Western Hegemony & the Middle East

an Analysis of Islam a Thousand Years of Faith And Power

This paper will explore how the book Islam a Thousand Years of Faith and Power by

Bloom and Blair, attempts to counter hegemonic depictions and narratives of Muslims and the

Arab world, in the United States. This paper will argue that Blair and Bloom’s book, through its

historical accounts, challenges hegemony by framing Islam and Muslims in the Arab world in a

more positive light, by acknowledging their contributions to the arts and sciences during what is

known as the “Golden Age”, by establishing that their are no regional boarders to islam and their

brief but impactful mentions of western colonialism as a contributor to the fall of Islamic powers.

Historically the western world has attempted to other the Muslims and Arab world, in an

effort to expand cultural, political and economic hegemony, most notably with the Crusades.

The Council of Clermont in France 1095 CE., marked the beginning of Crusades when Pope

Urban II gave a speech designed to consolidate Europe’s Catholic identity, as a way to expand

the territorial reach of its powers (Blair & Bloom, 2000, p. 93). In this speech he attempted other

the Arab and Muslim populations in Jerusalem, claiming the Christian Crusaders, according to

Blair & Bloom (2000) must, “Recover the Holy Sepulchre, Christ’s tomb in jerusalem, from the

“Saracens” what the Greeks and Romans had called the nomadic people of Arabia and Syria” (p.

93). In those times the word “Saracens” was a bigoted term, denoting “non-christian, heathen,

and pagan” people (Etymology Dictionary). This othering of Arab and Muslim people, made the

Crusaders especially brutal towards these groups, Pope Urban II had essentially stripped Arabs

and Muslims of their humanity, to expand the churches hegemonic powers. The brutality of the
Crusaders, can be seen in this excerpt from Blair & Blair (2000), after taking Nicaea, Antioch,

and Edessa,

The Crusaders then moved on to Jerusalem, which had been occupied in August

1098 by a Fatimid army from Egypt. On July 15, 1099, after a forty-day siege, the

Crusaders triumphantly entered Jerusalem, having achieved their goal in less than three

years since Urban’s ringing call. Tancred, the leader of the Crusader army, promised the

inhabitants protection, but his orders were disobeyed, and virtually all Muslims and Jews

- men, women, and children- perished in the general slaughter that followed. (p. 95)

This excerpt is followed by a letter from an Jewish pilgrim, which suggests that the Jewish

population understood that the Christians posed a greater threat to their existance than the

Muslim leadership at that time (Blair & Bloom, 2000, p. 95). Bloom & Blairs work here, begins

the framing of Islam as having a more humanistic history, than Christianity, which is the

dominate religion in the western world.

In contemporary times Muslims in the Arab world and non-muslim arabs world have

generally been stereotyped in U.S. film and media , depicted as turban wearing “barbarians” or

murderous “savages”. We see this stereotyping when we look at the original lyrics to a song in

the Disney film “Aladdin”, which according to Roberts (2017) were,

Oh, I come from a land, from a faraway place

Where the caravan camels roam

Where they cut off your ear

If they don’t like your face

It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.

Such depictions in children's cartoons and movies are not uncommon, for example one cartoon

had a wrestler named Akbar who was introduced by the narrator as the villain who, “likes to hear
the cracking of bones, and when he makes those faces, he is ugly, ugly” (Roberts, 2017). These

lyrics and other negative depictions in media are done all over the western world but especially

in the U.S. to create a sense of shared identity, to secure a political and economic hegemony for

whiteness, christianity, and secularism (Funk & Said, 2004, p. 5). This creation of a shared

identity which positioned itself as cultural and political opponent to Islam and Arab countries,

has set the stage for western neocolonialism, following the collapse of many colonial powers

after WWII, when Muslim and Arab “nation-states” began to emerge (Funk & Said, 2003, p. 11).

With the U.S. attempting to transform these “nation-states” into client states for the U.S. in the

new globalized economy (Gebelhoff, 2015). After the 9/11 attacks the characterization of

Muslims and Arabs as “ barbaric” and “blood thirsty terrorist”, in U.S. media began to dominate

and suppress all other narratives, narratives which sought to draw attention to humanity of and

create respect for Arabs and Muslims, in the eyes of U.S. body politic. Funk & Said (2000)

supports this saying, “The dominant image of Islam in the West conveys the idea that the

religion of approximately one fifth of humanity is an intolerantly ideological and prone to

violence” (p. 13).

