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Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3

Historical Influences in the Construction of

Religious Identities Among Western Muslims

Adis Duderija, Centre for Muslim States and Societies, University of Western Australia

Abstract: The aim of this article is to briefly outline the historical development

and background behind the construction of distinct Muslim identity (the Self) at

both individual and civilisational level ( Islamo-Arab ) vis-à-vis the religious

Other (Christian -Western civilisation) and to understand its influence on theprocesses shaping different identity constructions among Western (born)

generations of Muslims.

Before I start discussing the theoretical framework the article is based on,I need to explain from the very outset what I mean by the terms “the Self‟ and

“the religious Other” as employed in this article. The sense of “the Self” and“the Other” operates at both individual as well as group level since religious

identity encompasses both the sense of believing (individual) and that of belonging ( to a broader religious community /civilisation). In the context of this

article, for reasons outlined below, by the term “the Self” we refer to the socio-

religious identity of Western Muslims as based upon the civilisational ummah

understanding of their religious identity that considers Islam as civilisationallyindependent of the Western civilisation. By the term “the Other”, we understandthe broader socio-cultural society of the West as based upon, according to its

historically dominant understanding, as largely being rooted in Christiancivilisational foundations.1 This is not to suggest that from a normative vantage-

point I consider that the Arabo-Islamic and Christian-Western civilisations have

emerged or existed independently of each-other with no civilisational cross-pollination taking place. The focus of this article is on the historical evolution of

these perceptions and views in this regard , especially how this historical

narrative informs the construction of religious identities among Western

Muslims.

1. Introduction: Religious identity in the context ofimmigrant religious minorityStudies on Western Muslims‟ identities have highlighted a number of factors

that influence their modification, formation, retention and transmission. Theseinclude the processes of secularisation, modernisation and globalisation (Ameli,

2002), transnationalism (Mandaville, 2004;Allievi and Nielsen, 2003), the

1For evidence of the civilisationally antagonistic views among Western Muslims see G.

Marranci,(2008). Understanding Muslim identities: Rethinking Fundamentalism, Palgrave

Mcmillan.



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 impact of geopolitics and the state of international affairs (Waardenburg , 2003),

the broader socio-economic, political and legal contexts of the „host societies‟ (Allievi and Nielsen, 2003;Kibria, 2007) and the diversity within the Muslim

communities themselves such as ethnicity, family and socio-economic

background, the length of immigration experience, age or gender (Jacobsen,

2006). For example, Cesari (2006, 52) identifies the following dimensions of Western Muslim minorities as being particularly important in the construction of

their identities: the meta-discourse on Islam, the influence of dominant cultural

and political frameworks, the complex interaction between religion andethnicity, the influence of global Islam, the state collusion between religion,

ethnicity and social marginality and intra-Muslim theological diversity. While I

do not dismiss the significance of these factors, this article focuses on theimportance of the historical relationship between the Islamo-Arab and Christian-

Western in understanding the various constructions of Western Muslims‟identity.

The reason for this is that a number of studies have shown that members of

immigrant minority religions, including Western Muslim communities, considerreligious identity as their primary locus of identity formation and maintenance,including the second and subsequent generations (Duderija, 2007a). This

phenomenon is the outcome of a number of forces associated with globalisation

such as the migration experience which de-links cultures, ethnicities and

religions from particular territories/societies, thereby inducing a more assertivere-structuring and re-examining of inherited identities (Roy, 2004). This

increased instability in the way identities are constructed helps create space for

new identity potentialities. The social forces underpinning globalisation alsofavour particular identity sources in relation to which an individual‟s identitymight be predominantly or exclusively constructed. In the context of minority

immigrant communities, including that of the Muslim communities, andespecially for the Western-born/raised Muslims, that locus is increasinglyassumed by religion (Duderija, 2007a).

This article, thus, in line with the works of Hashmi (2003) and Peek (2005), isbased upon the premise that the concept of religion can be a key factor in the

development of one‟s identity both in the sense of believing (i.e. identity at the

level of individuals) and belonging ( i.e. identity at the level of a community / group /civilisation).This is especially so in the context of immigrant minority

culture as in the case of Western-born Muslim because “their religious identity

has come to the fore as a more enduring and ultimate means for self-definition.”

(Gilliat, 1994, 190) Indeed, the minority group experience and the “politicizationof Islam” have for many Western Muslims been expressed in the form of “theIslamization of the self” (Rippin, 1993, 117).

This is what I refer to as religious based identity construction in which religion isthe primary locus of identity construction and in which religion forms the core

and plays a “master” role, to use Hammond‟s (1998) terminology, in the overall

identity of some Western Muslims. However, it ought to be noted from the startthat this religious based Muslim identity is not constructed along identical or

unvarying points of reference (Ismail, 2004). Indeed, Waardenburg (2000,59)and

Cesari(2004b,91) observe that Europe, and Western societies in general, are an



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 arena in which different versions and traditions of Islam compete with each other

and different types of being a Muslim exist.

Which mechanisms and processes contribute towards this heterogeneity and

diversity of constructing the Muslim Self? Understanding Western Muslim

religious identity construction and its variant manifestations is of paramountimportance given the current geo-political and international relations in the age

of the “War on Terror”. There are additional reasons for this that go beyond the

„terror threat‟ thesis. Firstly, understanding this process would shed light on thefuture direction of religious identity construction in Western-born Muslim

individuals and communities. Secondly, gaining a better insight into the factors

and mechanisms involved in the formation of Western born Muslims‟ identitieswill help illuminate the nature of the relationships between non-Muslims and

Muslims living in Muslim minority societies of the West (Waardenburg, 2000,

55-56) several such mechanisms have already been identified elsewhere

(Duderija,2008) and the purpose here is to discuss one of them, namely thehistoricity or the historical influence behind the contemporary constructions of

Western Muslim identities ( the Self) vis-à-vis the religious other, in this contextthe Christian /Western civilisation and the individual members of thiscivilization (the Other).

Prior to doing this, an elaboration of the broader strategies involved in

Muslim identity construction in the context of immigrant minority religion

is required.

2. The Self-Other boundary: The significance of thedialectic religious identity construction among newMuslim immigrant communities

Hussein considers that the most important elements that influence the formation

of a Muslim identity are threefold: the concept of Self, the concept of territory

and the concept of community (Hussein, 2004, 122-125). The concept of theSelf is constructed in relation to believer‟s relationship with God as based uponthe key Qur‟anic concepts such as tawhid (God‟s unity and uniqueness), taqwa

(God – consciousness), istikhlaf ( vicegerency of human beings) , dhikr

(remembrance of God) and rabbaniyah ( believer‟s spiritual relationship with

God).The concept of territory as espoused by the classical Islamic thought that

has no direct link with the Qur‟an and Sunnah bodies of knowledge, links Islam

and its adherents with a particular territory. According to this theory Muslims,

the Self, are to live in dar al Islam ( abode of peace/Islam) and other regionsdescribed variously as dar al kufr ( abode of unbelief), dar al‘ahd/ dar al sulh (

abode of treaty) and dar al ‘amn ( abode of security) are identified as thereligious Other. Most classical schools of thought discourage or prohibit

Muslims from living in them. The concept of community is associated with the

well known concept of ummah, the worldwide religious community of Muslims , and that of wala’ or loyalty to one‟s religion and religious community.

