Westernization

About: Westernization is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1154 publications have been published within this topic receiving 15791 citations. The topic is also known as: occidentalization.

Discussions on the Language of Prayer in Turkey: A Modern Version of the Classical Debate

Abstract: This essay deals with a subject that has been discussed since the beginnings of Islam and has recently occupied the agenda of modern Islam, especially in the Turkish Republic. The paper addresses the issue of praying in a non‐Arabic language and in a non‐traditional format. In this study, the overall aim is to demonstrate that an attempt has been made to reshape and reconfigure religious life in Turkey through the state policies of Westernization and nationalism. However, the reason for the transformation is associated with an old debate. This study thus will discuss first the classical debate and then contextualize the new version within the Republican period, the main stage for the transformation of the prayer form.

African Theories and Ideologies of Westernization, Modernization, and Liberal Democracy from Early West African Nationalism to Humanism

Abstract: This chapter begins with an overview of the European image of Africa—informed by “social Darwinism”—developed from the sixteenth century onward describing Africa as the “Dark Continent” and Africans as “primitive” and “backward.” The European ideas of the Enlightenment entailed a “humanitarian duty” to bring the “blessings of European civilization” to the “backward” areas of the world such as Africa. The chapter then proceeds with an overview of the French colonial policies of assimilation and association and the British colonial policy of “Indirect Rule.” The chapter then examines the ideas of the African advocates of westernization, modernization, and liberal democracy. These include some of the early West African nationalists of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, mostly Western-educated members of the West African elite such as James B. Africanus Horton, Edward W. Blyden, and Joseph E. Casely Hayford. This is followed by an overview of the political ideas of two prominent mid-twentieth-century moderate African nationalists: K. A. Busia of Ghana and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia.