Muslim Internationalism and Pan-Islamic Ideas During the Cold War

25 Jan 2018

pittadmin

The Islamicate Studies Working Group at the University of Pittsburgh will be presenting a colloquium featuring Cemil Aydin,
Professor of History, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. The Colloquium discusses the origins of contemporary Islamist narratives of world order in the global Cold War context of the 1970s and 1980s. Prof. Aydin argues that the political movement of Islamism emerged as a transnational ideological movement only in the last two decades of the cold war. Both anti-Western Islamism and Islamophobic discourses in the West carry the characteristics of the Cold War ideological battles. Islamism carries the formative influence of universalist claims and double standards of cold war ideological rivalries. Modern Pan-Islamic narratives, he argues, are modern constructs that emerged in the intertwined crisis of the cold war and decolonization processes. This attention to Cold War can also help us better understand how an imagined Muslim world began to be depicted as the new enemy of the West in Islamophobic ideologies after the Cold war.

*Attendees are encouraged to read the colloquium materials ahead of the event. They may be requested by writing to Prof. Mohammed Bamyeh at mab205@pitt.edu.

Event Date: 
Thursday, January 25, 2018 - 12:30pm to 2:00pm
Institution(s): 
Sponsored By: 
The Islamicate Studies Working Group at the University of Pittsburgh
Location: 
Sociology Colloquium Room, Posvar Hall 2431, University of Pittsburgh