Crossing the Eastern Divide: Western Civilization and Islam in the Views of Chaadaev and Gokalp

Abstract

This article approaches the question of what constitutes Western civilization and its relationship with Islam from the vantage point of two thinkers from outside Western Europe, Peter Chaadaev and Ziya Gokalp. Chaadaev was an Orthodox Christian from nineteenth-century Russia and Gokalp was a Muslim from the Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century. Starting from very different premises and arguing along completely different lines, both men judged Western civilization positively while determining that Islam resided within Western civilization and concluding that Islam and the West belong together. The writings of Chaadaev and Gokalp remind us that the mental boundaries of faiths, cultures, and civilizations need not be imagined as the fault lines of conflict.