Mustafayeva A.A.
Al-Farabi KazNU, Kazakhstan
The Islamic world in the world classification
There has been
produced a common stereotype of Islam around the world. The recent political
and militant processes helped to create the traditional stereotype of the
religion such as “Islam against the modernity”, “Islam and extremism”, “Islam
and terrorism”, “Islam and fundamentalism” are “closely” linked in the minds of
representatives of the media. Nowadays, Islam is a part of the Arab world, even
there is a term “Arab-Islam world”. An important issue is to differentiate the
Arab world and Islamic world or the ethnic group and an adherent of any
religion. Due to the fact in eyes of some representatives of the media and even
academic society two terms “Arab world” and “Islamic world” are similar or the
same. It is necessary to distinguish the Arab world from the Islamic world. The
majority of population of the former is adherents of Islam, but there are as
well as representatives of Christian religion. Some authors support the point
to divide the Muslim civilization into two sub-worlds, on the one hand the Arab
world and on the other hand the non-Arab Muslim world. This distinction is not
solely based upon the historical emergence of the Muslim civilization, but it
maintains its importance in view of the ethnic integration of Muslims. The Arab
world consists of hundreds of millions of people who are the native-speakers of
the Arabic language and adherents to the Arab culture. It stretches from
Morocco in the West to Iraq in the East. In addition to that, many of its
followers live today in Western Europe; there are some minorities of Arab
ethnic in several African countries. The Arabs composes an ethnic with some
common features: one language, culture and history, which is a part of national
legacy. The non-Arab Muslim world is almost as large as the Arab world. In
comparison to the Arab world, the non-Arab world consists of several ethnics,
which do not share a language, history and culture. Nevertheless, history of the non-Arab Muslim world has a close
obvious connection with the spread of Islam from the Arab peninsula in various
directions.
D.S. Margoliouth
divided the countries into three groups depending on the status of Muslim religion
in a state, firstly, Independent states,
in which Islam is the official religion
and others are protectorates, secondly, states
of which is the official religion, but which are not independent, finally, the third group’s relationship is toleration
in states which either have no official religion, or of which the official
religion is not Islam [1, 16].
Samuel
P. Huntington divided the world into eight
civilizations: Western, Islamic,
Hindu, Confucian, Japanese, Latin American and African [2]. On the one hand this classification is complicated,
due to the geographical situation of some Arabic countries located in Africa
continent as well as the role of Islam is as an official religion in them. On
the other hand, the author classifying the world into eight sub-worlds and by
Islamic world means the Arab world preferably; while by African he means the
African continent excepting the countries adhere to the culture of Arabs. The
Islamic world consists of the Arab civilization as well as Muslim countries,
such as Bangladesh, Iran and Indonesia. However, which of the eight sub-worlds
of this classification includes the religiously neutral state of Turkey and the
Turkic speaking populations (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and
Kirgizstan)? The role of religion, particularly Islam is more important than it
is the latter, nevertheless, both of them take participate in the Islamic
world, for instance, conferences, forums, workshops. They can not be considered
as a part of the Islamic world. Kazakhstan, where the number of religions and
confessions is enormous (about 130) and a religion is separated from a state
totally. On the other hand, Islam adopted to the local people tradition,
especially there are a lot of contradictions between “Islam” and “Kazakh
Islam”. Jan-Erik Lane and Hamadi Redissi state, “The Muslim world is as large
in population as the Christian world but it is far less developed. It is bigger
than the Buddhist world, but again it is less developed” [3, 5]. Another in our
opinion is a good statement; they have divided the Muslim civilization into two
worlds: the Arab world and Non-Arab Muslim world respectively. This distinction
is not merely based upon the historical emergence of the Muslim civilization
over time, but it retains its relevance today in view of the ethnic composition
of Muslims.
Arab societies do not include only
Arabic-speaking Muslims, but Christians and Jews, while most of the world’s
Muslims are not Arabs.
There is not a
direct connection between two points of view on “Islam” between the Western
world and Islamic world. The confusion between the Middle East and Islam, the
confusion between Muslims and Arabs.
References
1.
D.S.Margoliouth London Williams and
Norgate Mohammedanism. First edit.
2. Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations, Foreign Affairs, 1993
summer
3. Jan-Erik Lane and hamadi Redissi Religion and politics. Islam and Muslim
Civilisation.- London: Ashgate, 2004
4. Oliver Roy
Globalized Islam The Search for a New Ummah. -
Columbia: Columbia University Press, 2004