The End of Two Illusions: Islam after the West

Dismantling the myths that divide Islam and the West, this cutting-edge work of critical thinking proposes new ways to reread Islamic and world histories. Extending from the front-page news coverage of our daily lives back into the deepest and most revelatory histories of the last two hundred years and earlier, Hamid Dabashi's The End of Two Illusions is a daring, provocative, and groundbreaking work that dismantles the most dangerous delusions manufactured between two vastly fetishized abstractions: "Islam" and "the West." With this book, Dabashi shows how the civilizational divides imagined between these two cosmic binaries have defined their entanglement—in ways that have nothing to do with the lived experiences of either Muslims or the diverse and changing communities scarcely held together by the myth of "the West." Through detailed historical and contemporary analysis, The End of Two Illusions untangles the motivations that produced this global fiction. Dabashi demonstrates how "the West" was an ideological commodity and civilizational mantra invented during the European Enlightenment, serving as an epicenter for the rise of globalized capitalist modernity. In turn, Orientalist ideologues went around the world manufacturing equally illusory abstractions in the form of inferior civilizations in India, China, Africa, Latin America, and the Islamic world. The result was the projection of "Islam and the West" as the prototype of a civilizational hostility that has given false explanations and flawed prognoses of our contemporary history, with weaponized Islamophobia on one side and militant Islamism on the other as its most palpable manifestations. Dabashi argues it is long past time to dismantle this dangerous liaison, expose and overcome its perilous delusions, and reimagine the world beyond its shimmering mirage. The End of Two Illusions is the most iconoclastic work of critical thought and scholarship to emerge in recent memory, clearing the way toward a far more liberating imaginative geography of the world we share.

Table of Contents:
Contents Acknowledgments Introduction The Future of Two Illusions I · The Colonial Catalyst 1 Islam in the World 2 “The West”    Groundwork for the Metaphysics of an Illusion 3 The West and the Rest   Condition of Coloniality    II · The Return of the Repressed 4 What’s in a Name? 5 The Monologue of Civilizations III · Where the Twain Have Met 6 Gendering the Difference   From Metaphoric to Metamorphic 7 De-racing Civilizations 8 Nations beyond Borders Conclusion  “The Inverted Consciousness of the World” Epilogue 2021: After Gaza and Afghanistan Notes Index

About the Author :
Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Among his most recent books are Islamic Liberation Theology: Resisting the Empire; Shi'ism: A Religion of Protest; and Europe and Its Shadows: Coloniality after Empire.  

Review :
"Dabashi makes a compelling claim in the epistemic violence created by “The West and Islam” that fits suitably in the ongoing work of decolonial scholarship." "The precise and thoughtful interdisciplinary approach in The End of Two Illusions offers a vital contribution to perspectives on international relations, conflict, and dialogue. This text should be read by anyone involved or interested in understanding the reality of global political and cultural relationships in the twenty-first century." "Dabashi, a prolific and respected scholar, smashes this illusory binary in his impressive but challenging book."