Flying Carpets Lost in a Desert Storm - the Changed Perception of Islam in Europe.
By Durriya Kazi, Head of Department of Visual
Studies, University of Karachi.
Seminar: “Islam in Europe” November 16-17, 2011.
Area Study Centre For Europe,
University
of Karachi in collaboration with Hanns Seidel Foundation, Islamabad
ABSTRACT
Like Sheherazade of One
Thousand and One Nights, today scholars of a besieged Islam recount tales
of glory to appease an angry West. One can poeticize that the 1001 nights have
changed into 1001 years, a millennium of interaction, both in the sharing of
knowledge and the exchange of conflict between Islam and Europe.
The impact of Islam on European Culture, and
of Europe on Islamic Culture, will be the focus of this paper. Beginning with
the contribution of Islamic scholarship to the development of the Sciences, Art
and Architecture and leading to the European Renaissance, the paper will
explore the changing perception of Islam from a romanticised ‘Orientalism’ to the
current perception of Muslim culture as a threat to the European way of
life. In a parallel dimension positive
cultural exchanges are made by artists, musicians, film makers, and activists
of the Muslim diaspora, through international art and cultural venues, and
across virtual space.
Flying Carpets Lost in a Desert Storm
- the Changed Perception of Islam in Europe.
By Durriya Kazi, Head of
Department of Visual Studies, University of Karachi.
Seminar: “Islam in Europe” November 16-17, 2011.
Area Study Centre For Europe,
University
of Karachi in collaboration with Hanns Seidel Foundation, Islamabad
________________________________________________________________________
In 19th century England, Lord
Alfred Tennyson composed Recollections Of
The Arabian Nights:
Adown the
Tigris I was borne,
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold,
High-walled gardens green and old;
True Mussulman was I and sworn,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold,
High-walled gardens green and old;
True Mussulman was I and sworn,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
….. with the refrain
A goodly place, a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
The Age of Romanticism in Europe was filled
with narrations of the lavish lifestyles, the generosity, the elegance, the
chivalry of the Muslims. Exquisite objects acquired, commissioned, plundered
were proudly displayed in palaces, homes or museums.
Today we are more likely to read hate filled comments
on twitter and blogs, most of which are inappropriate to quote here. Even the
comments that refrain from abusive language, such as those posted when Italy
declared, in 2010, that Islam was not a religion, when Switzerland banned
minarets in 2009, or France banned the veil in 2011, do not conceal the deep antagonism
towards Muslims. [1]
The story is similar across the Atlantic, where, as an example, the TV reality
show, All-American Muslims, stirred up a deep controversy and furor at the
audacity of trying to show Muslims in American leading ordinary lives instead
of as potential terrorists.[2]
The intensity of current concerns on both
sides of the growing divide has not allowed the space to investigate this
dramatic change in its historical context. History is continually being rewritten
either because of new evidence, revisionism, changing ideologies or because the
writers of history have access to new or alternate perspectives on past events.
Probably the most contentious histories written are those of Europe and Islam
which as we will see, are deeply entwined.
The first significant contact between the two
cultures occurred during the series of wars known as the Crusades, 1095 - 1291,
spanning almost 200 years. This is a considerable period of time for the true
exchange of ideas. Wars of that time were fought face to face, cities were laid
siege to for months, travels to and from battles took months and even years.
War then becomes just a part of the encounters, and much of this period was
also a journey of adventures, trade, exchange of stories and the generation of
curiosity. The various first-hand accounts of the crusades reveal the layered
interactions . [3]
In the 1180s the Spanish Muslim Ibn Jubayr visited the crusading states
in Syria and marveled at the amity between Franks and Muslims, as well as the
trade between the two sides even during the fiercest of wars.[4]
The first Muslim conquest of Jerusalem was in
638 by the Khalifa Omar. Christians were free to practice their religion and
their places of worship were protected. European pilgrims to the Holy City were
relatively few until the mid 11th century when the system of
indulgences developed. It was not until the 1076, that Christian
pilgrims began to feel unsafe, when the Seljuk Turks, having taken Baghdad in
1055 and, seeing themselves inheritors to all Muslim territory, captured
Jerusalem. For 50 years Europe was not
greatly concerned about the Seljuk control over Jerusalem, until Peter the
Hermit, a French monk, fired up the zeal of Christian Europe, travelling from
city to city, and in 1096, succeeded in gathering 40,000 men and women to form
the People’s Crusade.
In the meantime, The Great Schism between the
Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches had taken place in 1054, a year before
the Seljuk armies began their campaign. A European Christianity was being
defined, centred around Rome.
Judith Herrin, professor of Late Antique and Byzantine
Studies at King’s College, London, in her article How did
Europe Begin (2001) suggests that the Christian Empire, after the fall of the
Roman Empire, was a Mediterranean Empire centred around Rome. The Muslim advances in the Mediterranean
especially the attacks on Constantinople from the 7th to the 15th
C shook the foundations of that Empire.
“A stalemate, whose central
axis was the border between Byzantium and Islam, permitted a weak and parcellized
northern world to survive. This, the northern residue of the great battle in
the east, was united, in so far as it was united, by a single, highly organized
religion, based on Latin Christian texts. This was the world that began to
think of itself as Europe, a geographical entity distinct from the
Mediterranean… Europe, then, as we know, begins
with the rise of Islam”.[5]
This resulted in a
threefold division in the 8th C of the Mediterranean: Byzantine,
Islam and northern Europe, which unified under Charlemagne against a common
enemy, Islam. One could say that the very concept of Europe as we define it
today, centered in Northern Europe and with a fluid eastern boundary, was
established in response to a threat from Islam, a position which, although
covered with layers of subsequent history, still resurrects itself when
confronted with challenges to its authority.
The Crusades set the
foundation of modern day Europe in many ways: they undermined feudalism as more
and more nobles were absent away on wars, there were fewer private wars, and an
influential middle class emerged. The Church
amassed lands and endowments, and grew into a powerful institution. War supplies
and shipbuilding led to commerce, and new avenues of trade flourished.[6]
The Crusades also re-defined
Christianity as a militaristic worldly power, empowered by a sense of divine
right. However, this sense of religious superiority would have generated
confusion when faced with the contrast between the sombre lifestyle of Europe
and the advanced and luxurious culture of the Muslims. The indignation at the
Muslim attempts to conquer Europe, Byzantine and Jerusalem would have been
modified by admiration and respect for the advanced knowledge and culture of
the Muslims and a curiosity to learn from it.
In order to
understand the impact of Islam on Europe, it is necessary to first understand
the Muslim Empire of that period.
