Shattering the Myth

Abstract

Shaffering the Myfh is a claim by Bruce B. Lawrence at severing the almost inextricable link, in western perceptions, between Islam and violence. Lawrence’s argument is simple and seemingly straightforward, although, as he professes, at odds with most popular and academic understandings of Islam. Comprehending Islam, as he puts it, requires a clear discernment of its integrated metaphysical and circumstantial dimensions which over time has given rise to distinct forms of Islamic sociopolitical manifestations. Changing global conditions in the economic sphere have further propelled new forces and sociopolitical actors onto the public scene. Thus women may be expected to play a different and more important role in Muslim civic space in the near future. This changing role of women serves to offer hope, rather than despair, about the role of Islam in the 21st century (p. 3). Through a deconstructive process of reversal and re-inscription, Lawrence attempts to expose the privileged violent/peaceful male/female violence hierarchy that supports and justifies such perceptions of Islam. To reverse the first hierarchy and ‘disconnect’ Islam from violence (p. 9) he adopts a double stratagem, one definitional, the other discursive. In the former, Islam, as well as being a religion, is stressed as a modem day ideology subordinated to that of nationalism-nationalism doing for the modem era what religion did or tried to do, in premodern times (p. 15). In the second strategy Lawrence discourses through the violent colonial legacy perpetrated by the West and its brutal impact on its victims (pp. 9-10). To reverse the second hierarchy, Lawrence, less candidly, stresses a feminist perspective. Whereas the Muslim ‘enemy’ is invariably depicted in Western stereotypes as a ‘male’ warrior from the past or a modem-day ‘male’ terrorist (p. 5), the feminist re-inscription depicts women as an “index of Muslim identity.” The purpose is to include a perspective on Muslim women that adds complexity to the typical rendition of Muslim norms and values (p. 6). Lawrence seeks to reconstruct the ‘determinist’ interpretations of Islam, pertaining to violence and the subjugation of women, and to link it to the Western colonial era. The logic is that by reversing and reconstructing certain violent hierarchical categorizations so as to transform particular Western understandings and perceptions and hence attitudes toward Muslims, the latter may become less inclined to react defensively or violently. This would allow for a broader more peaceful exploratory interdisciplinary, international, cross-cultural approach (p. 12). In this sense and throughout his work, Lawrence subordinates and marginalizes Islam in favor of three determining, competing, and challenging ...