Reading Europe with Muslim Eyes (REME)

At a recent workshop, I was invited to present a paper on the value of historicizing Islamophobia and began with a short introduction on the longstanding genealogy of Islamophobic rhetoric in the Western context—its deep entrenchment in the fabric of the western lexicon; its diverse iterations in religious and theological discourse, its trenchant utility in clerical homilies and sermons on the eve of critical historical junctures such as the medieval crusades. Anti-Islamic discourse, I argued, constituted an essential feature of the European premodern order in which the Muslim ‘other’ would perennially be cast outside the fold of the Christian order. One esteemed colleague passionately inquired whether tracing the history of islamophobia merely illustrated to contemporary Muslims that, to put it crudely, “they have always hated us.” I sympathized with the query and questioned myself (albeit internally): for contemporary Muslim communities, can a deeper understanding of the perduring existence of anti-Muslim sentiment (and legislative practices) across temporal locales and societal structures in the premodern era provoke contemporary individual and communal disdain, cynicism, even a form of collective paralysis and disengagement? Can knowledge of the European premodern architecture of racial exclusion provoke affective disempowerment? Is ignorance blissful if epistemological enlightenment reveals embedded institutional forms of violence (church and inquisition); literary and artistic racism and the multitude of Islamophobic tropes serving policies of expulsion in the premodern period?

As historians, we are trained to examine and analyze the ‘longue durée’ of political movements, societal structures, religious traditions and in this endeavour, better understand our current moment. The ‘architectures of racial formation’ are not novel or new but deeply embedded in the modern infrastructure that imbricates them with enduring relevance. As scholars of the medieval period have maintained, an analysis of premodernity clarifies central propensities in history wherein normalized modes of being, structures of power, and “conditions of crisis that witness the harnessing of powerful dominant discourses’—such as science or religion, manifest and are brought into sharper relief. Yet for those who perennially live in the present, unburdened by the weight of history in their daily vocations, does delving into the waves of time present an unwanted challenge? Will exposing the longer genealogy of anti-Islamic rhetoric, its polemical clarity and its acerbic deployment in the European context, simply feel like a deluge of ancient aggression? Discursive and proto nationalist forms of premodern violence contemporary folk are forced to contend with and in some cases, reluctant to confront? I continue to ponder the responses to these queries as a trained historian and as one moved by my colleague’s valid grievance. However, I am also of the mind that to historicize any contemporary problem is to offer possible solutions to its existence and in this case, its normalization.

When tracing the emergence of Islamophobia in the contemporary period, many view the terrorist attacks on September 11^th, 2001 as marking a critical moment in which racism, anti-Islamic bigotry and exclusionary politics materialized to severely marginalize Muslim communities across the ‘West’. October 7^th marks another critical juncture in which the intended erasure of Palestine and the Palestinian people have intensified Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism. Yet historians have distilled the ways in which anti-Islamic discourse constitutes a complex phenomenon with deeper roots in the historical construction of Europe and its development over the centuries. Conceptualizing the history of anti-Muslim animosity across European societies and its current manifestation in North American communities necessitates examining significant historical parallels in the medieval and early modern period wherein polemics and divisive rhetoric led to concrete policies affecting Muslim minority populations. In ample ways, the Church functioned as the principal architect in the racial formation of Europe by expanding its authority and endowing medieval societies with diverse mechanisms to consolidate unity, power and communal identity across internal differences. The Church’s project of universality in Europe and the attendant imperial and colonial consequences of such an endeavour cannot be understated: they concretized through uniform practices, institutions, sacraments, rituals and doctrines. In one text, upon being questioned on the Mongols and Muslims in a report, the Bishop of Winchester states: “England should leave the dogs to devour one another, so that they may all be consumed and perish; when Christians proceed against those who remain, they will slay enemies of Christ and cleanse the face of the earth so that the entire world will be subject to one Catholic church.” Furthermore, nascent nationalisms were intricately tied to the formal structures of control and governance found in law. However, the cultural power wielded in ‘informal mechanisms’ such as rituals, symbols, stories, and affective communities also presented an integral node of governance. These modes of cultural power were galvanized in the categorization, policing and surveillance of marginalized communities and necessitate engagement and analysis. In the final instance, to historically contextualize a social issue invites a kind of epistemological unveiling wherein seemingly normalized structures of racism and power are occasionally revealed to be polemical constructions and authorized fictions curated over time and space: imagined and disseminated in the literary sphere; used as political fodder to justify legislated violence and expulsions; deployed with theological grandeur to coerce communities; even artistically manufactured to move the masses into a passionate state of consent.

