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One could with equal justification talk about a Judeo-Islamic tradition or a Christian-Islamic tradition. These three religions are interlinked in many signification ways, which marks them off from the rest of the world.

Bernard Lewis

A remarkable feature of Islam is that it gives dignity even to the humblest illiterate peasants. It gives them a certain human dignity which one doesn’t find in other societies.
BERNARD LEWIS

Dignity Giving Human Humble Remarkable
Islam does give human dignity, certainly. The point I wanted to make is that it is great foolishness to try to impose our notions of democracy. They have their own traditions.
BERNARD LEWIS

Country Democrazy Dignity Human Impose Notion Point
Islam explicitly rejects dictatorship and there are no traditions of the Prophet or passages in the Qur’an which clearly give dictators this support.
BERNARD LEWIS

Giving Passages Religious Support Traditions
You see Christians and Muslims have one thing in common which they do not share with their other religions as far as I know. They claim to be the fortunate recipient of God’s final message to mankind.
BERNARD LEWIS

Christian Common Dignity Human Important Religious Share
These internal clashes in Israel nowadays are in a sense a continuation of a clash between Islam and Christendom through their former Jewish minorities and it works out in a number of different ways. It’s fascinating to watch.
BERNARD LEWIS

Continuation Different Islam Nowadays Work Out
I think that the growing government control of the press is very clear. Turkey is still not a dictatorship, there is still some freedom of the press, but I think it’s moving in the wrong direction.
BERNARD LEWIS

Control Dictatorship Government Moving Thinking
So there is a long struggle between the Dar al-Islam and the Dar al-Harb, which in effect was Christendom. This was the perceived enemy. And this has inevitably colored the perception of everything else.
BERNARD LEWIS

Christendom Colored Country Culture Faith Long Perception Struggle Tradition
Very often we mean the same thing. But what we do mean, what in the Western world we call human rights, in the Islamic world, they don’t talk about rights. Now they do, but in the past they didn’t. It wasn’t part of their terminology. But really it’s the same thing.
BERNARD LEWIS

Country Human Rights Mean Past Right Same Things
Christians and Muslims share the belief that they are the fortunate recipient of the final God message.
BERNARD LEWIS

Belief Christian God Message Share
The myth was invented by Jews in nineteenth-century Europe as a reproach to Christians.
BERNARD LEWIS

Christians Country Invented Myth Nineteenth Reproach
If the conflict is about the size of Israel, then long and difficult negotiations can eventually resolve the problem. But if the conflict is about the existence of Israel, then serious negotiation is impossible.
BERNARD LEWIS

Country Long Negotiation Problem Size
Muslims have their own tradition on limited government. Now in Islam, there is a very strong political tradition. Because the different circumstances, Islam is political from the very beginning.
BERNARD LEWIS

Community Government Political Religious Tradition
The idea which we so often hear expressed in the Western world, that’s how they are, that’s how they will always be and they can’t do anything else.
BERNARD LEWIS

Anything Else Expressed Idea Western World
Islam and Islamic values now have a level of immunity from comment and criticism in the Western world that Christianity has lost and Judaism has never had.
BERNARD LEWIS

Criticism Immunity Islamic Level World
I think confronted with the modern world or with the rest of the world, I think people are becoming aware that the Western and Islamic civilizations have more in common than apart.
BERNARD LEWIS

Christian Dignity Human Important Islamic Real
The word “democracy” is a Western word obviously. It doesn’t exist in Arabic. Democratiya is a loan word.
BERNARD LEWIS

Mean Mistake Strong World

One could with equal justification talk about a Judeo-Islamic tradition or a Christian-Islamic tradition. These three religions are interlinked in many signification ways, which marks them off from the rest of the world.

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One could with equal justification talk about a Judeo-Islamic tradition or a Christian-Islamic tradition. These three religions are interlinked in many signification ways, which marks them off from the rest of the world.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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