Editorial

Abstract

The question of modernity in its societal, historical, and literary unfoldings
is the underlying theme of several articles presented in this issue of
AJISS. Following in the hadition of Marshall G. S. Hodgson, John Obert
Voll ventures into the history of Islam as an integral part of world history.
In his numerous studies, Voll has always viewed the Muslim world from a
global perspective, a trait that is even more evident ih his “The Mistaken
IdenMication of ‘The West’ with ‘Modernity.”’ Voll’s article is based on a
profound understanding of the West in t m s of the fundamental changes
that have swept human life and society during the past two or three centuries.
Modemity cannot be identified with the West, Voll argues, for the
West, as a repertoire of traditions, was a concept related to the existence of
civilizations. But “civilization,” as conceived in most of the studies and
analyses of world history, is now a societal lifestyle of the past. It therefore
follows that the transfomtion of societies and lifestyles has transcended
the classical West and created a new world situation in which relations
between Islam and the West are predicated on different bases. While it is
true that Islam’s repertoire of concepts and principles is more clearly
focused than that of the West, it is also true that, in the context of the global
cosmopolitanism of our times, Islam and the West share a similar cultural,
political, and social experience:
Islam and the West are no longer simply two rival and clashing
civilizations or even two different modes of modernity. They are
now interactive partners, sometimes fighting and sometimes cooperating,
involved in the co-constructed reality of the contemp
rary world.
Volls’ view of a modem shared experience is supported by Surmsh
Irfani’s “New Discourses and Modernity in Postrevolutionary Iran.” For a
society that has been portrayed in the most denigrating t m s by the western
media, Irfani presents a powerfd human and creative image of contemporary
Iran that touches upon a wide range of cultural revival: print
media, film industry, literatute, and music. A common denominator of the
works cited in his article, which is based on extensive field research, is the
“aftempt to go beyond the fite!rary level ofkfeqrem‘ on and extant meaning ...