Jacobsen (2006, 109-149) on the other hand, in the context of discussing the

religious identities and practices among Norwegian Muslims distinguishes three

“horizons of action” in terms of which Muslim youth orient themselves and in

relation to which their identities and practices are shaped. They include: the



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 global Muslim ummah, the notion of a Euro-Norwegian Islam and the family

and the ethnic diaspora. She further maintains that each of the horizons is

constituted according to “different principles of inclusion/exclusion, values and

objectives” (Ibid, 109).

This article‟s approach and level of analysis emphasise and focus on the

communal or group dimension of the religious identity of Muslims identified byboth Hussain and Jacobsen. This is so for several reasons. Firstly, the

politicisation of Muslim identity in the current international climate as well as

the new immigrant minority status of the Western Muslim community largelyfacilitate this communal, universalistic , ummah aspect of the Muslim identity

(Duderija,2007).Secondly, in the context of Muslims in Europe both majorities

and minorities construct collective, monolithic identities (Verkuyten and Yildiz,2007).Thirdly, group-based identity plays a significant role in defining and

ordering the relationship between the Self and the Other (Kaya, 2005, 11).

Fourthly, throughout history and, especially throughout the pre-modern period,

the time span during which the genesis and the formation of the discursiveparameters within which the nature of the dynamics of Islamo-Christian group

identity construction emerged and was established (as will be discussed below),Islamo-Arab and Christian-Western religious identities have been primarily, if not exclusively, based at the level of groups and communities and not at the

level of individuals.

The dynamics affecting this group-based identity for those belonging to thenew immigrant minority religion, such as Western Muslims, can be

particularly well conceptualised in terms of what here is termed the Self-

Other identity construction dialectic.

This notion of Self and Other identity construction dialectic is attested to in a

number of studies done on Western Muslims. For example, in the context of identity construction among Western-born Muslim youth living in France andGermany Hashmi asserts that the idea of the Self as opposed to the Other

“seems particularly applicable for young people of ethnic immigrant

origins.”(Hashmi, 2003, 59). Roy (2004, 45) echoes this view. Similarly, in thecontext of Western nation-states Green argues that it is “[t]he immigrant [that]represents the “Other.”(Green, 1997, 57). Waardenburg (2000, 41) intimates

that

in relation to the identity of Muslims in Europe, there is an aspect of “thecondition of otherness “that seems particularly relevant, namely the effect

of marginalization, discrimination and exclusion in relation to theapprehension of the self and the non-self. In principle Muslims are “the

Other” for non-Muslims and vice-versa.

Hashmi echoes this by averring that in the context of immigration immigrantsand immigrant religions are often perceived as single homogenous groups and

that the process of generating self-images, for both the immigrants(the Self) and

the host society ( the Other) is based upon how they see themselves as beingviewed (Hashmi,2000,166-170). Similarly, Yinger (1970, 315) asserts that the

formation of religious identities among minorities is influenced by attitudes

shown towards them. Brodeur (2004, 188) agrees with this analysis by averring



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 that the constructions of Islam(s) and Muslim identities whether real or

imagined are never generated solely on the basis of “pure” inte rnal Islamicdevelopments. They are rather the fruit of a binary Self/Other interdependent

processes that are best understood as existing somewhere in between local and

global, past and future, here and there (Ibid.). Moreover, he maintains that the

construction of Muslim identity “relies on the constant dialectical interplaybetween the Self and the Other” (Ibid, 190). Religion, and thus religious

identity, in particular, has and is being shaped “through the strains and tensions

in the oscillation between benevolence towards and distrust of the Other” takingplace in the broader framework of the self-images and the images of the Other

at civilisational level” (Hoefert and Salvatore, 2000, 15-16). According to

Haensch the construction of these Self images and that of the Other are acontinuous process thus are subject to change. Furthermore, she argues the

process of migration and meeting of cultures lead to both the reflection on the

self-image and a reflection on the previous image of the Other (Haensh, 2000,

143).I refer to this phenomenon of identity construction as a Self-Other identity

construction dialectic.

Given the above, the religious identity construction in the context of Western-

born generations of Muslim, can be particularly well conceptualised in terms of

the Self-Other mutual identity construction dialectic. By this it is meant that not

only do the views of the Other impinge upon the view of the Self but also thatthe view of how the Other views the Self affects the way one constructs the

view of the Self and vice versa. The way in which these perceptions of the Self

and the Other are mutually constructed and the way they delineate between theSelf and the Other impact upon the nature of this Self-Other identity dialectic.

The nature of Self-Other identity construction can either be characterised as

civilisationally antagonistic and religiously exclusivist or civilisationallysyncretic and religiously inclusivist.

3.) Historicity of religious identity construction andits effect on the Self-Other identity constructiondialectic

Having outlined the rationale behind adopting the Self-Other identityconstruction dialectic when examining the way Western Muslims construct

their religious identity I turn my attention now how this process unfolded in thepast and whether or not , or to what extent, the same historical forces influence

the contemporary identity constructions among Western born generations of

Muslims.

Hoefert and Salvatore, in examining the importance of trans-cultural politics in

the inter-cultural/civilisational formation of the Self and the Other have

suggested that contextual factors are largely responsible for not only the formeridentity construction but also that of the latter (Hoefert and Salvatore, 2000).

These contextual factors – primarily in the form of stereotypes - in turn have a



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 historicity component as they are passed from generation to generation (Ibid).

Indeed, Ismail asserts, that “[T]aking into account sociality and historicity of religion is central to understanding the production of religious identity in the

public sphere.”(Ismail, 2004, 630). Leonard (2003, 51) similarly maintains that

Muslim identities, like other identities, are “characterised by instability,

construction in context, and reinterpretations of the past in the present . Brouder(2004, 188) also argues that meaningfully integrated self-understanding is rooted

both in history and the future of one‟s primary community of identity which, as

outlined above in the new immigrant context, is often their religious community.Lapidus (2001, 48), furthermore, considers that “in the construction of modernMuslim identities there is a striking degree of historical structural continuity”

and that “in some cases contemporary Islamic states and Islamic religious

movements are simply direct continuations of past ones.” Similarly, Ameli

(2002, 89) asserts that “History - and also current interpretations of history- enter

crucially into analysis of contemporary Muslim identity”. Thus, the process of

identity construction has what here is termed a “historicity” component. In thiscontext I contend that variant understandings/readings of these contextual and

historical aspects of religious identity construction can help shed light on thevariant ways of constructing the Muslim “Self” among contemporary Muslims,including the Western born generations.

