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When President Barack Obama visited Cairo in 2009 to deliver an address to Muslims worldwide, he followed in the footsteps of countless politicians who have taken the existence of a unified global Muslim community for granted. But as Cemil Aydin explains in this provocative history, it is a misconception to think that the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims constitute a single religio-political entity. How did this belief arise, and why is it so widespread? The Idea of the Muslim World searches for the intellectual origins of a mistaken notion and explains its enduring allure for non-Muslims and Muslims alike.
Conceived as the antithesis of Western Christian civilization, the idea of the Muslim world emerged in the late nineteenth century, when European empires ruled the majority of Muslims. It was inflected from the start by theories of white supremacy, but Muslims had a hand in shaping the idea as well. Aydin reveals the role of Muslim intellectuals in envisioning and essentializing an idealized pan-Islamic society that refuted claims of Muslims’ racial and civilizational inferiority.
After playing a key role in the politics of the Ottoman Caliphate, the idea of the Muslim world survived decolonization and the Cold War, and took on new force in the late twentieth century. Standing at the center of both Islamophobic and pan-Islamic ideologies, the idea of the Muslim world continues to hold the global imagination in a grip that will need to be loosened in order to begin a more fruitful discussion about politics in Muslim societies today.
E-Book Content
t h e i de a of t h e m usl i m wor l d
The Idea of the Muslim World A Global Intellectual History C e m i l Ay d i n
Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England 2017
Copyright © 2017 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First printing Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Aydin, Cemil, author. Title: The idea of the Muslim world : a global intellectual history / Cemil Aydin. Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016046007 | ISBN 9780674050372 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Muslims—P ublic opinion—History. | Group identity—Islamic countries—History. | Islamic countries— Civilization. | Islamic countries—Civilization—Western influences. Classification: LCC BP52 .A94 2017 | DDC 909/.09767—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016046007 Jacket image: The Mughal Emerald, 1695–1696 (emerald), Mughal School, (17th century)/Private Collection/Photo © Christie’s Images/ Bridgeman Images Jacket design: Jill Breitbarth
For Juliane, Leyla, and Mehtap
Contents
Introduction: What Is the Muslim World?
1
1. An Imperial Ummah before the Nineteenth C entury
14
2. Reinforcing the Imperial World Order (1814–1878)
37
3. Searching for Harmony between Queen and Caliph (1878–1908) 65 4. The Battle of Geopolitical Illusions (1908–1924)
99
5. Muslim Politics of the Interwar Period (1924–1945)
133
6. Resurrecting Muslim Internationalism (1945–1988)
173
Conclusion: Recovering History and Revitalizing the Pursuit of Justice
227
Notes 239 Acknowledgments
279
Index 283
t h e i de a of t h e m usl i m wor l d
Introduction What Is the Muslim World?
R
oughly a fifth of people now living are Muslims. Their societies, located in every corner of the globe, vary in language, ethnicity, political ideology, nationality, culture, and wealth. Yet throughout modern history, Muslims and non-Muslims have appealed to an