Review: E. HUSAIN, The House of Islam: A Global History. Bloomsbury Publishing, London 2018. 307 pages and 11 pages of index. ISBN: 9781408872277 (original) (raw)
Part III. Europe and the Muslim World in the Contemporary Period
A History, 2012
The notion of "Europe" clearly existed in the eighteenth century. The term designated a cultural space and a political system, a balance of powers. Following on the terrible cycle of religious wars that ended with the Thirty Years' War, the European crisis of conscience restored the idea of a cultural unity transcending the cleavages among states, each with a single and official religion. The publishing industry, supplanting handwritten letters, created a space for books and newspapers: this was the European space proper, though it expanded to North and South America and to Europe's African and Asian trading posts. The printed word was closely associated with all things European, while the rest of the world was still the realm of the handwritten. The growth of literacy was a tangible reality, though it still affected only fractions of variable size of the populations concerned. Only Japan, having retreated to a voluntary isolation, had literacy rates comparable to those of Europe. Russia, despite questions about its true nature, was already part of Europe, because it had entered the world of the printed word. Its literacy rate was lower than in other places, however, and it was the first to come up with the innovation of remedial instruction. The printed word had been the driving force of European exceptionalism since the late fifteenth century. Behind the appearance of a motionless history, a vast store of knowledge and technologies came to be constituted, giving rise to new modes of organization. The first beneficiary was the European state, whose chief activity was to wage war, which required not only new weapons, new disciplines, and new expertise but also new modes of financing and taxation, that is, new modes of social organization over the medium term. Even in the early eighteenth century, the three great Muslim empires, the Ottoman, the Persian, and the Mogul of India, still seemed to be acting as a counterweight to the European powers and to be keeping them within their borders, as in the previous two centuries. The European discourse on Asian Brought to you by | University of Michigan Authenticated Download Date | 9/8/15 6:19 PM 260 • Chapter 11 despotism was merely a translation of the deterrence effect of the great Muslim powers, and it exaggerated the organizational capacities and wealth of those powers. These gunpowder empires did not allow themselves to be outpaced during the great armaments revolution of the sixteenth century, and, though the Indian Ocean became a new space for exchanges and conflict, the Europeans were able to establish themselves there only on islands or in continental trading posts. From the Gulf of Bengal to the Mediterranean, the firearms were of the same nature as those in Europe (muskets and cannons) and were manufactured under the same system of small-scale production. And yet, even before the true beginning of the industrial revolution, a power shift occurred, in seamanship in the first place, the sector where European technology and science were most advanced. That sector benefited from investments both by the state and by the commercial middle class. For the first time, the outlines of a true research and development strategy existed, with basic and theoretical science becoming a source for practical applications. The impetus came from ever more active transatlantic commerce and long-distance journeys to the Indian Ocean and already to the Pacific. The same was true for overland military arts: the eighteenth century witnessed the emergence of "smart weapons" and the first engineers, even as physical training found its fullest expression in Prussian discipline. By the mid-eighteenth century, the military and maritime branches of European societies, without undergoing any major technological changes-which did not have an impact until after 1840-but thanks to a continuous series of modifications and improvements and the establishment of new disciplinary practices, far outshone the armed forces in other societies. The most glaring example was the Indian subcontinent, where, following the collapse from within of the sultanate of Delhi, the successor states appealed to European mercenaries to serve as officers in their armies, while the rival French and English companies in the Indies raised native armies. It all played out during the Seven Years' War: on June 23, 1756, an army of three thousand men, two-thirds of them sepoys (indigenous soldiers), defeated an army of several tens of thousands belonging to the Nawab of Bengal. That episode in the Franco-English struggle, meant to guarantee security and freedom of action for the British trading post of Calcutta, was the beginning of territorial conquest. By 1764, the East India Company controlled Bengal as a whole, perhaps 40 million inhabitants, that is, four times the total population of Great Britain. Within a few years, it would seize the entire subcontinent. At the other end of the continental Islamic world, the Ottoman Empire, the traditional rear ally of France, launched a catastrophic war against Russia in 1768, to prevent the first partitioning of Poland. The defense line was breached, and a Russian fleet from the Baltic entered the Mediterranean and destroyed the Ottoman Mediterranean fleet near Chios on July 6, 1770. Finally, Russian troops occupied the Ottomans' Muslim vassal state, the Tatar khanate of Crimea. The Russians' financial difficulties and Pugachev's rebellion saved
The Rise of Modern Europe and the Beginning of Modern Studies on Islam
2022
The study of Islam in Europe has changed considerably since the last decades of the twentieth century, on the one hand, because the study of Islam gained popularity and European scholars have broadened this academic domain, and, on the other hand, because European Muslims have now also engaged in an intensive study of Islam to know its foundations as well as of adopting these tenets in their every-day lives in European societies. The European scholars of Islam and the Muslim world received a wake-up call with the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1979. He argued that the academic objectivity claimed by these scholars was false since many were infatuated with preconceived notions of Orientalism about their objects of study. This image was perpetuated by the colonial supremacy of European countries in the Muslim world, and was reinforced by scholars in their academic work, Said claimed. Although Said’s accusations were too broad and not always sufficiently substantiated, they did hit a nerve in the European academic world. This self-reflection, in turn, sometimes swung too far the other way with academics blaming European colonial domination for all kinds of shortcomings in the Muslim world. In addition, the arrival of Muslims in the West brought a new challenge to the European study of Islam. Most conclusively, the Europeanization of Islam had always only seemed to weigh upon the Islamization of Europe.