Between the 7th and the 15th
Centuries AD, the Muslim empire spread across the whole of the civilized world
of the time. The Golden Age of Islam is
considered to be from 750 to 1492 AD centering on the twin Khilafats of the
Abbasids of Baghdad and the Umayyads of Andalusia.
The Muslim Empire differed fundamentally from
other Empires in that the riches of the conquered lands were never booty to be
taken back to the homeland, rather the conquered lands were enriched in an
interesting artistic, intellectual and cultural symbiosis. Local knowledge and
skills were infused with the faith and élan of the new rulers, passed through
the sieve of Islamic teachings, creating what is now know as Islamic Culture. Hijaz
(now Saudi Arabia) remained a desert until the discovery of oil in at the beginning
of the 20th C.
This phenomenon can be better understood by
the unusual motivational speech given to the soldiers who were about to launch
a naval attack on Sicily in 827 AD, by their 70 year old leader, Asad Ibn
al-Furat who was a scholar from Kairouan. He said:
“I have been given this appointment because of my achievements
with the pen, not the sword. I urge you all to spare no effort, no fatigue in
searching out wisdom and learning. Seek it out, and store it up, add to it and
persevere through all difficulties and you will be assured of a place both in
this life and in the life to come”. [7]
Not all Muslim battles were so altruistic,
but it underlines the pervading spirit of Muslim conquest.
The Muslims civilization can be defined by
this ability to assimilate knowledge from multiple sources, whether Greek,
Chinese, Hindu scholars, the Christians or any other sources, without losing
its essential belief system. Muslim scholars followed sincerely the Quranic
instruction and the Prophet Muhammad’s injunctions "Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave";
"He who goes
forth in search of knowledge is in the way of Allah till he returns";
"Search for knowledge, even if you
must go to China to find it"; and "The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr".
The other significant aspect of the Muslim
Empires of the Golden Age was its transnational, transcultural nature whereby
scholars, administrators and soldiers from Persia worked alongside those from
Africa, where Christian and Jewish scholars and administrators were given the
same respect and importance as Muslims.
“In no country and in
no other cultural epoch was the drive for such extensive scientific travel so
widespread, as in Muslim Spain, from the Tenth century on. It was perfectly
commonplace for inhabitants of the peninsula to make their way across the
monstrous stretch on the North African coast, to Egypt, and from there to
Bukhara or Samarkand, in order to hear the lectures of a famous scholar”. [8]
One of
the reasons this was possible was the universal spread of the Arabic language,
just as today a large part of the spread of globalism is the acceptance of
English as the lingua franca. Because
the Quran was Arabic, the language became central to the spread of Islam, from Samarqand
to Andalusia.
The Quran played a major role in the
establishment of Islamic Art. The desire to beautify the words of the Quran,
led to the development of a dazzling number of calligraphic styles, which soon
spread from the page to architecture, glassware, ceramics, textiles, metalwork.
It was a devotional art rather than decorative, and a reminder of the blessings
of Allah in all activities from wielding a sword to slaking ones thirst from a
bowl. It is this that urged the Muslims to aestheticize their surroundings,
seek new ways to express their appreciation of Allah’s gifts to mankind, creating
beautiful mosques, gardens and objects of use.
The achievements of the Golden Age are
remarkable. Pioneering work was done in the sciences especially medicine,
pharmacology, surgery, veterinary medicine, mathematics, chemistry physics, agriculture,
law, music, architecture, agriculture, philosophy, psychology sociology, astronomy,
navigation, trade, weaponry, textiles, glass and ceramics.
Access to Greco Roman knowledge, which had
been discarded in post Christian Europe as pagan, was made possible from two
sources:
Persia, around
560 AD, where Khusro I, who
was passionately interested in the Greco Roman world, invited philosophers of Athens who had been turned out
by Emperor Justinian, from Alexandria, and Nestorian Christians from Syria, to
Jundishapur close to what later became Baghdad .
Here he established an Alexandrian academy where instruction was carried out in
Syriac.
This complex
consisted of several sections, such as a medical school and the world’s first teaching
hospital (bimaristan), a pharmacology
laboratory, a translation bureau, a library, and an observatory. It also had a
deep influence on Islamic culture and civilization through its professors, who,
in the early years of `Abbasid rule, began to settle in the capital city of
Baghdad which soon became
a major centre for the arts and sciences. It was a city of museums, hospitals, libraries, and mosques. It housed the Bait-ul-Hikmah or house of wisdom with 400,000 volumes on all subjects, and where manuscripts in Greek
and other languages were translated into Arabic, and
where almost all the best known Islamic Scholars of the time had their educational
roots.
The
second source of Greco roman knowledge was the Byzantine city of Constantinople, which had
kept the science and literature of the Greeks alive, remaining more Greek than
Roman, although with a Christian tone. Greek scholars were given refuge when Emperor Justinian disbanded the School of Philosophy in
Athens in 529 CE.
Theophilus, the 9th
C Byzantine emperor was greatly influenced by the court of the 9th C
Khalifa, Harun al Rashid, adopting much of his state management[9], although
he maintained the status of war against Muslim expansionism. In 831 Byzantium signed a three year Peace
treaty with the Khalifa Al-Mamun, the son of
Harun al-Rashid who is considered the greatest patron of philosophy and science
in the history of Islam. The Khalifa sent scholars to Byzantium, to select and
bring back to Baghdad Greek scientific manuscripts for translation into Arabic
at the Bayt al-Hikmah. In return Islamic
culture invigorated the painting, architecture, and universities of Constantinople.
[10]
The focus also thus shifted from Persian to Greek texts. Al-Mamun
placed the Christian scholar, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, in charge of the translation
work. During Al Mamun’s reign, the work
of translating Greek scientific and philosophical literature was formally
institutionalised. This was supplemented by older Greek material that was
brought in from centres in both Persia and India, where Greek maths and science
had survived and had developed independently.[11]
Baghdad was
founded in 762AD by the Abassids. A few years earlier, the Governor of North
Africa, Musa bin Nusayr was invited to free Spain from the harsh rule
of the Visigoths. Gibralter ( Jabl al
Tariq) was named after the conquering commander of the Muslims, Tariq Bin Ziyad.
Subsequently, Abd al-Rahman, the only Omayyad who was not massacred by the
Abbasids, laid the foundations of the parallel Umayyad Khilfat in Spain. Adb
Al-Rahman created a paradise of learning and splendid architecture in Southern
Spain, as did his successors ’Abd al Rahman II and ’Abd al Rahman III, and al-Hakem II. Christians and
Jews were not only treated with tolerance but contributed to the advancement of
knowledge such as the rabbi, physician and philosopher Moses Ibn Maimon (Maimonides)
and Michael Severatus, astronomer, physician, theologian, cartographer,
translator, mathematician and humanist. The Jews
never experienced such stability since the downfall of Jerusalem.
