On the Muslim Question

by Anne Norton

Overview

Why “the Muslim question” is really about the West and its own anxieties—not Islam

In this fearless, original book, Anne Norton demolishes the notion that there is a “clash of civilizations” between the West and Islam. What is really in question, she argues, is the West’s commitment to its own ideals: to democracy and the Enlightenment trinity of liberty, equality, and fraternity. In the most fundamental sense, the Muslim question is about the values not of Islamic, but of Western, civilization.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691195940
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	01/21/2020
Series:	The Public Square , #2
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Anne Norton is the Stacey and Henry Jackson President’s Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Her books include Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire and 95 Theses on Politics, Culture, and Method.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Ruth O'Brien ix
Introduction On the Muslim Question: Philosophy, Politics, and the Western Street 1
Part I Muslim Questions

• Chapter 1 Freedom of Speech 15
• Chapter 2 Sex and Sexuality 45
• Chapter 3 Women and War 67
• Chapter 4 Terror 82
• Chapter 5 Equality 94
• Chapter 6 Democracy 118

Part II In the Western Street

• Chapter 7 Where Is Europe? 141
• Chapter 8 "Islamofascism" and the Burden of the Holocaust 164
• Chapter 9 In the American Desert 176
• Chapter 10 There Is No Clash of Civilizations 195

Acknowledgments 229
Notes 233
Index 247

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This is an extraordinary book—an impassioned, astute, and erudite critique that strongly refutes the 'clash of civilizations' rhetoric and the stereotypes shaping contemporary discussions of Muslims in the West. It further proposes a concrete alternative vision of democracy in diverse societies. The argument is original and sophisticated and the writing is beautiful—graceful, assertive, and clear. I think this book will achieve instant status as a classic of our time."—Joan W. Scott, Institute for Advanced Study

"This is a crisp and bracing snapshot of the ways in which the so-called Muslim problem serves as a repository for a host of Euro-American anxieties, fears, and doubts rather than as an accurate reflection of Islam or the behavior of actual Muslims. One of the great strengths of the book is how it joins a wonderfully eclectic journey through politics, film, scholarship, clothing, fiction, and language with an attention to the different ways the United States and Europe formulate and respond to 'the Muslim problem."—Roxanne Euben, Wellesley College

Editorial Reviews

"Is there a clash of civilizations, as Samuel Huntington maintained, between the Muslim world and the West? Norton's response will be of interest to students of geopolitics and Islamic studies."

Kirkus Reviews

"She scores many hits, and illuminates the smug racism behind much recent blazoning of Enlightenment values."—-Paul Laity, Prospect

"Two strengths make Norton's work stand out in the crowded field of books that address Islam and democracy. First is her insistence on considering Islamic voices of the past and present, from medieval philosopher al-Farabi to Qutb and Ramadan, as conversation partners within the Western tradition. Second is her concise rebuttal of prominent philosophers, in particular Jacques Derrida, John Rawls and Slovaj Zizek, each of whom has perceived a danger in the nature of Islam."—-Steve Young, Christian Century

"Professor Anne Norton of the University of Pennsylvania, is a liberal academic who takes on all the anti-Muslim hysterics, right wing paranoiacs and sloppy thinkers in this measured and profoundly thought-provoking book."—-Charles H. Middleburgh, Middleburgh Blog

From the Publisher

"Anne Norton provides us with a window into the interaction between European versions of modernity and the Islamic experience, drawing attention to how Muslims often face resistance and hatred as they enter into previously constituted elements of European society."

Tikkun

Two strengths make Norton's work stand out in the crowded field of books that address Islam and democracy. First is her insistence on considering Islamic voices of the past and present, from medieval philosopher al-Farabi to Qutb and Ramadan, as conversation partners within the Western tradition. Second is her concise rebuttal of prominent philosophers, in particular Jacques Derrida, John Rawls and Slovaj Zizek, each of whom has perceived a danger in the nature of Islam.

Christian Century - Steve Young

She scores many hits, and illuminates the smug racism behind much recent blazoning of Enlightenment values.

Prospect - Paul Laity

What to do about the Muslims? It's a question, writes Norton (Political Science/Univ. of Pennsylvania; Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire, 2004, etc.), that non-Muslims have been asking, and the answers have been few. If the question of a religiously observant Jewish enclave within European societies weighed heavily on thinkers of the Enlightenment, then the matter of a religiously observant--not to say fundamentalist--Muslim enclave within the secular West has excited much recent argument, principled or not. Norton observes, for instance, that for many thinkers, including the late Christopher Hitchens, the "Muslim question" is really the question of religion writ large, with the added twist of whether a secular society should be expected to tolerate those who would dismantle it if they came into power. The governments of the West, writes the author, "hesitate to include [Muslims], hesitate to extend them the rights and privileges of citizenship." That is less true of the United States than of Europe, and if Muslims in this country suffer "discrimination, surveillance, detention, and imprisonment," by Norton's account, the worst offenders have been European nationalists such as Holland's murdered agitator Theo van Gogh. While those nationalists have reacted to provocations such as the rioting in the Muslim world in the wake of apparently anti-Islamic cartoons in a Danish newspaper, then, Norton remarks, it has to be recalled that almost all the violence that ensued was visited by Muslims upon other Muslims in Muslim countries. Norton sometimes channels Slavoj Zizek in a knotty and not entirely satisfactory way, as when she offers a sort of semiotics of space at Abu Ghraib: "The Iraqis are confined in shackles, in cells, in a prison, in a country they cannot leave, whose boundaries they cannot close." Mostly, though, she offers a sympathetic, tolerant and evenhanded view of events. Is there a clash of civilizations, as Samuel Huntington maintained, between the Muslim world and the West? Norton's response will be of interest to students of geopolitics and Islamic studies.

Kirkus Reviews