Coming into this class, I was not completely sure what we were going to be covering. I was sure we were going to look at Aladdin and the Arabian Nights, as it was in the course description, but not how deeply we would analyze them. It was not until we got into more challenging texts, such as those by Edward Said, that I understood what this class really was.
I grew up around Edward Said; he was my role model. He was a professor at my dream school, he was an amazing author, and most importantly he was Palestinian. I loved Edward Said’s work, and I never once thought I would be reading him at school, especially my PWI (Predominately White Institution). Although I loved Said, his piece was not the one that resonated with me the most in class, rather it was Ernst’s “Islam in the Eyes of the West”.
Although I was not immediately drawn to the reading, I found myself becoming more immersed in it as I read further down the lines. Ernst posed the question “So why do we continue speaking of ‘the Muslim world’ in opposition to ‘the
West’, when such a concept is out of step with reality?” (4) and it gave me a sense of relief. It’s a question I have been asking myself for as long as I can remember, and Ernst has finally put my thoughts into words in a paragraph. As he highlighted the statistics of the growing number of Muslims globally, he begins to put our confusion into the minds of others. He forces his readers to ponder the same question, allow them to feel frustrated as well.
Ernst also talked about the Zionist movement, which caught me off guard. Israel and Zionism seem to be such a sensitive topic in this country, they were never talked down upon ever. In every classes the Zionist Project was always briefly talked about to be a self-determination movement, one that allowed the Jewish people to establish their own homeland, Israel. Growing up as Palestinian, I resented the Zionist movement, as everyone else should, but I could never talk about it in school. Coming into this class, I thought it would be the same, a topic we simply brushed over, but as we began to immerse into pieces such as Ernst’s writings I quickly learned it was not going to be that way. The way Ernst talked about the Zionist Project and Israel was almost refreshing. He says that Zionism is a “classic European nationalist movement with a colonial implementation” (24). I have always known this to be true, but when others hear it, it is suddenly a revolutionary opinion you are unable to have. As we discussed Ernst in class, many said that they were uncomfortable with the way Israel is described in his writing. It was expected, but not as upsetting as before, knowing the text was on your side this time.
Although much of my peers did not, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Ernst. Ernst’s “Islam in the Eyes of the West” helped me understand what this class was really going to be about and how we were going to approach things. It was the beginning to my understanding of what this class had in store. It was not just about Aladdin and how racist it was, it was not about sugarcoating the Middle East, but it was everything I have ever wanted in a class. With deep analysis of every text, subject, and idea, this class taught me things I never would have found in a different one.
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