“Here they were not shut out from the paths
of honour, nor excluded from the privileges of the state, but, untrammelled,
were allowed to develop their powers in the midst of a free, simple and
talented people..” .[12]
The Golden Age of Judaism, centred in Iberia,
coincides with the Islamic Golden Age, from 718 to the end of the Caliphate of
Cordoba in 1031. Many notable Jewish scholars, philosophers, poets, physicians,
translators, explorers not only gave respite to the Jewish diaspora after centuries of Roman and Christian
persecution, but contributed both to the Islamic Empire and the transmission of
Islamic learning to Europe after the expulsion of Muslims and Jews by Christian
Spain in 1492.
While Andalusia and Baghdad had separate
caliphates, there was a continuous sharing of scholars. It was through
Andalusian Spain and Sicily that this wealth of Muslim learning entered
Europe.
Muslim
Andalusia stood in stark contrast to the rest of Europe. Like Baghdad, it
became agriculturally rich, the cultivation of rice, cotton and oranges, was
introduced. Factories producing silk were established. Fine Ceramics and glazed
tiles found their way into Europe. Science and arts flourished. Public
Libraries, schools and the University of Cordova attracted scholars and students
from all over the Muslim world. The mosques and palaces of Cordoba and Al Hambra
are unique creations that continue to inspire architects. 60,000 books a year were produced in
Andalusia alone.
Initially after the reconquest of Spain,
Muslims continued to contribute as the new Christian rulers utilized their
knowledge and skills. Islamic learning was substantially spread to the rest of
Europe during this period, under the rule of Alphonso the Wise and Frederick II,
who retained Arabic as the state language. Among the visitors to Spain were two famous monks, Gregory of Cremona,
who became the main translator of Islamic Science, and Abelard of Bath, who
studied at Toledo and introduced the Scientific Method to Europe. Many of the
Jewish physicians attached to Moorish universities migrated to Italy and
southern France where they contributed greatly to the development of medical
schools at newly founded Christian universities. For example Daniel of Morley
who went to Toledo, (‘I hurried there as quickly as I could, so that I could hear the
wisest philosophers of the world’) studied Arabic and brought back
translations and helped organize the scientific movement of
scholasticism at the University of Oxford when it was formally established in
1167. [13]
The end of the Muslim era in Spain came with
the reign of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile in 1492, and the
Inquisition instituted by them. Arab Manuscripts were burnt, wholesale
massacres of Muslims and Jews, many being forced into exile. 3 million Muslims
were executed or exiled. The 16000 looms closed down, and the mines and productive
agricultural industry came to an end.
Baghdad had already
been devastated. In 1258, the Mongol, Halaku Khan, invaded Baghdad. The city was destroyed, its libraries burnt,
and most of its 2 million population massacred. The Mongols had delivered a
similar fate to the other great centres of Muslim learning, Bokhara, Samarqand
and Herat.
Sicily had been conquered
by the Muslims in 902 A.D., and it remained under Muslim rule until it was
conquered by the Normans under Count Roger in a prolonged campaign culminating
in 1091 A. D. The Kings
of Sicily continued to host Arab Scholars after they recaptured the island from
the Muslims, Roger II used the Hijri calendar, kept Arabic as the official
language, called his ministers Emirs, and wore an Arab style cloak, embroidered
with Arabic calligraphy. He established universities that were to transmit
Islamic scholarship across Europe.
Sicily has the honour of introducing paper
into Europe brought by the Muslims from Central Asia, translating Ibn Sina into
Latin, conducting the first dissections at the college of medicine at the
University of Salerno. Silk farming was introduced by the Arabs in Sicily. The
Arab custom of the Ravi or story
teller developed into the well known puppet shows of Sicily with legends of
knights and warriors. Sicily played a role in the transfer of the pointed arch
into Europe, polychrome and intersecting arches that were used extensively in
Gothic architecture. In 1224 Frederick
II founded the University of Naples, the world's oldest state
university, where Thomas Aquinas was a student. The great Italian
mathematician, Leonardo Fibonacci, the inventor of the arithmetic series
that bears his name, was a member of the court of Frederick in Palermo He had
studied with Arab mathematicians and
introduced "Arabic" numerals into Europe.
Other centres of Islam continued under the
Ottomans, The Persians and Mughals of India building upon the glories of the
Golden age.
The Golden Age of
Islam produced a dazzling array of scholars too numerous to mention here, whose
work travelled deep into European scholasticism. The scope of this paper does not intend to
present a survey but focuses on those aspects of Islamic scholarship that in
time became completely Europeanized.
The role of the
Muslims as transmitters of knowledge from the Greeks, Persians, Chinese and Hindus
would have been a contribution in itself: whether Aristotelian philosophy, the
zero of India, paper from China or sugar from Persia. However, the scholarship
that was built upon these sources has no parallel and has reverberated through
all consequent developments in the sciences, philosophies and social
structures.
The influence of Muslim
(and non Muslim scholars patronized by Muslim court) in the fields of
chemistry, medicine, optics, surgery philosophy, astronomy scientists,
navigators, are well documented. The works of scientific discoveries and
theories of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Razi (Rhazes) al Kindi ( Alkindus), al-Biruni,
al Jabr , al-Khwarizmi ( Algorizm) founder of algebra and algorithms, and who
developed the decimal system and introduced the concept of zero from the
Hindus. Jabir ibn Haiyan (Gerber), al-Farabi (Al
Pharabius) al-Haitham ( Alhazen)
and many others established the
foundations of Medieval and Renaissance
scholarship, and continue to be relevant.
Inventions of
the flat astrolabe sahifah (Al-Zarqali), surgical instruments (az-Zahrawi Albucasis),
the first flying machine hand glider and the first parachute in the 9thC by Ibn Firnas, the first fueled rocket by Lagari Hasan
Celibi in the 17th C . [14]Algebra
(Aljabr) decimals (al-Kashi) crank shaft and
combination lock (al-Jazari) who
also created the first mechanical musicians , the first globe world map al-Idrisi
(Dreses), the pendulum by Ibn Yunus al-Masri the first camera
obscura and pin hole camera, Ibn
al-Haytham (Alhazen), the "father of optics", the first thermometers of Ibn Sina, kerosene and kerosene lamps invented
by Al Razi, about 2000 medicinal
chemicals, artificial pearls, and
perfume through distillation were developed by Jabir (Gerber), soap and the soap bar developed by al-Razi. The Mughal
emperor Akbar designed the first movable architectural structures in the
16thCentury. The first street lights were seen in Cordoba, the first mechanical
clocks driven by weights and gears were developed by Al Jazari, factory milling
installations and various other industrial scale mills were established in
every major Muslim town in the 11th C, the development of clear colourless
glass, use of cat gut for stitches - the list is much longer. Probably one of
the most significant introductions was the concept of inductive reasoning
without which the scientific method would never have developed.
