WESTERN MISCONCEPTIONS

Western Misconceptions of the Islamic Tradition



Western Misconceptions of the Islamic Tradition

Thesis Statement

Some think that the ongoing war between the West and the East are unwarranted war, and that the reason for this conflict is a western misconception of the Islamic traditions which continues to grow because of the ignorance that may generate at both ends.

Introduction

At the end of the twentieth century the world have over 1,000 million Muslims. It is expected that over the next century Islam religion constitutes the largest number of followers and growing at an annual rate of around 3%, much higher than of Christianity, which currently has about 1,900 million faithful. Its territory grows in various parts of the world, especially in Black Africa, and there is no sign that it can come anywhere declining (Ember, 2005).

First it was a territorial expansion, but today is primarily a cultural expansion. With surprising speed is assimilating and homogenizing all cultures of the world. Japan, China, African Negros seem clearly oriented towards the ways of the West. Even the ancient Hindu civilization deep could be a victim of this trend homogenizer (Ember, 2005).

Only Islam seems immune to this assimilation and that emerge as the great alternative to the West in the immediate future. For more than a century it has been deeply opposing rival cultures. Islam has maintained its superiority over many centuries and Muslims tend to believe that this hegemony will return someday. In the western way of life religion is a part of reality that coexists with other consistency with themselves as the science, politics and art. These areas will influence and are interconnected in various ways, but are independent. Religion is seen as a personal issue with some social relevance.

In Islam however everything revolves around religion: individual, partnership, economic and cultural structures. Muslims perceive a sacred reality in which religion encompasses and unifies all facets of life. For Westerners however the reality is essentially material. For a Western scientific perception of matter is essential and if it contradicts some religious approach must be revised and adjusted. Muslims believe that religion always prevails against the material, and it is already perfected, there is some adaptation (Sutton, 2005).

The incompatibility between Islam and democracy is a topic that is rooted in the West, the failure of liberal democracy in Muslim societies has its source in the nature of culture and Islamic society, inhospitable to liberal Western concepts. By contrast, author Mohamed Charfi consider that in the last century, a half of a large group of Muslim thinkers have shown that "Islam is a religion of love and harmony, is perfectly capable of combining today's democracy and human rights”.

Discussion

The origin of the misunderstanding is in the weight that Islamic tradition has given the sharia or fiqah, i.e. classical Islamic law, which "is a body of legal rules dealing with all the problems of life in society". These rules stem from the interpretation that has been given to the legal provisions contained in the ...