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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

What is happening now in Israel is that you have a coming together of Jews from the Christian world and Jews from the Muslim world with different cultures.
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Christian Communities Cultures Different Happening Jews People Together
Moses led his people through the wilderness and he wasn’t permitted to enter the Promised Land. Jesus was crucified.
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Enter Jesus Moses People Strong Wilderness
Muslims naturally saw Christendom as their arch rival. One point that is really important to bear in mind, particularly in addressing an American audience, and that is that the Islamic world has a very strong sense of history.
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Dignity Feelings Human Important Islamic Strong
In the Christian world, as you remember, Christianity is in the 21st century, Islam is in the 15th century. I don’t mean to say that Islam is backward; I mean to say that there are certain experiences that it hasn’t gone through.
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Century Christian Dignity Human Important Religious Remember War
In the Muslim world, history is important and their knowledge of history is not always accurate but is very detailed. There is a strong historical sense in the Muslim world, a feeling for the history of Islam from the time of the Prophet until the present day.
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Accurate Community Feeling History Knowledge Strong
Unless there will be some radical change, which is unlikely, I will say the tradition of Kemalism will be dead in Turkey. And Turkey is becoming a more Islamic state, in the traditional sense.
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Country Dead More Some Tradition Traditional Unlikely
Islam explicitly rejects dictatorship and there are no traditions of the Prophet or passages in the Qur’an which clearly give dictators this support.
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Giving Passages Religious Support Traditions
And I think there is a growing awareness of this among Christians and among Jews, and even to some extent to some Muslims. That’s happening for obvious reasons.
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Awareness Country Grow Happening People Reason Religious Some
In the West nowadays, it’s very common to talk about the Judeo- Christian tradition. It’s a common term. The term is relatively modern but the reality is an old one.
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Christian Common Nowadays Reality Term Thinking
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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Christian Country Equal Interlinked Significant Tradition Ways
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.
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Country Human Rights Mean Past Right Same Things
I see encouraging signs of democracy developing in other places in the Middle East. In Tunisia, in Iraq, and now in Egypt. Tunisia is the one Muslim country that does something for girls and education.
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Country Democracy Developing Girl Middle Place
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.
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Control Dictatorship Government Moving Thinking
The myth was invented by Jews in nineteenth-century Europe as a reproach to Christians.
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Christians Country Invented Myth Nineteenth Reproach
We in the Western world make the great mistake of assuming that ours is the only form of good government; that democracy means what it means in the Anglo-American world and a few other places in the West, but not many others.
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Assuming Country Democracy Good Mistake Other
In the past, foreign intervention was obviously a major problem. Foreign domination, or if not domination, interference. But that has ended. There is no foreign domination; there is minimal foreign interference. The Cold War has ended. The Soviet Union no longer exists.
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Dignity Domination Human Important Past People War

Islam explicitly rejects dictatorship and there are no traditions of the Prophet or passages in the Qur’an which clearly give dictators this support.

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Islam explicitly rejects dictatorship and there are no traditions of the Prophet or passages in the Qur’an which clearly give dictators this support.

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Popular Authors

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