Keeping the Muslims Out: Concepts of Civilization, Civility, and Civil Society in India, China, and Western Europe

This chapter goes into the problem of civilization and who belongs to it. Like the concept of culture, civilization is a complex and highly contested one, since it operates at the levels not only of scholarly discourse but also of common-sense understandings of hierarchy and difference. This chapter focuses on the exclusion of Muslim minorities in Europe, India, and China and the civilizational legitimation of that exclusion. It highlights the similarities and differences in these patterns of exclusion.