4. The analysis of the historical development of thedistinct Self Muslim Identity construction vis-à-vis theChristian-Western civilisation

In the context of the importance of „historicity‟ in understanding the dynamicssurrounding the construction of contemporary Muslim identities, Ameli (ibid)

asserts the following:

…if Muslim identity should be evaluated according to the determinative

factors involved in the construction of „identity‟, and if these factors havethemselves been subject to radical transformation in historical terms, itthen becomes necessary for the analyses to present a historical overview

of these factors.

The relevance of this historical dimension is further substantiated by the fact

that, in the words of Cesari (2004a, 223):

What we profess to know about Islam is to a large extent the product of a

vision constructed upon centuries of conflict, political as much asreligious. The fluid and often paradoxical reality of Muslims - from their

most private behaviour to their most public – is frequently obscured by

the mass of stereotypes that have built up over the centuries…Many suchstereotypes descend from the Orientalist tradition of Orientalism. While

the most conspicuous forms of Orientalism have been profoundly

modified…its more latent forms (the result of these amassed stereotypes)

continue to exert influence on culture…Muslims and Islamic society are

thus permanently denied any capacity for change.





Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 Qur‟anic beliefs, Judaism, Hanifiyyah and Christianity.

The very fabric and nature of the Message embodied in the Qur‟an clearlydepicts many of the events and the nature of the relationship between the

Muslim community and the non-Muslim Other and vice-versa. From the outset it

is essential to point out that the Qur‟anic attitude (and Muhammad‟s praxis)towards the non-Muslim Other is highly contextual in nature and therefore

ambivalent or context-dependent. The aspects of religious identity continuity and

commonality with other faiths are intertwined with those of the emergence andemphasis on the Muslim identity originality and distinctiveness. This leads

Waardenburg to assert that “Looking back at the interaction of the new Islamic

religious movement with the existing religious communities, we are struck bythe importance of socio-political f actors” (Waardenburg, 2003, 99). Apart from

the socio- political factors “religious ideas” were also significant since the Qur‟anbased gradual shaping of the Muslim religious identity is inextricably linked

with the religious identity of others, notably Jews and Christians (Zebiri, 1997;Donner, 2002-2003; Donner 2010). Thus, the religious aspects of and the inter-

actions between various religious communities at the time of the actual period of Revelation led to the genesis of a religious identity for Muslims and played avery important role in its construction (Zebiri, 1997).

For most of the Muhammad‟s Prophethood the construction of a Muslim identity

took place in circumstances characterised by the fight for religious survival,inter-tribal conflicts and the constant presence of external threats, firstly coming

from the Makkan tribal leaders whose ethico-religious and socio-economic

belief system and worldview Muhammad rebelled against, and later from theside of the main Jewish tribes of Medina and so called munafiqun or Muslim

hypocrites. Another trend significant for this study is the ever – growing religious

self-consciousness of the Prophet of Islam (and his early community). Whilstattempts to find common ground and syncretism featured more frequentlyduring the earlier periods of his life, later periods stressed “features constitutingspecific identity and what distinguished one [i.e. Muslims] fundamentally from

others” (Waardengurg, 2003, 44). For example, commenting on the earlyMuslim view of the Byzantines in the days of Prophet Muhammad, Shboul

(2004, 242) mak es the observation that attitudes of Muslims “developed fromsympathy and affinity, reflected in the early Qur‟anic verses, to awe and

apprehension of Byzantium‟s military power, scorn of Byzantine wealth and

luxury, and finally anticipation of open antagonism and prolonged warfare.”Jews and Christians were recognised as recipients of previous revelations (Ahl-

Kitab) and were, eventually, awarded the status of dhimmis or minority religiouscommunities protected under Islamic law.

Another point to be considered in this period is the Qur‟anic concept of a hanif

/ millat Ibrahim seen as a primordial monotheistic Ur religion based on belief in the One, True God as embodied by Abraham‟s Message (Arabic - Ibrahim)

which is considered as the universal norm and as potentially the final

evolution in Muhammad‟s attitude towards the religious – Self and the Other(Waardenburg, 2003, 87-94). It is, however, unclear whether the Prophet of

Islam himself identified “historical Islam” “as the only or merely one possible

realisation of the primordial religion, the Hanifiyyah, on earth” (Ibid, 106-



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 107).

Additionally, an “Islamo- centric view” of Muslim perceptions of the Other stem

from a certain interpretation of the nature of Qur‟ano-Sunnahic teachings. This

view is based upon the premise that the Qur‟an is a source of empirical

knowledge of the Other that is to be applied universally, ahistorically anddecontextually.

In his study of the extent to which Prophet Muhammad and Qur‟anic scriptureemphasised confessional distinctiveness Donner demonstrated that

scripturally(or based upon the Qur‟anic evidence) in early Islam “ the

community of Believers was originally conceptualised independent of

confessional identities”(Donner, 2002,12) and that:

It was only later – apparently during the third quarter of the first century

A.H., a full generation or more after the founding of Muhammad‟scommunity – that membership in the community of Believers came to be

seen as confessional identity in itself-when, to use a somewhat laterformulation of religious terminology, being a Believer and Muslim meantthat one could not also be a Christian, say, or a Jew.

In other words, Donner adduces a substantial amount of evidence that it could

be argued that Qur‟anically (some) Jews and Christians qualify as mu’minun (believers) as well as muslimun, i.e. those who „submit‟ to God (Donner, 17-24;

28-34).

b.) The Era of “Four Rightly Guided Caliphs” (622-661 AD)

It is difficult to track the development of Muslim consciousness and the

construction of religious identity among the leaders of the post-Prophetic

Muslim community vis-à-vis the non-Muslim Other due to a scarcity of available literature on first century Islam in general. However, the trend to form

a religiously distinct identity amongst the early Muslim community seems to

have increased with the rapid expansion of Arab conquests of non-Arab landsand as their need for self-definition vis-à-vis- the Other became more common

place (Donner, 1998, 282). This tendency is noticed by Donner (2002-2003,

46-47) who maintains that:

It seems likely that the relinquishing of a broader identity as Believers

and the crystallization of a separate identity as Muslims, distinct from

other monotheisms, took place concomitant with the increasing emphasis

on the importance of Muhammad‟s prophetic or apostolic status amongBelievers.

Importantly the emphasis of Muhammad‟s Prophethood claim, as evident in theevolution of the wording of the shahada, argues Donner, began only when

“some Jews and Christians began to challenge his [Muhammad‟s] prophetic

status” (Ibid, 66-67).



