility, for some order and stability.

Interference in the affairs of those who inhabit this bleak sphere becomes not only legitimate, but desirable, and benevolent.

Civilising mission

The brutal colonisation of other lands, cleansing of their inhabitants, exploitation and usurpation of their resources, destruction of their rich stock of institutions and cultural heritage is no longer a heinous crime, but a noble evangelical "civilising mission", the "white man’s burden".

The same sanctimonious rhetoric of virtue, emancipation and progress is still deployed today, as the trail of devastation, misery and innocent blood grows longer in Baghdad, Falluja and Ramadi.

Old language, old power structures, new faces. Little has changed in our world, indeed.

The intellectual attitudes that buttressed and supported imperial adventures are very much intact. Make no mistake about it: imperialism is still alive and kicking.

Much to the oft-repeated claim that Western consciousness has broken free from the medieval grip of the sacred, its outlook on Islam has remained quintessentially Christian and medieval.

All secularisation did was recycle the wild, sparse notions of "Saracens" and "Turks" within a new profane, modern language.

Rectifying the troubled relationship between the West and vast Muslim world begins with awareness of the mighty burden of past tradition and its ongoing complicity with existing power structures, mechanisms and relations and recognition of the need for a more just, less imbalanced world order.

Only then can we hope of engaging in meaningful inter-religious and inter- civilisational dialogue.

[Soumayya Ghannoushi is a researcher in the history of ideas at the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London.]

Forum posts

  • Lets see...Why are negative images of Islam more prevalent than any others?
    Maybe it has something to do with the Madrid bombings...or perhaps it is the London Bombings...or could it be the two attacks on the World Trade Center...maybe it was when Muslim Terrorist tossed the guy in the wheel chair off the Cruise Ship...perhaps it is the bombings of the embassies...or how about any one of these:
    — Nov. 8, 2003: A homicide car bomb kills at least 17 people and wounds 122 at an upscale compound for foreign workers in western Riyadh. Usama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terror network is blamed.
    — Aug. 5, 2003: A homicide bombers kills 12 people and injures 150 at the J.W. Marriott in Jakarta, Indonesia. Authorities blame Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian group linked to Al Qaeda.
    — May 16, 2003: Bomb attacks in Morocco kill at least 28 people and injure more than 100. The government blames "international terrorism," and local militant groups linked to Al Qaeda.
    — May 12, 2003: Four explosions rock Riyadh, the Saudi capital, in an attack on compounds housing Americans, other Westerners and Saudis. Eight Americans are among those killed. In all, the attack kills 35 people, including nine attackers.
    — May 11, 2003: A bomb explodes at a crowded market in a southern Philippine city, killing at least nine people and wounding 41. The military blames the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
    — Dec. 30, 2002: A gunman kills three American missionaries at a Southern Baptist hospital in Yemen. Yemeni officials say the gunman, sentenced to death in May, belonged to an Al Qaeda cell.

    OR COULD ONE OF THESE BE THE REASON:

    — Nov. 28, 2002: Homicide bombers kill 12 people at an Israeli-owned beach hotel in Kenya and two missiles narrowly miss an airliner carrying Israelis.
    — Oct. 12, 2002: Nearly 200 people, including seven Americans, are killed in bombings in a nightclub district of the Indonesian island of Bali. Authorities blame Jemaah Islamiyah.
    — Oct. 6, 2002: A small boat crashes into a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen and explodes, killing one crewman.
    — Oct. 2, 2002: Suspected Abu Sayyaf guerrillas detonate a nail-laden bomb in a market in Zamboanga, Philippines, killing four people, including an American Green Beret. Four more bomb attacks in October blamed on Abu Sayyaf, a group linked to Al Qaeda, kill 16 people.
    — June 14, 2002: A homicide bomber blows up a truck at the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 14 Pakistanis. Authorities say it is the work of Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen, linked to Al Qaeda.
    — April 11, 2002: A homicide bombing with a gas truck at a historic Tunisian synagogue on the resort island of Djerba kills 21 people, mostly German tourists.
    — Sept. 11, 2001: Hijackers slam jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and a fourth hijacked jet crashes in a Pennsylvania field, killing nearly 3,000 people.
    — Dec. 30, 2000: Explosions in Manila strike a train, a bus, the airport, a park near the U.S. Embassy and a gas station, killing 22 people. Philippine and U.S. investigators link the attack to Jemaah Islamiyah.
    — Oct. 12, 2000: Homicide attackers on an explosives-laden boat ram the destroyer USS Cole off Yemen, killing 17 American sailors.
    — Aug. 7, 1998: Nearly simultaneous car bombings hit the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 231 people, including 12 Americans.

