Perceptions of Islam in the Middle Ages - Essay Example

Perceptions of Islam in the middle Ages and the Modern Times: As Imagined, Represented, and Perceived by the Westerners The topic or dis I have chosen concerns the perceptions of Islam largely perceived by the Western people. The topic emphasizes on the images, representations, and/or perceptions toward the Muslim communities. The maker of images and other perceptual frameworks is generally the Western people or societies in their various historical and cultural continuums. The reasons of selecting this discourse are as follows: first, to probe into the minds of the Westerners pertaining to their perceptions of Islam; second, to explore the backgrounds and foregrounds of these perceptions through an exploration of historical and cultural relevant facets; third, to examine if these perceptions of Islam are valid/reasonable or not; fourth, to know if these perceptions of Islam can be divided into two groups; and fifth, to determine the changes of perceptions, if any, that occurred in the course of the human history. Ancient Western viewpoint Intellectually In the early period of the High Middle Ages, the Islamic communities had greatly contributed to the intellectual growth of the European people. Goddard (2000) stated that the medieval Muslim scholars (e.g., Averroes) had translated into Arabic language the scientific ideas and philosophies of the Greeks such as Aristotle (Goddard, 2000: 97). He further noted that it was in the eleventh century that the Europeans were able to obtain, translate, and read the works of the Greek scientists and philosophers via their Arabic version. Goddard (2000) said that there were two specific European locations wherein the readings and translations of the Arabic texts of the Greek intellectuals were made: Spain and Sicily. By and large, Muslims were viewed by the medieval Christians, based from Goddard’s analysis, as transmitters of scientific knowledge and intellectual tradition (Goddard, 2000: 98). Economically Moreover, Glick (2005) said that the Islamic communities had greatly shaped the notion and praxis of urbanization for the pre-11th century European people. Prior to A.D. 1000, the administration of justice practiced by the Christian nation-state of Iberian descent was “dispersed among a multiplicity” of institutions or courts throughout the land (Glick, 2005: 113). In contrast, the administration of justice prominent in Islamic communities was remarkably concentrated in the al-Andalus towns. With respect to urban practices, the influence of Muslims to the medieval Iberian Christians took place when the former created the al-Andalus region as an international market in the 8th-century period. Here, European Christians perceived Muslims as civilized people with highly organized activities pertaining to urban function. Glick’s reading of medieval Spanish urbanization significantly viewed Islam as the promoter of civilization as we know it today: concentrated at the center. Theologically In spite of the contributions of Islam to the preservation and institution of knowledge and urbanization, the European elite had attempted to demonize, and eventually succeeded in demonizing, the expanding Muslim communities. Tolan (1996), p.xv) described how Peter the Venerable, a Christian abbot of Cluny, travelled to Spain in order to meet and convince its king for a sinister plot of attacking Islam (Tolan, 1996: xv). The abbot of Cluny conceived a plan to rationally criticize the ideas and teachings characterized in the Islamic faith; through the aid of the king of Castile and Leon, Peter the Venerable created a team of translators with the main task of translating the Qur’an and other Islamic texts from Arabic to Latin language (Tolan, 1996). Thence, Christian scholars attacked the philosophy or ideas prominent in the Islamic texts. In the process, they perceived the Muslims as akin to pagans or heretics (Lumbard, 2009: 156). Militarily In the Early Middle Ages, it must be noted that Islam was not highly considered by the medieval Christians as a religion in itself. Wolf (1999), p.xv) noted that the Early Middle Age Christians from the Iberian continent generally viewed the Muslim communities as a military and political power (Wolf, 1999: .xv). Shown in their written chronicles about the invading Muslim armies, Latin Christians in this particular epoch greatly viewed the Islamic people as political entity. Wolf divided the perceptions of the medieval Christians toward the Islamic communities into two broad categories: Asturian and Andalusian. In the era of Muslim conquest in the European geopolitics, on the one hand, Asturian chroniclers wrote the historical narrative of the Iberian people in “providential terms” (Wolf, 1999: xvi). On the other hand, Andalusian chroniclers interpreted the Muslim invasion of the Western world in a matter-of-fact fashion. In general, Latin Christians perceived the Islamic communities as foreign invaders to their land and people. Wolf suggested that the difference between these two chroniclers was mainly geopolitical in characteristic. Rival of civilization It is apparent that, in the middle Ages, Muslims were far advance in contrast to the European Christians. In fact, the Islamic communities were far more sophisticated compared to their Christian