The unique contribution of the Muslim
Empire was the generous sharing of this knowledge which was probably the most
significant aspect of the Crusades. Medieval
scholars such as Roger Bacon, Thomas Aquinas, Robert Grosseteste, Adelard of Bath, studied Arabic writings and in turn inspired scholasticism in Europe. The most prolific translator, the twelfth
century Italian scholar Gerard of Cremona, travelled to Toledo, learned Arabic
and devoted the remainder of his life to translating 87 Arabic Manuscripts into
Latin making them accessible all over Europe.
The translations of Ibn Sina Avicenna’s Qanun (canon) became a medical bible
till the 17th century. Muslim architecture has become iconic from the Alhambra
to the Taj Mahal. The pointed arch so characteristic of Europe's Gothic
cathedrals was an invention borrowed from Islamic architecture. It was much
stronger than the rounded arch used by the Romans and Normans, thus allowing
the building of bigger, higher, more complex and grander buildings. Gothic architecture according to Sir
Christopher Wren is more accurately Arabic, ‘Saracenic’, or ‘Mooresque’.[15]
Other borrowings from Muslim architecture include
ribbed vaulting, rose windows and dome-building techniques. Europe's castles
were also adapted to copy the Islamic world's - with arrow slits, battlements,
a barbican and parapets. Square towers and keeps gave way to more easily
defended round ones. Henry V's castle architect was a Muslim.
The "arabesque", a unique form of
Arab art was copied throughout Europe from the time of the Renaissance and up
to the 19th century. Garden Design was an important part of Islamic
architecture from Spain to Mughal India with elaborate water features and
courtyards. They were spaces for contemplation and designed as reflections of
Paradise. Cities had public parks and shaded walkways.
Urban planning was an integral part of Muslim
expansion. Tenth century Baghdad and Andalusia were cities of aqueducts,
fountains, illuminated and paved thoroughfares and regularly patrolled by
guardians of the peace, while in London there were no pavements until the 14th
C and some rudimentary street lighting as late as the 17th C.
Islamic
mysticism or Sufism also found its way into Europe. Eric Geoffroy argues that Islamic Sufism influenced
St Francis of Assisi, Jewish mysticism, and the order of the Knights Templar.[16]
Sufism developed a following amongst European Orientalists of the 19th
century and continues to be highly regarded. Many western converts to
Islam were inspired by Sufism. World Sufi
music festivals are well attended such as the Fez Festival of “Sacred
Music” The Sufi poetry of Omar Khayyam and
Jalaluddin Rumi are widely read all over
the world and have inspired an enduring interest in Sufism .
Less known and worth recounting are the many
inventions that have become so intrinsic to modern European life that their
origins in Islam have been erased. Few would know that the fountain pen was invented for the Sultan of Egypt in 953
after he demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes. It held ink
in a reservoir and, as with modern pens, fed ink to the nib by a combination of
gravity and capillary action. Or that coffee was introduced into Vienna in the seventeenth century
from Yemen, Arabia, its place of origin popularized by the sufis who drank
coffee to stay alert during Dhikr. Soon famous coffee-houses sprang up all over
Europe. The Dutch managed to smuggle the prohibited coffee plant to Java where
it was extensively cultivated; and enterprising British made fortunes by
raising it in Jamaica. Or that the
concept of the three-course meal was introduced by Ali ibn Nafi, known by his
nickname of Ziryab (Blackbird) who came from Iraq to Cordoba in the 9th
century. Salad or soup, followed by fish or meat, then fruit and nuts or
dessert, to close the stomach, following
Rhazes’s and Ibn Zohr’s recommendations. Cookery books were written by
physicians who conducted extensive studies on nutrition and therapeutic properties
of food.
The diet of Medieval Europe consisted chiefly
of meats, and bread washed down with wine, beer or ale; leeks, garlic and
onions; cabbage and a few root vegetables such as carrots and beets, and such
fruit as was native to Europe. The Muslims introduced a new cuisine and the new
foods gradually entered Europe via Spain and Sicily along with new fruits --
cherries, peaches, apricots and gooseberries.
Duram wheat pasta was introduced by the
Muslims into Sicily and Spain in the 10th century as was lasagne from the
Arabic lisan meaning ‘tongue’. [17]
The Italian word for ice cream, “cassata”, derives
from qashda (‘cream’ in Arabic).
Sugar, which originated in India, soon spread
from India eastward into China and westward into Persia. Learning from the
Persians in the tenth century, the Arabs raised sugarcane extensively in Syria,
Spain and Sicily.
Carpets were introduced into Europe by
Muslims. In England, as Erasmus
recorded, floors were "covered in rushes, occasionally renewed, but so
imperfectly that the bottom layer is left undisturbed, sometimes for 20 years,
harbouring expectoration, vomiting, the leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings,
scraps of fish, and other abominations not fit to be mentioned".
The clothing worn by Europeans
was mostly coarse clothing woven of wool and linen. The Crusaders brought back
glowing accounts of the rich fabrics of the East. Soon these fabrics became an
essential part of European life. The Moors of Spain and Sicily taught the
Christians of those countries their skills in textiles; and taught them also
how to cultivate the silkworm for the production of silk.
Charlotte Jirousek (2005) in her
extensive study in Ottoman Costumes: From Textile to Identity explains that prior to the crusades,
European clothing consisted of tunics held together with brooches, pins or
laces. Trousers, buttoned coats,
layering of clothing, were introduced by the Turks who developed these styles
from their own origins in the steppes of East central Asia. As horse riders this was the more convenient
form of clothing. By the twelfth century front opening coats begin to appear as
outer garments worn initially by scholars and clerics trousers. There was a
surge of Ottoman fashions in 16 C Venice where many Turkish merchants traded. The Robe à la Turque was fashionable
across Europe by the 18 century.
The wimple and layered
dresses for women, creating both seduction and modesty, was a style brought back from the Middle East during the
Crusades.
Military uniforms that first
appeared at the end of the 17th century in France that resembled
Turkish şalvar and çepken along with military bands
were inspired by the Turkish janisarry armies
and the mehter, or military band that accompanied janissary armies into battle.
“Probably the most notorious example of
orientalist influence in western dress is the emergence of the modern men’s
suit. The suit would replace the doublet and hose long worn by European men
with layered coats and trousers. The appearance of this style is
documented in the diaries of Pepys and Evelyn as a new introduction in October,
1666” .[18]
The Turkish trousers worn by
Ottoman women, were adopted by the feminist movement. Amelia Jenks Bloomer
adopted and promoted her “Turkish trousers” that came to be known as bloomers.