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 Additionally, during this period the internal schisms triggered by politicaldisagreements increasingly evolved into theological and doctrinal ones. This,

in turn, further highlighted the need to Self-define oneself antagonistically

vis-à-vis the Other, in this case also the “Other kind of the Muslim -Other.”

This phenomenon is best understood in the emergence of a number of Muslimsects such as the Khawarij, Murji‟ah, and the Alids etc., during this period.

The universal basis for the construction of religious identity embodied by the

spirit of Hanifiyyah /millet Ibrahim started to become more suppressedalthough the confessional identity of believers at this time was still inclusive

of some Jews and Christians (Donner, 2002-2003, 28; cf. Donner, 2010). In

this context Donner (ibid) makes a very interesting assertion:

It is therefore, not entirely capricious to suggest that for the first few

decades of the Islamic era, the Believers may have been quite ready to

accept among their number those Christians and Jews who shared theirzeal to spread the message of God and the Last Day, and who agreed to

live piously by the law, even though the theological implications of some passages in the Qur‟an would eventually exclude the ahl-kitab (i.e. Jewsand Christians) from the ranks of Believers.

Thus, argues Donner, the broader and looser confessional identity of Believers

(mu’minun) which could subsume the Christians, Jewish and Zoroastrian

communities started to be replaced by the more distinctly defined identity of Muslims (Donner, 1998, 277; 284). Like in the case of many other key concepts

forming the Islamic Weltanschauung, the word mu’min underwent a semantico-

contextual change being equated with the word muslim. The concepts of Ahl-Kitab and dhimmis instead gained broader legitimacy and were applied to otherreligious communities such as the Zoroastrians in Islamic Persia or, with the

expansion of the Mogul Empire in the 15th

and 16th

centuries, to Hindus in the

Indian subcontinent.

During this time-period Arab-Islamic civilisation, although now expandingwell outside the Arabian Peninsula, was still in its infancy and was dominated

by numerous internal political and theological conflicts ( Watt,1998), thus

civilisational interactions giving rise to potential trans-cultural spaces were

not significant enough to influence religious identity construction at thecivilisational ummah level.

c.) Period from the end of the 7th to the beginning of the 9th Century

This period saw the rise and the fall of the first Muslim dynasty, the

Umayyads. Although internal conflicts and discussions about what constituteda Muslim from a doctrinal viewpoint continued well into the 11 th century, this

era saw a growing civilisational and political consciousness of the Muslim

community and its distinct religious identity formation.



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 From the end of the 7

thcentury until the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the

17th

century, the relationship and the nature of civilisational interactionsbetween Arabo-Islamic and Christian civilizations2can be seen in the context of

“two political colossi” engaged in permanent political conflict and warfare and

“the grip of religious dogma on the identity of the respective religious

community members on social en mass level” (Waardenburg, 2003, 133-137).Subsequently, the images/imagination of the Other and the Self were

increasingly constructed in terms of ideological and religious conflict (Ibid.)

Islam was seen as Christian heresy by both Christians in Muslim and non-

Muslim lands and an outright threat to the “true” religion of Christianity.Additionally, Byzantine Christianity‟s socio-political, cultural and religious

pressure on Islam was a trademark of this period and further facilitated thereligious distinctiveness of Islam vis-à-vis Christianity.3 Both religious

communities “were eager to stress their own distinctive char acter by indicating

the unique spirit of their own religious truth and its historical continuity“(Ibid,

58) as well as to construct the identity of the Other in purely religiouslyexclusivist terms (Ibid, 481).Thus, “the main issues of the Muslim – Christian

debate were formulated as early as in this Umayyad period” (Ibid, 136).

d.) Beginning of 9th until 11th century

The fall of Umayyad Dynasty (750 A.C.) and the subsequent rise of the

Abbasid Dynasty witnessed increased assertiveness of Islamic dogma, religious

ideology and “Islamisation” of society. Abbasid‟s “need to demonstratesuperiority of Islam vis-à-vis the non-Muslim majority and assert the

originality of Islam” was not only used to justify their own coming to power,

but also “to prevent its [Islam‟s] dilution by already existing religions,

especially Christianity” (Zebiri, 1997, 45).4

Islam as a religious and socio-political force was increasingly felt. Despite theexistence of wide areas of peaceful interaction, the entire polemical and

refutational corpus of literature written in both Byzantine Christian and

Muslim territories (mainly Arab and Persian) at that time took place against abackground of war and political tensions expressed in a Christian /Heathen

(from a Christian point of view) or Dar-ul-Islam /Dar-ul-Harb (from a

Muslim‟s point of view) dichotomous and binary division of the world. In thiscontext Shboul (2004, 245) remarks:

To the Muslim Arabs the rivalry between them and Byzantines was

military, political, religious, cultural and also economic. Thepreoccupation of the Arabs with Byzantium as the enemy[however] is

more evident in official writings , in the works of historians,

geographers, poets and other men of letters, in legal texts and in popular

literature and far less evident in religious polemics.

2First Byzantine East and then the Latin West.

3At this point in time represented solely by Byzantine Christianity in the eyes of the Muslims.

4 At the time of the Abbasid‟s rule the territory under Muslim rule included large number of

populace which were non-Muslim and outnumbered those who were. I. Lapidus(1988), A

History of Islamic Societies, Cambridge University Press.



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 The demarcation of the „Other”, however, at both the individual and

civilisational level, was increasingly conceived in purely religious terms(Hoefert and Salvatore, 2000, 21) rather than just political, cultural or

economic. Furthermore, Qur‟anic commentators and jurists of this periodincreasingly considered Christians as polytheists or unbelievers choosing to

uphold more austere interpretations of the Qur‟an and Sunnah (Zebiri, 1997,22).

e.) From end of the 11th to the 15th century

Until the 11th century, encounters between Muslim and Christian civilisations

were almost exclusively limited to the Byzantine East. From the 11th

century

onwards, as the attitude of Byzantium translated into that of a defensive waranother, trans-culturally more dominant and more influential civilisation was

developing, namely the Latin Christian West. The Muslims had had littleinterest in Western Europe prior to this time-period largely consideringChristian inhabitants of the Latin West as uneducated barbarians (Zebiri, 1997,

22). However, from the 11th century onwards and in tune with the ups and

downs of the Crusading drive,4

Europe, and its Latin West headed by the Pope,

were seen as an increasing threat to the civilised world of Islam. The view of the

Muslim Other in the eyes of the Crusaders is thought to have “both initiated andperpetuated the representation of Muslims as evil and depraved, licentious and

barbaric, ignorant and stupid, unclean and inferior, monstrous and ugly,

fanatical and violent” (Sardar, 2002, 2). Throughout this period Latin

Christianity viewed the Muslim religion as the arch-antagonist describing it in

one instance as “doctrina falsa et diabolica” (Hoefert, 2000, 45). As Mastnak (2003, 206) asserts, Christians:

Made [the Muslims] the quintessential, normative enemy of Christianity

and Christendom, the Muslims now represented infidelity itself. They wereregarded as the fundamental enemy, the personification of the very religion

of Antichrist. The Muslim world became no less than the antithetical

system.

