Al-Huda
Foundation, NJ U. S. A
the Message Continues ... 6/124
Newsletter for December 2011
Article 1 - Article 2 - Article 3 - Article 4 - Article 5 - Article 6 - Article 7 - Article 8 - Article 9 - Article 10 - Article 11 - Article 12
Who Can
Enter Into the Dialogue of Civilizations?
by Muhammad Legenhausen
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate And speak
well to the people (2:83)
INTRODUCTION
In the Theatetus, Plato writes:
Do not conduct your questioning unfairly. It is very
unreasonable that one who professes a concern for virtue should
be constantly guilty of unfairness in argument. Unfairness here
consists in not observing the distinction between a debate and a
conversation. A debate need not be taken seriously and one may
trip up an opponent to the best of one's power, but a
conversation should be taken in earnest; one should help out the
other party and bring home to him only those slips and fallacies
that are due to himself or to his earlier instructors. If you
follow this rule, your associates will lay the blame for their
confusions and perplexities on themselves and not on you; they
will like you and court your society, and disgusted with
themselves, will turn to philosophy, hoping to escape from their
former selves and
become different men. [1]
To enter into dialogue, we, too, must be ready to become
different men, just as we must be ready to assist those with
whom we engage in dialogue to become different men. If
civilizations are to enter into
dialogue, it would seem, by analogy, that they should be ready
to escape from their former selves and become different
civilizations. But is this analogy cogent? I think it is, but I
think it is also beneficial to reflect on the metaphor of
civilizations in dialogue.
METAPHOR VS. POLITICAL ANALYSIS
Samuel Huntington [2] offers a political analysis of the
contemporary world as divided into several civilizations with
different religions, histories, identities and values.. He
describes the relations among
these cultural groups as the clash of civilizations because the
differences in values and other cultural factors give rise to
conflict. He also sees Islamic civilization as the main
adversary of the modern
liberal West. He suggests that policy makers in the US should
make a more concerted effort to consciously defend and promote
Western civilization. Huntington's book has attracted much
attention and provoked considerable criticism, as well. His
division of the civilizations has been criticized as being
somewhat arbitrary. His analysis has also invited the accusation
that he is culturally, if not racially, prejudiced. His view of
history has been attacked as inaccurate. Finally, his policy
suggestions have been criticized as against US national
interests. My concern is not with the details of Huntington's
views or whether he or his critics are in the right about any
particular point of issue.
One of the most interesting responses to the idea of a `clash of
civilizations' has been articulated by the President of the
Islamic Republic of Iran, Sayyid Muhammad Khatemi, who in his
address to the 53rd General Assembly of the United Nations, 21
September 1998, reiterated his call for a `dialogue among
civilizations' and proposed that the year 2001 be designated as
`the year of dialogue among civilizations'. Although the
expressions `clash of civilizations' and `dialogue among
civilizations' seem naturally enough opposed, so that the
suggestion of President Khatemi appears to be a humane
alternative to the clash, the ideas are really so different that
they belong in different categories.
The basic idea of the clash of civilizations is an explanation
for existing conflicts. It is a piece of political analysis. The
idea of a dialogue among civilizations, on the other hand, is
not an analysis at all; rather it is a proposal, in the form of
a metaphor, for a way in which we might encounter others. It is
as if Machiavelli were answered by Hafiz. One speaks of
Realpolitik and the other of love (`ishq). If President
Khatemi's proposal is to be any more than a lovely thought, we
have to set about trying to understand what is meant by the
metaphor.
CASHING OUT THE METAPHOR
Civilizations have neither tongues nor ears. They cannot listen
and they cannot speak. People speak and listen and engage in
conversations; but civilizations are abstract entities posited
by historians and political theorists. Therefore, dialogue among
civilizations is impossible. Such is the sort of response a very
literally minded person might give to the proposal of a dialogue
among civilizations. Literally
speaking, of course, the literalist is right. So, if we are to
make any sense out of the idea of a dialogue among civilizations
we have to find some way to cash out the metaphor. But there are
obstacles to dialogue among civilizations beyond the fact that
civilizations lack the appropriate body parts, and these must
also be considered as we reflect on how to understand the idea
of a dialogue among civilizations.
