The headscarf which is traditionally worn by Muslim women, also known as (al hijab in Arabic and un foulard in French) as a way of demonstrating and maintaining an aura of decency, modesty, and conservatism. And has been worn for hundreds of years by practicing Muslim women. However, in recent years, especially in Western European countries like France, Switzerland, and Belgium, it has come under a great deal of fire from a variety of mostly European critics who view it as a vestige of a more deeply religious past and one that objectifies and demeans women.

This view—especially popular in France—has its roots in a variety of sources which come together to paint the hijab in a very negative light. The manner in which French national identity manifests itself is very important to understanding the backlash against the hijab being worn within the country. Among the republican values held dear to the French people are the views that all citizens are equal and the same; this comes with the unspoken caveat that entails that all people should make a conscious effort to conform to this standard of sameness. Items of clothing like the hijab and the burka are visible markers that make a Muslim woman stand out from the rest of the local population and which obviously preclude her from conforming (at least visibly) to a clear standard of “sameness” and homogeneity. Thus the first factor that causes a negative view of the hijab to be held by French people is that it seems to be a very obvious and noticeable way of demonstrating cultural difference and the individual identity of a subculture within and apart from the larger national culture that the French population identify with.

This is exacerbated by the fact that in France, there is a long history of racial and religious tensions with Muslim and North African People. The hijab—being worn exclusively by Muslims, often from North Africa—therefore represents the embodiment of the “otherness” of the Muslim people of North African descent and heritage which has in the past so vigorously challenged French national identity and French rule.

Furthermore, there exists a stereotypical vision in the “West” which portrays women in Islam as being repressed and subservient to men. That Muslim women cover themselves in veils—as opposed to the more liberal clothing worn by European women—seems to be a visible marker to European people which reinforces their preconceived notions of Islamic misogyny. Of course, the reality behind the hijab and Islamic treatment of women is far more nuanced and cannot truly be simplified to be expressed by one garment.

These three factors work in confluence with one another to create a negative image in Europe—however inaccurate—of the hijab being both a symbol of Islamic refusal to conform to a collective French national identity and of Islamic misogyny and mistreatment of women.

Hello Sir,

I am wiritng to you from Algiers as I have been informed that you are currently preparing to embark an a mission to this new territory. I have decided that it may be useful to you to have a brief introduction and understanding of the local custom and standing within the French Empire, in order to best prepare you for your new assignment.  I will herein briefly outline the living conditions and French policy here for your convenience.

Life in this region is very heavily influenced by religious concerns; traveling through local cities and towns, you will notice that the local architecture and city-planning is very heavily geared towards facilitating the daily prayers which occur five times per day here and houses of worship called mosques–these can be easily spotted as a result of the towering minarets and domed roofs. French government policy will be focused on attempting to secularize the local culture, so I expect that you will need to learn more about the local religious customs upon your arrival as a result of the cultural shifts that we are attempting to bring about.

We will be working not only in social terms but also in a economic, infrastructural, and civil-engineering avenues towards modernizing this city and giving it the level of technological advancement that it obviously lacks by comparison with French cities. You will spend most of your time in the Marine quarter, where you will be surrounded by other military and diplomatic functionaries of various backgrounds. Other areas of the city will be of particular focus in our efforts towards modernization.

It is important to recognize that we may be optimistic in our assessment of the odds of our continued success in the region, given that we are not the first to have taken control of the region. For centuries, Algiers was controlled by the Ottoman empire. A great deal of its existing culture and infrastructure came about as a direct result of Ottoman rule. Suffice to say that an understanding of this history will help you in understanding how we may replicate this act of modernization and civilizing.

The most important of your tasks will be to ensure the security and safety of French-controlled Algiers, especially at times of tumult and enforced change to the way of life to which they have grown accustomed. If we are diligent in maintaining security in Algiers we will be successful in turning the region into a valuable economic asset and you will also be of great assistance in ensuring that we are able to help bring modernization, secularization, and civilization to the local populace.

Best wishes,

Khaled

Quote 1: “I perceived that the ladies with the finest skins and the most delicate shapes…naked, in different postures, some in conversation, some working, others drinking coffee or sherbert, and many negligently lying in conversation while their slaves (generally pretty girls of seventeen or eighteen) were employed in braiding their hair in several pretty manners.”

• This quote is interesting because it highlights some of the exotic/erotic stereotypes that Europeans had about Eatern peoples having voracious or licentious sexual appetites.

