The Horizons of Being: The Metaphysics of Ibn al-ʿArabī in the Muqaddimat al-Qayṣarī

Abstract

Content and substance can be highly variable even when parallel dynamics are at play. The final section takes the discussion of prejudice beyond the Western sphere, dealing in Chapter 8 with the phenomenon of Islamic antisemitism and the Palestine–Israel conflict. Although there is a historical trajectory to Muslim antipathy toward Jews and Judaism, modern Islamic or, perhaps more accurately, Islamist antisemitism is more a product of ‘colonial and Nazi influences’ (149) and a legacy of political Islamist ideologues such as Syed Qutb (1906–1966). Hedges concludes that Muslims whose worldview is framed by Islamic antisemitism pose, arguably, ‘today’s greatest threat to Jews globally’ and that this worldview ‘belies more than a millennia [sic] of history in which Jews and Muslims have, in general, lived amicably side by side, often seeing Christians as a threat against them both’ (164). Chapter 9 examines Islamophobia in the Buddhist world, focussing on examples of ultranationalist and ‘fundamentalist’ Buddhism. This chapter includes a useful review of the theme of violence and war in relation to Buddhism and of the history of relations between Islam and Buddhism. It then focuses on two recent cases of Buddhist Islamophobia in action: Sri Lanka and Myanmar. As ever, the situations and contributing factors are complex, but the bottom line is that Muslims and Islam are perceived as a threatening ‘other’, and so become the subjects of threat and prejudicially motivated enmity. In Chapter 10, the focus shifts to the context of Hindu India and hatred stoked against Muslims, courtesy of their radicalized othering by the Hindutva ultra religio-nationalist movement currently dominant in Indian life and politics. The fourth section concludes with an Interlude discussing the possibility of regulating religious hatred. As mentioned above, the book ends with an epilogue that explores the subject of dialogue, civil rights and peacebuilding. This is a kind of antidote to the book’s understandably relentless negativity. Hedges has tackled an important and difficult subject. My only criticisms are that the text is, at points, somewhat dense and often, but not always, relatively superficial. But these faults are almost to be expected in a book as ambitious as this one, given its size. In the end, they do not detract from its value, which is to introduce, discuss and stimulate reflection on and engagement with the vexed contemporary challenge of religious prejudice and hatred.