What is a caliphate? How the Islamic State tries to boost its legitimacy by hijacking a historic institution

Just days after the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Oct. 27, the Islamic State named Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi as the new “caliph.”

In 2014, IS conquered vast swaths of Iraq and Syria and declared itself to be the “caliphate.” 

Defined and applied in different ways over the centuries, the fundamental idea behind the caliphate is the just ordering of society according to the will of God. 

The Islamic State’s caliphate was never widely recognized among the global Muslim community and no longer has significant territory. But the Islamic State still uses the history of the caliphate to push their claims.

As a scholar of global Islam, every time I teach my “Introduction to Islam” class, questions about the caliphate come up, in part because of IS’s claims. 

Caliph conundrums

The leader of a caliphate is called the caliph, meaning deputy or representative. All caliphs are believed to be the successor to Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad was not a caliph; according to the Quran he was the last and greatest of the prophets. 

That means no one can replace Muhammad as the messenger of God. The caliph, for example, is not always seen as holding special spiritual authority. But he is meant to preside over the caliphate in the absence of Muhammad.

The debate over who was the rightful representative of the prophet began immediately after his death. While the majority supported Abu Bakr – one of the prophet’s closest companions – a minority opted for his young son-in-law and cousin, Ali. 

Abu Bakr’s supporters would come to be known as Sunni Muslims, who believe that Muhammad did not leave instructions regarding his successor. Those who felt Ali was appointed by the prophet to be the political and spiritual leader of the fledgling Muslim community became known as Shiite Muslims. 

Abu Bakr was the first caliph and Ali the fourth. 

The second and third caliphs were Umar and Uthman. Under Umar, the caliphate expanded to include many regions of the world such as the lands of the former Byzantine and Sassanian empires in Asia Minor, Persia and Central Asia. Uthman is credited with compiling the Quran. 

That al-Baghdadi adopted the name of the first caliph was no coincidence. Together, Sunni Muslims call the first four caliphs the Rashidun, or the “Rightly Guided Caliphs,” because they were close companions or relations of Muhammad. They are also believed to be extraordinarily pious. This period lasted about 30 years. 

The complex history of the caliphate

After rebels assassinated Uthman in A.D. 656, Ali was elected caliph. However, a civil war soon broke out between Ali and Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan. The civil war ended in Sufyan’s victory and the formation of the Umayyad caliphate in A.D. 661. 

The Umayyad dynasty lasted 89 years.

The Abbasid dynasty descended from Muhammad’s uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib, and succeeded the Umayyads.

These two caliphates oversaw the continuing expansion of the empire. Under them architecture, the arts and sciences flourished.

For example, the “Dome of the Rock,” a shrine in the Old City of Jerusalem, was built under an Umayyad caliph as a monument to the rising supremacy of their empire.

The Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem (PHOTO: Ken Chitwood).

The Grand Library of Baghdad, also known as the “House of Wisdom,” was supported by Abbasid patronage. The “House of Wisdom” is credited with being a center of translation, scientific study and academic exchange. This period of flourishing, from the eighth to the 14th century, is often referred to as the “Islamic Golden Age.”

Both before and after the fall of the Abbasids in A.D. 1258, a succession of various empires made overlapping and competing claims to the caliphate. These included the Mamluks of Cairo and the Umayyads in Cordóba, Spain. 

In 1517, the Turkish Ottomans amassed enough land and power throughout Asia Minor, North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and Eastern Europe to claim the title “caliphate.” Ottoman sultans, however, were not universally recognized as caliphs. Many Muslims believe that the caliphate effectively ended after the Mongol conquest of Abbasid Baghdad in A.D. 1258.

Nonetheless, the Ottomans effectively held on to that title until 1924, when the Turkish nationalist and secularist Kemal Ataturk abolished the caliphate. 

Resurrecting the caliphate?

The idea of the caliphate, which the Islamic State has forcefully promoted, recalls a time and a place when Islamic states flourished politically, economically and socially. It also summons up a spiritual vision of a supposedly more devout and dedicated Muslim community than exists today. 

Other modern-day Islamists have called for a resurrection of the caliphate, or at least its ideals, as a way to recapture the vibrancy of the past. However, only violent extremist groups such as al-Qaida or the Islamic State have tried to make it a tangible reality.

