The Middle East: Muhammad, Muslims, Minorities, Myths, Media and More

Inescapably these days, attention is drawn towards the Arab world: a neighbouring and geographically vast universe with a historical depth of millennia, defined by partially unknown consecutive and contemporaneous civilisations and empires, and a chronological cascade of (monotheistic) religions, languages, alphabets, cultural (self-)expressions and influences defining “them” and thereby “us”. For those inclined to better understand and disentangle the nuances of this kaleidoscopic mosaic of intricacies, this series chooses to offer a vademecum, and make current affairs more transparent.

The individual lectures

1. Muhammad (16 Jan)
The numerically dominant culture in the contemporary Middle East is Islam. This worldview is based in part on the revelations to Muhammad (7th century CE).

2. Muslims of Different Convictions and Power of Persuasion (23 Jan)
At the same time, Islam is also not one monolithic whole: there are Muslims of varying beliefs and persuasion.

3. Middle Eastern Minority Cultural Phenomena (6 Feb)
Accompanying phenomenon is that minority religions and cultures (have) also existed before and alongside Islam.

4. Myths of the Middle East (13 Feb)
To better understand the way in which the Middle East and “Islam” present themselves to us today, it is useful to address how this originally oral culture has developed through a hand-written culture into the digital world culture we now want to know better. We name the myths that exist in our image of the Middle East.

5. Self-Definition Presented by Media: Seeing the Same, but Thinking Differently (20 Feb)
We come to concluding demythologizing prompts of understanding that regional power so similar to “ours.” We began with “We see the other, but think the same,” and evolve to “We see the same, but think something different.” As an ideal of the experienced metamorphosis, the final meeting gives ample opportunity for the “But, ...!” of the course participants.

Speaker
Ronald E. Kon: Arabist, Author, (Literary) Translator, Founding owner of Centre of Expertise KONTEKST and Guest Researcher Institute for Area Studies, Leiden University, Acting Editor-in-Chief The Chronicle of the Middle East and North Africa