The Christian knowledge of Islam during this period was “confined to

ecclesiastic groups and was both scanty and stereotypic” (Malik, 2004, 68). The

stereotypes about Muslims inherited from Byzantine Christianity were largelypassed on to the Latin West. According to Zabiri (1997, 26) the period from

1250-1400 “Western images of Islam [were] highly imaginative and contained

elements of pure invention/fabrication.” Terminology used for Muslims during

this era included (apart from the term Muslims) terminology such as Moors,Mohammedans, Mahometans and Turks (Malik, 2004, 70). Based on these

stereotypes the historical figure of Muhammad was given “most violent

epithets [such as] the pseudo-prophet, the hypocrite, the liar, and the adulterer”(Meyerdorff, 2004, 222).

Polemics sharply increased with the rise of the powerful Ottoman Empire and



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The so-called “Turkish Threat “ was todominate Christian-Islamic civilisational interactions and attitudes for the next

two and a half centuries and was to give rise to the image of unitas christiana

among various Christian sects (Hoefert, 2000, 47). Mastnak (2003, 207) pointsout that the Western Christians “were able to draw on the existing hostilitytoward the Muslims to invoke a sense of unity and community” which later on

developed into the formation of a new Western unity.

During this period both communities making up the respective civilisations were

aware of the total opposition between causes held and defended by the “Self”

and the “Other” which they used for purposes of political legitimisation and re-enforcement (Waardenburg, 2003, 157). Within each civilisation communities

were organised along religious lines thus linking nation and religion and

projecting the religion of the Other as the ideological antagonist (Ibid).

Interpretations of the Other religion were full of misunderstandings and were

characterised by “structural intolerance towards [other] religious groups with noattempt to reformulate own claims of absolute truth in light of the claims of the

religious other” (Ibid.). This resulted in the development of a “religiocentric,centripetal and nearly solipsistic, religiously fixed worldview of both

civilisations” (Ibid, 158) in which “religious identity was considered as

something religiously and socially given, primarily by the religious communityto which one belongs, with own tradition and authority” (Ibid, 56).

Both civilisations were “blinded by their own light”, as Waardenburg (2003)

vividly puts it, developing distorted views placing the religion of the “Other” asthe enemy. Additionally, both civilisations were too caught up in conflict in

order to exercise intro-and retro-spection so that “in broader circles peopledeeply felt the two religions as mutually exclusive due to the deep loyalties

towards [their] own respective communities”(Ibid,159).

f.) The period between the 15th and the 17th centuries

The period between the 15th

and the 17th centuries saw the rise of the European

states‟ military and political power. Commencing in the fifteenth century, itlasted until the end of the Second World War. At the beginning of the 17 th

century the Ottoman Empire was well in its decline and the economic and

military superiority of the West was on the rise.

During the pre-Enlightenment period of the 15th and 16th centuries a process of profound epistemological change in which knowledge was generated and

categorised took place. However, the essentialist approach to Islam andChristianity inherited during the Medieval Ages continued so that the

“dichotomy of Christian /Turk became the most powerful and important tool of Otherisation of the period” (Hoefer, 2000, 48) replacing the medievalChristian/Heathen binary Weltanschauung. The concept of religion was,

however, no longer seen in its medieval form as being restricted to “the semanticfield of religious practice

5[but as] religion as a generic concept” (Ibid. 56), - an

5

With exclusive reference to Christian belief.



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 epistemological change, which later was to give rise to occidental ethnography

(Ibid. 57). The main Christian writers of the time, such as Luther, Shakespeare,

Locke, and Calvin, used the word infidels in the context of Turks/Muslims

(Malik, 2004, 74). A similar attitude prevailed among Muslim writers onChristianity (Zebiri, 1997, 26). Religion, therefore, was still considered the

central distinguishing civilisational criteria. Throughout this medieval period, it

can be safely asserted, that “the negative and stereotypical images of Islamprovided the anti-thesis to Europe‟s own self -image, thus serving to bolster its

own identity in face of perceived external threat and, on a more popular level,

satisfied demands for imaginative stimulation” (Ibid). Fundamentally, the same

arguments apply for the manner in which the Christian West was constructed bythe Islamic civilisation for the purposes of self-definition (Ibid.) Throughout the

periods described so far identities embedded in these civilisations operated

within the socio-cultural structures entrapped in a traditional worldview.

At this juncture it would be useful for the purposes of what follows to briefly

explore the meaning of traditional identities. How do we characterise traditional

identities? According to Ameli (2002, 91-92) in a traditional worldviewidentities are taken for granted, are stable and predictable. They are based on the

“guiding tradition” within which people belong to a circle of social life within

clearly demarcated and stable social and cultural settings. Thus, identities werenot able to be transformed in a fundamental way, nor were they constructed as a

result of a conscious choice at either individual or collective level. Rather they

were based on past history. Religious identities, in particular, were integrated,

continuous and solid. The reasons behind this characterisation of traditionalreligious identity were, thus, to be found in the very nature of traditional

societies and the worldview in which they were embedded. Traditional societies

were governed by limited social intercourse and their focus was primarily on

internal cultural relations. The means of transport and communication were veryrestricted. Change took place very slowly. As a result throughout the period

considered thus far social norms and mores as well as understandings of the

religious tradition did not alter significantly and were largely maintained byconsistency in social stratification, cultural roles, psychological motives,

rewards and incentives present in respective civilisations.

g.)The Period from the 17th to the 19th century

The beginning of this period marks the advent of modernity in the West.

Whilst in the previous period, from a sociological viewpoint, identities could

be described as being traditional in the sense described above, this era marksthe transmission towards the development of modern societies and modern

identities. The period from the 17th

to the 19th

century in the Christian Westwas characterised by a number of momentous events, which had a decisive

effect on the nature of contemporary Western civilisation (and by default its

dynamic/relationship with Muslim civilisation). The process of Entkirchlichung, the rise of secular democratic nation-states, scientific and

industrial revolutions further strengthened the military and political

superiority of the Western civilisation6

and underscored its distinctiveness

6The term Western rather than Christian civilisation will be used from this point in time due to

the fact that amongst societal changes in the West listed above , religion was no longer



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 from the Muslim civilisation which largely remained in its pre-modern form.

