Hughes/Somewhere, 5. Modern Back-Projections and their Repercussions

The fifth chapter, Modern Back-Projections and their Repercussions, is based on a lecture I gave at the University of Exeter. Building on the previous chapter, it argues that despite the secular context of the Western academy, the study of Islam retains many of the assumptions and tacit presuppositions examined in our early sources. We see this acutely in how Islamic studies deals with Jews and other minoritarian groups. Not only are all of these non-Sunnī traditions marginalized in our modern academic narratives, the language used to situate them has strayed little from the categories and structures encountered in the earlier theological tradition.