Killing al-Baghdadi has not quashed the Islamic State’s version of the caliphate. The idea lives on and continues to motivate its members in enclaves across the globe. It is worth mentioning that the name of their new caliph is an honorific title for a member of Prophet Muhammad’s family – “al-Qurashi.” This prophetic lineage is one more way IS is trying to resurrect the history of the caliphate for its destructive purposes.

The problem with American Muslims

The problem with American Muslims is not, necessarily, that they want to enforce the shari’ah in the U.S. Nor is it that Islam is an inherently violent religion or that Muslims in the U.S. are some sort of secret "fifth column" lurking in our midst. It is not even that Muslims are not vocal enough in denouncing acts of terror perpetrated in the name of their faith. 

No, the problem with American Muslims is not their complicity in violence, their silence during crisis issues, or their religion in and of itself. 

Instead the problem with, or rather for, American Muslims are the categories and conceptions, from within and without, that are forced upon them and within which they are required to forge their identity, and make sense of the world, according to their faith. 

What are these categories and concepts? As Michael Muhamad Knight shared at the University of Florida last month, “American Islam is still fighting for its space and contesting false dichotomies of authenticity on all sides.” On one side, American Muslims are fighting to be considered truly “American” by the country they call home. On the other, they are struggling to be considered genuinely “Muslim” as they work out how to submit to God and country, knowing full well that they are shaped by the context in which they live.  

Furthermore, Muslims are constantly barraged with questions that force them, as individuals or as minority communities, to answer for every word spoken or every deed done in the name of their faith. Their responses immediately categorize them as either violent or peaceable, moderate or extremist, fundamentalist or progressive when, in reality, what Islam is to the people who believe and practice it is shaped by their own personal experiences, the historical thrust of their faith, their current context, and an interplay and tension with the global umma (Muslim community). In a word, there are numerous Islams — structurally and interpersonally. Thus, it is unfair of outsiders (or insiders for that matter) to point the finger at Muslims and demand a response for where they stand on major crises and for their response to be gauged as authentic or not, representative or not, Muslim or not, moderate or not, American or not, violent or not, fundamentalist or not, etc. 

Indeed, it also unfair of us to do so without concomitantly interrogating our own philosophy or religion’s history, words, deeds, and present posture on such issues. 

Abdullah’i An-Naim, the Chandler Professor of Law at Emory University and an activist engaged in human rights issues, Islam, and cross-cultural crises spoke to this topic in a convincing manner last week at the University of Florida in conjunction with its Center for Global Islamic Studies.

An-Naim argued that “religious identity cannot be framed by fixed modalities” such as the ones noted above. Especially not in progressive, modern, societies such as the U.S. 

Why? Contending that Islamicity is fluid, An-Naim posited that Muslims are constantly contesting and remolding what it means to be Muslim given their current context, geo-political trends, philosophical currents, and personal experiences. Unfortunately, he intimated, too often this debate, both internal and external, is overpowered by colonial discourses still shaped by former, or present, imperial powers (implicating the U.S. here and its continual involvement in the affairs of Muslim nations for its own ends). 

An-Naim even critiqued post-colonial confabulations, saying that while this discourse was, and is, crucial to the individual and collective understanding of Muslims in the modern world, Muslims must move beyond allowing colonial powers (and their concepts and categories) to define who they are or who they could be. 

Looping back to where we started, colonial forces continue to compel Muslims to justify and explain their viability as Muslims (or Americans, peaceable people, etc.) according to colonial discourse, not Muslim conceptualizations of what it means to be Muslim.

This is why al-Dawla al-Islamiyya (a.k.a. ISIS, ISIL, IS) is so compelling to many young Muslims seeking out an identity in a Westernized, globalized, and secularized world. Feeling isolated and de-centered, many Muslims see in ISIS an opportunity to establish Islamic sovereignty along Muslim lines and to buck colonial categories and constrictions.  

In place of the Islamist, post-Islamist, Salafist, or jihadist post-colonial projects An-Naim proposes a “past-colonial” program that serves as an alternative Muslim vision that encourages tolerant public space and ample room for dissent, discussion, disbelief, and dialogue. 

To do this, An-Naim argued, Muslims must come to terms with the post-colonial and legitimize and indigenize its concepts and imperatives in a vividly Muslim way so that they can uphold them as their own and not just as a matter of course or according to colonial philosophies. 

