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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.

Bernard Lewis

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
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
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
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
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
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 Jews were a component basically of two civilizations. In the Western world, we talk about the Judeo-Christian tradition and you talk about the Judeo-Islamic tradition because there were large and important Jewish communities living in the lands of Islam.
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Christian Community Country People Religion Tradition Western 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.
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Christian Dignity Human Important Islamic Real
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
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
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
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
Christians and Muslims share the belief that they are the fortunate recipient of the final God message.
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Belief Christian God Message Share
The Cold War philosophy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), which prevented the former Soviet Union and the United States from using the nuclear weapons they had targeted at each other, would not apply to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran.
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Country Dignity Human Important Philosophy Prevented War
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.
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Christian Islamic Movement People Refugee Voted
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.
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Community Government Political Religious Tradition

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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