Al-Tawhid
The Utility of
Islamic Imagery in the West

J.A. Progler
Asst Professor of Social Studies at CUNY, Brooklyn
College
Vol XIV No. 4
The long history of encounters between Western civilization and Islam
has produced a tradition of portraying, in largely negative and
self-serving ways, the Islamic religion and Muslim cultures. There is a
lot of literature cataloguing (and sometimes correcting) these
stereotypes. It is not my intention to rehash this corpus here, though I
do rely upon some of the more important works. What I want to do instead
is focus on a particular dimension of these encounters, and examine why
the West has consistently constructed and perpetuated negative images of
Islam and Muslims. My focus will be on the utility of Islamic imagery in
Western civilization.
Most people seem to be familiar with stereotypes and negative imagery
of Arabs and Muslims-indeed, some are so firmly entrenched that the
consumers of these images are unable to distinguish them from reality. At
the same time, many people have an idea how these images come about
(books, television, speeches). But by looking at the cultural history of
Islamic-Western encounters from the perspective of utility, I am able to
locate the correlations between imagery and political economy. Western
image-makers, including religious authorities, political establishments,
and corporate-media conglomerates, conceptualize for their consumers
images of Muslims and/or Arabs in sometimes amusing and other tunes cruel
or tragic ways. Upon closer examination, these images seem to serve
essential purposes throughout the history of Western civilization. At
times these purposes are benign, at others quite sinister. Often, there
are tragic consequences for Muslims resulting from the socio-political
climate fostered by images. Focusing on the dimension of utility can help
to reveal some ties between imagery and action.

At the same time, I am aware that focusing solely on imagery misses the
important dimensions of intention and power. Though I reserve a careful
look at these dimensions for another study, I do recognize the need to
consider here some of those people who have the power to provide public
conceptualizations of Muslims, such as religious figures, academics,
policy pundits, journalists, and entertainment conglomerates. Drawing upon
the historical and cultural catalogue of assumptions and perceptions about
Islam, these experts and spokespeople pick and choose the appropriate
images to serve their purposes. Many times, they are seemingly unaware of
using an image, which is indicative of how deeply entrenched they have
become. The stories of those with the power to present need to be told,
but they are beyond the scope of this article. Similarly, fruitful
research may also reveal the degree to which Muslims contribute to their
own images. That, too, I will reserve for another study. The purpose here,
then, is to suggest some of the broader utilitarian dimensions of Islamic
imagery in the West.

A recurring theme in the present study is the idea of packaging the
complexities of Islam and Muslim cultures into easily comprehensible
categories-good and bad, beautiful and dangerous, desirable and
repulsive-and I look at these in terms of their utility in Western
cultural history and political economy. Academic culture is an important
site to reveal the utility of imagery, since these are the studies that
inform policy makers and politicians; this is also where Western ideas are
introduced into native cultures. But it is also necessary to focus on
popular culture, especially news and entertainment, because this is where
many people in the West get their impressions of Islam and Muslims.

The 'Other' in Western Colonial Discourse:

Images of the Other are prevalent in Western civilization, and have
become firmly ensconced in the discourse of colonization and conquest,
whoever the victims may be. Some images are rooted in Greek notions of
barbarians, others born of the Middle Ages. They have been carried through
the Reconquista and Inquisition, picked up during the age of colonial
expansion, developed by Orientalists in the 19th and early 20th century,
and continue on into the age of mass media and globalized political
economy. But images don't exist in a vacuum. They have uses.

For example, in their invasion and colonization of the Americas
Europeans brought with them-in addition to muskets and cannons-a great
deal of cultural baggage, including rigid and preconceived notions of the
Other. These images, intertwined with religious and political conflicts,
all found their way into the new world, and eventually entangled Native
peoples In fact, historians have shown that American legal traditions
regarding Native peoples are based on legal traditions of the Holy Roman
Empire which were born of the Crusades against Muslims [1]. For that reason, it will be instructive to spend
some time looking at images of Native Americans in the West

The American scholar Berkhofer carefully analyzes the rationale for
images of the "Indian " Particularly striking is his observation that
there is a dual image, of "good" or "noble" Indians and "bad" or "ignoble"
Indians, and how this developed from pre-conception to image to fact He
nicely summarizes the elements of the image: [2]
generalizing from one tribe's society and culture to all
Indians
conceiving of Indians in terms of their deficiencies according to
White ideals rather than in terms of their own various cultures
using moral evaluation as description of Indians Berkhofer
suggests that "since Whites primarily understood the Indian as an
antithesis to themselves, then civilization and Indianness as they defined
them would forever be opposites " [3] He believes that while some researchers have
uncovered one or another element of the Indian image, most have failed to
put it all together. Images of Indians are usually treated by scholars in
two ways Some have studied "what changed, what persisted, and why," while
others studied "what images were held by whom, when, where, and why '[4] Some scholars see them "as a reflection of White
cultures and as the primary explanation of White behaviour vis-a-vis
Native Americans", while others see them "to be dependent upon the
political and economic relationships prevailing in White societies at
various times "[5] While each approach is useful in its own way, I
agree with Berkhofer's suggestion that any comprehensive understanding of
Western images has to consider both aspects, asking not only what the
images were and how they continue, but also who holds them and why He
combines the two approaches into a useful and broadly applicable
methodology for analyzing images and their utility Berkhofer's methodology
helps us to ask questions like who benefits from these images, and how are
they manipulated and perpetuated? I want to look at European images of
Muslims in this framework, and consider in particular the way images
change to suit particular historical circumstances