This era witnessed dissemination of more informed views about the Other in

both camps as the advent of modernity distorted the concept of self-identityin a myriad of ways (Ameli, 2002, 74). The period saw, for example,

polarisation between liberal and conservative Christians in their respective

attitudes towards Islam, which was more detached from inherited perceptions(Zebiri, 1997, 27). However, the body of knowledge generated by the

Christian-Western civilisation during the Enlightenment period can be

considered as the “cradle of methodological essentialism” based on a view of

Islam as the “Other” (Hoefert and Salvatore, 2000, 23). It was during this

epoch “via a series of civilisational distinctions with respect to Islam that

Europe shaped the Self – image of a civilisation based on a unique model of

rationality and objective knowledge, the unique site and source of modernity”

(Ibid). This “lack of proper information about Islam only added tostigmatisation which especially during the closing centuries of the Ottoman

Empire turned into a virile form of “Islamophobia” helping the West define

its own identity (Malik, 2004,79).

This epistemologico-methodological framework was, of course, embodied

and manifested itself to perfection in the rise of the Orientalist discourse inthe late 18th and early 19th centuries.

h.) The Colonial –Post Colonial period

All of the encounters between the two civilisations as described so far had an

element of power in them, be that military, political, economic, demographic or

legal power. The difference in the power balance between the two civilisations

reached its peak in the 19th century. During this time-period a majority of Muslim lands came under the military, economic, political and cultural

dominion of the European powers. Therefore, the West was conceived by

colonised Muslims primarily in terms of a foreign aggressor and coloniser andan aggressive military and political body. Parallel to the period of expanding

European colonialism, Christian missionary activity was taking place. Both of

these civilisational forces came to be characterised in similar terms by thesubjugated Muslim societies. Missionaries were considered to be serving

Western civilisational interests characterised by “liberal secularism, imperialistic

tendencies, dehumanisation, domination and meaninglessness” (Sardar, 1991,

2). These perceptions, in turn, “became deeply embedded in the consciousness

of most Muslims forming part of the [overall] anti-Western rhetoric… [andwere] constantly renewed by manifestation of neo-colonialism in the present”

(Zebiri, 1997, 30; 32).

The essentialist constructions of the Other embedded in the epistemological

frameworks of the Enlightenment period, in turn, gave rise to thephenomenon of Orientalism which remained faithful to the earlier essentialist

images of the Self on the basis of the stereotypical Other, in this case the

Muslims. The phenomenon of Orientalism, due to the enormous impact it had

considered the dominant marker of its civilisational identity.



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 on relations between Islamic and Western/Christian civilisations and their

identity constructions, requires a further comment.

The real importance and the historical uniqueness of the Orientalist discourse,argues Pieterberg et al. (2000, 72-73) lies in:

its universality and its power to determine what should be consideredobjectively scientific and valid knowledge, and thus the power to shape

the identity, culture and history, not only of its subjects, but also of its

object. In other words, the historical uniqueness of Orientalism does not

merely lie in the fact of „Otherisation‟, but in the result of this

„Otherisation‟: the designated Other, the Orientalised Oriental, has cometo accept his „Otherisation‟ as his true and scientifically valid Self.

Some colonial versions of Orientalism,7

and the rise of Islamic religiousextremism in its neo-fundamentalist versions in the second half of the 20th

century can be conceived as the accumulative product of the history of mutual

essentialist civilisational identity construction between Muslim and Christian – Western civilisations based on , in the words of Said (1985,89), the essentialist:

representation of other cultures, societies, histories; a [particular]

relationship between power and knowledge; the [particular] role of the

intellectual and [particular] methodological questions that have to do with

the relationship between different kinds of texts, between text and context,between text and history.

h.) The Post-Colonial period to Present

With the arrival of the skilled and unskilled immigrant labour into Western

countries and the technology and communication revolution this period has

witnessed the formation of multiple, largely expended trans-cultural public spheres thus increasing the civilisational and personal interaction between

Islamic and Christian-Western civilisations. Although occurring in earlier

times, albeit on a much smaller scale, a diversification of the civilisationalexperience of the Other is now taking place on a more significant level. As a

result, at the conceptual level, perhaps for the first time we can talk about the

different sub-sections of the respective civilisations (as well as individuals)

experiencing or construing considerably different views of the Other. In the

context of Muslims I differentiate between several Muslim attitudes towards theWest and the construction of the Other.

Waardenburg points out that during the period under consideration different

Wests were experienced and perceived by different Muslim individuals and

7It must be acknowledged, however, that European scholarship on Islam, especially its

German authors, exhibited high(er) levels of scholarly objectivism in their methodology and

approaches to the study of Islam. For critique of Said‟s thought see Ibn Warraq „Edward Said

and the Saidists‟ in Spencer (2005, 474-516).



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 groups.8 He categorises the current Muslim socio-political and cultural

discourse on the West as follows:

-“The Orient– Occident/East-West mutually exclusive, essentialistinterpretation,

-The West as a political concept and political adversary,

-The West linked to modernity and modern society (use of reason, scholarly

knowledge, economic development, technological progress),

-The West as associated with a particular way of life (with little concern for

lasting values, religion and tradition),

-For “neo-fundamentalists”, the West is seen as the embodiment of modern jahiliyah and a danger to the Muslim way of life due to its obsession with

materialism; a place where secularity dominates; a society in which people are

bereft of any higher spiritual truths, norms and values; a society in which peopleeasily fall victim to desire, vice and lust; a Godless society with human – made

idols (Waardenburg, 2003, 48-49).

In its more radical form this “neo-fundamentalist version of the Islamists”(based on the ideologies represented/embodied by, for example, Maududi, Qutb)

conceptualises the West in terms of an aggressive, self-imposing political,

economic and cultural enemy trying to permeate, Westernise and secularise theArab-Muslim East to a point at which Muslim identity and authenticity is

entirely lost (Ibid.,251). Furthermore, the Islamists‟ view of own Self, arguesWaardenburg, is based upon notions of:

-Renewed affirmation of Islamic identity and a rejection of Western

criticism of Islam or of particular situations in Muslim countries,

-Continuous emphasis on the ideological historical conflict-ridden process

between the two civilisations,

-Development of a self-defence mechanism against perceived encroachment of

the West and its fending off by the development of an idealised superior

alternative model of the Islamisation of the world and knowledge,

-The emphasis of the ideology of secularism as stemming from the West andbeing the real enemy of Islam,

-Highly critical claims of Western modernity, colonialism and neo-imperialism

and of the process of “Westernisation” of Muslims societies and Islam, and

-Development of an Islamic epistemology distinct from that of Western

scholarship (Ibid. 251-254).

8And, of course ,vice-versa.



