Contending Visions of the Middle East is a sophisticated, comprehensive explanation of what Lockman describes as “the politics of knowledge.” It endeavors to represent the deep roots of Orientalism, challenging that the conflict between Islam and the West actually commenced more than nine hundred years ago, predominantly in 1095 with the initiation of the First Crusade in response to Pope Urban II’s appeal to Christians “to unite, mobilize and attack the enemies of God.’”.
In response to this call, “the First Crusade” by the Christians on Muslims was a success, primarily because the Muslims were not prepared for this attack. They, however, managed to fight back the attack and reclaim their sacred lands of Jerusalem and Palestine. Subsequently, the second and third crusades launched by the Christians proved unsuccessful.
The Western church scholars had developed an attitude of “know your enemy” towards the Muslims in their attempt to obtain a more accurate knowledge of Islam in which a major role was played by ‘Peter the Venerable (C.1094-1156)’, who felt that the knowledge of Islam was crucial in order to destroy it. A team of scholars was set to convert the Holy ‘Koran’ into Latin, thus completing the first translation of the Koran by ‘Englishman Robert of Ketton in 1143’. The prime purpose of this task was to prove that the Koran was not an authentic source of Islam and, by doing so, to stop the Christians from converting to Islam and to attack the Muslim faith, thus instigate them to accept Christianity. Nevertheless, nothing they said or could move the Muslims from their firm belief in Muhammad, their Prophet, and their religion Islam.
During this period, the European scholars began to visualize the Muslim world as intellectually rich as compared to their “impoverished” culture and gauged that they might benefit from the Muslims if they attempted a comprehensive study of their culture. As a result, translation, study, and dissemination of volumes of Arabic-language writings on a variety of subjects like medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy were attempted.
This proved to be the first means of access to the Europeans, to the Greek works which had been missing in antiquity by the West but had been preserved in Arabic translation. These translations of Arabic writings were used as textbooks for many years in medieval Europe, and the powerful impact of Arabic writings on Western languages can be understood by the numerous scientific and mathematical terms that are used in the European languages, for example: “alchemy,” which is the basis of the word ‘chemistry, as also ‘algorithm, algebra, alcohol, alkali’ etc., and many names of stars.
Many philosophers of the Latin Church were also profoundly influenced by Islamic philosophy and drew their knowledge of language and concepts from Islamic philosophy of scholars like Maimonides and Avicenna, who wrote many Arabic texts. Lockman goes on to inform us that the Western world greatly admired a Muslim figure who was not a scholar but a military man, called Saladin, who has been depicted in many popular epics, stories, and poems as a “chivalrous, humane, just and wise” person.
By quoting Maria Rosa Menocal from her book, ‘The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History- A Forgotten Heritage,’ Lockman furthers his argument that the Westerners have great problems in acknowledging the influence of the Arabic culture in the “making of medieval Europe” thus validating the point of “re-examination” of the myths that the westerners seemed to have developed about themselves.
The later part of the eleventh and twelfth centuries elucidates Lockman, witnessed the attempts of western scholars to achieve a greater sense of comprehension of the “cultural and intellectual riches of the Muslim world.” Although the Muslim culture and texts gained considerable admiration from western scholars, it was seemingly difficult for them to accept the fact that Prophet Muhammad had received a revelation from God, giving rise to unfair criticism at both academic as well as acceptable levels. The Christians disregarded “Mahomet” as a “magician” and a “sorcerer” who, in his lust for power, produced fake miracles and seduced men into accepting the doctrines of Islam.
Scholars spread this falsity by writing utterly atrocious stories about Prophet Muhammad and thereby demeaning his repute completely. Islam was very often wrongly depicted as a sadistic and brutal religion, and likewise, its supporters were termed as merciless and pitiless extremists. It was the profound ignorance and lack of interest coupled with their sense of superiority on the part of the Christians which helped the development of this “bizarre’ image of Islam and the highly regarded Prophet Muhammad. The Christians perceived Islam as “the dangerous enemy next door,” which continued to pose a serious threat not only as a “powerful” alternative to Christianity but also as a “usurper” of their holy land.
