In Search of an Islam of the Just Midst. The Struggle for the Representation of Authentic Islam

Abstract T he attacks in Washington and New York on 9/11 marked a turning point both for the Muslim community and for the way of looking at Islam in the West. Two mirror phenomena have occurred. In the West, public opinion and politics have been divided between those who have simplistically begun to consider Islam as a religion inherently linked to violence, a vision that has degenerated into an Islamophobic attitude, and those who have tried to make distinctions in the Muslim community , a community that counts over a billion faithful, not all of which can be assimilated to the image of a violent Islam and an enemy of the West. In the Muslim community, in turn, many religious and intellectual personalities, institutions or governments, have moved in a defensive sense, to promote what they consider the authentic image of Islam, a religion inspired by the principles of tolerance and respect for others. The result was a sort of competition for the representation of a mainstream moderate Islam, in which political and strategic reasons often intersected between the different protagonists, in search of supremacy both within the Muslim community and outside. But the search for an Islam of the “just midst” is a much older phenomenon and was born as a pragmatic evolution within political Islam already in the second half of the 20th century.