Islam and the West: reliving and reframing the cultural, religious and ideological migration of ideas

Abstract

Religion and migration can be understood as two interrelated sides of the same coin, which is why a deeper, better, as well as more accurate understating of Islam (including the social, political, cultural, and ideological aspects) could highly influence governmental response in the field of migration management. In the context of migration in Europe, a useful starting point surrounds common misunderstandings and misconceptions related to Islam as a culture in terms of its social, religious, and political declinations. For academics, the magnitude of the interactions, challenges and clashes between the Mediterranean’s various shores throughout history is considered commonplace, as is the decisive contribution of Arabic and Islamic culture in shaping some crucial elements of the European culture. So why then, has the West forgotten, or continued to hide, its Islamic and Arabic roots? Why not acknowledge the value of Islam as part of a common, shared, cultural milieu? To address these questions, we investigate the theoretical proposals of Campanini and Bulliet and, additionally, try to frame the East-West dialectic process in terms of hegemonic cycles using the Hassan Hanafi philosophical paradigm. The main objective of this paper is, therefore, to propose theoretical suggestions (which we recommend be upscaled in the future, via a more structured research) for detecting how the diverse and complex nature of hegemonic processes are almost naturally inclined to annihilate, depersonalize and dissolve cultural identities.