These are what one of the prominent non-Muslim thinking and perception about Islam:
If there is much understanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilization owe to the Islamic world. It is a failure which stems, I think, from the straightjacket of history we have inherited. … But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society and system of belief, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own society.
Islam nurtured and preserved the quest for knowledge. In the words of the tradition, ‘the ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr’. Cordoba in the 10th century was by far the most civilized city of Europe. … Many of the traits on which modern Europe prides itself came to it from Muslim Spain. Diplomacy, free trade, open borders, techniques of academic research, anthropology, etiquette, fashions, alternative medicine, hospitals, all came from this great city of cities.
At the heart of Islam is its preservation of an integral view of the Universe. Islam refuses to separate man and nature, religion and science, mind and matter, and has preserved a metaphysical and unified view of ourselves and the world around us. … But the west gradually lost this integrated vision of the world with Copernicus and Descartes and the coming of the scientific revolution. A comprehensive philosophy is no longer part of our everyday beliefs.
These introductory remarks at a lecture for the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies come from a rather unexpected resource. They were articulated by His Royal Highness Prince Charles in 1993.
If there is much understanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilization owe to the Islamic world. It is a failure which stems, I think, from the straightjacket of history we have inherited. … But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society and system of belief, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own society.
Islam nurtured and preserved the quest for knowledge. In the words of the tradition, ‘the ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr’. Cordoba in the 10th century was by far the most civilized city of Europe. … Many of the traits on which modern Europe prides itself came to it from Muslim Spain. Diplomacy, free trade, open borders, techniques of academic research, anthropology, etiquette, fashions, alternative medicine, hospitals, all came from this great city of cities.
At the heart of Islam is its preservation of an integral view of the Universe. Islam refuses to separate man and nature, religion and science, mind and matter, and has preserved a metaphysical and unified view of ourselves and the world around us. … But the west gradually lost this integrated vision of the world with Copernicus and Descartes and the coming of the scientific revolution. A comprehensive philosophy is no longer part of our everyday beliefs.
These introductory remarks at a lecture for the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies come from a rather unexpected resource. They were articulated by His Royal Highness Prince Charles in 1993.
For the full text, please click here.
Prince Charles (center) with Sheikh Tantawi at Al-Azhar University
No comments:
Post a Comment