The end of the thirteenth century brought an end to the crusade of the Christians to recover their holy land. Reports of attacks on the Islam Heartlands by the Mongols pleased the Christians greatly in their belief that God had sent the Mongols to destroy Islam once and for all, but this pleasure did not last for long as it was soon revealed that the Mongols had chosen to embrace Islam over Christianity and thus annulling all hopes of the Christians of the impending devastation of Islam.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the perception of Islam as a potential military threat receded, thus dissolving the passion with which the religious crusades had been initiated against Islam, laying the foundation of the establishment of peaceful relations between the Christians and many Muslim states. The theory of ‘Christendom’ slowly began to fade and lose its form as a uniting principle and ‘Europe’ began to emerge as a more secular term.
In the fifteenth century, the ‘Ottomans’ belonging to the Osman dynasty began their successful conquests in the Mediterranean as well as the Red sea giving them control of the most lucrative trade routes between Europe and Asia. The unified western Christians were divided into Catholics and Protestants in the first half of the sixteenth century amidst much violence. The Catholics and the Protestants both denounced each other viewing the other as parallel to Islam.
For a complete period in history, the Ottomans were looked upon as brutal, aggressive, and obsessive “bogeyman of Christian Europe,” evoking fear among the westerners for a long time, who circulated stories of the vices of the Turks and the uncanny reports of the occurrences in the sultan’s harem. Contrastingly some educated European scholars were in awe of the Ottoman for their capability in successfully handling such a great empire, bestowing Sultan Suleiman the epithet of “Magnificent.” Lockman introduces the term ‘Orientalism’ in this section as a study of the religious convictions, historical records, and languages of the Orient, which included almost all of Asia – popularly termed as ‘the land of the rising sun. As the region between Europe and China was predominantly Muslim, Islam was at the obvious center of Orientalism.
The end of the sixteenth century brought with it the end of the Ottoman Empire. The Turks began to be despised for their ill-mannered, corrupt, and ignoble attitudes. In their study and interpretation of great Greek and Roman scholars like Aristotle, the European political thinkers began to visualize their own societies on the basis of freedom and law, where even kings and the Royal Aristocracy had limitations on power and began to recognize the Ottoman empire as an existing example of despotism, where the absolute power rested in the hands of the privileged few.
Until about 1500, Europe was poor, underdeveloped and under populated as compared to other Asian regions like India and China and also the Middle East of today. It was only when it began to trade with these parts of the world that the European region began to prosper. In order to gain direct access to the ‘Spice Islands’ of southeast Asia, which comprised of India, China, and parts of Africa, the Europeans, along with their Portuguese partners, opened new routes to India by establishing ports and colonies, which gave them direct access and subsequent control of the profitable spice business.
The early sixteenth century witnessed the establishment and the building of new empires by the Western countries, consequently increasing the Portuguese Empire in the geographical context and enabling Europe to become the center of the newly developing global economy and gaining the “lion’s share of the vast profits” arising out of the trade and production which took place.
Lockman aspires to explain the “rise of the west” by elucidating the various theories “which laid the basis of Europe’s leap into modernity,” illuminating the virtues or traits that the Europeans possessed or rather, which “the rest” did not. Casting Islam as the West’s “polar opposite”, oriental scholars have had the belief that Islam lacks those very qualities which have contributed to the rise of the West.
However it was the accounts and letters to friends of the wife of Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which were more perceptive and fair-minded than highly fantasized and fanciful accounts of travelers like Voltaire and Montesquieu who said disparaging things about Islam, Muhammad and the Arabs. These letters enlightened the readers about the actual life of the populace of the Ottoman Empire. As such she (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu) was the first Englishwoman to travel in and circulate her observations of the Ottoman lands and had the chance to meet both the male as well as the female members of their households.
Contradicting the prevalent Western images of the women of the Ottoman as “oppressed and miserable” she argued that “they have more liberty than we have…” and that “no Man dare either touch or follow a Woman in the street …” giving them the liberty and freedom to go whenever and wherever they desire without the fear of being noticed or found. She further revealed that she had never seen “a country where women may enjoy so much liberty and free from all reproach as in Turkey”. Needless to say, her writings offered the literate Europeans an absolutely novel and different perspective to the Orient in contrast to the previous ones thus enlightening many of the writers, artists and thinkers about this Era of Enlightenment.