Re: 1001inventions
Reply #7 - April 09, 2011, 08:13 PM
After 9/11, there was a concerted effort made to counteract negative images of Islam by making a lot of hagiography and rose-tinted glasses programmes, exhibitions and stuff about 'the glory of Islam' and so on and so forth. This was born out of a good place, a desire to prove that Islam was not just about intolerance and narrow mindedness.
However, it meant that in some ways the image became even more distorted, because it didn't critically analyse aspects of Islamic history, and in cases like this, just becomes a form of soft-dawah. Instead of making Muslims learn about how at some points in history, lands where there were alot Muslims were influenced by other civilisations, as part of the normal ebb and flow of human ingenuity, discovery and intellectual energy and curiousity, thus teaching the interconnectedness of human civilisations, there is an impulse to project an idea of Islamic exceptionalism. It becomes dawah to also raise the self-esteem of Muslims in the west, but it also becomes a kind of celebration of a pax-Islamica. It makes of these 'discoveries' an exemplar of Islam, but it also marginalises in some ways other civilisations in doing so. There is also the issue that mighty_cats raises - how to ascribe these things to Islam, when they were discovered or pursued not because of Islam but in spite of it, just as Indians made civilisational achievments not because of Hinduism but because the conditions of the time in that place cultivated free enquiry. Just as the scientific discoveries of Europe were made inspite of Christianity and often in opposition to it.
I mean, just imagine the silliness of an exhibition exalting the science, inventions and achievments of Europe, and claiming it as an example of 'The Glory of Christianity"
Its kind of stupid, isn't it?
"we can smell traitors and country haters"
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Topic: 1001inventions