Debates on Civilization in the Muslim World: Critical Perspectives on Islam and Modernity

Since its birth as a concept, civilization has been defined by an encounter with the 'other'. Barbarism, the ever-ready counter concept, has provided civilization with its raison d'être-that of exerting violence upon other societies to 'civilize' them. Enlightenment thinkers defined civilization as an opponent of nature, while science and technology, tools with which nature was to be conquered, became one of the basic indicators of development. Thus was formed the unbroken tie between civil...