OTHER AND SELF
To speak of dialogue is to speak of a means by which the gap
between other and self may be bridged. If the dialogue is to be
effective for the sort of transformation of which Plato speaks,
it may be a useful
reminder to think of bridging the gap from other to self instead
of the more common phrase, `self and other', because dialogue is
not a means to impose ourselves on others, but to welcome them.
Dialogue requires invitation, and for Muslims there is more than
sufficient instruction in Islam about the proper behavior (adab)
involved in offering an invitation and hosting guests.
In dialogue, however, we are both hosts and guests. The other
invites us to partake in the banquet of his own ideas, values
and aspirations, and we invite the stranger to ours. When we
listen, we must observe the manners of the guest, and when we
speak, the manners of the host. This is a very delicate
business, for if good manners are breached by either
participant, dialogue breaks down.
If dialogue as such is difficult between two persons, the
difficulties are multiplied when we try to imagine a dialogue
among civilizations. To direct attention to another civilization
is to consider the many individual persons of that civilization
as a mass in which particular nuances are missed and a common
set of socially determined values and attitudes are lumped
together.
The alien civilization resists our attempts to engage it in
dialogue, because it is incapable of respecting the rules of
proper behavior. It becomes what Robert Grudin calls `the Mass
Other'
[T]he Mass Other becomes an incorporated giant, firm in its
tastes and unified in its intentions. To this extent, the Mass
Other has identity without soul, dominion without compassion. It
has dominion because it is a consolidation of social power; it
has no sympathy for others because it has no awareness of
itself. It is a monster, a cold smug staring face, the brazen
image of a self-protective system.
This image speaks but does not listen. Our relationship to it is
completely no dialogic, because its power lies in the denial of
dialogue. It harangues us with official discourse but shrinks
and vanishes at the threat of response. [3]
In order for dialogue to take place, we will need to find
another other.
PRODUCTION AND IMITATION
In a metaphorical sense, all of the products of a civilization
may be considered its speech. Civilizations speak through their
arts and technologies, through their literature and law, and
through the
histories of their ideas. Even if civilizations have no minds
with which to think, the thoughts arising among the people of a
civilization and reflected in their labor and its products may
be attributed to the
civilization itself. So, there is a sense, after all, in which
civilizations do have tongues, for as the tongue of a man shows
what he thinks, so too, the products of a civilization reflect
its thoughts.
If there is to be dialogue among civilizations, however, it is
not enough for them to speak. They must also listen. One person
shows that he has listened to another when the speech of the
other elicits a reaction, in deeds or in words. If civilizations
speak through their products, they may be said to listen to
another civilization when the products of the other elicit a
reaction, in historical events or in its
own products. How can the products of one civilization elicit a
reaction in another? Certainly, this is a constant occurrence.
Art critics point out how the arts and architecture of one
culture often influence those of another. Often it takes ages
before the products of a culture may be seen to influence those
of another, as the styles of an ancient civilization become
fashionable in a modern one. There are also cases of fairly
rapid exchange, as Japanese technology imitated that of the
West, and was soon itself emulated in European and American
factories. Through imitation and modification, through montage
and even outright purchase, people, cultures, nations and
civilizations show that they are listening to one another.
If the products of a civilization are its speech, and its
listening is the reflection in those products of the products of
others, it would seem that the two essential elements for
dialogue, speaking and listening, are present in the
metaphorical sense sketched, in civilizations. Here, we are
using anthropological analogies to speak of dialogue among
civilizations. Let's call this interpretation of dialogue among
civilizations the anthropological analogy interpretation.