“In the eighteenth century Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu’s Embassy Letters had painted a sympathetic picture of
Ottoman women that differed markedly from that previously provided by
condescending or fantasy-inspired male writers. She noted in particular that
they possessed legal property rights and protections that far surpassed
the rights of Western women. She took the comfortable and modest dress of
Ottoman women as a symbol of this admiration, and wore it on her return
to England, where she supported the emerging feminist movement”.[19]
The introduction of paper was one of the most
important factors in the influence of Islamic culture upon Europe. The Muslim
victory at the Battle of Talas (751) established an Arab centre at Samarqand,
and marked the crucial link in the westward transmission of the ancient Chinese
craft of papermaking. By 794, there was a paper mill in Baghdad, and similar
factories could soon be found in every Muslim country. This lowered the price
of books and public and private libraries soon became common throughout the
Islamic world. Schools and bookshops began to proliferate. Translations from
Arabic into Latin were easily disseminated from Spain to Italy and France, thus
planting the seeds of modern European civilization.
The libraries of the
Sultan of Egypt had 80,000 volumes, of Tripoli 200,000, Al Hakim II of Spain
had 600,000 books, not counting the library of Baghdad destroyed by the
Mongols. Four centuries later the Royal Library of France had 900 volumes, two
thirds of which were theological subjects. Islamic libraries played a major role in the shift from
oral to written culture. Under Muslim rule it was difficult to find even a peasant who
could not read and write.[20]
The Arab
schools (Universities) in Córdoba, Sevilla, Granada, Valencia, Toledo attracted
a great number of Christian scholars. Great Christian thinkers of that time,
such as Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham,
Gerbert of Aurillac, later to become Pope Sylvester II, to mention only a few,
developed their intellectual skills in those centres of learning
Frederick II established the University of
Naples in 1224 A.D., where he had the works of Aristotle translated from Arabic
into Latin, as well as the works of Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Averroes became an authority among both Jews
and Christians, and his commentaries on Aristotle influenced such theologians
as Rabbi Moses ibn Maimon (1135-1204), and St. Thomas Aquinas, the founding father of secular thought in Europe,
who came to be known as "The Commentator" in the Christian West. During the early thirteenth century
universities sprang up all over Europe: Bologna, Padua, Paris and Oxford, where
translations of Arabic texts into Latin, especially those of Ibn Rushd on
Aristotle, formed the base of the curriculum and where scholars, fleeing from
Spain after the reconquest, became teachers.
Arabic Chairs were later created at Oxford and and
Cambridge Universities and the Arabic language was taught. A large
collection of Arabic manuscripts were acquired, collected in places such as
the Bodelein Library at Oxford. Constantine, the African of Arab origin,
translated a large number of medical books from Arabic into Latin.
According to George Makdisi, the idea of academic freedom in universities
was modelled on Islamic custom as practiced in the medieval Madressa system
from the 9th century. The origins of the doctorate dates back
to the ijazat attadris wa 'l-ifttd
("license to teach and issue legal opinions"). [21]
The first professors of medicine at the newly
established European universities in the 12th century were all former students
of Arab scholars. The basic work of the most famous medical scholar, Ibn Sîna
(Avicenna), Al-Qanûn (canon medicinae), was taught in all major European
faculties of medicine over six centuries. In 1587 King Henry III of France
established a chair for Arab language at the Collège Royal in order to promote
medical research in France.
The hospitals of Cordova and Toledo were well
known to Europeans, and were frequented by Christian princes in need of medical
care. Many physicians travelled to tend to European nobles and kings.
Throughout the Crusades, the wounded Franks would be treated in their own camps
by Muslims physicians from the enemy camps, or would go to the Muslim camps for
treatment even in the midst of hostilities. .
Much of Islamic law found its way into
European law. This includes the concept of a Jury (lafif) comprised of 12 members from the neighbourhood
sworn to tell the truth and give a unanimous verdict binding on the judge. “The
precursor to the English jury trial was the Lafif in the Maliki School of classical
Islamic law and jurisprudence, which was developed between the 8th and 11th
centuries in the medieval Islamic world and shares a number of similarities
with the later jury trials in English common law". [22]
The appointment of a lawyer (wakil) to defend not just prosecute, as was the earlier
practice in English common law; the presumption of innocence; naval and
international law, Trust law to name a few.
Alphonse IX, the "Wise," of Spain, created
the University of Salamanca, the role of which is known in the elaboration of
what was to become modern international law Villayet a text that enumerates the
centuries- old Muslim laws of war. a direct adaptation of Muslim law .[23]
The state organization established by
Frederick II in Sicily: army structure, indirect and direct taxation, customs, duties and, the public monopoly on mines and
certain goods were based on ninth and tenth centuries Muslim law and became a
model for the entire West .[24]
Arab lyric poetry was an important
contribution to the literature of Europe and influenced the wandering
troubadours. The Arabic Tariba became Trobar and Troubadour The influence of the legendary
love passion of Qays and Layla, can be seen in European love poetry and the cultivation of the chivalric code
and literature. The troubadours introduced Andalusian themes of chaste and
virtuous love and idealization of women into European poetry.
The notions of "love for love's
sake" and "exaltation of the beloved lady" the concept of
"love as desire never to be fulfilled" have been traced back to Arabic literature of the 9th and 10th centuries. In his treatise Risala fi'l-Ishq (Treatise on Love) in the early 11th century
the Persian psychologist and philosopher, Ibn Sina (“Avicenna”), studied the
"ennobling power" of love.
This was the birth of song form with verses
and choruses which were different than the rhymed couplets in previous lyrics
from all three traditions - Arabic, Iberian and European.
“A new poetical form was born in Andalusia
which was to have the most profound effects on the successive course of
European culture. This was the song known as the muwashsha, invented in the Ninth century. It was a strophic poem,
the predecessor of the canzone” .[25]
These poems, hundreds of which survive, were
always sung, and imitated by the singers in Provence. That became the Provencal
poetry of the troubador and mesitersinger traditions, while the Andalusian oud (imported via Baghad from Iran)
became the lute. Mensural music and rhythmic modes and strophic poems were spread all over Europe through the wondering
medieval minstrels, not only spreading the tradition of courtly love, but also
the literary worth of vernacular languages.