Novelly, An-Naim suggested that the shari’ah is integral to this process of re-engaging Islamic agency in defining what it means to be Muslim in the modern world.

I ask you, in this moment, to suspend your preconceptions of the shari’ah and listen to An-Naim’s argumentation. From his perspective, the shari’ah is not a fixed institution, that it has no moment of foundation, nor is it internally or eternally consistent. Instead, he posits, the shari’ah is an evolving process of establishing Islamic law according to intergenerational consensus that seeks to make Islamic law immediately relevant to the formation of past-colonial institutions and spaces in countries where Muslims are either majorities or minorities. This means that, for An-Naim, the shari’ah cannot be enacted as a state law because, by its very nature, it denies formulaic notions in that it constantly needs to adapt to new contexts through constant consultation among numerous Muslim, and non-Muslim, constituencies. 

Certainly, An-Naim’s proposals are revolutionary for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. We are not accustomed, or at times comfortable, with this type of talk. 

The key here, to simplify his argument a bit, is Muslim agency in defining what it means to be Muslim and live in the modern world, as either a majority or minority. 

Still, I inquired of him that night, what is the role of non-Muslims (like myself) and scholars, or interested parties, in changing the conversation and creating spaces for Muslim agencies in this discourse? 

An-Naim suggested that Muslims and non-Muslims work hard at creating solidarities across religious boundaries and that non-Muslims stridently commit to not stripping Muslims of their right to decide what it means to be Muslim. 

He had this great quote for those of us in “the ivory tower of academia” that is not only applicable in this discussion, but in many areas of public dialogue and activism. He said, “academics are not just academics; they are humans too. Scholarship can never be neutral. Our feigned neutrality is in itself a position in favor of maintaining the status quo" (Islamophobia, violence enacted in the name of Islam). He continued, "we should engage this topic from our humanity and take a stance conditioned by our positioning, advocating for a change of the status quo and the need to engage in a past-colonial discourse.” 

In this solidarity and active dialouge, Muslims will need to deconstruct (and reconstruct) what it means to be Muslim and non-Muslims, especially those in the majority (in my case the U.S. as state power and Christianity as dominant religion) need to deconstruct, and reconstruct, what it means to be a hegemonic power and political force. 

Practically, where can you (myself included) begin? First, inform yourself. Take a position to correct the problematic approach we have toward the Muslim world, which, I would argue, is as much part of our American, and global human, story. Although we may pray to a different God or come from a different historico-cultural context, we share in our humanity and this must be our starting point for understanding and dialogue — not ignorant judgement, essentializing or “othering” Muslims by their very nature. 

Second, we must permit that Muslims may be changing the narrative in their own way and in a language and form we do not recognize as progressive. We should practice forbearance and trust that, from a Muslim point of view, that progress is happening. We cannot control it or coerce it according to our categories. While this may be a scary, or frustrating, proposition it is the most effective in the long run. Bombs, a barrage of insinuating questions, or anti-Muslim sentiment does not work. All it does it carve out space for Muslim post-colonial movements that set themselves up in the “clash of civilizations” (Islam v. the West) framework (e.g. ISIS, al-Qaeda, etc.). 

Informing ourselves and creating this space will involve reading, learning, creating friendships with Muslims, taking part in interfaith peacemaking, and bearing with others in patience, love, and hope. 

We cannot do nothing. While we may opine that Muslims continue to remain silent (even though they are not) or that the Qur’an says this or that (even though “texts are by themselves silent” [Michael Lambek] and require active interpretation) we cannot allow others’ inaction or failure justify our own. 

Instead, we must do what we can to create a space, specifically within the U.S., where Muslims can freely, openly, and by their own agency, determine what it means to be an American Muslim in the contemporary scene.

"Why do Westerners join ISIS?" Featured at Sojourners

Over the weekend, my post "The lonely jihadi: Why do Westerners join ISIS?" was featured on the Sojourner's 'God's Politics' blog.

Sojourner's magazine is a progressive publication of the social justice organization Sojourners, founded by current editor Jim Wallis who is active in bringing faith to light on issues of racial and social justice, life and peace, and environmental stewardship. 

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood.

