Leibniz, Islam and cosmopolitan virtue

Samuel Huntington’s article on ‘the clash of civilizations’ in Foreign Affairs (1993) has shaped much of the academic debate about inter-cultural understanding for over a decade. In retrospect, Edward Said’s criticisms of Orientalism (1978) and more especially his Representations of the Intellectual (1994) offered some prospect that intellectuals could cross boundaries between cultures, and forge a pathway towards mutual respect and understanding. In the post 9/11 world, Huntington’s bleak analysis of the development of micro fault-line conflicts and macro core state conflicts has captured the mood of foreign policy in the West in the era of the ‘war on terror’. Huntington of course believes that the major division is between the Christian West and the Muslim world. More recently, Huntington (2003) has even more openly spoken about ‘the age of Muslim Wars’ and widespread Muslim grievance and hostility towards the United States. Any attempt to engage with Islamic civilization is now seen as a ‘war for Muslim minds’