The Iraqi musician Zaryab established Europe’s first conservatory in
Cordoba in the 9th C. This period
in Andalusia was the start of the western orchestra, a term that came from
the sitara, the cloth separating the audience and dancers from the
musicians behind. The scientific musical theories of al-Kindi, al-Farabi and Ibn
Sina, 9th 10th C, influenced European musical theory for centuries. The guitar
( qitara), the lute ( oud), the violin ( kamancha) of probable Central Asian origin, were introduced to
Europe through Spain. The zither (qanun)
gave rise to the dulcimer, harpsichord and eventually the piano (Unity
Productions Foundation 2007).
European music, prior to Arab influence, was
largely sacred and monophonic in nature. Plainsong chant featured almost
exclusively in worship. Gradually, due at least in part to the works of travelling
minstrels like troubadours and goliards, instrumental accompaniment, harmony
and polyphony would become standards of Western music.
The
contributions of the Arabs to literature established themes of Courtly Love
which developed into the Chivalric Code that spread across Medieval and
Renaissance Europe. The theme of the lover who would rather die than achieve
union with his beloved became central to ghazal poetry in the 10th century and
introduced new themes in European literature hitherto known for long epics like
Beowulf or Waltharius.
Arabs not only produced literary works but also
established theories of literary criticism. Al-Jahiz of Basra wrote the `Elegance of
Expression and Clarity of Exposition' which dealt with literary style and the
effective use of language. Ibn al-`Arabi’s mystical poetry and prose written in
the pursuit of wisdom, shaped large
parts of Islamic thought for centuries afterward. Intellectual debates were
tolerated: The Islamic scholar al- Ghazali’s `The Incoherence of the
Philosophers' elicited from Averroes `The Incoherence of the Incoherence'.
The `Muqaddimah'
(Introduction) of the great social scientist, Ibn Khaldun, is filled with
brilliant observations on the writing of history, economics, politics, and
education. It has long been regarded as one of the finest philosophies of
history ever written. This literary flowering was across the Muslim world. Of the large number of Persian authors in
this period, the most significant were Firdawsi, al-Biruni, Omar Khayyam, Jalal ad-Din ar-Rumi, Sa`di, and in India, Amir
Khusroe.
European writers were inspired by their Arab
counterparts well into the 19th century, including Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare, the Romantic Poets, Voltaire, Yeats to name
but a few. Antoine
Galland was the first in the West to translate the Arabian
Nights, Les Mille et Une Nuits 18 C. There were many
versions, the best known in the English language being Sir Richard Francis
Burton’s highly embellished version. "The
Thousand and One Nights" or "The Arabian Nights" inspired
writers like Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, Daniel Defoe and including Walt Disney
and Hollywood cinema. There are classical music
compositions, operas, Hollywood films, popular books, and video games that are
based on the stories from the Arabian nights. The well loved Aesop’s Fables, believed to be sourced in the
fables of Bidpai, an Indian sage, were translated into Arabic from Persian
translations by Ibn al-Muqaffa`as Kalīlah wa Dimnah and
subsequently into European languages. [26]
Thousands of Arabic words
have entered the various European languages, especially Spanish including that
all Spanish expression olé! (bravo - wa-Allah). Some
commonly used English words have Arabic
origins : cafés (cafe - qahwah), spinach - isbanakh , sugar - al-sukkar castle - al-qasr, guitar
- qitarah,
tuna -
al-tūn, tarrif -taʿrīf, Talc - ṭalq, sofa - soffa, scarlet - saqirlāṭ
racquet- rāha(t) or palm of the hand, orange - nāranj, mattress - maṭrah
magazine - makhāzin jumper - jubba, jar - jarra, cotton - qutun, candy - qandī,
cheque - zakk (In the 9th century, a
Muslim businessman could cash a cheque in China drawn on his bank in Baghdad).
Turbaned figures began to appear in paintings especially with Biblical
themes, although Christ remained mostly blond and blue eyed. Many French artists of the
19 C were drawn to subjects of Moorish harems and odalisques notably Delacroix
and Ingres and the many orientalist artists that followed.
These legacies, especially in the field of sciences, have largely been
ignored by European histories. For many centuries, the Renaissance was seen to
be purely a product of the fall of Constantinople and the subsequent migration
to Europe of Greek scholars of Byzantine. In fact a strange hostility grew to
the influence of Islamic scholarship: Dante in his Commedia relegated The Prophet
Muhammad to the furtherest ends of inferno, and placed Ibn Sina, and Salah
al-Din in limbo along with Plato and Socrates. In a Renaissance painting by
Francesco Traini, St Thomas Aquinas is shown stomping Ibn Rushd (Averroes), underfoot.
From around 1500 the Arab source of scientific learning was erased and
instead the Renaissance was established solely as a European revival of Greek
learning consequential to the fall of Byzantine. The Inquisition was at its height
and Christian Europe was reasserting itself.
Paul Alvarus of Córdoba who
as early as the ninth century, was voicing a heightened sense of cultural
insecurity:
“My fellow Christians delight in
the poems and romances of the Arabs; they study the works of Mohammedan
theologians and philosophers, not in order to refute them, but to acquire a
correct and elegant Arabic style. Where today can one find a layman who reads
the Latin commentaries on Holy Scriptures? Who is there that studies the
Gospels, the Prophets, the Apostles? Alas! The young Christians who are most
conspicuous for their talents have no knowledge of any literature or language
save the Arabic; they read and study with avidity Arabic books; they amass
whole libraries of them at a vast cost, and they everywhere sing the praises of
Arab lore” .[27]
This
text lay ignored, till resurrected in 1571 by bishop and inquisitor general Pedro Ponce de León.[28]
An attempt
in the 16 century to establish a more balanced view of Islam by the English
author Henry Stubbe was never published and lay in manuscript several
hundred years until edited by Mahmud Khan Shairani and published.[29]
This resistance probably stemmed from political rather than religious
motives. The Crusades became a vehicle for trade and expansionism leading to
the age of colonization, the establishment of European power, which one can
argue, required the superiority of Europe to not be undermined by its debt to
the nations it wished to subdue.
In Western
Views of Islam in Medieval and early Modern Europe, David R Blanks, writes:
“In regards to western views of Islam the 18th and 19th C
must be considered a prominent cultural and historical frontier...During the
middle ages, Islamic civilization was far ahead of its Christian rival offering
enticing advances in architecture, law literature, philosophy, and, indeed in
most areas of cultural activity. It was therefore from a position of weakness
that Christian Europe developed negative images, some of which survive to the
present day”. In the need to create the Other, an image of Saracen and Turk as
evil, cowardly, duplicitous, lustful, “the creation of such a blatantly false
stereotype enabled European Christians to define themselves”. [30]
Similar negative stereotyping in our times
was created in the depiction of Germans during WWII, and of Communist Russians
during the Cold War.
