Are the "facts" we understand about the world based on what our history, culture, and literature say to us?
If so, are those histories, cultures, and literatures irredeemably to be understood
... as systems of thinking that
represent images of (our) own creation for reasons of maintaining hegemonic structures of knowledge and power(?)
Is this a statement with which you can agree?
What we expect from the serious study of Western societies,
with its complex theories, enormously variegated analyses of social structures, histories, cultural formation,
and sophisticated languages of investigation,
we should also expect from the study and discussion of Islamic societies in the West.
Do we unknowingly limit ourselves in our understandings?
There are certain unwritten (and sometimes unconscious) rules that define what can and cannot be said within a discourse ...
(they operate) within the area of convention, habit, expectation and assumption.
In any attempt to gain knowledge about the world, what is known is overwhelmingly determined by the way it is known;
the rules of a discipline determine the kind of knowledge that can be gained from it.