David Motadel (ed): Islam and the European Empires.pdf
A substantial amount of Muslim writings (as well as Western postcolonial and third-world literature) on the modern history of the so-called Islamic world make a living emphasizing the supposedly crusader-like nature of European colonial rule between the seventeenth and mid-twentieth centuries. While it is certainly true that colonialists were primarily motivated by strategic interests and economic exploitation rather than by altruism and charity, their behaviour in their colonies was anything but inevitably hostile. Pragmatism and accommodation reigned in many places, more often than not combined with condescension and paternalism, which did not, however, preclude periods of suppression and warfare. Islam and the European Empires,
Against All Odds: How to Re-Inscribe Islam into European History
European History Yearbook, 2017
The central place that Muslims and Islam are accorded in the European media and public debates today contrasts with their near-complete absence in parts of European historiography until recently. While right-wing demagogues campaign against refugees, Muslims and the supposed Islamization of Europe, their argument that Islam does not belong to Europe is, at least partially, supported by the rather patchy awareness of a continuous and multi-facetted Islamic history in European societies and, horrible dictu, even in some history departments. Recent research challenges this neglect, tries to overcome the "Othering" of Islam, and demands a new conceptualization of European history that leaves behind the Europe/Islam binary. As the construction of a European identity and a European space is based on "Othering"-a definition of what is not European-, the conscious and visible integration of Muslims into European history poses a systematic challenge to narratives of Europeanization. The article draws attention to the difficulties that spring from this challenge and discusses new approaches in scholarship that try to overcome them.
Epilogue: Islamization of Europe or Europanization of Islam?
Amsterdam University Press eBooks, 2014
What do thirteen centuries of Islam in Europe tell us? Does the story of this interaction consist of a series of episodes and events that we have conveniently thrown together under the title 'Islam in Europe'? Or is it justified to speak of a single experience or narrative that continues through the centuries? And if so, how can we characterize this experience? We have seen in the previous chapters that the European interaction with physical as well as virtual Islam has been very diverse. Muslims have been enemies and allies, foreigners and compatriots, Us and Them. Their civilization has been feared as aggressive and expansionist, but also praised for its religious tolerance and its culture that has produced great and innovative artists, scientists and intellectuals to which Europe is indebted. On the other hand, Europe has consistently upheld the picture of the Muslim Other that embodied everything that the European was not. Still, some patterns do emerge, and here the distinction between physical and virtual Islam is helpful.
