Download Europe`s Islamic Face

Europe’s Islamic Face
Eren Tasar
March 24, 2016
• “No, there is no easy way you can retrofit medieval Spain to become
some prototype of modern urban pluralism and tolerance. But what
you cannot deny is the scale of the Muslim achievement. It was the
intellectual flowering of the Cordoba caliphate that helped to protect
and transmit ancient Greek texts and eventually to propel the
European Renaissance. “
• -Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, January 3, 2016
Not one face, but two:
• Islam in Europe
• Europe in Muslim World
Challenging Huntington
• Civilizations don’t operate as units interacting with one another.
• Being Muslim has always involved association with different cultures,
languages, and political orientations.
• Concept of “Muslim World” does not even emerge until end of 19th
century, in response to European colonialism.
An Alternative Perspective
• Muslims have always lived in Europe and Islam has always been
practiced in it.
• View of Islam as foreign and alien religion owes heavy debt to 19th
century nationalism.
Islam in European Culture
• Turquerie – emulation of fashion and style of Muslim countries in
early modern Europe
• Concern with Muslims as part of common humanity reflected in art,
poetry, literature and music (especially opera)
Dorothea von Medem (1761-1821) Woman in
Turkish Costume
Islam in the European Empires
• European empires justify their control over nearly entire Muslim
world in Islamic terms.
• Ally themselves with powerful Islamic figures.
• Reinterpret and bureaucratize Islamic law.
• Compete with the only remaining “true” Muslim state, the Ottoman
Empire, for Islamic loyalty, and do amazingly well.
Mosques as Showcases of European Islam
• Fazl Mosque in London (1926)
Grand Mosque of Paris (1926)
Schwetzingen Masjid (1779)
Wünsdorf Mosque (1915)
The British Empire as the
“Islamic World”
• The British Empire is the largest Muslim state in world history.
• British present their state as world economic, political, and social
system with a special place in it for Muslims.
• Possibilities of “civilization for Muslims in comparison with decrepit
Ottoman Empire.
Abdul Karim Munshi (1863-1909)
E.M. Forster’s Passage to India (1924)
Marmaduke Pickthall’s translation of the
Qur’an (1930)
Ramifications of historical interaction
between Europe and Islam
• “European Islam” exists but has been undermined by:
• “othering” of European Muslims due to nationalism and fascism
• “othering” of European non-Muslims due to religious fundamentalism,
exacerbated by discrimination and segregation of European Muslims
• Tradition of nationalism in Muslim countries that casts European influence as
exclusively negative, a tradition whose banner is now led by jihadist
extremists