Postcolonial Prophets

2017 ◽  
pp. 91-104
Author(s):  
Neguin Yavari
Keyword(s):  
The West ◽  
Islamic World

More often than not, the course of history in the Islamic world has caught scholars, pundits and governments in the West by surprise. This chapter investigates that dissonance.

The Mistaken Identification of “The West” with “Modernity”

1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
John Obert Voll
Keyword(s):  
World History ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
Important Impact ◽  
Mistaken Identification ◽  
Nature Ofthe ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Way

The relationships between Islam and the West are complex. Even theperceptions of those relations have an important impact on the nature ofthe interactions. If the basic images that are used in discussing “Islam andthe West” are themselves ill-defiied or viewed in inconsistent ways, therelationships themselves are affected in sometimes dangerous ways.Inconsistent and contradictory terms of analysis can lead to misunderstandingand conflict.One of the most frequent conceptual mistakes made in discussingIslam and the West in the modem era is the identification of “the West”with “modemity.” This mistake has a significant impact on the way peeple view the processes of modernization in the Islamic world as well as onthe way people interpret the relationships between Islam and the West inthe contemporary era.The basic generalizations resulting from the following analysis can bestated simply: 1) “modernity“ is not uniquely “western”; 2) “the West” isnot simply “modernity”; and 3) the identifixation of “the West” with“modemity” has important negative consequences for understanding therelationships between Islam and the West. Modernity and the West aretwo different concepts and historic entities. To use the terms interchangeablyis to invite unnecessary confusion and create possible conflict’andinconsistency. This article will address the problem of definition and theapplication of the defined terms to interpreting actual experiences andrelationships.Understanding the difficulties raised by the identification of theWest with modernity involves a broader analysis within the frameworkof world history and global historical perspectives. In such an analysis, ...

NENHUM “CHOQUE DAS CIVILIZAÇÕES”: UMA ANÁLISE DAS GEOGRAFIAS IMAGINATIVAS NA MÍDIA IMPRESSA ÁRABE APÓS OS ATENTADOS DE 11 DE SETEMBRO DE 2001

GEOgraphia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (41) ◽  
pp. 86
Author(s):  
Shadia Husseini de Araújo
Keyword(s):  
Print Media ◽  
Media Framing ◽  
Critical Geopolitics ◽  
Clash Of Civilizations ◽  
The West ◽  
Arab Media ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Imaginative Geographies ◽  
Il Y A

Resumo: Enquanto existem muitos estudos sobre a reprodução da teoria do “choque das civilizações” e do “mundo islâmico” como o “outro” do Ocidente em mídias ocidentais após os atentados de 11 de setembro de 2001, são extremamente escassos aqueles que analisam a presença dessa teoria nas mídias árabes. Quais são os discursos geopolíticos (re)produzidos nessas mídias com o objetivo de enquadrar e explicar os atentados? Qual é o papel da teoria do “choque das civilizações” e das representações do Ocidente que se manifestam nesse contexto? Este artigo procura responder essas perguntas a partir de uma perspectiva da geopolítica crítica, valendo-se do conceito de “geografias imaginativas”. Os principais jornais transnacionais árabes, al-Hayat, al-Quds al-Arabi e Asharq Al-Awsat, constituem o exemplo empírico. Este artigo mostra que a teoria do “choque das civilizações” – por sua vez duplamente assentada em regionalizações geográficas tradicionais e em uma construção binária entre Ocidente e mundo islâmico – é rejeitada nos jornais analisados. Em vez de se apoiar nessa teoria, os acontecimentos de 11 de setembro de 2001 e os atentados terroristas nos anos seguintes, bem como as geografias imaginativas do Ocidente reproduzidas nesse contexto, são enquadrados e formados por meio de um discurso multifacetado e profundamente pós-colonial. Palavras-chave: Geografias imaginativas. Geopolítica crítica. Mídia impressa árabe. Crítica pós-colonial. NO “CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS”: AN ANALYSIS OF IMAGINATIVE GEOGRAPHIES IN ARAB PRINT MEDIA AFTER 9/11 Abstract: While many studies analyse the reproduction of the “clash of civilizations” theory and the “Islamic world” as the West’s “other” in Western media after 9/11, there are only few works dedicated to Arab media. What are the geopolitical discourses (re)produced in Arab media framing and explaining the attacks? What is the role of the “clash of civilizations” theory and the representations of the West in this context? This paper addresses these questions from the perspective of critical geopolitics using the concept of “imaginative geographies”. The transnational Arab newspapers al-Hayat, al-Quds al-Arabi e Asharq Al-Awsat serve as the empirical example. I argue that the theory of the “clash of civilizations” – which is based on traditional geographical regionalisations and a binary construction between the West and the Islamic world – is rejected in the analysed newspapers. Instead, 9/11 and other terrorist attacks in the subsequent years as well as the imaginative geographies of the West reproduced in this context are based on a multifaceted and profoundly post-colonial discourse. Keywords: Imaginative Geographies. Critical Geopolitics. Arab Print Media. Postcolonial Critique. AUCUN “CHOC DES CIVILISATIONS”: UNE ANALYSE DES GEOGRAPHIES IMAGINAIRES DANS LES MEDIAS ARABES IMPRIMES APRES LES ATTENTATS DU 11 SEPTEMBRE 2001 Resumé: Bien que de nombreuses études analysent la reproduction de la théorie du “choc des civilisations” et du “monde islamique” comme “l’autre” de l’Occident dans les médias occidentaux après les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, il y a peu de travaux consacrés aux médias arabes. Quels sont les discours géopolitiques (re)produits dans ces médias pour contextualiser et expliquer les attaques ? Quels sont les rôles de la théorie du “choc des civilisations” et de la représentation de l’Occident dans ce contexte ? Cet article tente de répondre à ces questions dans une perspective de géopolitique critique, en utilisant le concept de “géographies imaginaires”. Les principaux journaux transnationaux arabes, al-Hayat, al-Quds al-Arabi e Asharq Al-Awsat sont le matériau de l’enquête. Cet article montre que la théorie du “choc des civilisations” – elle-même basée sur les régionalisations géographiques traditionnelles et la construction opposant Occident et monde islamique – est rejetée dans les journaux analysés. Au lieu de cela, les événements du 11 septembre 2001 comme les attentats terroristes des années suivantes, ainsi que les géographies imaginaires de l’Occident reproduites dans ce contexte, sont façonnés par un discours à multiples facettes, profondément post-colonial. Mots-clés: Géographies Imaginaires. Géopolitique Critique. Médias Imprimés Arabes. Critique Postcoloniale.

