The Mosaic of Islam: A Conversation with Perry Anderson

Just the thought of an interview conducted by Perry Anderson was enough to arouse my curiosity about this book. But what really fascinated me was Suleiman Mourad's brilliant insights into the theology and politics of Islam, by recognising its multiple stances and historical trajectories. In a sense, thinking of Islam as mosaic can be a way of reclaiming humanity to the Muslim community (umma) and thus support forms of resistance against dehumanisation imposed by Western-centred representations of Islam. It also reveals the ways in which this hatred and dehumanisation is more often than not driven by a misunderstanding of the historical context in which Islam flourished, which not only prevents one from identifying revelant links with Christianity or Judaism but also informs a recurrent narrative that portrays Muslims as the fatal enemy of Western civilization, legitimising the rise of a modern Crusade (like the one most visible in US foreign policy during the Bush era) that ultimately denies agency to a whole community for the sake of the so called national interest.