Understanding Islam in the West Can Professional Journalism Help More than Overconfident Academia?

Abstract

Gilles Kepel, Allah in the West: Islamic Movements in America and
Europe (Stanford, CA Stanford University Press, 1997). 273 pp.
Adam LeBor, A Heart Turned East: Among the Muslims of Europe and
America (London: Little, Brown and Company, 1997), 322 pp.
Understanding Islam and the West is not as easy a task as it might
seem. If one attempts to study Muslims living in the West, one is faced
by millions of people who are divided among different states, come from
different ethnic origins, adopt different schools of thought and understanding
within their belief system, and incorporate a realm of perspectives,
movements, subcultures, and contradicting positions toward the
West.
Conversely, if one chooses to study the West in Dar al-Zslum, one is
bound to face a past full of conflict and confrontations, a present of intellectual
hesitation and unbalanced power relationships, and a future of
confusing choices and questions on the prospects of democratidon and
the gains/losses of increasing globalization. Hence, scholars choose to
focus on one aspect. Recent attempts include studying Islam in relation
to the West on a purely philosophical level (e.g., Khuri), the compatibility
of Islam and democracy, the future of the process of democratization
in the Islamic world (e.g., Esposito and Voll), and studying the response
of Muslim intellectuals to the questions and concepts of modernity, (e.g.,
Cooper and Nettler).' ...