Public Policy and the Clash of Ignorance

2014

Western and Muslim civilizations have demonstrated a vast capacity for productive engagement in the past and the present. But this long record of collaborative relationships has not prevented a contemporary escalation of the Western-Muslim 'clash of ignorance.' Much of the interaction between the two sides is characterized by a mutual lack of awareness of the vital role that each played in shaping the other. This timely book appears as policymakers search for approaches that go beyond securitization and militarization. Its chapters examine various forms of domestic and international engagement between the two civilizations. The meticulous research on historical and contemporary experiences draws out nuances that are generally lost to most observers. It analyzes Western-Muslim intersections in the areas of civil society, education, foreign policy, immigrant integration, legal reform, media production, political participation, public opinion, and security.

2016

What is productive engagement between the Self and Other? How can it counter the war-on-terror conflict model dominant in geopolitics over the last two decades? Conceived as a learned attempt to displace Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" thesis-which Sut Jhally and Edward Said (1998) have called a "rather crudely articulated manual in the art of wartime status in the minds of Americans"-Engaging the Other: Public Policy and Western-Muslim Intersections makes a crucial contribution to answers for these and other urgent questions. Like Said (1998), the editors Karim H. Karim from Carleton University and Mahmoud Eid from the University of Ottawa, begin by unmasking the Orientalist tricks in Huntingdon's work. The contributing scholars in Engaging the Other are diverse in age, gender, and ethnic and disciplinary origin, writing from the perspectives of law, Ismaili studies, architecture, political psychology, communication, religion, and world politics. They share the view that the Muslim worlds-accounting for over a billion and a half followers globally and projected to equal Christians in number by 2050, according to the World Economic Forum (2015)-are pluralistic and restless, engaged in a "great and often silent exchange and dialogue" (Said, 1998) with the West. The articles in the book employ three main pedagogical approaches: counter-historiography, sociology of law, and analysis of political attitudes and participation. Karim and Eid start not from their subject positions in the West, but from the Muslim worlds, translating them for the neophyte Western reader. The Western caricatures of the history of Muslim civilization as leading "to scriptural dogmatism, authoritarian morality, and unreformed medievalism" (p. 76) are turned on their heads. Masud Taj, an expert on Muslim civilization and the history of architecture, explores Toledo in Spain over successive conquests to remind us that the early Muslim presence in Spain has been there for a period longer than since the Enlightenment. He points out that the Renaissance itself is indebted to a massive transfer of scientific knowledge and Moorish rationalism from Muslim lands to Europe and that Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy is adapted from an earlier Arabic text authored by a Muslim scholar. Exchange is two-way, when successive rulers (from Alfonso VI to Alfonso X as pioneers of the "Convivencia," or the period when Muslims, Christians, and Jews are said to have harmoniously co-existed) adapt their own construction of Muslim law from the first codified volume of laws in Europe. Marianne Farina (a sister of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross and student of interfaith scripture) demonstrates how, as early as the eleventh and twelfth centuries, formative Muslim thinker Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali and Christian scholar Saint Thomas Aquinas share a respect for "intellectual magnanimity" (p. 44) that "doesn't wilt in the face of conflict" (p. 49) in its negotiation for the common

Global Media Journal: Canadian Edition, 2015

Global Media Journal -- Canadian Edition, 2015

The paper will investigate and analyze how Muslims at the height of their power, because of their pluralistic, humanistic, rationalistic, creative and mystical minds warmly received and accepted knowledge, science, culture and Greek thoughts which were not contrary to the teachings of Islam. The paper will elaborate on how Muslims familiarized the western world with the treasures of Greek thought which provided keys to substantial contributions and advancements in every branch of human learning of their day. The liberating light of Islam and Muslim thinkers and Scholars in Abbasid courts influenced every aspect of European growth. Now, more than ever it is the Muslims' turn to benefit from the scientific and specialized knowledge of the West. Instead of resistance and revolution Muslims must consider, think and reflect on the western progress without biases. Muslims have developed an attitude of despair and revolt. Educated people realize that anything they do or think is not the product of any race, religion, country, language or class but the product of the world as a whole. The Ulema in contemporary Muslim World can be the custodians of positive change by acting fast in analyzing and passing verdicts and juristic opinions on dilemmas of the world today and help to assert better understanding and peace among the people of the world. The role of the Jurists should be a blessing and not a burden for Muslims.

Abstract: In seeking to understand the root causes of the events of 9/11 many accounts have turned to Samuel P. Huntington's provocative and controversial thesis of a 'clash of civilizations', arousing strong debate. Evidence from the 1995-2001 waves of the World Values Survey allows us, for the first time, to examine an extensive body of empirical evidence relating to this debate.

In seeking to understand the root causes of the events of 9/11 many accounts have turned to Samuel P. Huntington's provocative and controversial thesis of a 'clash of civilizations', arousing strong debate. Evidence from the 1995-2001 waves of the World Values Study allows us, for the first time, to examine an extensive body of empirical evidence relating to this debate. Comparative analysis of the beliefs and values of Islamic and non-Islamic publics in 75 societies around the globe, confirms the first claim in Huntington's thesis: culture does matter, and indeed matters a lot, so that religious legacies leave a distinct imprint on contemporary values. But Huntington is mistaken in assuming that the core clash between the West and Islamic worlds concerns democracy. The evidence suggests striking similarities in the political values held in these societies. It is true that Islamic publics differ from Western publics concerning the role of religious leadership in society, but this is not a simple dichotomous clash-many non-Islamic societies side with the Islamic ones on this issue. Moreover the Huntington thesis fails to identify the most basic cultural fault line between the West and Islam, which concerns the issues of gender equality and sexual liberalization. The cultural gulf separating Islam from the West involves Eros far more than Demos.