This historical and cultural context supports the idea that the depictions of Arabs and

Muslims in U.S. media as the “villain”, is done to advance U.S. hegemonic control of the Middle

East. Which is why this paper argues that Blair & Bloom’s book is such a vitally important piece

of work, as it counters dominant U.S. representations and understandings of Muslim and Arab

people. The scope of this book is limited as it covers only in part pre-islamic Arab society,

mainly addressing events from the time of the Prophet Muhammad up until around 1600 CE.,

and doesn't cover much of the history of Western colonialism and imperialism in both the Arab

world and countries with a large muslim population such as India. The bulk of the social justice
work which comes from this text occurs in Part II The Golden Age, 750-1250, where Bloom &

Blair recount the vital intellectual contributions of Muslims and Arabs to the arts and sciences.

Including contributions in mathematics such as Hindu-Arabic numeral system which transformed

commerce and is still used today, the mathematics book “The Book of Summary concerning

Calculation by Transposition and Reduction” by al-Khwarizmi which resolved quadratic

equations, and the mathematical process of algebra which is also attributed al-Khwarizmi

( Bloom & Blair, 2000, p.127-128) . Al-Khwarizmi was also the first person to very accurately

predict the circumference of the Earth, ( Blair & Bloom, 2000, p.129) . Muslim phycician, Ibn al-

Haytham is now considered to be the father of optics as he was the first to accurately explain

how human sight worked (Blair & Bloom 2000, p131). Similarly Ibn al-Nafis discovered

pulmonary circulation of blood, expanding upon the work Muslim and Arab scientists which the

fallibility of the ancient Greeks, and predating similar discoveries in the western world (Blair &

Bloom, 2000, p. 131- 132). The book also elaborates on the works of philosophers, artists, poets,

etc., showing the excellence of Muslim and Arab thinkers across many disciplines.

This book also acknowledges the brilliant architectural contributions of Muslim’s and

Arabs, by drawing our attention to The Alhambra, which according to Blair & Bloom (2000) is,

The best surviving example of a medieval Islamic palace...Although today the Alhambra

is the most popular tourist site in all of Spain, in its own day it was much less important.

The Nasrids were a relatively minor power at the western fringe of the Islamic world at a

time when the Mediterranean was beginning to wane of importance. (p. 178-180)

Blair & Blooms contextualization of The Alhambra, invites its audience to fantasize about the

marvelous Islamic architectural sights we might see today in Spain and elsewhere, if not for the

fall of great Islamic powers and Christian repurposing and destruction of Islamic architecture.
 By highlighting the cultural, scientific, and economic achievements of Arabs and

Muslims, Blair and Bloom counter the dominant narrative in U.S. culture and media of the

“mindless barbarians”, inviting audiences to view Muslims and Arabs especially in this “Golden

Age” as the quintessential contributors to the advancement of societies everywhere on the globe,

and disrupting the idea of anglo and European superiority. Blair & Blooms documentation of

Islamic expansion, specifically the Mughal Empire, invites audiences to develop an

understanding of Islam as global religion, which should not be viewed soley as a religion of the

Arab world. By highlighting other areas of the world which have large muslim populations, Blair

and Bloom’s book, encourages its readers to view Islam and muslims through a different lense

one which counters and attempts to remove the label of “terrorists”, from Islamic practitioners.

The framing of the European Crusaders as religious fanatics/terrorists attempting to expand their

hegemonic powers, through the brutal slaughtering of Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem also forces

readers in the U.S. to question their preconceptions. Especially when you consider that the

Crusaders deployed narratives similar to those we see today regarding Muslims and Arabs. This

framing becomes extremely important as the readers reach this book's epilogue, when the authors

briefly discuss the role of western capitalism and colonialism in Islamic countries. While it does

not delve into these topics, their framing of the western world during the time within the scope of

the book encourages the reader to further their knowledge and education on these issues using

the same skeptical lens. Drawing attention to hegemonic cultural, political, and economic

aspirations of the U.S. in the Islamic and Arab worlds.

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stereotyping-of-arabs-dies-at-81.html.

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https://www.etymonline.com/word/saracen.