An overview of the impact of Western perceptions on the Muslim Middle East

M.A.The history of Islam in modern times is essentially the history of the Western impact on the Muslim society. The Islamic religion assumed a position as the ultimate and final revelation versus Christianity and Judaism. Islam also developed its own unique civilisation within the religious parameters that were different from those in the West. With territorial expansion the two worlds had an impact on each other. Although contact had taken place before, the Crusades were the first major impact of the West on the Islamic world. With the decline of the OttomarrEmpire and the subsequent colonial expansion into the Islamic world, the adoption of Western views and influences were increasingly seen as being progressive, while those of the Islamic world represented stagnation. Together with colonisation came the mind set of the Western world towards the Islamic world that influenced perceptions, as well as policies. With modernisation came disillusionment that resulted in the questioning of what the West had to offer. This resulted in various actions and reactions against the West, but the Islamic world still experienced that it was behind the contemporary world. Its retrogression has been blamed on the failure of the Muslim society to transform the theoretical civilisation framework of Islam into an operational form, while the West has kept and enhanced its parameters. The problematic issues taking the two civilisations into the twenty-first century are what adjustments are to be made to ensure survival. The question is in what manner Islam can be modernised or whether modernity must be Islamised and what adjustments are going to be forthcoming from the Arab world. The choice is between submitting to one of the contending versions of modern civilisation that are offered to them, merging their own culture and identity in a larger and dominating whole, or following those who urge them to turn their backs upon the West. In this manner they may succeed in renewing their society from within, meeting the West on terms of equirco-operation