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 Thus these “neo-fundamentalist Islamists”, to use Waardenburg terminology,envisage as normative the relationship between Western and Muslim identities

and their respective civilisations that emphasises distinctiveness and mutual

exclusion. Using my terminology they engage in a civilisationally exclusivistand antagonistic Self-Other identity construction dialectic.

In a more “sympathetic” view of the West and with an apologetic approach to itsown tradition, the West is conceived in terms of technological and scientific

progress,9

a rational modern (in opposition to traditionally based) society based

on the principals of the rule of law (Ibid.). As such these principals are worthy of

imitation and are considered “Islamic”. However, the West‟s perceived lack of spiritual, moral, ethical and religious dimensions are heavily criticised by those

who have this approach to the West. The West is considered a threat not only to

itself but to Muslim societies10

considered to be increasingly coming under itsinfluence (Ibid.).

In its “secular”11 version, Muslim discourse on the West is considered the onlysource of modernity leading towards progress and (material) well-being. The

West embodies the ultimate expression and the very pinnacle of political,

economic, societal and cultural development and is to be largely blindly anduncritically imitated and/or followed (Ibid.).

From the critical-progressive Muslim12

viewpoint the socio-political and

cultural processes which have brought about epistemological and ontologicalchanges in the Western worldview and resulted in the advent of modernity are

considered by as a result of a dynamic process of civilisational interaction and

mutual construction through trans-cultural, trans-political and trans-social

processes. Muslims within this school of thought advocate a modern episteme inthe humanities, arts and social sciences along with a critical and serious

engagement with the inherited Islamic tradition (Moosa, 2007). Additionally,

this modern episteme could be also applied within the framework of the socio-cultural context of Muslim majority societies resulting in the genesis of another

distinct type of modernity (Hanafi, 2000).

For most Westerners, argues Waardenburg (2003, 6-7), the advent of (post)

modernity has radically altered the way people identified/identify with

religion and how they place and integrate their religious identity into their

overall identity. Religious identity, if existent at all, is considered as just one

alongside many others and is juxtaposed horizontally next to them withoutany hierarchical order evident (Ibid.) In the majority of Muslim countries,

however, especially at the time when the first Muslim immigrants after theSecond World War were arriving in various Western countries, the

9Islamists largely share this view too.

10Especially the Muslim communities in the West, which are seen as particularly vulnerable.

11Secular Muslims are here defined as those Muslims who claim an epistemological break with

the Islamic tradition as embodied in the primary sources of the Islamic worldview, Qur‟an and

Sunnah and describe themselves as non-practicing Muslims.12

On Progressive Muslims see Safi (2003), Moosa (2007) and Duderija (2008,b).



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 traditional ethico-religious and socio-cultural worldview13 still largely14

prevailed.15 In these traditionally based societies with traditionalistWeltanschauung religious identity acts as the base and a foundation on top of

which overall identity rests.

This disparate view of religion and its place/function in society is a major point

of departure and contention between many Muslims (regardless of whether theylive in a Muslim minority or majority context) and many Westerners.

i.) Contemporary Muslim communities’ identity construction in theWest

The presence of a significant numbers of Muslim communities and the waymembers of those communities construct their religious identity in Western

societies needs to be evaluated against the above briefly outlined context of the

historically mutually constructed Self-Other (religious) identity.

In today‟s Western societies both Western Christian and Muslim identities have

become more personalised and to some extent have detached themselves fromthe historically dominating civilisation-based identity construction

(Waardenburg, 2003, 247). Consequently, asserts Waardenburg, the religious

identities have taken on a broader spectrum of meanings” (Ibid.). As Ameli

(2002,109) asserts the process of secularisation and globalisation, mostforcefully evident in the West, brought about multifaceted processes of social

change through which religious thinking, practice and institutions lost their

social significance. However, in the case of certain religious communities, in

this case Western born Muslims, the context of immigration and being a part of a minority culture has re-affirmed the antagonistic and exclusivist construction

of the construction of the Self and the Other as described below in the context of

what here is referred to as Neo-Traditional Salafi (NTS)Muslim identity.16

Many Western Muslims perceive that they face a “real risk of being absorbedinto a more powerful other” which nourishes this “polemic [that] serves to re -

enforce lines of demarcation between Self and the Other” (Zebiri, 1997, 45).

13 Traditional worldview is here taken in the sense of the “Arab mind” as discussed by

Arab intellectual Adonis (pseudonym) ,„Ali Ahmad Sa‟id. See Mansoor (2000).14

There were of course a number of immigrants such as those who fled the Khomeini regime in

Iran, for example, who do not fit this category.15

This is perhaps best reflected in strong resistance to changes in Muslim Family Law in

countries which otherwise have “modernised” other aspect of their nation-state, including

other aspect of the law.16

For a more detailed discussion on Neo-traditional Salafism see Duderija ( 2007 b) and

Duderija (2010).



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 6. Types of religious identities in Western borngeneration of Muslims-The case of Neo-TraditionalSalafis (NTS) and Progressive Muslims (PM)

On the one hand the processes of immigration, de-ethnicitisation and de-

culturation have resulted in the creation of a unique, hybrid group of secondgeneration Muslims characterised by a “mixture of (basic) IslamicWeltanschauung and appreciation of Western democratic institutions.” A

Muslim identity that is “comfortable with fluid and plural identities,” (Roy,

2004, Dweyer, 1999) on whose basis being genuinely engaged in the

mainstream Western society and remaining genuinely Muslim is not seen as a

contradiction in terms (Schmidt, 2004;Samad, 1998). A variety of terminologyis used to describe this type of being a Muslim such as modernist Muslims

(Cesari, 2004b, 87-90), rationalists (Waardenburg, 2000, 61) or enlightened

rationalists (Gilliat, 1994, 186).

For example, Gilliat (Ibid, 236) refers to this type of being a Muslim in afollowing manner:

There is an important minority of young Muslims in Britain who are not only

devoted Muslims, but also fully participating in the wider society when it

comes to general social life…[T]hey appear to be confident in their religiousidentity, and they do not rely on outward signs of this identity to bolster their

inner sense of being Muslim. As a consequence, they can mix freely with

non-Muslims in the wider society, without feeling threatened, or

compromising their Islam. They are perhaps the ones who most aspire to

being recognised as „British Muslims.‟

Mandaville and Hunter (2002, 220) note this type of Western Muslim identityin the context of European Muslims when stating that:

…there are observant Muslims who view Western norms, popularculture, and lifestyles as mostly compatible with Islam. They do not see

inherent conflict in their dual identities as Muslims and Europeans.

Roy (2004) terms this a “reformised liberal view” of Islam. Cesari also points to

the existence of similar reformist trends [in Islam] as a result of “Western

freedom of expression and cultural globalisation.”(Cesari, 2004 a) Marechal etal. refer (2003, 14) to it as „liberal‟. Modood and Ahmed (2007) notice the sameand labels it as moderate. In this article this type of identity construction is

described as progressive religious identity.17

This type of identity should not be

confused with what is usually termed symbolic religious identity which denotesa poor and fragmented knowledge of religious norms, a low level of ritualobservance, but yet a strong feeling of identification with religion and religious

community (Gans,1996) which also exists among Western-born Muslim youth

(Eid, 2002, 37). In other words, progressives consider their religious identity tobe traditionally authentic and derived from a particular interpretation of the

17

See footnote 12.



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 normative sources.

This way of being and feeling18

a Western Muslim is founded on the Self-Other

identity construction dialectic that can be characterized as religiously inclusivistand civilisationally syncretic. This type of Western Muslim identity is in line

with the notion of the definition of a community of believers that was originally

conceptualised independent of confessional identities during the early era of Islamic thought as discussed above and signifies a clear rupture with the

predominant mode of the „historicity‟ of the Self -Other identity construction

dialectic that developed afterwards .

On the other hand it is noted that the same processes of immigration, de-

ethnicitisation and de-culturation that facilitate the formation of identities on

purely religious grounds (Roy,2004) have been largely responsible for

“puritanical and fundamentalist movements of Islam”(Cesari,2004a,93,102-103)and a creation of what Hermansen (2003,309;cf. Ebaugh and Chafez 2000;

Nielsen,1997) terms the “culture free identity Islam.” I refer to this type of

identity among Muslims as Neo-Traditional Salafi.19 Gardner‟s (1993) study of Bangladesh community in East End of London indicates that transnational

migration processes and practices can lead to puritanism, increased religious

zeal and what she terms “orthodoxy” based on scripturalism. This type of religious- based identity “attempts to purify Islam of cultur al influences and

redefine it along purely religious lines” (Roy, 2004, 121). Eid refers to it as

“non-symbolic “or “ultra- orthodox” identity which “develops parallel

alternatives to mainstream institutions and cultural systems shielded fromWestern influences […] facilitating Islam-based neo-communalist tendencies

and Islamisation of ethnic identities‟ internal dimension”(Eid,2007,51). Hashmi(2003, 219) also detected similar socially isolationist tendencies among some of

the participants in her study who emphasised their Muslimness throughadoption of external religious markers/signifiers such as the headscarf. Dassetto

(2000) also found that certain Muslims developed these socially isolationist

inclinations. Mandaville (2007) notices that among second and third generationof immigrant families in Britain conservative and politically extreme rendition

of Islam is evident whose function is to, in the context of multicultural Britain,

keep together the diverse components of identity in a cohesive manner. Haddadand Smith (2003,42) similarly assert that this type of a Muslim, which has

gathered some adherents among some university students in United States,

“see[s] the [Muslim] community as permanently maintaining its separateness,

difference and distinction in diaspora.” According to Hermansen (2003 , 310)

many aspects of this version of Islamic identity are based on:

A mindless and rigid rejection of „The Other‟ and the creation of recaptured, rule- based space where one asserts Muslim „difference‟ basedon gender segregation, romantic recreations of madrasa experiences and the

most blatantly apologetic articulations of Islam..replac[ing] spirituality

with arrogance and a smug pride in one‟s superior manifestation of visiblesymbols of identity.

18The importance of emotional commitment in identity formation among Western Muslims has

been outlined in Marranci (2006) and (2009).19

See footnote 16.



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 It is this type of affirmation of “pure culture-free religious identity” of thealienated, marginalized and disempowered Muslim youth that is most frequently

associated with global militant Islam (Roy,2004,232-287).This, in the words of Roy, wide-spread, neo-fundamentalist” component of the contemporary Islamicresurgence among Western born generation Muslims(Ibid.,315-317), is

exhibited by engaging in what Noor (2003, 322) terms the “rhetoric of oppositional dialectics” in which the question of Islamic identity is primarily

approached on the basis “of the trope of the negative Other which manifestsitself in a number of forms: secularism, the West, international Jewry/Zionism,

capitalism etc.” Cesari (2004a, 53-56; 95-109; 54; cf.Cesari, 2003, 264-265) alsoidentifies this type of religious identity operating within a binary

Weltanschauung that appeals to accultured Western Muslims youth. She labels it

orthodox and asserts that for this type of religious identity among Western

Muslim youth “Islam is the positive and the West is the negative.” Citing Gill,Gilliat (1994, 186) describes them as

Muslims with a strong and fervent faith [who] seem to defy all thesecularist, liberal trends…[T]hose who hold to unswerving convictions[that] may be regarded as adhering to a “system of beliefs and practices

which treat scriptural absolutism as the way to counter pluralism andrelativism engendered by modernity.

This way of being, feeling and constructing a Muslim identity , therefore, canbe seen as a continuation of the dominant historical manner in which the Self-

Other mutual identity construction between the Islamo-Arab and Christian-

Western civilisations has been constructed and is characterised by a

civilisationally antagonistic and religiously exclusivist dynamics.

7.) Conclusion:

The long history of Christian – Muslim mutual identity construction at both

civilisational and individual levels, apart from the early Islamic formativeperiod, largely emphasises the religious uniqueness and distinctiveness of the

respective faiths based on a particular interpretation /understanding of their

religious tradition. It is important to highlight that the contextual background

within which civilisational interactions and the creation of trans-cultural spacestook place was dominated by confrontational political, military, economic and

cultural overtones and that this fostered antagonistic and religiously exclusivistconstruction of the Self as well as that of the Other. This mutually essentialist

paradigm spanning many centuries perpetuated stereotypical images of the Self (either Christianity or Islam) and the Other( Islam or Christianity) upon which

religious identity construction was based and inherited. In more recent times a

diversification of religious identities within faith communities has transpired.Some types of being a Muslim that the author refers to as progressive, do not

subscribe to this antagonistic and reactionary construction of the Muslim Self

vis-à-vis the other whilst other contemporary constructions of the Muslim Self,are, in essence, a continuation of the medieval Self-Other identity construction

dialectic that was outlined above, as in the case of neo-fundamentalist versions



Middle East Studies Online Journal- ISSN 2109-9618- (2010) Volume 1 N° 3 of Islam.

The current state of international relations and geo-politics, when considered in

the light of the above, can be (and is) increasingly seen by many (Western)

Muslims today to further strengthen the dominant historical narrative betweenthe Islamo-Arabic and Christian-Western civilisations strongly influencing the

manner in which their religious identity is being constructed. For those of us

who are interested in developing an alternative narrative characterised byreligious inclusivism and civilisational syncretism challenging and turbulent

times are ahead. However, as shown above, the Islamic tradition and its

civilisation possess strong historical precedents to permit the formation of a

narrative that is premised upon the idea of religious inclusivism andcivilisational syncretism.

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