David R. Blanks suggests the change in
perception of Islam came about in the 17th C when Islam ceased to be
a political threat, and the deriding of Islam came from a sense of European
cultural superiority not from an inferiority complex.[31]
Normal Daniel explains that this was possible
because by now the Muslim medieval influences had been appropriated by
Christian Europe, ‘canonized’, erasing the links of European knowledge and
Islamic scholarship.[32]
In the 17C the word Islam, rather than
Mohammedan, began to appear for the first time in English and in French writings.
It was not till WWI that scholars began to take noticeable interest in Islam (which
saw the end of the Khilafat and the Ottoman Empire) and not till WWII that the
field came into its own, (the era of decolonization). Today the numbers of books on Islam on the
shelves have dramatically increased. At a glance a large proportion deal with
the impact of Islamic resurgence on western civilization either through the
threat of terrorism or migration.
In the 19th century, the
scholarship was mostly about understanding or critiquing the religious or
cultural aspects of Islam and Muslims, as a distant culture. The 19th century, at the height of colonial
empire, saw the rise of the Romantic Movement, with poets, musicians and
writers exploring the distant exoticism that came to be associated with Islam.
Instead of the East and West of today, the world was divided into Occident and
Orient. Orientalism originally denoted
the whole of the east and gave birth to a taste for chinoiserie, turquerie,
mooresque, japonisme, saracenic or hindoo.
Music, architecture, clothing, and literature were flavoured with the distant exoticism
of the Orient.
Peter Cochran in his essay Byron’s Orientalism writes that where in
medieval European epics the Islam was defined by the crusades, and in the 17th
century, by the Turkish threat to Christian Europe, by the 19th
century, Islam was no longer a military threat:
“The threat to Europe from the
Ottomans had long receded... instead of the cliché evil East of medieval
tradition, a new cliché East emerged, which was still mysterious – full of
houris, odalisques, eunuchs and djinns, crafty caliphs, oppressive sheikhs and
flying carpets” .[33]
Early Orientalism emerged from the 19the
century translations of the writings of the colonized nations, and narratives
about them, “based on the assumption that a truly effective colonial conquest
required knowledge of the conquered peoples”.[34] This established a western identity determined
by its distance from the ‘Other’.
Initially Islam was merely one of the various
oriental cultures, the feminine and weak Orient awaiting the dominance of the
West.[35] Ironically, today’s Islam, is
presented as male, active, retaliatory, angry, speaking out, and is
consequently perceived as a threat.
The very influential writings of Edward Said, redefined Orientalism with
an Arab focus. He challenged the definition
by Orientalists of "the Arab" as irrational, menacing, untrustworthy,
anti-Western, dishonest. This description was presented as imperialist,
politically motivated by the ideology of empire, abasing that which it means to
conquer. Without undermining the immense value of Edward Said’s contribution to
challenging the stereotype of the Arab, it is conceivable that it entrenched
the battle lines.
Europe has continued
to define itself defensively, as an area of exclusion, distancing itself from
the rest of the world. In post-renaissance Europe, the Muslim world was
contained through the images of Orientalism. This was possible as long as the
Muslim world remained geographically remote. However, the discovery of oil in
the Middle East, the disastrous consequences of the Balfour Declaration vis a
vis Palestine and the formation of Israel for the settlement of migrant Jews
from Europe, brought the Middle East into a new proximity with Europe, and with
it a reluctant dependence on the Arab world to maintain the high standards of
living of the oil hungry West.
The Muslim world of today
bears little resemblance to the Orientalist image that Europe had established.
Not only is it no longer located only in Arab countries, but countries as
diverse as Pakistan, Afghanistan Iran and Indonesia. These countries have been
greatly modified by the adoption of western culture, in a confusing (for the
West) amalgam of resistant Muslim cultural values, and western structures of
state, law, education and consumerism. These
are the consequences of the Great Colonial Adventure, the active cultivation of
economically and politically motivated wars. The hubristic presentation of
European civilization as superior in its modernity and its freedoms, has made
Europe desirable for those nations who have systematically been made to feel
inferior, and where repressive pro western regimes resulted in migrations to
the enchanting West.
While post WWII
Europe shrank geographically, it expanded economically moving from the captive
markets of colonization to the negotiated markets of post colonialism. The need
for migrant workers to maintain production has created a conflict between need
and perceived erosion of the cultural identity of Europe.
Racism is on the rise and post 9/11 it is primarily directed at Muslims.
The EU has felt it necessary to create a European
Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia which published a study in
2006 of the incidents of racism in European countries with an overwhelming percentage
of racism against Muslims.
Interfaith dialogues began as early as the 12th
century, as an alternative to maintaining expensive armies. Then the aim was
conversion to Christianity. Today the aim is integration into European culture.
There are innumerable reports on Islamophobia, and genuine concerns about the
impact of an estimated 44 million Muslims in Europe today, 6% of the total
population, a large number of whom feel alienated and marginalized. The vast majority of Muslims living in
European countries are economic migrants, who presumed that it was possible to
integrate into European culture while maintaining their religious and cultural
values. However, modern Europe,
interprets this as anathema to its carefully nurtured secular identity.
Where Marxism aimed for the withering away of
the state, the European Enlightenment project intended to unite the world by
secularizing it. What Europe wants is acculturation not integration. Acculturation often results in changes to culture, customs,
and social institutions as has happened with the Native Americans of USA. The
inability of the Muslim migrants to internalize their religious faith,
threatens the concept of a secular Europe, and has even provoked European
leaders into reactive statements defining Europe as Christian.
The isolation of Muslims as the burning
problem of Europe was shaped by the events of 9/11 creating a new level of
anxiety for both Europeans as “The West” who identified the attack on USA as an
attack on Western values, and for the majority of Muslims . Pre 9/11 “Coverage in The Sun, the most widely read
newspaper in the UK, rarely made any significant distinction between minority
groups, homogenizing them as the external Other.” Post 9/11 not only was the
coverage in media greatly increased, “the most significant shift in the
coverage of British Muslims post-9/11 was in the association with terrorism.....Rather
than providing any historical or political context, the acts of terrorism are
clearly linked to Islamic belief” .[36]
A deeply politicized media has contributed to
social perceptions of the threat of Islam and the threat to Islam. Each is viewed and views itself through the
narratives presented by the media and the ever expanding social network, which
has replaced direct knowledge with politically mediated perceptions.