Historical View of Islam in the Wake of Eurocentric History
The Eurocentric historical and cografical model is a structure that has been developed by the European consciousness since the Renaissance. It has nothing to do with the historical reality, and it cannot be justified scientifically. However, this understanding has gained a universal acceptance since the 19th century. For the current visions of time (calendar, chronology, and ages) and space (geographical names, maps, and names of places) modeled by the West, Islamic history and civilization should be explained all over again in regards to time and space. As Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000, p. 50) highlights, the West oppresses the non-Western world through its political, cultural, and economic forms that it imposed on them; the world and its history cannot be comprehended with a Eurocentric observation; rather, we need to approach it with a multi-time and multi-space attitude. Each society has an existence that is independent of all other societies. Whereas this model is constructed completely centralizing Europe and Christianity, it overshadows the roles of non-Western civilizations in World history and makes them invisible. And the image of Islamic history and civilization represented by this Eurocentric historical model is distorted. The truth is just the opposite of what is represented. Islamic civilization was geographically the closest civilization to the European civilization, and has the longest history of interaction with and impact on European history. Islam has been the most influential external dynamic on the major historical transformations of Europe: occupation of the Mediterranean at the beginning of the feudal period, debates within Christianity and the iconoclastic movement, Crusaders and following developments, influence of the translations through Andalusia on Renaissance and Reform movements, the role of the impact of Seljuks and Ottomans on the formation of the European identity, etc. —thousands of influential events waiting to be studied. All of these show that Islam is not a footnote to the history of Europe; on the contrary, it is the most powerful and influential historical element that has formed the history of Europe. Indeed, the influence of Islam on the course of European history is far greater than the influence of Europe on the course of Islamic history. Without developing alternative perspectives to the Eurocentric paradigm, it is impossible to reach a mental freedom and authenticity. Unless an alternative is developed to stand against this project, the images created by this approach will continue rooting in the minds of people, and “intrinsic Eurocentrism” will become perpetual and reach the level of unquestionable universal truths. For this reason, the interpretations of the history of non Western societies should be expressed with a universal approach that covers international relations instead of expressions that confine them within a locality. Such an attempt will both restrict the power and the impact of the Eurocentric approaches and will let non-Western societies in general, and Islam in particular, represent themselves as universal. Especially when it comes to historical studies, it will allow each nation and civilization to explain their own histories, differences, and individual experiences from their own perspectives. For this, a new system of concepts, theories, and categories is needed to be developed in the fields studied and defined by Eurocentrism
The political agents of Muslim rulers in Central Europe in the 18th century
in D. Thomas and J. Chesworth eds., Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, vol. 14: Central and Eastern Europe (1700-1800) (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2020), p. 39-55. By the end of the 18th century, agents of Muslim delegations who were working closely with the ambassador, officially or otherwise, had become the preferred interlocutors of the Christian courts. They embodied the ability of a delegation to operate in multiple social circles. This evolution also characterised a clearer division of roles between representation and negotiation. These agents mobilised the resources from their different circles of influence at the service of the ambassador and the ruler they served and represented. They also conducted diplomacy in the interest of their own career or affairs. These resources comprised contacts who possessed linguistic, social, political and cultural knowledge, and with the expertise and capacity to access information. They were drawn from diplomatic, aristocratic, scholarly, religious and merchant circles. The 18th century was also marked by a stronger institutionalisation of the agents’ function, with roles that could be more informal than in the previous century. They were rewarded with titles and ranks, and they helped the delegations fit into the societies they encountered without giving up their primary and principal activity as merchant or scholar. Through their activities, these agents of empire demonstrated an integration of political societies in different religious frameworks. Such integration characterised the social space on which the empires’ diplomacy rested and which developed throughout the century from 1718. The history of the diplomatic agents of Muslim rulers in central Europe invites us to write the history of another Europe, which continues to be too artificially reduced to its Christian component only.
Ioannis E. Kotoulas, Islam in Europe: An Ideological Outline
Civitas Gentium, 2017
The steady increase of the size of Muslim communities in Europe over the last decades has contributed significantly to the visibility of Islam along with the spread of Islamist creeds among a non-negligible portion of Europe's growing Muslim population. Euro-Islam Over recent years, the concept of Euro-Islam, also referred to as European Islam or post-Islam, was incorporated in European societies' political discourse in an effort to act as a potential working hypothesis in addressing the thorny subject of the coexistence of Islamic culture, as perceived and observed by the recent Muslim immigrants and consequently European citizens, and the principles and values that defi ne Western European Cultural identity. This approach, which ushers the creation of a modern, post-Islam, adapted to the core principles and values of European societies, constitutes, at least in theory, an extremely ambitious venture.
Politics and Religion, 2009
worldview (especially for young people), which is the main reason behind the dominant trend of Christianization. Finally Pelkmans moves from religion to other, more material attributes of his borderland culture. He considers commodities such as shoes and clothes and cars, engaging himself in an essay on what I would call "consumer metaphysics." He shows how commodities may be "evil" or "sacred" depending on their provenance and their connection to social and cultural realities (p. 184ff). He then moves to a consideration of buildings, providing a sort of "metaphysic of construction" that he labels "the social life of empty buildings." The construction of mighty, prestigious buildings, which frequently remain empty, has become a symbolic investment commonly interpreted by Ajarians in terms of power and social semiotics. These final chapters complete a more microscopic picture of the previous chapters with a wider view on the socioeconomic and political development of Ajaria within Georgia, with inevitable discussions of "transition," a concept Pelkmans calls in question as an ideological and thus distorting reality. Overall, Pelkmans's book, with its thorough methodological selfanalysis, empirical validity, wide comparativist erudition, and theoretical thinking, is a good example of a solid research of the extremely rich and complex Caucasus area-a paradise, if still understudied, for social and cultural anthropology.