الإسلام والغرب: نحو عالم أفضل

Islam and the West… for a better world @

culture which, at these times, were much more distinct than they now are. Even the American Civil War was fought between two cultures, Yankee and Dixie, within one nation. The South fought for their "genteel living" , a notion absent in the North. With that we are now prepared to challenge the very idea of a "clash" between civilizations, a very strange idea indeed. From what we know of the development of cultures there has never been a point zero as far as we can see back. Everybody profited from everybody, everybody built on everybody else's achievements - as so well demonstrated by the journey west of the Indian numerals which in Europe we call Arab numerals, even though the Arabs only added the (admittedly all important) zero. In particular, the Mediterranean Sea supposedly dividing the Occident from the Muslims in the South and East never acted as a barrier only but always as well as a bridge. Even in the middle of the Crusades, economic and cultural interchange, interaction, cross-fertilization never stopped. Let me highlight this fact with a few astonishing examples: • The Catalonean religious philosopher Raymondus Lullus (1232-1316), hoping to promote peace with the Muslim world, traveled to Muslim Sicily and " North-Africa as a Christian missionary. No harm was done to him. • Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) traveled to the Near East as member of the 5th Crusade - imagine! - but was allowed to preach in front of Sultan al-Malik a1-Kamil in 1219. • The German Emperor Frederic II of the Stauffen dynasty who spoke Arabic and surrounded himself with "Muslim scientists peacefully traveled to alQuds in 1229 as guest of Sultan al-Malik and insisted that the call to prayer would be sounded during his presence. • Leo Africanus (1490-1550), a Muslim Andalusian became advisor to

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