الإسلام والغرب: نحو عالم أفضل

Islam and the West… for a better world @

The actual problem of the Balkans is not an impending clash of civilisations, but rather the question as to whether the Balkans will survive being excluded from the EU. In Kosovo 70% of the Muslims are unemployed. There is no change in sight. Any future conflicts in East Europe will most probably break out between the poor and rich rather than between different cultures. 4. Goethe – His Vision of a “World Citizen” Let us permit ourselves to make a brief digression. Europe and Islam - this dynamic relationship, has a very real tradition in Europe. Perhaps this is the moment to call to mind another location of Islamic life in Europe. Weimar. In this location a famous European mind – Goethe – envisaged a cosmopolitan society beyond race and nationalism. Weimar in particular, the city of German classicism, which is especially close to my heart as a German, prefigured Europe’s encounter with Islam. There is no doubt that Goethe found in Islam an answer to his longing for unity and his deep belief in destiny. Goethe recognised a global phenomenon in Islam. You of course are aware that Goethe declared the famous sentence “I do not deny the suspicion that I myself am a Muslim.” Moreover this sentence was spoken at a time when Islam in Europe represented a concept of something that evoked extreme feelings of enmity. There is therefore no doubt that Goethe admired many aspects of Islam. To give just one example: Goethe admires, in his famous conversations with Eckermann, the Islamic method of education. ...What is remarkable are the teachings with which the Mohammedans begin their education. As the foundation of their religion, they establish in their youth the conviction that man cannot encounter anything but what an all-guiding Divinity has long ago decreed; this equips and reassures them for their entire lives, and leaves them needing little else.

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