Quote 2: “When the pashas travel ’tis yet worse. Those oppressors are not content with eating all that is to be eaten belonging to the peasants, ; after they have crammed themselves and their enormous retinue they have the impudence to exact what they call teeth money, a contribution for using their teeth, worn with doing them the honor of devouring their meat.” However, it was noted, ” …their religion no allowing of this barbarity any more than ours does.”

• This quote also accentuates stereotypes of “Arabs” having enormous and greedy appetites for all luxuries (sex, food, fine wines, luxury goods). In this case, however, it was at least given the caveat that this behaviour is neither permitted, nor encouraged by the rules of Islam.

Quote 3: “…I should be very pleased with reading Alcoran, which is so far from the nonsense we charge it with…I have since heard impartial Christians speak of it in the same manner, and I don’t doubt but that all our translations are from copies got from the Greek priests who would not fail to falsify it with the extremity of the corrupt.”

• This quote is interesting because it is oddly humble and ingratiating of the Turkish/Muslim hosts and their religion. It, unlike many of the other quotes does not just highlight the differences between Islamic/”Oriental” society and Europe, but gives credit where it seems due for the accomplishments and creations of a society.

Quote 4: Regarding womens’ veiling, “This perpetual masquerade gives them entire liberty of following their inclinations without danger of discovery. The most usual method of intrigue is to send an appointment to the lover to meet the lady at a Jew’s shop…ladies seldom let their gallants know who they are, and ’tis so difficult to find out that they can very seldom guess at her name they have corresponded above half a year together. You may easily imagine the number of faithful wives in a very small country where they have nothing to fear from their lovers’ indiscretion…”

• This is yet another quote which indicates the licentious nature of the people in the “Orient”. This may indicate that there is, perhaps, something true about the claims, or that it is merely a very pervasive stereotype. Either way, this would increase the perception of people in the Ottoman Empire as being sexually licentious

Traveling to the Near East will be a major source of cultural clash and anxiety for any diplomat or merchant from Europe seeking to do business in the region. There are a plethora of cultural, religious and historical differences between the Muslims and the Christian peoples of Europe which may get in the way of productively conducting business amongst these foreign people. In this briefing, I will outline some of the most important issues to be aware of in your dealings with the Ottomans.

Firstly, I will guide you through many of the sights that will greet you upon your entrance to an Ottoman city, so as to familiarize yourself beforehand. Ottoman cities contain many places of worship—equivalent in their religion to our churches—known as mosques. You can spot these mosques by their large, domed roofs and by the towering minarets which sprout out of the mosques’ four corners. Five times per day, the streets will echo with the call for Islamic prayer that is called from each of these minarets by the local Imam—a Muslim equivalent to a Christian priest or friar.

Expect to see people of all sorts in a dynamic Ottoman city. As these cities are often centres of trade, they will contain people of all sorts, including “fisherman, soldiers, merchants who trade on land and sea, handicraftsmen, scholars and ulema, and vintners.” (Celebi 179). Expect to see many traders and merchants of all sorts in many an Ottoman town because the Ottoman Empire is both a militarily powerful and economically/culturally vibrant one. Interestingly, all of these people will likely be somewhat accustomed to seeing a foreigner such as yourself in their lands because it is far more common for Christian, European merchants to seek trade and business with the Ottomans than it is for an Ottoman emissary or merchant to visit European lands in search of trade.

The laws of government in Ottoman territories is different to the way that it is done in many republican-style governments found in Europe, including the likes of Vienna. All judicial rulings are done at the behest of the Sultan or his local subordinate and with his (or their) arbitrary judgement, there exists a certain degree of legal uncertainty that may best be avoided altogether by avoiding any and all legal altercations whatsoever. With that said, the rule of law is well upheld in Ottoman territories, with strict corporal punishments meted out in cases of non-adherence.

By and large then the Ottoman people are, while very different from Christian Europeans, a people very much willing to open up diplomatically and commercially to Europeans. So long as you are aware of some of the more idiosyncratic cultural practices you may see and are willing to carefully learn and abide by their laws, you will be successful in your trade with the Ottomans. It is for this reason that the Venetians have been able to establish and maintain such longstanding commercial and diplomatic ties for so long—despite Turkish wars with other European states on many an occasion.

The image of European Christendom and its self-perception is a complex and multifaceted matter which can be traced to a variety of source. Among them, early interactions–both violent and peaceful–between the faiths of Christianity and Islam may have helped to shape this self-perception in multiple ways. Specifically, the Crusades and the preceding violence were among the most pivotal events in the inter-faith relations of Christianity and Islam and were a crucial turning point for European Christendom’s image of Islam and thus of itself as well.

