Islam in Liberalism
In the popular imagination, Islam is often associated with words like oppression, totalitarianism, intolerance, cruelty, misogyny, and homophobia, while its presumed antonyms are Christianity, the West, liberalism, individualism, freedom, citizenship, and democracy. In the most alarmist views, the West's most cherished values – freedom, equality, and tolerance – are said to be endangered by Islam worldwide.
Joseph Massad's "Islam in Liberalism" explores what Islam has become in today's world, with full attention to the multiplication of its meanings and interpretations. He seeks to understand how anxieties about tyranny, intolerance, misogyny, and homophobia, seen in the politics of the Middle East, are projected onto Islam itself. Massad shows that through this projection, Europe emerges as democratic and tolerant, feminist, and pro-LGBT rights – or, in short, Islam-free. Massad documents the Christian and liberal idea that we should missionize democracy, women's rights, sexual rights, tolerance, equality, and even therapies to cure Muslims of their un-European, un-Christian, and illiberal ways. Along the way he sheds light on a variety of controversial topics, including the meanings of democracy – and the ideological assumption that Islam is not compatible with it while Christianity is – women in Islam, sexuality and sexual freedom, and the idea of Abrahamic religions valorizing an interfaith agenda".Islam in Liberalism" is an unflinching critique of Western assumptions and of the liberalism that Europe and Euro-America blindly present as a type of salvation to an assumingly unenlightened Islam.
About the Author
Joseph A. Massad is professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. He has written many books, including "Desiring Arabs", also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Reviews
"This is a powerfully – often passionately – written text... The only book that I can think of in comparison is Edward Said's Covering Islam – but Massad's book is far richer both in terms of the literature covered (much of which was of course not yet available when Said wrote his book) and the range of questions engaged" – Talal Asad, Graduate Center, City University of New York
"Massad is an important intellectual voice. He commands attention internationally. He offers distinctive, compelling, and often brilliant critiques of positions that many regard as sacrosanct: most notably the human rights regime, NGOS, and international development organizations, and does not spare the therapeutic enterprises of psychoanalysis and transcultural tolerance" – Anne Norton, University of Pennsylvania
"In recent years we have come to take seriously the idea that certain othering concepts such as 'the Orient' and 'Islam' have played a vital role in giving reality to 'the West'. The extraordinary value of Joseph Massad's new book is that he has shown, through a sustained analysis of a wide variety of historical and contemporary discourses, that 'Islam' has been more than a periphery-defining concept utilized merely to lend truth and solidity to the Christian West. Far more importantly, 'Islam' has been at work as a powerful agonistic imaginary indispensable for the self-definition of the West's own polity as essentially free. This is a deeply considered work that is more than timely" – Tomoko Masuzawa, University of Michigan
