Western Imaginings. Rohan Davis

      

      WESTERN IMAGININGS

      WESTERN IMAGININGS

      The Intellectual Contest to Define

      Wahhabism

      ROHAN DAVIS

      The American University in Cairo Press

      Cairo New York

      Copyright © 2018 by

       The American University in Cairo Press

       113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt

       420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018

       www.aucpress.com

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

      ISBN: 978 977 416 864 2

       eISBN: 978 161 797 876 0

      Version 1

      For my parents, Janice and Phil

      And thank you Rob, I’m eternally grateful

      Contents

Introduction

Wahhabism: A Contested Category

The Role of Intellectuals

The Nature of the Political

1 Wahhabism as a Contested Category

Intellectuals, Imagined Geographies, and Imagined Communities: Wahhabism as Threat

Understanding Wahhabism through a Feminist Lens

Saudi School Textbooks and the Problem of Translation

Wahhabism Is Not So Bad After All

2 On Intellectuals, Prejudice, and Understanding the Social World

On the Collective Identity and Attachment of Intellectuals

       Intellectuals and the Nation-State

       Making Sense of Truth

       3 Dialectics, Ideal Types, Fuzzy Categories, and Analyzing Language

       Dialectics

       On Fuzziness and Ideal Types

       Metaphors, Analogies, Similes, Neologisms, and the Cognitive Structuring of Violent Accounts

       Critical Discourse Analysis: Language Is Made in and Makes the World

       4 Spreading the Rule of Reason: Liberal Imaginings of Wahhabism

       Understanding Liberalism: Many Freedoms?

       Understanding Liberalism: Toward an Ideal Type

       Wahhabism Restricts Freedoms

       Wahhabism as Backward and an Obstacle to Progress

       Wahhabism Is a Threat to the Ideal Secular Society

       5 Themata, Generative Metaphors, and Making Sense of Liberal Intellectuals’ Representations of Wahhabism

       Themata

       Generative Metaphors

       Individualism, Progress: The Key Themata and Generative Metaphors Influencing Liberal Thinking

       6 Those Evil and Violent Savages: The Neoconservative Assault on Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian Struggle for Self-Determination

       Introducing the Neoconservatives

       Toward an Ideal Type

       The Wahhabi Is a Savage

       An Unwavering Support for Israel: Wahhabism and Saudi Arabia as Enemies of the Jewish State

       Key Themata: The Holy Land and Welcoming the Savior

       Good versus Evil

       Animal Metaphors and the Noble Savage

       7 Conclusion

       Notes

       Bibliography

Introduction

      We shall not cease from exploration

      And the end of all our exploring

      Will be to arrive where we started

      And know the place for the first time.

      —T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets

      Like so many other authors, my researching and writing this book was inspired and motivated by an experience that had a profound effect on me. In 2008 I was in Stockholm, Sweden, staying in a small student apartment in the south of the city. It soon became clear to me that if I wanted to have something close to an authentic Swedish experience, then I needed to speak and understand some of the Swedish language. So I enrolled in a beginner-level Swedish language course, two classes a week. The classes had few students, and they were relaxed and enjoyable. The most interesting aspect of this experience was the friendships I made with other students while talking during coffee breaks and after class. It was