Islam Through Western Eyes : From the Crusades To The War on Terrorism Jonathan Lyons

Despite the Wests growing involvement in Muslim societies conflicts and cultures its inability to understand or analyze the Islamic world threatens any prospect for East-West rapprochement Impelled by one thousand years of anti-Muslim ideas and images the West has failed to engage in any meaningful or productive way with the world of Islam Formulated in the medieval halls of the Roman Curia and courts of the European Crusaders and perfected in the newsrooms of Fox News and CNN this anti-Islamic discourse determines what can and cannot be said about Muslims and their religion trapping the West in a dangerous dead-end politics that it cannot afford In Islam Through Western Eyes Jonathan Lyons unpacks Western habits of thinking and writing about Islam conducting a careful analysis of the Wests grand totalizing narrative across one thousand years of history He observes the discourses corrosive effects on the social sciences including sociology politics philosophy theology international relations security studies and human rights scholarship He follows its influence on research speeches political strategy and government policy preventing the West from responding effectively to its most significant twenty-first-century challenges the rise of Islamic power the emergence of religious violence and the growing tension between established social values and multicultural rights among Muslim immigrant populations Through the intellectual archaeology of Michel Foucault Lyons reveals the workings of this discourse and its underlying impact on our social intellectual and political lives He then addresses issues of deep concern to Western readers-Islam and modernity Islam and violence and Islam and women-and proposes new ways of thinking about the Western relationship to the Islamic world