Islam and the Muslims in the Anglo-American literary tradition : the historical roots and the reiterations

Abstract EN

The relationship between Islam and the West was first troubled by biblical texts pejorative of the Arabs, and the rise of Islam in the seventh century aggravated this negative view of Arabs and Muslims.

Although the brilliant Muslim civilization in Spain mitigated this negative image, Western fears of Europe’s Latin Christianity being caught by the pincer of Muslim Spain in the West and Levantine Islam from the East gave rise to the Crusades that sought to drive a wedge between the two flanks of Islam by seizing the Holy Land and thereby neutralizing the Islamic threat.

The Crusades, virulent religious wars spanning two centuries, gave rise to reviling images of Islam and its prophet which persisted for two more centuries, only to be aggravated still further by the dreaded Turkish threat.

A respite came with growing trade links between Europe and the Levantine provinces of the Ottoman Empire.

Wealth accruing from sound, effective trade agreements with the alien Ottoman power facilitated a more open-minded outlook.

Mutual material benefits led to a more respectful understanding of the dreaded Muslim adversary and a growing interest in its heritage.

Thus, mutual material interest, based on equity, forms a sound basis for Western–Islamic understanding.

Momentary, localized disruptive factors should not be allowed to ruffle a would-be strategic, long-term understanding between the two sides, or cancel present, past or future improvements in relations.

The Crusades arose, we are told, because of Christian pilgrims falling victim to local bandits who infested the Holy Land due to a local breakdown in government.

American reiterations of Medieval European polemics against Islam arose from feelings running high due to the Barbary Wars.

Piracy, festering due to weak governmental control and administration in the Barbary States (of North Africa), and in the Persian Gulf, also reflected adversely on Islam.

Both the Crusades, and the Barbary Wars, show that Western-Islamic relations are endemically brittle and fragile and liable to be shattered by pebbles of lawlessness against Western individuals, property, or interest.

This is as true today as it ever was.

What is direly needed today if other Crusades, or Barbary Wars, or indeed our contemporary onslaught on Islamic “terrorism” are to be avoided, is the establishment of an international Western-Islamic body with its own active mechanisms that deal with any serious infringements of Western-Islamic relations.

The most potent factor bolstering sounder Western-Islamic relations is that of internal change in both sides making for a more constructive confluence between the two.

The Romantic movement in Europe, politically and socially as well as artistically speaking, was in the nature of a revolution against classicism’s reactionary patterns of thought and attitude.

Age-old polemical views against Islam incubated within such reactionary patterns.

The Romantic revolution went against all that reactionary establishmentarianism upheld, including anti-Islamic polemicism.

On the other, the Islamic, side of the divide, the “liberal age” in the Arab world was contemporaneous with European Romanticism.

The Arab liberal age is generally held to have begun with Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt, which should not be viewed in an entirely negative light.

The aftermath of Napoleon’s invasion saw the introduction of European scientific, medical, educational, archaeological, and technical innovations into the Arab Muslim world, such as the Arabic printing press which Napoleon brought with him to Egypt.

Internal reform of thought and attitude and/or change in outlook contemporaneous with one another in both the Western and the Islamic worlds similar to European Romanticism and Arab liberalism, make far more constructive Western-Islamic relations.

In the absence of such conveniently simultaneous changes in both sides that would lead to better relations between them, what is presently required of both are sustained and effective public relations campaigns to acquaint one another with patterns of the political and social thought of each other.

The Western world needs to know how the Arab and Islamic street is thinking and what its grievances against the West are.

Such grievances have been aggravated to such horrendous extents as to lead to the present outbreaks of terrorism.

The Arab/Islamic side is also in dire need to be acquainted with Western political and social institutions and their patterns of thought.

The religious factor, per se, should be relegated to a second place of priority: The present debacle in Western-Islamic relations is, first and foremost, political rather than religious.

It is well to hold Islamic-Christian conferences, seminars and forums to discuss differences between the two faiths and ways and means of finding common ground.

But the danger here is that such meetings may wander into mazes of abstruse and esoteric theological disputation, which would remain largely exercises in academic theology.

The crucial issue that cries out to be addressed is the political one: the foreign policy of the U.S.

in the Middle East is foremost among the issues that bedevil, and constantly aggravate Western-Islamic relations.

But that is another story!