ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that “the West” views itself as a self-referential identity-entity, ostensibly unique in world history. As such, it has depicted Islam as an easily identifiable “thing” with an itemized list of maladies and has thus prescribed solutions and reforms for it. However, all societies throughout the world are connected by a shared human web of interaction. I argue that the methods many Western analysts use when studying phenomena throughout the world are deeply flawed because they fail to account for the ideas or actions of the West as causal factors in creating, sustaining and shaping the very phenomena under study.