Framing the Ubiquitous Orient

A growing body of critical literature examines the formation,
utilization and perpetuation of images in the context of European
conceptualization and colonization of the Muslim [6].Critics generally agree that Orientalist pursuits
of knowledge are inextricably tied to colonial and imperial power, and
that the West's self-image has been cultivated in a binary relationship
with Islamic culture The literature in this area is quite detailed, and
there is no need to repeat all of it here What I want to do is first look
briefly at some of the factors in the development and maintenance of this
binary vision from the Crusades through the modern period, and then apply
the same method to more recent examples

According to Norman Daniel, "luxury" and "bellicosity" formed a dual
image of Islam in Medieval Western Europe This nexus is intertwined with a
second ignorance and malice In considering how the dual image of Islam
persists, Daniel suggests that in some cases the reason is ignorance and
in others it is malice Ignorance and malice can work together, as in, for
example, when a malicious campaign directed by state power toward a
scapegoat is explained by using images that rely on the general ignorance
of the state's subjects and constituents This is an important factor in
the maintenance of imagery, especially in democratic societies, and I will
return to it later.

Edward Said was one of the first to make explicit connections between
Western colonization and images of the Muslim world Said shows how the
discourse of Orientalism gave itself legitimacy, revealing that what
Orientalists were really talking about was creating the levers of power
Said's general premise is that knowledge is inextricably tied to power,
and that pure scholarship does not exist Drawing upon textual criticism
from selected British and French Orientalists of the 19th and 20th
centuries, he summarizes the "principle dogmas" of Orientalism

one is the absolute and systematic difference between the West, which
is rational, developed, humane, superior, and the Orient, which is
aberrant, undeveloped, inferior Another dogma is that abstractions about
the Orient, particularly those based on texts representing a "classical"
Oriental civilization, are always preferable to direct evidence drawn from
modern Oriental realities A third dogma is that the Orient is eternal,
vmiform, and incapable of defining itself; therefore it is assumed that a
highly generalized and systematic vocabulary for describing the Orient
from a Western standpoint is inevitable, and even scientifically
"objective". A fourth dogma is that the Orient is at bottom something
either to be feared (the Yellow Peril, the Mongol hordes, the brown
dominions) or to be controlled (by pacification, research and development,
outright occupation whenever possible) [7]

After noting that these dogmas "persist without significant challenge
in the academic and governmental study of the modern Near Orient," Said
argues that "the Orient" is itself a constituted entity, and that the
notion that there are "geographical spaces with indigenous, radically
different inhabitants who can be defined on the basis of some religion,
culture, or racial essence proper to that geographical space is equally a
highly debatable idea." [8] While there are numerous institutions in the West
engaging in the study of the Orient, there are few if any in the Orient,
and those are invariably run by Westerners (for example, the American
Universities of Beirut and Cairo, or the Robert College in Turkey), and
consequently, little if any study of the West is done by Orientals.

Building upon the foundation of classical Orientalism, a new breed of
Orientalist emerged out of Cold War concerns. Characterized by a fusion of
classic Orientalism with post-World War II social science, the new
discourse was put at the service of foreign policy makers who emphasized
prediction and control. However, with all the new techniques, as Said
shows, most have not escaped the 4 dogmas of what we might call the
orthodox discourse. Neo-Orientalists replace philology with a more
anomalous expertise, which, like philology, is still based on language
skills, but is more oriented toward strategic and business interests. This
new Orientalism is practiced with an almost mystical authority by experts
and Area Studies specialists who have mastered the necessary languages.
The usual rationale for continuing Orientalism is that "we" can get to
know another people, their way of life, thought, etc. To this end, the new
Orientals (many trained at the feet of the orthodox masters) are sometimes
allowed to speak for themselves, but only to a limited degree. The
Oriental becomes useful as a direct source of information, but the
Orientalist still remains the source of all knowledge.

As a way to avoid reconfiguring Orientalist discourse in new contexts,
and to diffuse pre-existing truths, Said recommends some questions to keep
in mind when approaching the Other: [9]
How does one represent other cultures?
What is another culture?
Is the notion of a distinct culture (or race, or religion, or
civilization) a useful one, or does it always get involved either in
self-congratulation (when one discusses one's own) or hostility and
aggression (when one discusses the "other") ?
Do cultural, religious, and racial differences matter more than
socio-economic categories, or politico-historical ones?
How do ideas acquire authority, "normality," and even the status of
"natural" truth?
What is the role of the intellectual?
Is he there to validate the culture and state of which he is a
part?
What importance must he give to an independent critical
consciousness, an oppositional critical consciousness?
Said concludes with a warning to guard against accepting handed
down notions of the other, and incorporating them into one's work without
first subjecting them to critical analysis.

