The Idea of the Muslim World

Islam, the faith beholden to an ultimately transcendent and trans-mundane order of reality, now points to nothing beyond. In the secular consciousness of modernity, it is nothing but a this-worldly phenomenon. For the champions of the Global Empire and its Muslim challengers, it is a geopolitical threat or a promise. It represents a barbaric tribe to the former, and a redeeming community to the latter. Paradoxically, the modern notion of ‘the Muslim world’, which incarnates the faith as it were, has captured the imagination of both the dreamers and the detractors of this secularized faith. Both insist on the mundane reality of a global community that is distinguished by its relentless pursuit of a violent, indeed terrorist, politics of faith. For empirical historians, this grotesque abstraction it is a cause of amazement. Yet, even in academic discourses, this monstrous generality holds its sway, no doubt because historical knowledge may forever be commissioned in the service of the political myth.....