The elements we have identified in the anthropological analogy
interpretation are not sufficient for dialogue among
civilizations, for true dialogue requires more than mere
speaking and listening. Even if
civilizations can be brought by metaphor to talk with one
another, they cannot be disabused of their lack of manners.
Dialogue requires observation of manners indicating a readiness
to enter the world of the alien and genuinely welcoming
intentions. Civilizations may produce and imitate, export and
import, but they do not open their hearts in dialogue.
THE REPRESENTATIVES OF CIVILIZATIONS
Even if the metaphor discussed above is judged inadequate for
understanding the idea of a dialogue among civilizations, this
is no reason to give up on the idea altogether. Perhaps what is
needed is a change in the figure of speech. Rhetoricians use the
term synecdoche for the trope in which a part or individual
represents the whole or type, as well as the reverse. So, we
might say that a dialogue among civilizations takes place when
individuals belonging to different civilizations engage in
dialogue.
Of course, more than this is needed if we are to achieve what is
meant by a dialogue of civilizations. Not every dialogue among
members of different civilizations will count as a dialogue
among civilizations. If a surgeon from China discusses surgical
technique with a surgeon from Tunis, the dialogue may take place
entirely within the framework of Western medicine.
In order for a dialogue among individuals to count as a dialogue
among civilizations, the individuals must be taken to represent
different civilizations. We could say that there was a dialogue
among nations when the representatives of those nations discuss
a topic, for example, in the meetings of the Islamic Conference
Organization. We could say that there was a dialogue among
religions when the leaders of various religious sects convened,
e.g., the Pope and the Dalai Lama. So, we can say that abstract
social entities may engage in dialogue with one another when
they have recognized leaders who represent them.
We might call the interpretation of dialogue among civilizations
as dialogue among the representatives of civilizations the
representational model of dialogue among civilizations. The main
problem with this interpretation is that civilizations are not
organizations with official representatives and leaders. Who
could be said to represent Western civilization? The president
of the European Union? Who represents Chinese civilization?
Certainly not the current head of the Communist Party there.
Even if there were free and fair elections held in the lands in
which the various civilizations advance and decline, it is
doubtful whether true representatives of those civilizations
would be elected. The people who would be elected most likely
would be political leaders, but to represent a civilization it
is not enough to be a shrewd politician or very popular among
the people of that civilization.
A civilization is not a political district. There is a
difference between the Chinese nation and Chinese civilization.
In its primary meaning, a civilization is not a community or
collection of individuals, but rather it is a highly advanced
state of human society. It seems, however, that the sense in
which Prof Huntington and Pres. Khatemi use the term is that
according to which a civilization is considered to consist of
those people who have achieved such an advanced state of human
society. Nevertheless, to represent the people as members of a
civilization is not the same as representing them politically,
for to represent a civilization, one must be able to represent
the ideas, artistic tastes, spiritual values, cultural
attitudes, technology and literature of that civilization. One
must be a historian of one's civilization to represent it, but
being a historian is not enough. One should also be an
anthropologist,
sociologist, philosopher, linguist, political scientist,
architect, literary critic, film critic, and much more. It is
obvious that it is therefore impossible for any one person to
represent a civilization.
Perhaps the representational model of dialogue among
civilizations can still be salvaged in order to understand very
limited forms of dialogue, dialogue among aspects of
civilizations, but for anyone to imagine himself as the
representative of a civilization would seem to require hubris of
tremendous enormity, and perhaps worse.
The very idea that a person could represent a civilization would
seem to require an identification with one's civilization that
would seem to require something bordering on a type of hysteria
usually associated with tribal loyalties. To the long list of
politically incorrect attitudes including racism, nationalism
and sexism, one might as well add civilizations. A
civilizationist attitude is incompatible with the self
transformative aims of dialogue. When one imagines oneself as
the representation of a civilization in dialogue with the
representatives of other civilizations, one will be on the
defense.
Once one stops defending one's civilization, doubts arise as to
whether one is really representing one's civilization. There can
be no meaningful dialogue when the participants are busy taking
up defensive
postures.
