Falling Between Two Schools: Reflections on Eurocentrism and the Neglect of Islamic Nonviolence

This introductory article situates research into Islamic notions of pacifism and nonviolence by considering interpretive challenges that include the history of Eurocentrism and the challenge of interdisciplinarity. It argues that both academic Philosophers and Religious Studies specialists confront a range of disciplinary challenges in interpreting and explaining Islamic nonviolence and pacifism. Moreover, the paper argues that the neglect of Islamic nonviolence in the modern Western academy is also the result of residual Eurocentrism, reflected in the fact that Christian nonviolence is better known and more widely studied in the Anglo-American world than Islamic nonviolence. This introductory article proposes that paying attention to disciplinary silos and Eurocentric biases can help explain the neglect of Islamic pacifism. This neglect is a contingent result of historical, cultural, and disciplinary factors; and there is no valid reason to exclude Islamic nonviolence from academic study.