It was an honor to write for their online portal and I amended my original post to include a section on how Christian congregations and individuals can "combat" ISIS. While there is much to be said about the essentializing, and perhaps racially tinged, "multi-cultural" viewpoint that I espouse (casting "Muslims" as a community bloc or single identity given so much internal diversity) I still believe that a program of positive, multifaceted, integration on the public and private levels is the way forward in dealing with extremism and isolated individuals who join radical, violent, causes. This integration is not assimilation as such, but a bridge building and re-construction of what it means to be American (or European) in light of Muslim belief and practice. It is a two-way street, but one which non-Muslims (who too often cast Muslims in a solely negative light) bear the prime responsibility to cross. This is not because Muslims are incapable of making inroads toward integration, but the onus is on those of us who tend to push them to the margins in the first place. 

Anyways, check out the blog and react to my paragraph about pro-active Christian initiatives to integrate the isolated Muslim who tends to join groups like ISIS: 

Christians can be engaged at both the personal and congregational level. It begins with paying attention and recognizing the Muslim communities and individual Muslim families in your neighborhood and community; then, the impetus to find, and form, appropriate and respectful relationships. Once a friendship is established, take the time to listen, learn, and value their Islamic faith and practice. This friendship is best established, and nourished, through dining together, dialogue events, and interfaith community projects. These friendly encounters will not only build new bridges between Muslims and Christians, but also integrate isolated Muslims into the fold of their new communities making a home for them beyond the boundaries of religion and ethnicity.

These types of efforts, more than bombs and bombastic rhetoric, are how we can combat the lonely jihadi and make a significant contribution to peace in the Middle East, and indeed, across the globe.

The lonely jihadi: why do Westerners join ISIS?

Whether or not ISIS/ISIL is "Islamic," or a "state," it is definitely terrifying. As it terrorizes the Levant -- killing Muslims, Christians, Jews, Yazidis, & other religious/cultural minorities in Syria and Iraq -- and takes the lives of Western journalists, it strikes fear in the hearts of many. 

Swirling around the alarming analysis are the rumors and realities of individuals from Europe and the U.S. joining the ranks of ISIS/ISIL and fighting for their "cause." 

The intelligence organization Soufan Group recently released a report stating that fighters from at least 81 countries have traveled to Syria since its three-year conflict began. Hundreds of recruits come from nations like France, Germany, the UK, and the U.S. 

Of all the fearful intimations of this conflict, this feature seems to be the most frightening to many in the West. Could it be that my neighbor is a secret jihadi? Are redheads (a "pure" European stock) more prone to terrorism? Are mosques their hideouts? Regardless of the judiciousness of these questions, underlying them all is the question "why?" Why would someone leave the West to fight for ISIS in Syria and Iraq?  

According to the Soufan report, those that leave for the Middle East to fight are typically 18-29 year-old men (some as young as 15) and some Western women who join with their spouses, or come alone to become "jihadi brides." These men and women are Islamic, often second or third generation immigrants, though very few have prior connections with Syria. 

Why do they join? Is it religious devotion? Psychological imbalance? Tendency toward radical movements and anarchy? All of these motivations may play a part, but my argument is that these men and women who leave their Western homes for the dunes of terror are lonely. 

These Western jihadis are isolated -- that is why they join ISIS. 

View fullsize

In his book Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah Olivier Roy says that in the passage to the West, Islam as a religion (and its practitioners) undergo a deterritorializing, deculturalizing, and destabilizing process that, both of us argue, leaves individuals in search for a new ummah (global Islamic community, on the macro level) and a new community (on the micro level). 

As Islam is less and less associated with a specific nation, tribe, or territory (deterritorialization) the lines between Islam and the West become blurred. This leads to Islamization and a renewed and revived effort to stake a clear claim for Islam in the modern world. This Islamic revival can be either progressive or conservative, but it leaves the individual Muslim with a choice. This choice is problematized by the fact that, often, to be "Muslim" is necessary for the sake of identification in the West. 

In the West, Islam undergoes a deculturalization process, which leaves the term "Muslim" as the sole identifier (as opposed to Egyptian, Somali, Indonesian, Bosnian, Argentinian, etc.) Muslims lose their sense of culture in the West, no longer able to identify according to their ethnic heritage or national identity. In this environment, where religion defines identity, two things happen: 1) Muslims feel they must ratify their credentials -- prove they are really, and truly, "Muslim" to people within, and on the outside, of their community or 2) having broken with the culture of their past, second and third generation Muslim migrants who are part of, but do not feel integrated into, Western society choose to reconstruct their identity along strict Islamic lines. 