At the same time that those who imagine themselves to be the
representatives of their civilizations confront one another,
they imagine the other to fit into the stereotype of the Mass
Other, described by Grudin above. It is possible that some sort
of polemic will ensue, but under these circumstances there can
be no real dialogue.
THE PERSON AS PRODUCT
The solution to the problem of how to understand dialogue among
civilizations I would like to suggest draws upon elements of
both the anthropological analogy model and the representational
model. The main problem with the anthropological analogy model
was that civilizations are not intentional beings capable of
engaging in real dialogue. Recognition of this flaw motivated
the idea of finding real human
beings to represent civilizations. The two main problems of the
representational model, however, are (1) particular individuals
are not capable of representing the vastly various aspects of
civilizations,
and (2) to imagine oneself the representative of a civilization
seems to require an arrogance inconsistent with dialogue. One
solution to the problem would be to allow that civilizations may
enter into dialogue with one another through the dialogues among
individuals of different civilizations, but not where these
individuals fancy themselves to be the representatives of their
civilizations, rather, their dialogues may be seen as expressing
the dialogue of civilizations, just as war among
the nations of different civilizations may be said to express
the clash of civilizations. As in the representational metaphor,
we may speak of individuals as representing their civilizations,
not in the sense that any individual has the right or ability to
speak for a civilization, but in the sense that a civilization
may speak through the words of individuals because each person
is a product of his civilization.
Persons may become vehicles for the dialogue among civilizations
because persons are products of their civilizations. As in the
anthropomorphic analogy, we may imagine civilizations to speak
through
their products, but for dialogue to take place it is only the
person as product who can become the instrument of dialogue
among civilizations.
DIALOGUE, HISTORY AND IDENTITY
When we think of dialogue among civilizations in the manner
suggested above, two important complications must be kept in
mind. First, in the modern world, people are not the products of
a single civilization, nor is it desirable that they should be.
Second, the dialogue among civilizations that takes place
through dialogues among persons of different civilizations is
not only made up of dialogues among many different thinkers
discussing a wide variety of topics, it is also a dialogue that
is extended in time over generations. It is a piecemeal process
of relatively limited conversations that take the shape of a
dialogue among civilizations only when seen from a distance.
Consider the second point first. Alasdair MacIntyre writes:
Conversations are extended in time. At later points someone may
always refer back to some earlier point with a variety of
purposes: to evaluate what has only emerged cumulatively, to
examine the consistency or inconsistency of what has been said,
to put an old point in a new light or vice versa. Crucial to
polemical conversations therefore is how the different and
disagreeing participants understand the identity and continuity
of those with whom they speak, of how each stands in
relation to his or her past and future utterances in what he or
she says or writes now. Underlying the conflicts of polemical
conversations are the rival participants' presuppositions about
continuing personal identity through time. [4]
MacIntyre continues with a discussion of personal identity in
Aristotelian/Augustinian traditions. First, part of being a
single person throughout one's physical life is having one and
the same body. Second, part of my identity derives from my
accountability before the communities of which I am a member for
my actions, attitudes, statements and beliefs. An important
psychological factor in understanding oneself to be a Muslim,
for example, is due to the fact that one's actions, attitudes,
statements and beliefs are considered by one to be liable to
questioning by other Muslims. For the Muslim, of
course, (as well as for the Augustinian) much more important is
answerability before God, but this lesser form of liability
among community members plays an important role in religious as
well as non-religious communities. The third point MacIntyre
makes is also not foreign to Islamic thought: life is seen as a
quest whose object is the discovery of the truth, including the
truth about one's life as a whole. This quest is also considered
an indispensable element in a good life. MacIntyre admits that
this conception of personal identity is not unique to Thomism,
but is a common understanding in traditional societies.
