Reconsidering ‘Middle East and Islamic studies’ for a changing world

Abstract

It is generally considered that the expression ‘Middle East’ was coined in 1902 by Alfred Thayer Mahan, in an attempt to delineate a region from the Mediterranean to India. Since then, ‘Middle East’ has become an expression to designate everything related with ‘Islam’ and/or ‘Muslims’, and in recent years a linguistic and political development occurred when, during the Bush administration, the term ‘Greater Middle East’ was used to designate the region from Morocco to Afghanistan and, in some cases, to South-East Asia. The aim of this paper is to question the validity and usefulness of these expressions, and to show how they continue to designate, including in the academic world, an object of study which only exists in abstract terms, ignoring the diversity of those regions and the way its inhabitants view themselves and their identities. Using Edward Said's concept of Orientalism, the main focus will be on the academic world and it will try to assess how the knowledge that is still produced in some scholarly environments continues to misinform the way those regions are seen. Current events in North Africa, Egypt and other countries in the Arab world have shown that political reality is changing, and this paper concludes that methods and theories seeking grand explanations for the Islamic world should also change.