West and East in Cultural Theory

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West and East in Cultural Theory
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Two Challenging Problems

• How do we understand the historical Muhammad?
• How can we learn to understand our own cultural
  preconceptions about Muhammad, Islam and the
  Middle East in general?

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Medieval Christians think about Islam

• Crusades 1095 1350s CE
• Translation of the Quran into Latin in the 12th
  century is beginning of a campaign in the West to
  discredit Islam
• Can attack Islam, Muslims, or Muhammad himself

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Attacking Islam

• Attack theology and form of the Quran
• Apologia dialogues
• the Risalah (Apology) attributed to Arab author
• interpretations of the descent from Ishmael
• Islam as a Christian heresy
• Muslims as ignorant barbarians

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Attacking Muhammad

• his illiteracy
• his illness during revelations
• his mortality
• his marriage to Khadiyah
• allege a Christian teacher (Sergius)
• allege him to be a sorcerer
• allege him to be an adulterer or, worse, an
  oversexed degenerate

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Attacking Muslims

• the word Saracen is used to refer variously to
  Muslims, Arabs, etc.
• accusations
• sexual immorality
• racial impurity or monstrosity
• inhuman qualities cruelty, barbarism, etc.

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The Colonial Period

• Imperial powers of middle east grow weaker
  starting in 1680s
• European expansion begins
• Colonial mission
• Christian missionary activity
• Economic exploitation
• Civilizing

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The Lure of the Exotic

• Middle east is sexy, transgressive, subversive
• Projection
• Said, Orientalism (1979)