In acknowledging the longer history of Islamophobia, we must also attend to alternative historical discourses of dissent and resistance. By doing so, our imaginary landscape and emancipatory frameworks are expanded while normalized and seemingly primordial configurations of power and hegemony are unraveled through this epistemological renewal. In what ways did communities and the individuals within them, even prior to the formation of the nation state, navigate and negotiate positions of subjugation and oppression? How did individuals and communities develop compelling testimonies, narratives and accounts attesting to their visions of sovereignty? In what ways did they dream amidst destructive forms of violence and what were the textures, idioms, and languages of those visions of deliverance? Through the historical realm, these imaginings are brought to the forefront with greater clarity, nuance and context. Thus, another objective of REME is highlighting the lifespan of anti-Islamic discourse as well as ways it was contested, dismantled, and even rejected. When does research of a contemporary issue/problem propel productive and transformative futures? When undertaken in tandem with an analysis of the historical path that has led to the contemporary moment. As such, there is hope in an endeavor such as this one that it transcends the realm of theory and moves into a locus of action. As Esmat Elhalaby incisively probes, “the academic quest for methods has come to supersede the older inquiry into the relationship between theory and action. What is method, in the absence of a project, without grounding in the world?” Elhalaby rightly entreats scholars to examine not just the project of decolonization but the IDEAS of decolonization stating, “I search for the history of those attachments, affiliation, solidarities, movements, meetings and revolutions made under the banners of Asia, Africa…of the damned of the earth.” This project employs a similar lens in the combating of Islamophobic rhetoric—by analyzing meaning the ways in which premodern Muslim communities, individuals, movements contested the proliferation of Anti-Islamic sentiment through their own strategic mobilization of discourse, military initiatives, supplication and religious traditions. In this vein, while the substantive features of the REME project are academically situated, positioned within a historical framework and employ primary sources from the European premodern period as the foundation upon which essays are constructed and ideas expressed, the decolonial possibilities of REME remain unwavering. It is high time that the project of decolonization no longer constitutes an individual pursuit, nor a task exclusively situated in the hallways of academia—let it be more than curricular innovation, faculty representation and claims of performative diversity. In no uncertain terms, decolonization requires a collective orientation.

Contemporary aggressions against Muslims, Muslim communities and/or racialized individuals who might align themselves with similar causes require immediate redress. Yet in analyzing the historical iterations and manifestations of anti-Islamic discourse, we are invited to expand our awareness of its manifestation and social utility not exclusively as a modern ailment.

Historically situating anti-Islamic discourse and its attendant materiality requires one to recognize, acknowledge and dissect “the grammar of Islamophobia” and the rules that governed the way anti-Islamic rhetoric and policy was deployed in the premodern period through an integration of diverse texts, religious orientations, primary sources, and a multitude of registers. REME anticipates exploring the lifespan of this discourse and analyzing the ways in which it was contested, dismantled, and rejected.

We are living in a moment wherein the subtle (and not so subtle) violence of discursive and polemical rhetoric against Muslims (and other marginalized communities) has concrete material implications. As such, coming to terms with this longer history of anti-Islamic rhetoric enables one to contain and contend with it and in doing so, recognize its structures, constructs, normalized grammars and even limitations. Unveiling historical moments of contestation, salvific resistance and even spiritual revolution further enable communities to animate ongoing struggles for liberation, expose the architecture of colonial and imperial violence and conceptualize the ways in which peoples have historically disputed its claims of universalized authority.

Bio description: Amanie Antar is a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Institute of Islamic Studies where she researches premodern iterations of anti-Islamic discourse in the medieval and early modern Mediterranean context, with a specialized focus on Iberia.