The Islamic Middle East And Japan

Iranian and Ottoman travelers to Japan in the late nineteenth century found a model to admire - a culture that was beginning to take its place in the modern world without sacrificing its traditional culture. 1905. This collection provides fresh insight into the cross-cultural exchange between the Crescent and the Rising Sun in a rapidly changing world. linked cultures and the ensuing reciprocal influences in developing Eastern modernity against a looming backdrop of Western imperial domination.

Today's "clash of civilizations" between the Islamic world and the West are in many ways rooted in 19th-century resistance to Western hegemony. This compellingly argued and carefully researched transnational study details the ways in which Japan served as a model for Ottomans in attaining "non-Western" modernity in a Western-dominated global order.

Discusses the Middle East process, the islamic political agenda and the future of some of the states there from a domestic as well as from a regional perspective

The roots of today's "clash of civilizations" between the Islamic world and the West are not solely anchored in the legacy of the crusades or the early Islamic conquests: in many ways, it is a more contemporary story rooted in the nineteenth-century history of resistance to Western hegemony. And as this compellingly argued and carefully researched transnational study shows, the Ottoman Middle East believed it had found an ally and exemplar for this resistance in Meiji Japan. Here, author Renee Worringer details the ways in which Japan loomed in Ottoman consciousness at the turn of the twentieth century, exploring the role of the Japanese nation as a model for Ottomans in attaining "non-Western" modernity in a global order dominated by the West. Japan's domestic and international achievements kindled a century-long fascination with the nation in Ottoman lands, one that arguably reached its ironic culmination with the arrival of Japanese troops in Iraq in 2004.

In this transnational history of World War II, Kelly A. Hammond places Sino-Muslims at the center of imperial Japan's challenges to Chinese nation-building efforts. Revealing the little-known story of Japan's interest in Islam during its occupation of North China, Hammond shows how imperial Japanese aimed to defeat the Chinese Nationalists in winning the hearts and minds of Sino-Muslims, a vital minority population. Offering programs that presented themselves as protectors of Islam, the Japanese aimed to provide Muslims with a viable alternative—and, at the same time, to create new Muslim consumer markets that would, the Japanese hoped, act to subvert the existing global capitalist world order and destabilize the Soviets. This history can be told only by reinstating agency to Muslims in China who became active participants in the brokering and political jockeying between the Chinese Nationalists and the Japanese Empire. Hammond argues that the competition for their loyalty was central to the creation of the ethnoreligious identity of Muslims living on the Chinese mainland. Their wartime experience ultimately helped shape the formation of Sino-Muslims' religious identities within global Islamic networks, as well as their incorporation into the Chinese state, where the conditions of that incorporation remain unstable and contested to this day.

As the economies of East Asia grow ever stronger, their need for energy resources increases, which in turn compels closer relations with the countries of the Middle East. This book examines the developing relations between the countries of East Asia, especially China and Japan, with the countries of the Middle East. It looks at various key bilateral relationships, including with Iran and Syria, discusses the impact on the United States’ hegemony in both regions, considers whether the new relations represent a contribution to, or a threat to, peace and stability, and assesses the implications of the changes for patterns of regional and global international relations systems.

Access in English to Japanese analysis of Japan's energy policies, business ventures, diplomacy and economic assistance in the region.