During the last two decades, a growing number of public intellectuals and scholars have warned about the rise of a fatal clash between the Islamic Middle East and West. This supposition locates the source of the clash in the irreconcilable cultural and religious differences of the two rival civilizations. They view the development of a militant anti-Westernism among some radical Islamic groups as unequivocal evidence of imminent confrontation, of which September 11th was the prologue.
The aim of this course is 1) to examine this hypothesis, and 2) to delineate the sources of claims of irreconcilable differences. We will review selectively some of the origins of the antipathy and hostility from the rise of Islam in the Middle East to the present.
The course will selectively delineate the evolution of the complex relationship between the Islamic Middle East and the West. We will examine epochal events such as the conquest of Christian regions of the Middle East soon after the rise of Islam, the Crusades by Western Christendom, the causes of the shift of power to the West and its impact on the Middle East to the present.
We will pay particular attention to the economic forces affecting the social and political institutions of the two regions, and finally some of the relevant factors that have shaped their respective political institutions and forms of government.
