ABSTRACT

As with other ‘world religions’ there is much conceptual disagreement in modern scholarship about the idea of a unified and global Islam as a religion. For one thing, the sectarian division between Shia and Sunni is an important feature of Islamic history. It is often contended in any case that the idea of religion as a distinctive and separate institution within society is a modern creation (Asad 1993).The very idea of world religions has also been challenged. In the modern ‘clash of civilizations’, people who were previously simply regarded as Turks, Arabs or Indonesians are now referred to as ‘Muslims’. In this chapter, for the sake of simplicity, we will not venture far into these academic debates about religion, cultures and identities. We will instead largely follow the interpretation of Islam in the work of Marshall G. S. Hodgson who distinguished in his Venture of Islam (1974) between the following: Islamdom as the equivalent of Christendom; Islam as the religion of Muslims; Islamicate culture, stretching from Spain to Central Asia that can be shared by Muslims and non-Muslims; and faith or personal piety as the irreducible core of religion. This piety was ultimately shaped by the Shari’a-mindedness of Muslims in their daily practices of religion. The reality of Islam could only be understood from the perspective of world history. In considering Islam in the framework of globalization, our substantive concerns are with

the global spread of prejudice against Muslims, often referred to as Islamophobia. We will discuss this global phenomenon from a case by case study of national examples. This approach raises methodological questions about how best to study global processes, but we cannot enter into these methodological issues in this chapter. Suffice it to say that, while there are national variations, Islamophobia is a global development with a number of basic characteristics. In Europe Islamophobia has largely centred around two issues of assimilation, namely veiling and Shari’a. It has to be noted that the Shari’a has greater significance because it has implications for major issues such as legal pluralism and state sovereignty. Veiling has more symbolic than constitutional implications. This chapter argues that (not withstanding the conceptual problems surrounding the notion of Islamophobia) there is much evidence of prejudice against Muslims and fear of Islam in theWest.Conflict with Islam and fear of Muslims is obviously not confined to theWest. There is an established and ongoing conflict in the southern regions of Thailand

between Buddhists and Muslims, and in Thailand there are periodically attempts to define national identity in exclusive Buddhist terms. In Malaysia, there are also periodic conflicts with the Christian Chinese minority and Hindu workers whenever the government attempts to define ‘Malayness’ as Islamic and to impose the Shari’a as the national legal system. There are also conflicts with Muslim minorities in Myanmar, the Caucasus and China. Many of these conflicts are related to attempts to install the Shari’a as the official and exclusive legal system over minorities that are not Muslim (Possamai, Richardson and Turner 2015). In the case of Muslim minorities, it is often a fear from the majority that Muslims are seeking to install the Shari’a and oppose assimilation. However, the empirical evidence about public reactions to Muslim minorities is mixed, and

hence blanket claims about Islamophobic prejudice are typically unhelpful. This chapter attempts to define the issues more precisely by a comparison of the United States, various European societies and societies that have western cultures and liberal-democratic politics such as Canada and Australia. The sociological evidence in the USA is generally optimistic in suggesting that there has been a successful integration of Muslims despite 9/11 and the war on terrorism. Sociological research in the United States indicates that Muslims will largely follow the same pathways as Irish Catholics towards inclusion and middle-class membership. Evidence relating to the European experience is far less positive. Why is there this difference between Europe and the United States? There are obviously

important historical and cultural differences, and America has a history of slavery and racism. However, we conclude by arguing that the legal framework (such as the First Amendment) in the United States plays an important role in the acceptance of Muslims. Just as the law has been ahead of public opinion over same-sex marriage, it may also be ahead in defending the civil rights of Muslims despite the widespread view of a clash of civilizations. The other issue is that, while the wall between church and state in the United States has never been clear and definite, church and state in Europe (especially in Scandinavian societies) are entangled rather than separated. Therefore in talking about the global spread of Islam in the modern world we need to keep in mind important differences between societies. Globalization is a general trend, but we need to take into account the impact of different national cultures, laws and constitutions. It is important to understand these issues within a historical and comparative framework.

Historically, Islam developed in societies in the Middle East where it was overwhelmingly the dominant culture and Muslims were the majority. It is of course true that the Ottoman Empire was culturally and ethnically diverse, but Islam was still the dominant religion despite some recognition of Jews and Christians through the millet system.Central Asia was the other region where Muslims were a minority. Asian Islam was diverse but Muslims shared a common history.While the Turko-Mongolian world was based on nomadism, the Silk Road connecting Europe to China gave rise to a system of oasis city states such as Samarkand and Tashkent. These trade routes brought precious goods and materials to the region, but they were also the conduit of other religions, especially Buddhism. Central Asia has been a place of Islamic influence since the middle of the seventh century. Central Asia, rather than being remote and isolated, has been profoundly connected to and shaped by the outside world. In modern times, the impact of Russia on Central Asia brought about profound changes (Khalid 2007). By 1889, when the Turkmen tribes of the Qizil Qum desert were finally subjugated, Russia emerged as the paramount colonial power in Central Asia. The Russian empire was a vast ensemble of different peoples, languages and religions.While there were periods of harsh repression of Islam, through much of this imperial history the state’s approach to social and religious diversity is best described as ‘pragmatic flexibility’ involving co-operation with rather than opposition to the local ulama.