Islam through Western Eyes

Jonathan Lyons’ Islam through Western Eyes takes a critical and historical approachto understanding the anti-Islam discourses that continue to emergeacross North America and Europe. His main argument is that their origins canbe traced back to the Crusades and that the current Islamophobic climate hasbeen in the production since then. Thus an inherent anti-Islam discourse hasbeen ingrained into the western imagination, and its effects are still being seentoday.In the introduction, the author notes that the answer to understandingmuch of this western Islamophobic movement has been in the making sincethe fifteenth century anti-Islam discourse as it relates to the Crusades. Lyonsnotes that we need to develop a deeper understanding of the history of thisdiscourse in order to fight its modern version and to understand the causes ofthe current Islamophobic climate. This certainly sheds a more complex lighton many of the issues facing Muslims in Europe and North America, and givesreaders a new angle from which they should understand and interpret thisgrowing sentiment.The book is divided into five main chapters following the introduction.The first is essentially a chapter on methodology, which delves deeper intoFoucault’s critical theories on discourse and power. Lyons particularly focuseson Foucault’s Archeology of Knowledge, in which he argues that certain formsof knowledge are privileged over others in order to create a larger narrativeabout a particular topic or group of people. The author clearly takes a post- ...