Islam and Colonialism (Electronic book text)

By the late 1980s it was a widely held view in the West that the single greatest threat to the USSR was an Islamic inspired revolt in Central Asia. This did not occur. Myer seeks to explain how such an expectation could have developed and been sustained. Western thought on Central Asia, as it appeared in English, French, German, and US sources, is place in its political and intellectual context. It is argued that ideas about colonialism and the colonial dynamic unduly influenced western understanding of Central Asian politics. The concept of colonialism is examined in depth and the contributions of the major scholars of the area examined on a decade by decade basis, focusing on their understanding of Central Asia as a colonial society and on the role of Islam within it. Finally a 'genealogy of ideas' is offered to explain how a combination of political imperatives, sponsorship and the histories of the scholars involved, precluded the possibility of competing interpretations and has led to modrn misconceptions.; As the only work of its kind providing an overview of more than fifty years of scholarship, this book will be of interest to students of colonialism and the history of ideas, particularly those concerning the relations between the West and the Muslim world.