    • Nice little list, yes it is bad to bomb people, either you are a terrorist, or you are using rich mens bombs of the American military to kill more then 25 million people in various wars and conflicts after the second world war came to an end.
      So, I don’t understand the point why Islam is a more troubled religion then the so called American christianity? The outcome is the same! Right?
      American propaganda does not give the life of all human beings who have been killed in a merciless and cowardly way by the heroic American airforce!

      Think, before you right about other attrocities about your own: American attrocities. Or is it just a lack of knowledge or misleading by your educators at school, who told you American soldiers are heroes.
      They aren’t! The have degraded themselves to Nazi troops by following orders given by Bush and his henchmen.

    • Nice list from Fox"News"...

      But let’s not forget
       the assault on the USS Liberty by Israeli forces
       the Lavon affair
       Mossad attempted assassination of US Ambassador Dean
       the shooting down of a Libyan airliner by Israeli jet fighters
       the assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte by the Zionists
       the killing of Brisith student Rex Farran by Stern the Zionist terrorist gang
       the assassination of Lord Moyne by the Stern Gang
       the blowing up of the ship "Patria"
       the massacre at Qibya under the command of Ariel Sharon
       the blowing up of the King David hotel
       the Sabra and Shatila massacre as well as Der Yassin
       the carpetbombing of Beirut
       the terrorist attacks of the JDL on American soil
       the plot to kill Rep. Darrell Issa by the JDL
       the murder of Alex Odeh

      ...to say nothing of the continuing Israeli terrorism against the Palestinians

  • Ghannoushi, even with his 4 years of research, is completely blind to the violence that has been part of the history of Islam from its very inception and blames the West for the view that it holds. The usual "It’s not the true Islam" declamation isn’t going to cut it any more.

    • Funny, you could say pretty much the same about Christianity, too; Crusades, Inquisition, Conquistadores and the native Americans in both North and South America, the list just goes on and on...

    • It’s obvious by what you say that you don’t know about christian history. There was no violence at the inception of christianity other than what was being done to the early christians. It was after constantine became converted to christianity and christianity became part of the political landscape that horrible things happened. And this is why it was necessary to have a separation of church and state. Islam doesn’t recognize any such separation. As for the Crusades, it happened because islamofascists were forcing conversions on what was christian lands. If you are european, the same thing is happening now, heck you’re probably already a dhimmi to some degree.

    • I am European, I am a Christian, and I know the history of Christianity both before and after Constantine. The moslems were not forcing conversions at the beginning, although they did later make a sport of it, in fact many Christians (and Jews) returned to moslem lands after the earlier crusades, because they discovered that the Caliphate was much more tolerant of other religions than the inquisition and the Church of Rome were. As a Christian (Church of England), I was brought up to be tolerant of all religions, believing that we all worship the same God, even if under different guises. I wish that this were true of others, perhaps like yourself.

    • By the way, they couldn’t have been fascists, since fascism was an invention of the 20th century in Italy. Benito Mussolini was one of its most noted spokesmen.

    • Fascism maybe the 20th century term but it has happened before.

    • Stop drinking the kool-aid if you are who you say you are. You may be tolerant, but islamofascists aren’t. The Hindus can tell you. Muhammed himself after being kicked out of Mecca came back with an army to capture the city. Frankly, by your post you’ve already been dhimmitized.

    • Responding to the European (Church of England) - As an Episcopalian (US), my fellow parishoners believe the same - One God/Universal Spirit, many ways to worship! Maybe someday this view will prevail and people will cease to value the piece of land where some event took place thousands of years ago, killing to keep their holy parcel of earth, and instead open their hearts and minds to the beauty and enlightenment of spiratual life.

  • You contradict your own assertion that Islam is cruely misinterpreted by non-Muslims, and that it has always been a benevolent faith, with your statement, below:
    "Although Europe’s earliest encounter with Islam dates as far back as the late seventh and early 8th centuries when the Iberian Peninsula was subdued to the Pyrenees and the whole of Provence was conquered, Islam only began to impinge vividly on European consciousness with the first Ottoman campaigns in the heart of Europe. " So, just exactly what did they do to ’subdue’ the Iberian Peninsula and Provence? Use a little sweet talk and roses? Muslims invaded, conquered, slaughtered and threatened the societies of of southern Europe, just as other military/religious groups rampaged where they could in those days. Ghenghis Khan, the Vikings, Roman legions. So, in the words of the infamous, though pathetic, former mayor of Washington, DC, Marion Berry, GET OVER IT. MOVE ON. Stop acting like all Muslims are victims. By the way, did you send a thankyou note to former President Clinton for stopping the genocide of Muslims in Bosnia?