rivals concerning philosophy, science, law, and other vital cultural and politico-military facets. It is interesting to note of what Blanks and Frassetto (1999) concluded pertaining to the perceptions of the Christians from the West toward the Muslims from the East: “It was therefore from a position of military and, perhaps more importantly, cultural weakness that Christian Europe developed negative images [toward the Islamic faith].” (Blanks and Frassetto, 1999: 3). That is to say, Muslims had become the strong rival of Christians in terms of the advancement of science, commerce, military power, and even civilization in general. Blanks and Frassetto argued that the Western sense of cultural inferiority permitted the continuation of this “rival civilization” (in Tolan’s term) up to the present era. In the Anglo-American context, however, negative perceptions toward the Muslims were deeply rooted in the “very beginnings of the American republic” (Brodeur, 2001: 75). Modern Western perspective Terrorism The images, representations, and perceptions of Islam “abound in the academic and popular press” throughout the twentieth-century world (Mirza, 2007: 2). Perhaps with the intellectual and technological changes, together with the recent historical events in the contemporary Muslim world, greater attention to certain institution or faith such as Islam has become widely possible (Esposito, 1999: ix). It was fairly recently that Islamic communities were imagined, represented, and perceived as terrorists. Since September 11 of 2001, in fact, Muslims were generally viewed as terrorists. From the Western-based televisions alone, Islam and terrorism were portrayed as synonymous terms. On the other hand, Bassiri traced back in the 1980s pertaining to the origin of coining terrorism to Islamic communities. The Reagan administration, in fact, invented the famous phrase “war on terror” in which the 21st-century Bush administration took as a military and cultural campaign against the Al-Qaeda movement in particular and the Islamic “extremists” in general. According to Bassiri (2010) Reagan’s “Islamic terrorism” was a term in the 1980s in which it was not “properly defined in American discourses.” Bassiri suggested that the American people, via their governmental agency and media, perceived the Muslims as either terrorists or “freedom fighters” depending on the Anglo-American strategic policies (Bassiri, 2010: 308). Threat to civilization Renard (2011) observed that American and European intellectuals had greatly viewed Islam as an ideology with an ultimate aim of destroying the “Christian” civilization. For these Western pundits, Islam is a threat to world civilization as we know it today. It is peculiar, however, that Renard put a double quote in writing the term Christian -- referring to a special type of civilization. Perhaps Renard’s “civilization” is pointed to the modern civil society prevalent in the West who are largely composed of Christian believers. That is to say, Muslim communities are a threat to the Christian societies in the West, particularly American society. Given the current world order as dominated or controlled by American politics, civilization is a term that refers to the structure or status quo marked in a superpower nation-state. With the recent world events, Renard said, Muslims were (and are) perceived as enemies of civilization; often times, civilization and democracy are interchangeable -- in any case, both implies American politics (Renard, 2011: ix). Incompatible with modernity Esposito (2003) strongly argued that Western people, through productions of knowledge/power, tended to view Islam as incompatible to the modern way of life, especially that which pertains to the present-day civil society. In this sort of perspective notable to Western pundits, particularly to Anglo-Americans, Muslim politics were (and are) considered as a dimension that largely focused on “the acts of extremists” (Esposito, 2003: 69). Esposito lamented on this crisis-oriented approach used widely by the modern-day European pundits. These thinkers heavily utilized the lens associated to hostages in the Middle East, attacks in New York City, and other acts performed by Muslim extremists. Esposito seemed to argue that Western intellectuals merely choose particular events or scenarios that were Muslim-directed and, from there, they attribute these acts of violence -- or acts of terrorism if you will -- to the religion of Islam as a whole. Thence, the Anglo-American intellectual elite perceived Islam as incompatible with modernity -- that is, Muslims had (or have) no sense of social/civil order. Re-Islamization Pratt (2005) gave two broad perceptions toward Islam, which are perceived by Westerners: first is a closed view; and second is the open view. In the closed view, on the one hand, Muslims are perceived as enemies that need to be combated. The premise of perceiving Islam as an enemy is rooted on the ground that such ideological machine is essentially “monolithic and static” (Pratt, 2005: 175). It implies that the Muslim faith is narrow, irrational, and incapable of modification in the changing world. Like a monolithic wall, Islam as a religion is utterly flat and singular in dimension. There appears to be a sheer absence of dynamism within the orthodoxy and/or orthopraxy