Orientalists, Islamists and the Global Public Sphere : A Genealogy of the Modern Essentialist Image of Islam

In light of the ongoing public debate that focuses on differences between Islam and the West, this book suggests a change of perspective. It departs from the observation that both western Orientalists and Islamist activists have defined Islam similarly as an all-encompassing religious, political and social system.

In light of the ongoing debate about differences between Islam and the West, this book suggests a change of perspective. It departs from the observation that both Orientalists and Islamists have defined Islam similarly as an all-encompassing system. In shifting from differences to similarities, it associates the evolution of this essentialist image with a complex process of cross-cutting (self)-interpretations of Muslim and Western societies. Focusing on a number of paradigmatic individuals, the book investigates the intellectual encounters and discursive interdependencies among western and Muslim intellectuals. It deconstructs the essentialist image of Islam in uncovering its conceptual foundations in the modern transformation of European and Muslim societies from the nineteenth century onwards. Thereby, the changing infrastructure of an emerging global public sphere has facilitated the popularization, trivialization, and dissemination of a previously elitist discourse on Islam and modernity.