Main Trends of Global Development: Its Reality and Prospects

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-88
Author(s):  
Alexander N. Chumakov
Keyword(s):  
Social Systems ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The West ◽  
West China ◽  
Global Trends ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Current State ◽  
Global World ◽  
World Development

Abstract The article analyzes the main parameters of the modern world development, its architectonics and the most important development trends. Modern communications and principles of interaction of various social systems are also considered. As a result, the most significant cultural-cum-civilizational systems are distinguished – the West, China, the Islamic world and Russia, which represent four global trends or four vectors of power that fundamentally affect the current state and prospects of world development. It is emphasized that the West and China have a global strategy, provided by objective circumstances. The Islamic world and Russia occupy an important geopolitical position and also have a special status in the global world.

scholarly journals PERDEBATAN PENGGUNAAN HERMENEUTIKA SEBAGAI METODE PENAFSIRAN AL-QUR'AN

ALQALAM ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
MASRUKHIN MUHSIN
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
New Method ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
To Come

The word hermeneutics derives from the Greek verb, hermeneuin. It means to interpret and to translate. Hermeneutics is divided into three kinds: the theory of hermeneutics, the philosophy hermeneutics, and the critical hermenmtics. Hasan Hanfi is known as the first scholar who introduces hermeneutics in the Islamic World through his work dealing with the new method of interpretation. Nashr Hamid Abu-Zaid is another figure who has much studied hermenmtics in the classical interpretation. Ali Harb is a figure who also much involved in discussing the critism of text even though he does not fully concern on literature or art, but on the thoughts. Muslim thinker who has similar view with Ali Harab in seeing that the backwardness of Arab-Islam from the West is caused by the system of thoguht used by Arah-Muslim not able to come out of obstinary and taqlid is Muhammad Syahmr. On the other side, ones who refuse hermeneutics argue that since its heginning, hermeneutics must be studied suspiciously because it is not derived from the Islamic tradition, but from the unbeliever scientific tradition, Jews and Chrtians in which they use it as a method to interpret the Bible. Practically, in interpreting the Qur'an, hermeneutics even strengthens something, namely the hegemony of scularism-liberalism in the Muslim World that Muslims must actually destroy. Keywords: Hermeneutics, Tafsir, al qur'an

Avicennisme et averroïsme dans la poétique et la rhétorique islamiques médiévales

1998 ◽  
pp. 42-47
Author(s):  
Giovanna Lelli
Keyword(s):  
Legal Culture ◽  
Islamic Philosophy ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Cultural Paradigms ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Theory Of Literature

The study of medieval Islamic philosophy is necessary in order to understand Islamic thought, both medieval and contemporary. I propose that the distinction within Islamic thought between two great paradigms, the Avicennian and the Averroistic, is a fertile approach. It is true that in the field of Islamic poetics and rhetoric we find nothing that corresponds to the philosophical and religious opposition between Avicennism and Averroism. Nevertheless, in the medieval Islamic world, besides the official rhetoric which was linked to the legal culture, we can find several elements of these two great cultural paradigms even in the theory of literature. Today, a renewed interest in Islamic aesthetics and philosophy might help the West recompose its fragmented postmodernism, while it could in turn help the Islamic world construct a new, critical and non-fundamentalist approach to its classical authors.

