My study away semester in Madrid started two weeks ago, and as part of the orientation events, our campus offered city tours with different themes. Coming from Abu Dhabi, I signed up for the Islam in Spain tour. This article is a reflection on what I learned and how that relates to our realities in Abu Dhabi and the diverse student community.

I experienced a moment of epiphany: noticing that what is alien to oneself has threads that lead to something internal.

This form of recognition happens in all kinds of scenarios: a stranger who seems incomprehensible in their mannerism and personality suddenly becomes bearable, and even comfortable when you find out you share your favorite show. A British man who hates the German with all his guts does a DNA test and finds out he is 10% German, bringing him to tears, and uttering that they might not be that bad after all. We recognize in alien bodies something that belongs to ourselves, and we take their hand in friendship, practice solidarity, and are suddenly capable of overlooking differences. This observation of mine, from a civilian standpoint, not as a researcher, is a key factor in human interactions. As a result of evolution, we are afraid of what looks and acts *differently*, but as a civilization, we are able to identify similarities. Being the herd animals we are, we choose to prioritize what is common over the elements of the other that are strange to ourselves. This is how diverse communities are built.

I am an undergraduate student at NYU Abu Dhabi, and I am fascinated with paradoxes and unlikely pairings. Due to their ability to involve a wider range of interests, they make learning more engaging and knowledge more enticing. I also study Legal Studies and Political Science and focus on the Middle East and its relationship to the “West”, Western Europe, and the United States of America. Not surprisingly, this is a topic of study that can absolve you through current affairs, foreign policy decisions, statements, fake news, etc. The real value of a study like this, however, lies in its dynamics, its thread, and the patterns of its weave. Edward Said contributed to this study like little other: Orientalism, a phrase that captures and establishes a relationship. Over the decades, foreign policies have changed, prime ministers and presidents have deceased, and yet, Orientalism remains a guidance for deeper understanding. Essentially, Said termed the elitism of Western culture, media, and art towards the Middle East, and their production of their own tainted perception as a parallelism to the real, alive Middle Eastern culture. Examples include the paintings of Middle Eastern women with curvy bodies in flowing dresses, lying in harems surrounded by fruits and female staff, or, more recently, Aladdin as the cheeky, street smart, but poor, handsome Arab. Orientalism does not necessarily equate to degrading representations of the Middle East, but simply a prevailing perception of it that fails to grasp the diversity of the real culture. Sometimes these translate into (sexualizing) fantasies, sometimes simplifying fairytales. What it does, unanimously, is create the concept of the East as a different world, a juxtaposition, as can be seen through the terms of the occident and the orient, antonyms to each other. (In German, the terms are even more evident, such as “Abendland” and “Morgenland,” land where the sun sets versus land where the sun rises.)

The dichotomy between the East and the West, then, is something that we, as Middle Eastern studies and political science students situated in the Middle East, learn about early on. Fortunately, we are also made aware of its danger and its simplification. For example, the East vs West phenomenon, Islam vs. Christianity. These confrontations help us understand a form of conflict. However, it also establishes a foreignness that almost becomes second nature. This happens all around the world, in all regimes and all fields of study. In the U.S., immigrants are suddenly labeled as originating from a foreign country and therefore Othered, when in reality, America is the nation of immigrants. Antisemitism opposes Jews and Muslims, when in reality, Semites are descendants of one of the sons of Noah, thereby Arabs and Hebrews alike. The East vs. West dichotomy, therefore, is polarizing and misleading like many other forms of deliberate juxtapositions. Without delegitimizing the apparent and real tensions and conflicts between Eastern and Western ideologies and nations, this dichotomy must be disarmed.

Earlier today, I attended a tour, which gave me the impulse to write this article. Mapping Madrid, a walking tour through the Islamic traces in Madrid. What I saw in these two hours made apparent once again the red string of this text: in all that we recognize as alien, there are threads that lead to within ourselves. Spain, with the royal family situated in the heart of the Iberian Peninsula in Western Europe, was governed by the Muslims for more than seven centuries. Al-Andalus, the Islamic empire that existed in today’s Spain from the 700s to the late 1400s left traces around Spain, (most prominently, the Alhambra in Granada in the South of Spain) but most of the architectural masterpieces and infrastructure were destroyed by the Christians during their conquest. Without going into too much detail on the history, it was fascinating to be reminded that what today is so consistently othered and made foreign, created the foundation on which the Spanish cities stand. Underneath the Renaissance buildings there lie the bricks of the Muslim state in which Jews and Christians alike coexisted peacefully.

I believe it poses an important reminder that what we believe to be foreign to ourselves rarely ever is. The white people who shout racist phrases descend from the first humans, who were Africans, and dark-skinned. The roots of the Islamic societies that many view as strange, threatening, and fanatic, often intertwine with those of their starkest critics. Diversity then, in its truest form, is not only about accepting what is different, but recognizing the parts of yourself that are strange, and foreign, and recognizing the alien in yourself. In today's cosmopolitan world, the ability to travel, exchange, and autonomy make it highly unlikely that someone is monogenous in origin, mind, and body. An embrace of the threads of another that run within you could truly alter the world.