“History, as it is present in the
public arena, is neither an ancestral memory nor a collective tradition. It is
mediated by contemporary education and communication. Hatred is inculcated as
much, or even more, by a modern discourse than by memory. It is often stirred
up by radio broadcasts, articles in the press and television programmes, rather
than inherited from parents. If the past does not meet the needs of the
present, another one can always be invented”.[37]
Much has been written and
discussed of the impact of Islam on Europe. Europe, and now America, has had a far
more disruptive impact on non western countries both through colonization and
economic dominance. It is necessary to
realize that Muslim societies are no longer a continuation of their medieval
personas. Most Muslim countries have been colonized and all are deeply
influenced by western culture. Some aspects of this influence are simply
technological advancements which in some neat logic are the fruit of
contributions Muslims made in their Golden Age, and which Europe has admirably
furthered to the benefit of all. However, some European influences could be
seen as disruptions, interventions, where they have replaced traditional
cultures. These may include educational systems, clothing, food, language,
political systems, the institution of the nation state, methods of war, systems
of law, art, music, architecture, philosophical frameworks, consumerism,
television programming, even videogames. Muslim countries, it may be argued
have been more radically Europeanized than Europe has been Islamized.
Europeans colonized most of the world while
retaining their language, religion and culture, even in lands that were settled
such as America and Australia where native culture changed to accommodate the
settlers. The Islamic Empire did the same, spreading Arabic language and
culture, but equally absorbing and being changed by the local cultures they
encountered, the Mughal Empire being a good example. Unlike some colonized nations that were
primarily agrarian, Islam developed as a cosmopolitan urban largely industrialized
culture, and so the impact of Western Industrialization was more easily
absorbed.
The extent to which the vast
majority of Muslim migrants have adapted to European host cultures is rarely
acknowledged. Islamic fundamentalism accounts for only 3% of Muslims globally. [38]
Muslims today are also artists showing in
international galleries, haute couture fashion designers, architects,
musicians, comedians, actors, businessmen, poets, sport persons, writers,
educators, politicians, doctors, lawyers, engineers. The architect Zaha Hadid ,
the hip hop band Outlandish, the fashion designer Rabia Yalçin, the
intellectual Syed Hossein Nasr, Rai musicians, New Wave Iranian cinema, the
artist Rashid Rana, and many others continue to contribute to the enrichment of
contemporary cultures. The recent Arab Spring movements in Algeria
and Egypt have inspired youth movements across the world and present a new face
to Islamic cultures that are neither the passive feminine of orientalism, nor
the aggressive male of religious extremism.
The religion Islam has been pitted anew
against a secular Europe (which has not quite abandoned its religious identity)
whereas in reality it is a cultural conflict focused on clothing (the veil),
education (madressas), architectural impositions (minarets). It has got entangled with the events of 9/11
and subsequent political challenges to the neo imperialism spearheaded by
foreign economic policies of USA and a few European countries. The violent
minority of Islamic resistance has overshadowed the efforts of mostly economic
migrants of Muslim faith to integrate in European societies without abandoning
their religious values.
“Ordinary Muslims in Europe,
who suffer from the demoralisation caused by living as perennial objects of
suspicion and contempt, are far from thinking of themselves as a politically
powerful, or even cohesive, community, not to speak of conquerors of Europe”. [39]
This view is not shared by an alarmingly growing number of Islamophobes.
Christopher Caldwell, an American columnist with the
Financial Times writes "Of course minorities can shape countries. They can
conquer countries. There were probably fewer Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 than
there are Islamists in Europe today." And one can add so too did a
minority of Europeans colonizers impose they culture on huge parts of the
world.
Bruce Bawer (2007), whose book While Europe Slept: How
Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from
Within, [40]suggests that European officials, who are "in a position
to deport planeloads of people everyday", "could start rescuing Europe
tomorrow." Anders Bruun Larsen, a prolific bloggist and opponent of
“Eurabian Union” writes: “The problem is that the peoples of Europe are
wholly uninterested in Arab culture - and Arabs in European culture. These New
World Order organizations want to melt us all together into one big slave caste
and therefore see this as a major problem. Now the British Council tries to
launch the project "Our Common Europe" where they are repeating the
EU´s failed attempt to deceive citizens into believing that Islam played
and still plays a big role in Europe's civilization” .[41]
The other
voice of Europe is exemplified by example
of the commitment of the London based
Foundation for Science, Technology and
Civilisation (FSTC) whose Exhibition 1001 Inventions travelling since 2010 to London, Dubai,
New York, Los Angeles and Washington has had record-breaking
numbers of visitors. Across the
Atlantic , the opening of the Galleries for
the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia in
the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York in 2011. Both intend to interpose new
(old) ways of perceiving Islam.
Ultimately it is, as Gadamer
writes, an attempt to encourage “the interpreter” towards self reflection. “When the
interpreter accepts the unfamiliar elements, his prejudices are modified and
enlarged. In order to arrive at a proper understanding of the text, the
interpreter has to undermine the power of his prejudices over his
consciousness.” Prejudices, he says,” not only constitute their historical
identity but are the very thing that enables them to experience the world”. “Relying
upon the power of reason, the interpreter can bring his own prejudices into the
open, tame them, and thereby destroy their spell”. [42]
Whether the denial of Islamophobes, and
whether the rage of Islamic extremists will
be modified remains to be seen. “Although the
self-reflection is set in motion by the impact from the text, what ultimately
determines its success or failure is the interpreter's autonomous will to
reflect upon his prejudices. If a misunderstanding of a text truly and solely
results from the interpreter's lack of will, this phenomenon does not deserve
further discussion.”
In which case, the
only response to deal with the inevitable impasse, may be the piquancy
expressed in the internet comment on a web article titled Muslim
immigration: the most radical change in European history : “LOL, some people are Muslim, get over it!” [43]
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[2] Florida
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Francesco. 1989. Arab Historians of the
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1963. Chronicles of the Crusades, 244. London: Penguin Books.
[4] Wright,
William. 1907. Travels of Ibn Jubayr,
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Judith. 2001. How did Europe begin?
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Linda. 2006. Middle Ages: Effects of the
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“As Gadamer
points out, a text contains both familiar and unfamiliar contents to its
interpreter. It is the unfamiliar contents that generate a conflict in the
inner world of the interpreter. That is, the interpreter has to acknowledge or
repudiate the validity of the unfamiliar contents. Apart from exceptional cases in which the contents of foreign
messages are somehow compatible with the intellectuals' prejudices, an
understanding of foreign messages would be highly traumatic. The unfamiliar
contents contained in foreign messages threaten the stability of intellectuals'
prejudices. This means that the validity of the world-view and ethical
norms-that the intellectuals have internalized and thus have a deep faith in-is
being questioned by the unfamiliar contents. Put another way, the unfamiliar
contents call the intellectuals' cultural identity into question. In this
situation, if the intellectuals want to accept the unfamiliar contents,
therefore, they have to allow a fundamental change in their world-view and ethical
norms. The inner tension accompanying such a change would be of an enormous
magnitude. The intellectuals, moreover, would hardly wish to endure such a
tension.”
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