This whole process is quite destabilizing as it continues to isolate the individual from their former identity markers -- family, culture, nation. Everything that used to define them -- their culture, their dress, their economic standing, their political affiliation -- breaks down in the West and they are left with Islam alone to rebuild themselves. In this process is offered, what Roy calls, "the realization of the self." (37) Islam becomes the way that the marginalized and lonely Muslim in the West can reconstruct their identity. 

Of course, this self cannot be reconstructed alone. There needs to be a community within which it can be rebuilt and resurrected. Enter ISIS.

"Neofundamentalist" (Roy prefers this term over 'Salafi') jihadi groups offer answers to what ails secluded Muslims in the West. Their community is built upon the free association of individuals and voluntary devotion to the community's cause. It is a "reconstructed ummah," one in which the individual plays an oversized role. 

However, the ummah is never really reconstructed. Terror groups rarely have an end goal in mind. They do not wish to establish an "Islamic state," no matter what they call themselves. They are comfortable with the deterritorialized condition and the destabilized nature of the world and continually leave it up to individuals to construct the community and define its norms. In the process, fanaticism and radicalism germinate as insecurity about the borders of the community intensify. The lonely jihadi who left the West for "true Muslim community," finds that the lines are blurred even within ISIS. The loneliness and deep inner questions continue. 

In the midst of this "imagined ummah" undertaking, groups like ISIS inculcate a sixth pillar of 'individual jihad' to give purpose to the life of the wayward Muslim. "This overemphasis on personal jihad complements the lonely situation of the militants, who do not follow their natural community, but join an imagined one." (42) Fighting and, to a greater degree, giving one's life to the cause, becomes the "ultimate proof" not only of one's religious devotion, but also of one's "reform of the self." (289) All the while, in search of a new community, the jihadi remains alone, isolated, and solitary -- especially in suicide attacks. 

This is why bombing, however "strategic," will not stem the tide against terror organizations such as ISIS. Unfortunately, where integration or assimilation into Western societies is eschewed, the neofundamentalist path towards isolation, both externally and internally imposed, begins. Not all marginalized Muslims in the West join jihadi groups. Some of them simply choose to live in "Islamized territories" (Islamic ghettos, per se) shut off from Western influence even as they live in the West. However, for those that do not find that such closed communities fit the bill, radical Islamic terror groups call out ever stronger. 

Thus, programs for integration and assimilation -- at the national, local, and personal levels -- are the only way to "fight" ISIS and restrict the flow of Westerners joining their ranks. Assimilation should not mean that Muslims must give up the authentic beliefs and practices of their faith. Integration does not lead to Islamization or the imposition of shariah law. It is, instead, a friendly policy towards Muslims in the West that leads all of us, Muslim and Christian/Jew/agnostic/etc. deeper into a real community where identity is not solely defined by religion, but also historic cultural, and new national, characteristics. 

This is how we can combat the lonely jihadi. 

The danger of crafting Muslim identities for our own purposes

*For more on religion & culture follow @kchitwood

The situation with ISIS/ISIL (Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya) continues to heat up. ISIS continues to post videos of atrocious beheadings of their Western prisoners (two U.S. journalists and a British aid-worker). These digital demonstrations have provoked the Western military powers into intense discussions of reprisals and concrete conversations about constructing a coalition.

*Read "Five Facts You Need to Know about Iraq, its Religious Minorities, and ISIS."

Amidst the flurry of emotion and geo-political crusading an interesting, misleading, trend has re-surfaced: the crafting of Muslim identity by non-Muslims for the latter's own purposes.

President Barack Obama's comments to this effect did not go unnoticed. He said on September 10, just a day before the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks:

“...let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not “Islamic.” No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state.”

POTUS's comments echo those of George W. Bush who famously quipped in the aftermath of 9/11, that Islam "is a peaceful religion" (Nov 13, 2002) and that:

“Islam is a vibrant faith. Millions of our fellow citizens are Muslim. We respect the faith. We honor its traditions. Our enemy does not. Our enemy doesn’t follow the great traditions of Islam. They’ve hijacked a great religion.”