To belong to a civilization is to see one's own personal
identity as a part of the identity of one's civilization. The
civilization has a physical existence in the temporally
overlapping corporeal lives of its members. The civilization is
bound together by common themes found in the understanding of
its members about how they are to justify their actions,
attitudes, statements and beliefs to one another. Thirdly, the
life of a civilization may also be seen as a quest or journey (sayr)
through history in which the individual quests of its members
are crucial.
With regard to the quest to discover the truth, MacIntyre asks:
[T]hrough what form of social engagement and learning can the
errors which may obstruct such discovery be brought to light?
The first and basic answers to these questions are those
proposed by Socrates. It is only insofar as someone satisfies
the conditions for rendering him or herself vulnerable to
dialectical refutation that that person can come to know whether
and what he or she knows. It is only by belonging to a community
systematically engaged in a dialectical enterprise in which the
standards are sovereign over the contending parties that one can
begin to learn the truth, by first learning the truth about
one's own error, not error from this or that point of view but
error as such, the shadow cast by truth as such: contradiction
in respect of utterance about the virtues. [5]
Much of this may be repeated with regard to dialogue among
civilizations. The quest for truth and self transcendence found
in Plato's discussion of dialogue suggests that a person, as a
bearer of a civilization, must engage in the dialogue among
civilizations in order to discover the truth about himself as a
member of that civilization with which he identifies. It is
through participation in dialogue that
one's errors may come to light.
To engage in dialogue one becomes accountable to the other. This
reaches a rather extreme form in dialogue among civilizations,
for one becomes accountable to another who is seen as
representing attitudes, values and traditions strange and alien
from one's own. To be accountable in a dialogue of civilizations
is to be open to having to give an account of what one has
either said or done, or of the ideas and practices of the
civilization with which one identifies, and then to be open to
having to amplify, explain, defend, and if necessary, either
modify or abandon that account, and in this latter case to begin
the work of supplying a new one in terms the alien can
understand, or be taught to understand. [6]
As dialogue unfolds, its participants must be ready to abandon
the account of some particular topic they had associated with
the civilization they represent, and accept the superiority of
the account
given by representatives of another civilization. When the
dialogue continues, the participants will no longer be pure
representatives of their own civilizations. In fact, the idea
that there are any
representatives of a single civilization, a single unspoiled
tradition, ought to be recognized as a potentially dangerous
myth in the modern world because it hinders genuine dialogue,
promotes giving excuses for the deficiencies in our own
traditions, and blinds one to the vision of other civilizations
as potential sources for the enrichment of one's own
civilization.
This is especially important for Muslims. Islam came to place
dedication to the Truth (haqq) above tribal loyalties. We are
not to continue in established ways simply because we found our
fathers doing so. Like Christian tradition, Muslim traditions
are never pure; they always arise from an attempt to reform
given cultures through the teachings of God's appointed
Messenger ('s).
Similar points are made by the Christian theologian Miroslav
Volf about Christianity. [7] While MacIntyre emphasizes the
importance of tradition, Volf observes that Christianity does
not call mankind to any particular civilization or tradition,
but to a series of interrelated basic commitments-beliefs and
practices. These commitments can be developed into traditions,
cultures and perhaps even civilizations, as they interact with
and reform the societies in which these commitments are made.
However, at every step of the way, we can ask whether what has
been wrought cannot be brought into better accord with the
faith. Much the same could be said with regard to Islam.
Our understanding of the dynamics of dialogue among
civilizations will be enhanced through reflection on the
differences expressed by Volf and MacIntyre. MacIntyre holds
that a coherent moral stand, as well as coherent standards of
reason, can only be achieved within a tradition. There is no
neutral ground from which we can issue judgments about moral
worth or rational acceptability. MacIntyre expresses grave
doubts about the direction of modern society which seems to have
cut itself off from the traditions which have the most to offer
it. MacIntyre's discussions of the importance of tradition are
relevant to our considerations of dialogue among civilizations
because civilization itself is a social embodiment of one or
more traditions.
