Eleventh International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

The migrant crisis that peaked in 2015 following the Syrian civil was unprecedented in Europe’s recent history, and—alongside the Brexit—it threatened to tear apart the EU body. The large numbers of mostly Muslim refugees and migrants, descending on Europe, sent shock waves throughout the continent, triggering the rise of populist, right-wing politics that espoused anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant discourse. There is some apprehension that the increasing Muslim demographics in Europe will, in the long term, pose a threat to the idea of Western civilization. Regardless of whether this rhetoric is exaggerated or not, there is no denying that an identity politics in Europe is on the rise. A key question that this paper seeks to wrestle with is whether Islam and Muslims indeed pose a threat to the idea of the West. As I embark on this discussion, I will examine the European Orientalist tradition a la Edward Said as well as the views of Muslim thinkers and intellectuals, highlighting the propositions of the late Algerian scholar Mohammed Arkoun and Turkish writer Mustafa Akyol. Departing from the views of Arkoun, Akyol, and others, I argue that, while modern interpretations of Islam—such as Jihadism and various forms of Islamism—do pose a threat, not only to the stability of Western countries but to that of Muslim ones as well, the Islamic tradition, taken as a holistic entity, is not inherently hostile to the West—real or imagined—and its putative values of rationality, religious liberty, secularity, pluralism, and democracy.