Title: Islam Within Europe: A Clash of Civilizations?
Abstract:The commonly mentioned and discussed contraposition of the two civilizations namely Islam vs. West has brought about numerous debates among contemporary writers, politicians and statesmen. Putting rel...The commonly mentioned and discussed contraposition of the two civilizations namely Islam vs. West has brought about numerous debates among contemporary writers, politicians and statesmen. Putting religion (Islam) and civilization (West) on oppositional grounds, the two should come to be mutually exclusive in this context. However, the West actually contains a huge portion of Islam while there is no West in the Islam. Whereas Islam fights against the Western values not to emerge into their own, the West does not mind Islam to become a part of its civilization by supporting freedom of religious views. The ?civilizational consciousness? of the followers of Islam being secular bases the cultural identity of people around religion, while the Western society does not necessarily identify its cultural status with religion. As an example of a case study can be the observation of the Turkish-German community and their activities in becoming integrated into the German society while attempting to preserve the ?in-between? national identity of Europeanized Turks. The tradition of the hejab (Muslim wear (preserved by the Muslim communities in Europe, particularly in France, has been drawing debates by the French government. To become fully-fledged members of the French society, the government requires immigrants to obey and take up social norms and standards of the French way of life, which, in the case of Muslims, brings about an authentic type of clash between the two civilizations. These are only a few of many specific cases that can be discussed in the context of cultural clashes existent in the European pluralistic society and beyond it.Read More
Publication Year: 2011
Publication Date: 2011-08-26
Language: en
Type: book
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