Dialogue among civilizations is only possible when those who
participate in the dialogue understand their own identities and
those of their civilizations in relation to the traditions from
which they emerge in history. The emphasis MacIntyre places on
tradition leads to an assumption that conversation with others
will be polemical. We engage in conversation in order to test
our own views against those of others. The rivals whom MacIntyre
would speak are not alien civilizations, but the modernists and
postmodernists of Western civilization.
The complaint raised against MacIntyre by Volf is that the
glorification of tradition is both unrealistic and harmful. It
is unrealistic because our cultures and traditions "are not
integrated wholes and cannot be made to be such in contemporary
societies .... precisely because we cannot avoid living in
overlapping and rapidly changing social spaces. In contemporary
societies it is impossible to pursue a coherent system of goods.
Instead, we must rest satisfied with holding on to basic
commitments." [8] The ideal of the single coherent tradition is
harmful, according to Volf, because it would seem to require "an
anti-modern and anti-pluralistic social revolution." Volf
comments that such a revolution would most certainly not `pay
off.
MacIntyre, however, agrees with Volf that traditions are hybrid,
and he has explicitly renounced the communitarian politics
against which Volf warns. Volf thinks that MacIntyre must want
to eliminate the impurity, the hybridity, of traditions in order
to make them into the sort of coherent systems from which moral
and rational evaluations can be issued.
Against MacIntyre, however, I have argued that a Christian
theologian will not necessarily want to get rid of the "hybridity"-she
will be much more interested in affirming basic Christian
commitments in culturally situated ways than in forging coherent
traditions and we will suspect that hybrid traditions will be
more open than coherent traditions not only to be shaped by
these commitments but also to be enriched by each other. [9]
MacIntyre would no doubt respond that he has no aspiration to
the elimination of hybridity from traditions. Indeed, the
tradition of which he is most fond, the Thomistic, is admittedly
a hybrid of Christian and Aristotelian thought, with strong
influences traceable to Muslim thought. Moreover, we should
expect that MacIntyre would argue that the `basic commitments'
Volf finds at the essence of Christianity will mean different
things to different people depending upon the traditions of
thought upon which they draw to interpret them.
This debate enhances our understanding of the dynamics of the
dialogue among civilizations because of the importance of
hybridity and tradition. We cannot understand ourselves or our
civilizations without understanding the traditions that inform
them. If we are to hope to understand other persons or
civilizations, we must inquire into the traditions of the other,
as well. This is what we learn from MacIntyre.
What Volf rightly emphasizes, however, is that in order
to understand ourselves, our civilizations, our traditions,
other persons, other civilizations and other traditions, we have
to recognize that none of them are pure, in the sense that none
of them represents a single line of thought. All are syntheses
of various streams of thought and culture. Yet, it is not mere
chaos. There are main streams and there are secondary
influences. Within the mix it is still possible to distinguish
characteristic features of cultures, civilizations and
traditions. Our hybrid thoughts and practices express themselves
in ways more or less typical of a tradition or culture or
civilization, with strands woven in from other sources. As we
step back and look at our conversations we may be able to
recognize patterns in which
participants from different civilizations utilize the difference
in perspective to which they are exposed to transcend themselves
in true dialogue.
ISLAM AND DIALOGUE
The role of Islam in the dialogue among civilizations is rather
complicated. Perhaps more than the sources of any other
religion, the sources of Islam, the Qur'an and sunnah, address
themselves to others. Usually the other is addressed in the form
of an invitation to Islam, and for various reasons, this may
seem threatening to the outsider. Nevertheless, in its essence
the invitation can be read as the initiation of dialogue. The
Muslim ummah calls on others to join it, and it thereby opens
itself to the transformation of self brought on by the inclusion
of other peoples, other ways of thinking and living. The ummah
has undergone major historical transformations as a result of
its incorporation of non-Arab peoples. At the same time, the
invitation beckons the other to a self transformation as well.