— October 11, 2002

Obama used this language before moving on to say, "Our objective is clear: we will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy."

British Prime Minister David Cameron joined in with the ISIS ≠ Islam prose. In the wake of the execution of British aid-worker David Haines, Cameron remarked that ISIS "are not Muslims, they are monsters." He branded the ISIS killings and subsequent videos as acts "of pure evil" and vowed that the UK, "will do everything in our power to hunt down these murderers and ensure they face justice." 

Cameron, and Obama, made comments about what Islam is, and what it is not, that allowed them to justify their actions. Realizing that the "clash of civilizations" rhetoric (the "West" versus "Islam") is not popular sentiment, nor is it conducive to building a coalition that would include Muslim-states and Muslim majority nations, the two Western leaders made sweeping statements about what Islam is, and is not, in order to vindicate their aggressive, military-based, retaliations. 

Response to Cameron and Obama's comments has been mixed. Many from progressive Muslim communities praised them for drawing a line between their peaceful faith and practice and the brutal extremism of ISIS. Many on the far-right of the political spectrum (and even some from among the ranks of the "New Atheists," including Sam Harris) in the U.S. lambasted POTUS for his "ignorance" concerning ISIS and Islam, saying that he "isn't qualified enough to say what is and what is not Muslim." 

View fullsize

Photo: Shibli Zaman, Loonwatch.com

At the same time, a Twitter handle by the name of "Ahimla Jihada" (@Ahimla2), which spouted seemingly supportive superlatives for ISIS from an "American-Muslim woman" was found to be a fake. Before the account was shutdown, the tweets of @Ahimla2, which declared her devotion to ISIS and love for terror (from within the United States no less!) produced strong responses calling for her death and the killing of many more Muslims in the U.S. Shibli Zaman at Loonwatch.com lamented:

“There are dubious forces from an increasingly belligerent political Right who are out to brainwash, by hook or crook, the American public into hating their fellow citizens of the Muslim faith and to justify a foreign policy in the ‘10/40 Window’ that has tarnished America’s reputation globally and needlessly puts our men and women in uniform in harm’s way.”

While Cameron/Obama/Bush may be lauded for trying to distinguish between ISIS and global Islam and this Twitter scandal may be mourned as an attempt to justify Islamophobia in the U.S., they are both examples of the same error: Western politicians or popular pundits cannot be the ones to say what Islam is and is not. 

*Read "Does ISIS = Islam?"

At issue here is the question -- who has the right to define what Islam is and is not? 

Language has power to shape opinions and to galvanize people to action. These leaders and culture shapers understand this. That is why they use essentializing terminology to declare what Islam is and is not. By becoming arbiters of Islamic identity, Western leaders seek to make essentialist claims in order to provide powerful, and useful, rallying-points for their own agendas. In these cases, attacking and destroying ISIS on the one hand, turning on Muslims in the U.S. on the other. 

While artlessly defining Islam may prove useful for political purposes, it is not conducive to helping non-Muslims understand what Islam is. Concepts such as 'Islam' are not static. There is no fixed form of Islam that can be found or defined, especially by non-Muslims. Instead, Islam is a diverse stream of various forces, persistently in process, forever in flux, consistently contingent on changing cultural, political, ethnic, religious, and economic realities. Really, the language of Obama, Cameron, @Ahimla2 and others who want to say neatly that ISIS is Islamic, or it is not Islamic, is hegemony at work again -- colonial powers attempting to define the "other" in order to exert their own influence or power in the Islamic world. 

My concern here is not political, it is not militaristic. Instead, it is one of religious literacy. Islam is one of the most multi-cultural, multi-generational, multifaceted, and misunderstood religions in the world, especially in the West. In order to understand Islam, we cannot apperceive it according to uncluttered constructs or uncomplicated categories. Instead, the messiness and miscellany of the Muslim world must be explored. This will often mean meeting with local Muslims, observing regional dynamics, and listening, and learning, their perspectives on global Islam. Especially in the West, we need to listen to Muslims speak about their own community, from all sides, before we begin crafting Muslim identities according to our own motivations -- be they benign or malevolent.  

If Western powers or Islamophobes want to say what Islam is or is not for their own political ends, so be it. What I don't want to see is the general population getting carried away with a vision of Islam that is founded more in Western hegemony than it is global Islamic reality.