Rereading The Clash of Civilizations in Tariq Alis Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree

Abstract

This article reflects Tariq Ali's efforts to understand the reality of the myth of 'the clash of civilizations' as a socio-materialist scientist to metabolize compellingly inter-connected dimensions of historical 'reality'. The deconstruction of the historic reality provides us with a new prism to view the world from different perspectives, looking at new directions in the politico-historic enterprise. West has had a long tradition of misinterpreting the Crusades as holy wars were meant for the glorification of Christian divine faith, and they have become a metaphor for blessing humanity with West's superior moral values against the 'horror' of Islam. Western academia has been promoting this deceptive view of two 'incommensurable' civilizations. Huntington stretches this view to develop his philosophy of the clash of civilizations'. Tariq Ali is a Marxist socialist who interprets the Spanish history and rewrites the history of the Muslims' relationship and the Christians from a materialist perspective to disprove Huntington's thesis that Islam and Christianity are inherently incompatible for peaceful coexistence because of their totalizing teleological claims. Ali's Islam Quintet, a sequence of five novels, exposes the imperialist agenda behind the clash theory. This article analyzes Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, the first novel of Ali's Islam Quintet, to evaluate Ali's critique of the clash of civilizations.