Thierry Hentsch incorporates and complicates most earlier studies of
Orientalism. [10] He believes that Western images of the Muslim
world are projections of Western insecurities about Self onto the Other,
and that as long as the Other is a mirror for the Self, there will always
be conflict. I think this is becoming evident in the recent usage of
images of Muslims and -Islam, built upon not only centuries of images but
in particular upon very carefully constructed images of Arabs from the
1960s and 1970s. I will return to this in due time.

To Hentsch, Western images of a sensual yet violent Orient are
self-telling myths. Like Bernal, [11] Hentsch believes that racist myths of Western
supremacy were fabricated in the 17th and 18th centuries and projected
backward to explain contemporary realities. As Said pointed out, collating
these myths became the job of the Orientalists. But Hentsch's sweep is far
wider and more inclusive than Said. He considers pre-Orientalist cultural
factors, and brings his treatment right up to the 1990-91 Persian Gulf Oil
War. Hentsch believes that the West's myth of the Orient will continue to
serve its explanatory functions right on into the next century.

Hentsch's essential hypothesis is that the area we call the Middle East
(which he defines as the nations from Morocco to Iran; Said's Orient) has
been a self-reflecting mirror for Western civilization, in which the West
defines itself by constructing an Other who is everything the West is not.
Hentsch's thesis is that the "Orient" is an zimmense repository of our own
imagined world" and that "we reveal ourselves through our way of
seeing." [12] His "capital supposition" is that "any study of
the Other is futile unless we first observe ourselves face to face with
it, and in particular, unless we attempt to understand how, and why, we
have studied and represented this self-same Other down to the present
day." [13] Speaking on ethnocentrism, Hentsch asserts that
it "is not a flaw to be simply set aside, nor is it a sin to be expunged
through repentance. It is the precondition of our vision of the
Other. Far from offering us absolution, this precondition compels us
constantly to return to our point of departure, if only to grasp the
internal and external imperatives which shape our curiosity about the
Other." [14] I want to continue with Hentsch's analysis, and
look in particular at the genesis and continuation of images as they
relate to the emerging European colonizing enterprise.

Races Debased and Unities Sundered:

In November of 1095, Pope Urban II initiated the first European attempt
at colonizing the Muslim world-known in the West as the Crusades-by
drawing this fateful picture:

For you must hasten to carry aid to your brethren dwelling in the East,
who need your help, which they have often asked For the Turks, a Persian
people, have attacked them I exhort you with earnest prayer- not I, but
God-that, as heralds of Christ, you urge men by frequent exhortation, men
of all ranks, knights as well as foot soldiers, rich as well as poor, to
hasten to exterminate this vile race from the lands of your brethren
Christ commands it And if those who set out thither should lose their
lives on the way by land, or in crossing the sea, or in fighting the
pagans, their sins shall be remitted Oh what a disgrace, if a race so
despised, base, and the instrument of demons, should so overcome a people
endowed with faith in the all-powerful God, and resplendent with the name
of Christ Let those who have been accustomed to make private war against
the faithful carry on to a successful issue a war against the infidels Let
those who for a long time have been robbers now become soldiers of Christ
Let those who fought against brothers and relatives now fight against
these barbarians let them zealously undertake the journey under the
guidance of the Lord. [15]

The Pope's words lay out many of the themes that would characterize
this mass colonial movement East for the next two centuries In one reading
of the Crusading venture, restless knights and small-tune princes are
enticed by their lords with tales of land and wealth, in the hopes of
turning their swords away from the increasingly nervous feudal
establishment, or what the Pope calls the faithful brethren Landless folks
and the poor-euphemized by the Pope as criminals-can also be turned
Eastward with enticements of land and Divine forgiveness But what is most
interesting here is that the Pope conceptualizes his Oriental Other in
racial terms The enemy, for now, is the debased races of Turks and
Persians, and Islam is not yet a part of the Western conceptual
matrix.

There is also an overlap here with Christian treatment of Jews as the
"instruments of demons", one of the key tenets of anti-Semitic white
supremacy In Christian Europe, Jews and Muslims suffered the wrath of an
increasingly rabid and intolerant resurgent Christianity, culminating in
the expulsion of both from Muslim Spain in the 15th century, at the dawn
of the expansionist age while this is not the place to trace this legacy
in detail, this is also the period in which the religion of rationalism
replaced Christianity, with the images of the other traveling full circle
from Pope Urban's 11th century "debased races" to the Age of
Enlightenment, with its biological explanation for colonization and
genocide As Hentsch shows, [16] the uses of Islam continued to change according