ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors follow such developments and observe the resurgence of the concept of civilization as a post-9/11 rhetoric. However, the concept of civilization can be observed genealogically (i.e. through the lenses of history and development) and sociopolitically (i.e. semiotic power in contexts). The concept of civilization entered the stage again by conceiving the West as a Judeo-Christian civilization, which, however, was reduced to a sort of Weberian force, rather than a theological entity. C. Geertz has suggested that common sense ‘is, in short, a cultural system, though not usually a very tightly integrated one, and it rests on the same basis that any other such system rests; the conviction by those whose possess it is of its value and validity’. Civilizational common sense, as the authors call it, exists not only among white non-Muslim ‘Westerners’ but also among some Muslims and Muslim groups.
