Globalisation vs. Islamic Universality and the Politics of Translation

Abstract

The world has been recently going through vast, overwhelming changes whose implications for different fields and disciplines are beyond understanding and interpretation at times. Many concepts, like 'Globalistaion', have been presented as the magic wand for countries and individuals alike to attain their aspirations, but peoples have attained more problems, wars, conflicts, ignorance, deterioration and sometimes even destruction. The Western perspective of Globalisation has failed to offer an acceptably successful model for a 'prosperous', 'free', 'democratic', happy globe. Since the relationship between language, politics and translation is steadfast, this study aims to challenge the inevitability of the Western models of Globalisation, to explore 'Islamic Universality' as a valuable global model, and to investigate the politics of translation in this regard. It is not my intention to compare between Globalisation as an ideology on the one hand and Islamic Universality as a religion on the other. It is rather a comparison between an idea and another. Its theoretical underpinnings delve into translation studies, especially Ahmed (2014; 2020) and political sciences, particularly Fukuyama's 'The End of History' (1989). It compares between the two concepts, revisiting and reinterpreting some events in history and making new relationships. Methodological tools include description, analysis, comparison and interpretation in a qualitative research design, using one of G.W. Bush's addresses and comparing it to a letter by Prophet Mohammed, may peace be upon him, as sample data representing the two discourses respectively. It concludes, for example, that it is either the 'end of history' for Globalisation or time for history to end as such; Time has come for the 'beginning of history' of an alternative universalist model. Thus the 'end of history' can be interpreted differently from Fukuyama's. Also, the domination ideology is deep-rooted in history, whose events cannot be logically interpreted without a theory of conspiracy, a theory harshly and unethically attacked to maintain Mankind's coma and stupefaction. Meanwhile, it uncovers the politics and the potential role of translation.