Encyclopedia of Islam

Islam

  

373  J

---

Different understandings of Islam arose during 

the 18th and 19th centuries as Western scholars 

began to study the Middle East using the methods 

of Enlightenment rationality. Islam, like other 

religions, was studied in the light of the new sci-

ences of history, language, and culture instead of 

traditional theology. Critical editions of Arabic 

and Persian texts, including the Quran, were 

translated and published in modern European 

languages. Scholars such as Sylvestre de Sacy (d. 

1838), Edward W. Lane (d. 1876), W. Robertson 

Smith (d. 1894), Ignaz Goldziher (d. 1921), and 

Theodor Noeldeke (d. 1930), who specialized in 

these studies, called themselves Orientalists, based 

on the belief at the time that the Orient began east 

of Greece in the Near/Middle East. They began to 

present their findings in Orientalist journals and 

societies in the mid-1800s. One of these organiza-

tions was the American Orientalist Society, which 

was founded in 1842 and still publishes a highly 

respected scholarly journal. For all the advances 

the Orientalists made in the study of Islam and the 

Middle East, the objectivity of their research was 

colored by different degrees of bias and self-inter-

est. Some looked to the East to explain the origins 

of European civilization, while many sought to 

demonstrate the superiority of European culture 

at the expense of non-European cultures and civi-

lizations. o

rientalism

 also became involved with 

actual European colonization of Muslim lands and 

was used to help administer colonial territories 

from North Africa to India and i

ndonesia

. Conse-

quently, Europeans viewed Islam in various ways: 

sometimes as a backward, violent religion; some-

times as an a

rabian

 n

ights

 fantasy; and sometimes 

as a complex and changing product of history and 

social life.

Scholars engaged in the scientific study of 

religion, having broken free of the restrictions 

of the Christian church, no longer were satisfied 

with treating Islam as a heretical religion. Orien-

talists began to treat it as a Semitic religion, along 

with Judaism, in contrast to Indo-European and 

“primitive” religions. Some even renamed Islam 

m

ohammedanism

 and called Muslims Moham-

medans. This was done in conformity with the 

classification of other religions, such as Chris-

tianity (named after Christ), Buddhism (named 

after the Buddha), and Zoroastrianism (named 

after the ancient Persian sage Zoroaster). Most 

Muslims have rejected Mohammedanism as a 

designation for their own religion because they 

argue that submission to God is the focus of 

their religion, not Muhammad. Islam has also 

been classified with Judaism and Christianity as 

a monotheistic religion, as a “revealed” religion, 

and as one of the “Western” religions. Other 

scholars have regarded it as one of the world 

religions, which, like Buddhism and Christian-

ity, made a home for itself in many countries and 

actively sought converts. More recently, it has 

been understood as an Abrahamic religion.

Today, understandings of Islam continue to 

be shaped by the interactions, debates, and overt 

conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims. The 

growing strategic and economic importance of 

oil

 and the introduction of secular law codes and 

ideologies into lands where Islam is the majority 

religion during the colonial era and after World 

War II have intensified these interactions. Many 

of the world’s proven oil reserves are located in 

newly independent Muslim countries, with the 

mixed blessing of greater per capita incomes but 

also more social and political instability. Western-

style 

secUlarism

 has brought great advances in 

terms of 

edUcation

 and political participation, but 

it has also confined religion to the private sphere. 

While many Muslims have come to understand 

their religion in secular terms, many others have 

rejected this understanding as they look to their 

religion for solutions to problems and crises fac-

ing their society, politics, and culture in a time of 

rapid changes. Slogans such as “Islam is a religion 

and a state” and “Islam is the solution” have 

gained wide currency in many Muslim countries. 

Since the 1970s, when many Muslims started call-

ing for a “return” to Islam after experiencing the 

shortcomings of their national governments and 

K  374  

Islam

---

political ideologies, some Western scholars and 

many journalists have portrayed Islam as a threat 

to the West, often equating it with “fundamental-

ism,”  “

terrorism

,” and, most recently, “fascism.” 

a

rab

-i

sraeli

 

conFlicts

, the i

ranian

  r

evolUtion

oF

 1978–79, g

UlF

 W

ars

, and 

al

-q

aida

’s attack 

on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 

September 11, 2001, have only escalated the level 

of this sort of rhetoric, which neither advances 

knowledge nor facilitates effective national and 

international policy making. The anti-Western 

rhetoric coming from radical Muslim ideologists 

such as Egypt’s s

ayyid

  q

Utb

 (d. 1966) and their 

supporters has also had harmful consequences.

Defining Islam is an undertaking that, to a 

significant extent, has occurred in the context of 

Muslim and non-Muslim historical interactions, 

whether they be framed in terms of believers and 

disbelievers, People of the Book and polytheists, 

jihadists and crusaders, Easterners and Western-

ers, secularists and theocrats, or insiders and 

outsiders. Islam is what Muslims have made of it, 

what non-Muslims have made of it, and what they 

have made of it together. There is ample evidence 

to show that defining Islam is a highly polarized 

and confrontational enterprise involving civiliza-

tional “clashes.” But more careful consideration 

shows that this has not always been the case, as 

is evident in the pluralistic contexts of medieval 

Spain,  c

airo

,  b

aghdad

, and in various parts of 

Africa and Asia. Thoughtful and learned men and 

women in these contexts found a common ground 

on which to learn about each other, debate issues 

of mutual interest and concern, and, above all, 

live together. Modern migrations of Muslims to 

Europe and the Americas, the reach of the Inter-

net, interreligious dialogue on local and transna-

tional levels, and the increased participation of 

Muslim and non-Muslim scholars jointly in the 

study of Islam and Muslims promise to ameliorate 

and correct the angry and distorted definitions 

that have been produced and reproduced in recent 

years. The possibility awaits of once again under-

standing Islam on the basis of mutual interests 

and shared commitment so that people may face 

together challenges that stand before global soci-

ety in the 21st century.

See also  a

llah

;  a

ndalUsia

;  a

rabic

 

langUage

and

 

literatUre

;  c

hristianity

 

and

  i

slam

; 

colo

-

nialism

; 

dar

 

al

-i

slam

 

and

 

dar

 

al

-

harb

; 

dialogUe

; 

e

Urope

;  i

slamism

; J

Udaism

 

and

  i

slam

; 

kafir

; and 

the introduction to this volume.