characterized in its teachings and belief system. From the medieval period up to the modern epoch, the Muslim communities are considered as the strongest rival of the Western Christendom. Especially in military power, Muslims greatly surpassed the medieval Christians of Iberian background. For the Christians in the 11th-century Asturias kingdom, in particular, Muslims were regarded as soldiers armed with an ideological weapon of conquering the Christian lands. In the present-day world, the Islamic communities are still viewed in this fashion: static. That is to say, Muslims continue to play the role of an invader or enemy to the “Christian” civilization. In the open view, on the other hand, Islam was seen as a “complex phenomenon” (Pratt, 2005: 175). Unlike the closed view, the open view perceives Muslims as a community of people who possess the potential of modifications or alterations based from rational or grounded principle. Here, Muslims are dynamic and multifaceted; they are far from being static or narrow-minded fanatics. Esposito contends that the Islamic communities, in their historical development, had experienced a kind of tremendous change or alteration. He says that the Islamization of state and society in its early period of emergence and establishment includes the “process of borrowing and assimilation” (Esposito, 1984: 314). As opposed to a stagnant community of believers, early Muslims -- such as but not limited to the Middle Ages -- had tended to borrow and probably revise several ideas and practices prevalent in a particular society or state that it had ruled or governed; through Greek ideas and ideals, for example, they were able to utilize such knowledge for the improvement of Islam’s social and political life( Esposito, 1984: 314). adds up that these Islamic people had adopted and adapted other “non-Muslim beliefs and institutions.” This implies that Muslims have the capacity to change given the need of it. Even in our contemporary epoch, Islam has undergone changes. Zaman (2002) argues that the spiritual leaders (i.e., ulama) of the Muslim communities have positively responded to the challenges posed by modernity. With the progress of communication technologies, for instance, ulama have used such modern gadgets in order to expand their influence and broaden their audiences (Zaman, 2002: 2). There are two broad perceptions of Islam largely perceived by Western intellectuals and laypersons: close and open views. Of the writers or intellectuals who have stated and expounded the close view in perceiving Muslims are Tolan, Lumbard, Wolf, Blanks and Frassetto, Bassiri, Renard, and Esposito. And of the intellectuals who have argued and supported concerning the open view of looking at the Islamic communities are Goddard, Glick, Esposito, and Zaman. Of Mirza, Pratt, and other writers, however, they have explored the background and foreground on the emergence and/or categories of perceptions toward Islam. It is noteworthy that Pratt fails to elucidate the two views of imagining, representing, and perceiving the Muslim communities. Apparently, the gaps among intellectuals -- with respect to the discourse on the perceptions of Islam perceived by Western non-Muslim individual, or group of individual persons -- are greatly attributed to their distinctive focus in exploring and examining the said discourse. By and large, their limitations center on the two key aspects: time-frame and theme. Thence, the heart of my contribution pertaining to perceptions of Islam will be the exploration and examination, in an in-depth fashion, of the two types of views: close and open views. References Bassiri, K.G., 2010. A history of Islamic America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blanks, D.R. & Frassetto, M., 1999. Western views of Islam in medieval and early modern Europe: perception of other. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Brodeur, P., 2001. The changing nature of Islamic studies and American religious history. The Muslim World, 91 (1/2), pp.71+. Esposito, J.L. ed., 1999. The Oxford history of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Esposito, J.L. ed., 2003. Modernising Islam: religion in the public sphere. New York: Hurst & Co. Esposito, J.L., 1984. Islam and politics. 4th ed. New York: Syracuse University Press. Glick, T.F., 2005. Islamic and Christian Spain in the early middle ages. The Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers. Goddard, H., 2000. A history of Christian-Muslim relations. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Lumbard, J.E.B. ed., 2009. Islam, fundamentalism, and the betrayal of tradition. Bloomington: World Wisdom. Mirza, M.H., 2007. Introduction. The Muslim World, 97 (1), pp.1+. Pratt, D., 2005. The challenge of Islam: encounters in interfaith dialogue. Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing. Renard, J., 2011. Islam and Christianity: theological themes in comparative perspective. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Tolan, J.V. ed., 1996. Medieval Christian perceptions of Islam. New York: Routledge. Wolf, K.B., 1999. Conquerors and chronicles of early medieval Spain. 2nd ed. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Zaman, M.Q., 2002. The Ulama in contemporary Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Read More