Observing the Observer

Abstract

This publication, a collection of ten essays incorporating both quantitative andqualitative studies, has emerged as part of a lengthy research project conductedby the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the Center for Islamand Public Policy (CIPP) beginning in 2004 and concluding in 2007. Naturally,given the state of relations between the United States and those countries perceivedas comprising the “Muslim World,” as well as regular controversies andscandals relating to the American Muslim minority and those who purport toobserve, study, and teach others about them and their religion, such a study isparticularly welcome. The studies included are aimed at both students and specialists,not only in the field of “Islamic studies” itself, but also more broadlywith regard to such related academic fields as theology and anthropology. Anotheraudience is the more general interested reader who might wish to learnwhat may (or may not) have changed in that field attacked so successfully inEdward Said’s great polemic, that its title Orientalism ultimately entered Islamicstudies as a truly condemnatory and pejorative slogan ...