This book argues that the "clash of civilizations" that is supposed to be a feature of the post-Cold War environment is not necessarily caused by the dogma of world religions or cultural incompatibilities but by the inflexible and hegemonic universalisms that have characterized world history since 1492-a cultural outlook that Majid terms post-Andalusianism. The all-encompassing worldviews of Euro-American ideologies have resulted in the retreat of Islam and other non-European traditions into dangerous orthodoxies and a growing climate of suspicion, fear, and terror. Freedom and Orthodoxy offers an alternative to perennial discord, suggesting that the world needs a philosophy of the "provincial," one that reattaches individuals and societies to their heritages and memories but connects them to the rest of the world in solid, non-alienating, meaningful ways. For this to happen, Majid contends, globalization must be reimagined as a network of human solidarities and rigorous conversations across the world's multiple cultures, not as a mechanical process of economic expansionism.

Islam and America argues that the current animosity between the U.S. and Muslim world should be understood through the often-overlooked history between the two. Tracing the genealogy of this conflicted relationship from the Pilgrims to the present, author Anouar Majid weaves personal stories with historical narratives to offer a critical view of both cultures and to suggest a path towards future peace. The paperback edition features a new preface that connects Majid's argument with recent events, from the growth of ISIS to the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Islam and America makes a provocative argument against faith-based prejudices and offers inspiring suggestions for the future.

This book argues that the "clash of civilizations" that is supposed to be a feature of the post-Cold War environment is not necessarily caused by the dogma of world religions or cultural incompatibilities but by the inflexible and hegemonic universalisms that have characterized world history since 1492-a cultural outlook that Majid terms post-Andalusianism. The all-encompassing worldviews of Euro-American ideologies have resulted in the retreat of Islam and other non-European traditions into dangerous orthodoxies and a growing climate of suspicion, fear, and terror. Freedom and Orthodoxy offers an alternative to perennial discord, suggesting that the world needs a philosophy of the "provincial," one that reattaches individuals and societies to their heritages and memories but connects them to the rest of the world in solid, non-alienating, meaningful ways. For this to happen, Majid contends, globalization must be reimagined as a network of human solidarities and rigorous conversations across the world's multiple cultures, not as a mechanical process of economic expansionism.

In "Unveiling Traditions" Anouar Majid issues a challenge to the West to reimagine Islam as a progressive world culture and a participant in the building of a multicultural and more egalitarian world civilization. From within the highly secularized space it inhabits, a space endemically suspicious of religion, the West must find a way, writes Majid, to embrace Islamic societies as partners in building a more inclusive and culturally diverse global community.
Majid moves beyond Edward Said's unmasking of orientalism in the West to examine the intellectual assumptions that have prevented a more nuanced understanding of Islam's legacies. In addition to questioning the pervasive logic that assumes the "naturalness" of European social and political organizations, he argues that it is capitalism that has intensified cultural misunderstanding and created global tensions. Besides examining the resiliency of orientalism, the author critically examines the ideologies of nationalism and colonialist categories that have redefined the identity of Muslims (especially Arabs and Africans) in the modern age and totally remapped their cultural geographies. Majid is aware of the need for Muslims to rethink their own assumptions. Addressing the crisis in Arab-Muslim thought caused by a desire to simultaneously "catch up" with the West and also preserve Muslim cultural authenticity, he challenges Arab and Muslim intellectuals to imagine a post-capitalist, post-Eurocentric future. Critical of Islamic patriarchal practices and capitalist hegemony, Majid contends that Muslim feminists have come closest to theorizing a notion of emancipation that rescues Islam from patriarchal domination and resists Eurocentric prejudices.
Majid's timely appeal for a progressive, multicultural dialogue that would pave the way to a polycentric world will interest students and scholars of postcolonial, cultural, Islamic, and Marxist studies.

In 1609 King Philip III ordered the expulsion of all Moriscos--Spaniards of Muslim descent--from Spain in an ongoing attempt to establish a homogeneous state and remove the last vestiges of Islam from his nation. Four centuries later, Spain and Europe are once again outraged by the presence of Islam within their borders, and, for many, the millions of Muslim immigrants now living there pose a fundamental challenge to European identity. Across the Atlantic Ocean, the vast Hispanic community in the United States, both legal and illegal, has raised similar fears. Exacerbated by globalization and 9/11, these nativist, anti-Islamic, and broadly anti-immigrant attitudes fatally undermine meaningful dialogue and progress essential to creating a more peaceful and just world.

In "We Are All Moors," Anouar Majid contends that the acrimonious debates about immigration and Islam in the West are the cultural legacy of the conflict between Christians and Moors. Offering a groundbreaking new history of the West's perception and treatment of minority cultures, Majid explores how "the Moor" emerged as the archetypal Other against which Europe would define itself. The characteristics attributed to this quintessential minority--racial inferiority, religious impurity, cultural incompatibility--would be reapplied to other non-European and non-Christian peoples: Native Americans, black Africans, Jews, and minority immigrant communities, among others.

The Moor, Majid reveals, has served as an unacknowledged but potent metaphor for all minority peoples in the West, endlessly reincarnated by the majority. Only by recognizing the connections between current fears about immigration and Islam and medieval Christianity's crusade against the Moor, he argues, can we begin to redress centuries of oppression, learn from the tragedies of the past, and find common ground in a globalized world.