The study of Islam in American
schools and universities is heavily influenced and distorted by Jews, who teach
at Middle Eastern Studies departments in increasing numbers. T.B. Irving, an
American Muslim scholar from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, noticed this trend as early as
1975, and since then it has accelerated. One conservative scholar, Bernard
Lewis, is especially influential in the Bush administration. His books have
become gospel among Neo-Conservatives such as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz,
and among high officials such as Vice President Dick Cheney. Even President
Bush, who is well-known for not reading much, has read some of Lewis's works.
Lewis's message, "In the Middle East, get tough or get
out," reinforced the desire of the Neo-Conservatives to use 9/11 as an
opportunity to invade Iraq, to reshape the Middle East and to enforce western
democracy on it. Lewis has a long history of hostility to Islam. Long before
Samuel Huntington predicted a clash of civilizations, Lewis envisioned such a
clash in his 1957 book, The Arabs in History, and in later works such as The
West and The Middle East. In 1990 he also lectured US congressmen on the same
theme, a lecture whose $10,000 fee was paid for by American taxpayers,
-National Endowment for the Humanities- and which was later turned into an
article for The Atlantic Monthly called "The Roots of Muslim Rage,"
which in turn influenced Mr. Huntington.
Instead of a clash of civilizations, I want a dialogue
between civilizations. Since 9/11 the number of young Westerners studying Islam
and Arabic has soared. And it was with the desire to promote
such a
dialogue that the United States Information Agency sponsored my recent trip to
America in 1995. This trip was a great opportunity for me to visit many Near
Eastern Studies departments and Research Centers in many US cities from north
to south and from East to West.
Ismael Faruqi thinks it is useless for Muslims to establish
chairs for Islamic Studies at Western universities Studies, because, he says,
Muslim professors will be working for Western department heads and will not be
free to write, teach or engage in extracurricular activities freely. However, I
disagree because this is a pessimistic view. We should be able to understand
the academic system and make these chairs effective. I am
confident
that Muslim scholars should be able to acquire their academic freedom.
But a dialogue between civilizations cannot just be one way.
If we want Westerners to learn more about Islam and Arabic culture, then
Muslims, including Saudis, should learn more about the West -- not only about
its technology, but about the ideas that paved the way for the technology to
blossom.
The University of London has an especially an Institute for
American Studies, and until we start a comparable departments or institutes in
our own kingdom, this is an excellent place for Saudis to study.
Even
with all the shortcomings of the present status of middle Eastern studies in
the USA, there are groups who are advocating that these studies come under
monitoring and scrutinizing of an appointed committee within the congress. This
group wants to bring back the USA into the Mcarthan era. This group is headed
by Daniel Pipes and supported by The Middle East Forum in Philadelphia has put
a web site called www.campus-watch.org
to monitor these studies and report any professor who may have views not in agreement
with the US policies especially towards the Middle East.
If Muslim and Western civilizations can replace clashes with
dialogue, then perhaps in a few years we will have a White House free of the
Orientalist's' black-and-white view of the world, and instead have leaders
capable of seeing human beings in all of their subtle and beautiful colors.
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