Jamal Al-Din Al-Afghani And The Egyptian National Debate

1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudi Matthee
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
The Past ◽  
National Debate ◽  
New Information ◽  
Western Imperialism ◽  
Historical Image ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Recent Attention

A remarkable man in his own lifetime, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani became a legend after his death.1 For many people, Afghani evokes an image that combines the medieval ideal of the cosmopolitan Islamic scholar with the romantic aura of the 19th-century revolutionary. Since the late 1960s, Afghani has been the object of particular attention and controversy in both the West and the Islamic world. Iranian and Western scholars have radically reinterpreted his background and beliefs.2 This reevaluation of Afghani on the basis of new information about him has, however, not been generally accepted in the Islamic world. If anything, recent attention to Afghani's unorthodoxy and possible irreligion has only served to harden his defenders by giving credence to his own statements. Afghani plays an important role in the historical image of Muslim unity and sophistication presented by many Islamic groups and governments in this age of revived panIslamism. His plea for Islamic renewal through solidarity never lost its relevance as a powerful symbol linking the past with hopes for the future. The image of Afghani as the indefatigable fighter against Western imperialism who helped make the Muslim world aware of its distinct identity remains equally as suggestive.

scholarly journals The Philosophical Proof for God’s Existence between Europe and the Islamic World: Reflections on an Entangled History of Philosophy and Its Contemporary Relevance

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrich Rudolph ◽  
Roman Seidel
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Cosmological Argument ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic Theology ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Ontological Proof ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

AbstractThe Argument for God’s Existence is one of the major issues in the history of philosophy. It also constitutes an illuminating example of a shared philosophical problem in the entangled intellectual histories of Europe and the Islamic World. Drawing on Aristotle, various forms of the argument were appropriated by both rational Islamic Theology (kalām) and Islamic philosophers such as Avicenna. Whereas the argument, reshaped, refined and modified, has been intensively discussed throughout the entire post-classical era, particularly in the Islamic East, it has likewise been adopted in the West by thinkers such as the Hebrew Polymath Maimonides and the Medieval Latin Philosopher and Theologian Thomas Aquinas. However, these mutual reception-processes did not end in the middle ages. They can be witnessed in the twentieth century and even up until today: On the one hand, we see a Middle Eastern thinker like the Iranian philosopher Mahdī Ḥāʾirī Yazdī re-evaluating Kant’s fundamental critique of the classical philosophical arguments for God’s existence, in particular of the ontological proof, and refuting the critique. On the other hand, an argument from creation brought forward by the Islamic Theologian and critic of the peripatetic tradition al-Ghazāli has been adopted by a strand of Western philosophers who label their own version “The Kalām-cosmological Argument”. By discussing important cornerstones in the history of the philosophical proof for God’s existence we argue for a re-consideration of current Eurocentric narratives in the history of philosophy and suggest that such a transcultural perspective may also provide inspiration for current philosophical discourses between Europe, the Middle East and beyond.

The armies of the Ṣaffārids

1968 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 534-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. E. Bosworth
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
The South ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
North West ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Core ◽  
The North ◽  
Frontier Region ◽  
Short Time

It is not too much to describe the Ṣaffārids of S‚stān as an archetypal military dynasty. In the later years of the third/ninth century, their empire covered the greater part of the non-Arab eastern Islamic world. In the west, Ya'qūb. al-Laith's army was only halted at Dair al-'Āqūl, 50 miles from Baghdad; in the north, Ya'qūb and his brother 'Arm campaigned in the Caspian coastlands against the local 'Alids, and 'Amr made serious attempts to extend his power into Khwārazm and Transoxania; in the east, the two brothers pushed forward the frontiers of the Dār al-Islām into the pagan borderlands of what are now eastern Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier region of West Pakistan; and in the south, Ṣaffārid authority was acknowledged even across the persion Gulf in ‘Umān. This impressive achievement was the work of two soldiers of genius, Ya'qūub and 'Amr, and lasted for little more than a quarter of a century. It began to crumble when in 287/900 the Sāmānid Amīr Ismā'īl b. Aḥmad defeated arid captured ‘Amr b. al-Laith, and 11 years later, the core of the empire, Sīstān itself, was in Sāmānid hands. Yet such was the effect in Sīstān of the Ṣaffārid brothers’ achievement, and the stimulus to local pride and feeling which resulted from it, that the Ṣaffārids returned to power there in a very short time. For several more centuries they endured and survived successive waves of invaders of Sīstān—the Ghaznavids, the Seljūqs, the Mongols—and persisted down to the establishment of the Ṣafavid state in Persia.

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