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Mustafa Kemal’s government was certainly authoritarian, but he had a saying which is profoundly true.

Bernard Lewis

If you look at the movement of refugees, in Vladimir Lenin’s phrase, “the people who voted with their feet,” the movement of refugees until comparatively modern times was overwhelmingly from West to East, not from East to West.
BERNARD LEWIS

Christian Islamic Movement People Refugee Voted
Muslims have their own traditions. The important point to bear in mind is that the whole Muslim tradition is totally and unequivocally opposed to autocratic and oppressive government. This is very, very clear.
BERNARD LEWIS

Bear Important Mind Muslim Point Tradition
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
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.
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Awareness Community Faithful Government Own Religious Stamped State
Certainly Tunisia was the first in Muslim world. It’s been like that for a long time and women play an important part in Tunisia. There are women in all professions. Doctors, dentists, lawyers, politicians, journalists and so on.
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Country Important Long Play Time World
To accept the story of the Arab destruction of the library of Alexandria, one must explain how it is that so dramatic an event was unmentioned and unnoticed not only in the rich historical literature of medieval Islam.
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Christian Destruction Dignity Historical Human Important Scary
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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Community Comparing Humiliating People Religious Situation
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
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
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
Mohammad founded a state which soon became an empire, so that Islam from the very beginning is involved with government, with politics. And therefore there is a very clear strong political tradition in Islam.
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Clear Foundedmstate Religious Soon Strong
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
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
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.
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Dignity Giving Human Humble Remarkable
Muslims are very keenly aware of the history of their community, of the history of that relationship between their community and the rest of the world. And they have had this all through the centuries and are very much heightened by modern communications.
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Communication Community Dignity History Human Important Mean People Relationship
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.
BERNARD LEWIS

Billion Centuries Diversity Enormous People Religious

Mustafa Kemal’s government was certainly authoritarian, but he had a saying which is profoundly true.

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Mustafa Kemal’s government was certainly authoritarian, but he had a saying which is profoundly true.

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