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I mean now you have Muslims in the Muslim world who can compare their situations with people elsewhere and they find that very humiliating.

Bernard Lewis

From the lifetime of its founder, Islam was the state, and the identity of religion and government is indelibly stamped on the memories and awareness of the faithful from their own sacred writings, history, and experience.
BERNARD LEWIS

Awareness Community Faithful Government Own Religious Stamped State
Christianity had the great religious wars of the 17th century. Islam, fortunately for the Muslims, did not have that. Christianity worked out a system of toleration. Islam was always more tolerant of Christendom.
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Always Century Great Muslim People Religious Tolerant Toleration
My position on that has been misrepresented again and again and again in the media.
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Action Again Country Independent Media War
I think the important point which I’ve been trying to get across is that Islam, from the very beginning, is strongly, clearly opposed to autocratic dictatorial government.
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Dignity Human Important Oppose Strongly Thinking
Blaming the imperialists nowadays is obviously absurd, as is blaming the Americans, who obviously don’t have the slightest desire to control anything in the Middle East.
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Blame Blaming Country Desire Dignity Human Importance War
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
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
The general perception, in much of the Middle East, is that the United States is an unreliable friend and a harmless enemy. I think we want to give the exact opposite impression.
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Country Enemy Treacherous Unreliable
In opposing we always talk about freedom in the Western world, Muslims always talk about justice.
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Always Dignity Freedom Human Important Islamic Mean Past
As far as I know, this is the only Muslim country where this is true. There is compulsory education for girls from the age of 5.
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Age Compulsory Country Education Five True
The word Islam thus denotes more than fourteen centuries of history, a billion and a third people, and a religious and cultural tradition of enormous diversity.
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Billion Centuries Diversity Enormous People Religious
The object of jihad is to bring the whole world under Islamic Law.
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Dignity Human Important Islamic Law
When we talk about the Judeo-Christian or the Judeo-Muslim tradition, it’s important to remember that we are speaking of a Jewish component of civilization, but not in itself a civilization.
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Christian Human Important Religious Together Tradition
One reason which I find particularly fascinating about Israel is this. There is no such thing as a Jewish civilization. There is a Jewish culture, a Jewish religion, but there is no such thing as a Jewish civilization.
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Civilization Community Dignity Human Important
The golden age of equal rights in Spain was a myth, and belief in it was a result, more than a cause, of Jewish sympathy for Islam.
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Age Christian Dignity Golden Human Important Rights Sympathy
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 mean now you have Muslims in the Muslim world who can compare their situations with people elsewhere and they find that very humiliating.

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I mean now you have Muslims in the Muslim world who can compare their situations with people elsewhere and they find that very humiliating.

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Popular Authors

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