During the time of the Crusades and especially during the time immediately prior to it, Christian Europe was extremely fractured. It was a region of near-constant conflict, warfare, and turmoil. It is hard to say that, at this time, there was a clearly defined self-perception among the Christian people of Europe. However, in the decades preceding the First Crusade, the Christians did find themselves confronting an increasing powerful, unified–and alien–force of Muslims who were making large and momentous growth in their territorial expansion through both simple trade and social contact, as well as large-scale military expansion. This new threat to Christendom brought into question the very faith that the people of Europe and their clergy held so dear. How could  an army of “godless” (i.e. non-Christian) Muslims be experiencing such success in the face of resistance from God-fearing Christians? There appeared only to be a two possible answers to religious observers: the Muslims were indeed the force now favored by God or the Christians were being punished for their sins had to double down on their faith in order reclaim the support of God.

When, in 1095, Pope Urban II recieved an urgent plea for help from Alexios I Komnenos, the then Byzantine emperor to help fend off the invading Seljuks (in modern-day Turkey), he saw an opportunity. Urban II used this war as a unifying factor to reclaim a sense of purpose, duty, and identity for Western European Christendom in that he gave thousands of men and women a cause around which they could rally–one that also conveniently placed him in a position of increased power and prestige. This is how the First Crusade was eventually born, but it is also one of the early moments of the emerging self-perception of Christian Europe. This is because the Christians of Europe a=now had a unifying cause that reinforced their identity as Christians–charged with the duty of ridding the Holy Land of the invading Muslims. Through this mechanism a sort of process was created whereby the Christian identity was strengthened through violent contact with Muslims, as each such encounter strengthened the idea of “us” as God-fearing, civilized Christians and “them” as godless, barbaric Muslims. It is through this mechanism of contrasting the other with the self that the European Christian identity begins to consolidate and emerge in its own right.

As is stated in Neighboring Faiths, by David Nirenberg the patriarch of Jerusalem exhorted his flock to “correct ourselves..If we constrain ourselves, we shall see [the Muslims’] final destruction.” In this case, the Patriarch said this, because he viewed the invading Muslims as a scourge from God as a punishment for “countless sins and very serious faults.” This view was not isolated to the Eastern Christians, as European Christians also viewed the conflict with the Muslims as a test of their faith and loyalty to God–one that would unite them in faith and identity as well as in cause.

In this assignment, I chose to focus on a series of points that would highlight the important stages and factor of the rise and spread of Islam. While the rise and spread of Islam is a very wide and far-ranging topic, I think that there are a few points from our reading that are worth mentioning. It is important to understand the context of the religion itself in the sense that it is the third of the three Abrahamic religions, so this was the first point I focused on. Islam is a monotheistic religion, which means that it is a religion with one god as opposed to many. It is important to recognize that it was a major contrast with a number of other religious practices that were in place in the time. It is important also to understand the significance of the religion’s main prophet, Mohammed and how he contributed to the rise and spread of the religion. He was the original man to bring the Qur’an to the public attention. He also served as the first military and civil leader of the followers of the religion and thus he set the precedent of the Caliph, which was followed by later leaders. The Qur’an is the text that contains all of the holy scriptures of the religion and it is analogous to the Bible or Torah. The early beginnings of the religion are important in that it was the first time in which the followers of Mohammed engaged in armed conflict—something that would happen in multiple other instances later in history. It is important to note that the religion was spread both through civilian means—trade and cultural contact—as well as martial means—via conquest and military conflict. The religion started in the Arabian Peninsula and subsequently spread throughout the Levant, and Mediterranean, including Europe. The focus of the religion’s worship is towards mecca, specifically the Kaabah. This is done in mosques, which are the Islamic temples of worship. These were built in many locations as a mark of territory as the religion’s following spread around the Middle East. As its domain became larger and larger it became organized into a system of theocratic government which became known as the Caliphate. The Caliphate was ruled by many leaders from many locations which shifted over time. The succession of one of the leaders of the Caliphate led at one point to a rift that split the Muslim world into two main camps: Shi’ites and Sunnis. Trade with Europe was an important source of economic and cultural exchange for the Islamic world. Unfortunately, not all interactions with other—Christian—cultures. The Crusades were a series of armed conflicts in which Christians and Muslims fought for control over the Holy Land, today’s Palestine and Israel. This means that it is also important to understand the concept of Jihad, which literally means “struggle” in Arabic. This struggle is meant to be a struggle against evil, which can also be interpreted in a martial sense when other religions may be referred to as evil.

Below is the link to my Prezi presentation.

http://prezi.com/ru80vze9kppb/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

-Khaled Ahmed