Even if the other ultimately refuses to accept Islam, the
invitation sets up the fundamental grounds for dialogue. But
Islam itself is not a civilization. Although Islam is a
religion, there is the question of Islamic civilization. There
is a nice discussion of this question in the introduction to
Marshall Hodgson's The Venture of Islam:
I plead that it has been all too common, in modern scholarship,
to use the terms `Islam' and `Islamic' too casually both for
what we may call religion and for the overall society and
culture associated historically with the religion. I grant that
it is not possible nor, perhaps, even desirable to draw too
sharp a line here, for (and not only in Islam) to separate out
religion from the rest of life is partly to falsify it.
Nevertheless, the society and culture called `Islamic' in the
second sense are not necessarily `Islamic' in the first. Not
only have the groups of people involved in the two cases not
always been co-extensive (the culture has not been simply a
`Muslim culture', a culture of Muslims)-much of what even
Muslims have done as a part of the `Islamic' civilization can
only be characterized as `un-Islamic' in the first, religious
sense of the word. One can speak of `Islamic literature', of
`Islamic art', of `Islamic philosophy', even of `Islamic
despotism', but in such a sequence one is speaking less and less
of something that expresses Islam as a faith. [10]
The solution suggested by Hodgson is that the term `Islamic' be
used for that which pertains to the religion, and that `Islamicate'
be used to describe the society and culture in which the Muslims
and Islam are recognized as prevalent or socially dominant in
some sense. To describe something as Islamicate is not to
indicate the geographical area of its origin, but to that which
emerges from the complex of social relations in which Islam was
or is prevalent, particularly the lettered traditions grounded
in Arabic and Persian historically distinctive of societies of
Muslim peoples, societies which included, of course,
non-Muslims. Thus, Maimonides may be called an Islamicate
philosopher and a Jewish philosopher, but not an Islamic
philosopher.
The remarks in the previous sections about the dialogue among
civilizations were made under the assumption that among the
civilizations for which dialogue has been prescribed are those
of the
West and of Islam. When we speak of dialogue with the
civilization of Islam, we are not speaking of the ideal society
prescribed by the religion of Islam for man, but of what has
actually evolved among Muslim peoples. So, it would be better to
speak of Islamicate civilization, in Hodgson's
terminology, than of Islamic civilization. It is through
dialogue among civilizations that Muslims may hope to transform
contemporary Islamicate civilization into something more of an
Islamic civilization,
in sha'Allah!
In closing, consider the observation of Hodgson:
Muslims are assured in the Qur'an, `You have become the best
community ever raised up for mankind, enjoining the right and
forbidding the wrong, and having faith in God' (III, 110).
Earnest men have taken this prophecy seriously to the point of
trying to mould the history of the whole world in accordance
with it ....
Muslims have yet to implement the Qur'anic prophecy fully in all
its implications. But they have perennially renewed their hopes
and efforts to live the godly life not only as individuals but
as a community. In every age, pious Muslims have reasserted
their faith, in the light of
new circumstances that have arisen out of the failures and also
the successes of the past. The vision has never vanished, the
venture has never been abandoned; these hopes and efforts are
still vitally alive in the modern world. The history of Islam as
a faith, and of the culture of which it has formed the core,
derives its unity and its unique significance from that vision
and that venture. [11]
[1] Plato, Theatetus, 167-168.
[2] Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the
Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997).
[3] Robert Grudin, On Dialogue (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996),
123-124.
[4] Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry:
Encyclopedia, Genealogy and Tradition (Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1990), 196
[5] MacIntyre (1990), 200.
[6] MacIntyre (1990), 201
[7] See Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological
Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1996),
208.
[8] Volf (1996), 209-21
[9] Volf (1996), 211, also see 52.
[10] Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, Vol. 1,
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 57.
[11] Hodgson (1974), 71.
Excerpted from: Contempoary
Topics of Islamic Thought
by Muhammad Legenhausen, Islamic Culture and Relations
Organization
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