Islamic – Jewish relations

Islamic – Jewish relations started in the 7th century CE with the origin and spread of Islam in the Arabian peninsula. The two religions share similar values, guidelines, and principles. Islam also incorporates Jewish history as a part of its own. Muslims regard the Children of Israel as a central religious concept in Islam. This is evident by Moses being mentioned in the Qur’an more than any other prophet (including Mohammad) and the Exodus being the most recurring theme. There are approximately forty-three references to the Israelites in the Quran (excluding individual prophets),^[1] and many in the Hadith. From the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, until the present, the history of Judaism has spanned approximately 3400 years. For the first 2000 years of this history Islam was not in existence. As a result there is no discussion of Islam in the founding texts of Judaism. However, later rabbinic authorities and Jewish scholars such as Maimonides discuss the relationship between Islam and Jewish law extensively.

Because Islam has its foundation in Judaism and they share a common origin in the Middle East through Abraham, both are considered Abrahamic religions. There are many shared aspects between Judaism and Islam; Islam was strongly influenced by Judaism in its fundamental religious outlook, structure, jurisprudence and practice.^[2][3] Because of this, as well as through the influence of Muslim culture and philosophy on the Jewish community within the Islamic world, there has been considerable and continued physical, theological, and political overlap between the two faiths in the subsequent 1,400 years.

Contents [hide] 1 Religious figures 1.1 Abraham 1.2 Muhammad 1.3 Other prophets 2 Jews in the Qur'an 3 Historical interaction 3.1 Middle Ages 3.2 Conversion of Jews to Islam 3.3 Conversion of Muslims to Judaism 3.4 Contemporary era 3.4.1 Interfaith activities 4 Common aspects 4.1 Holy scripture 4.2 Religious law 4.3 Rules of conduct 4.4 Other similarities 5 Interplay between Jewish and Islamic thought 5.1 Saadia Gaon 5.2 Maimonides 5.3 Influence on exegesis 6 See also 6.1 History 6.2 Culture 6.3 Issues 6.4 Comparative religion 7 Notes 8 References 9 External links

Religious figures

The Cave of the Patriarchs, burial place of Abraham.

Moses with the Ten Commandments, by Rembrandt.

Ancient Hebrew and Arab people are generally classified as Semitic peoples, a concept derived from Biblical accounts of the origins of the cultures known to the ancient Hebrews. Those closest to them in culture and language were generally deemed to be descended from their forefather Shem, one of the sons of Noah. Enemies were often said to be descendants of his cursed brother Ham. Modern historians confirm the affinity of ancient Hebrews and Arabs based on characteristics that are usually transmitted from parent to child, such as genes and habits, however the most well studied criterion is that of language. Similarities between Semitic languages (including Hebrew and Arabic) and their differences with those spoken by other adjacent people confirm the common origin of Hebrews and Arabs among other Semitic nations.^[4]

Around the 16th century BC, Judaism developed as the first major monotheistic religion. According to Jewish tradition, the history of Judaism begins with the Covenant between God and Abraham, who is considered a Hebrew. (The first Hebrew being Eber, a forefather of Abraham.) The Hebrew Bible occasionally refers to Arvi peoples (or variants thereof), translated as "Arab" or "Arabian" deriving from "Arava" plain, the dwellers of plains. Some Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula are considered descendants of Ismael, the first son of Abraham. While the commonly held view among historians, most Westerners and some lay Muslims is that Islam originated in Arabia with Muhammad's first recitations of the Qur'an in the 7th century CE, In Islam`s view, the Qur'an itself asserts that it was Adam who is the first Muslim (in the sense of believing in God and surrendering to God and God's commands). Islam also shares many traits with Judaism (as well as with Christianity), like the belief in and reverence for common prophets, such as Moses and Abraham,^[5] who are recognized in both faiths.

Further information: History of the Levant

Abraham

Judaism and Islam are known as "Abrahamic religions".^[6] The first Abrahamic religion was Judaism as practiced in the wilderness of the Sinai peninsula subsequent to the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt and continuing as the Hebrews entered the land of Canaan to conquer and settle it. The kingdom eventually split into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah prior to the Babylonian Exile, at the beginning of the 1st millennium CE. The firstborn son of Abraham, Ishmael, is considered by Muslims to be the Father of the Arabs. Abraham's second son Isaac is called Father of the Hebrews. In Islamic tradition Isaac is viewed as the grandfather of all Israelites and the promised son of Abraham from his barren wife Sarah. In Hadith, Muhammad says that some forty thousands prophets and messengers came from Abraham's seed, most of these was from Isaaq, and that the last one in this line was Jesus. In the Jewish tradition Abraham is called Avraham Avinu or "Our Father Abraham". For Muslims, he is considered an important prophet of Islam (see Ibrahim) and the ancestor of Muhammad through Ishmael. Abraham is called the Father of all Prophets by Muslims and is regarded as one of the prophets of Islam alongside Noah, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed among others.

Muhammad

Expeditions of Muhammad
Ghazwah (expeditions where he took part)
Caravan Raids – Waddan – Buwat – Safwan – Dul Ashir – Badr – Kudr – Sawiq – Banu Qaynuqa – Ghatafan – Bahran – Uhud – Al-Asad – Banu Nadir – Invasion of Nejd – Invasion of Badr – 1st Jandal – Trench – Banu Qurayza – 2nd Banu Lahyan – Banu Mustaliq – Thi Qerd – Hudaybiyyah – Khaybar – Conquest of Fidak – 3rd Qura – Dhat al-Riqa – Mu'tah – Banu Baqra – Mecca – Hunayn – Autas – Ta'if – Hawazan – Tabouk
Sariyyah (expeditions which he ordered) Nakhla – Nejd – 1st Banu Asad – 1st Banu Lahyan – Al Raji – Bir Maona – Assassination of Abu Rafi – Maslamah – 2nd Banu Asad – 1st Banu Thalabah – 2nd Banu Thalabah – Dhu Qarad – Jumum – Al-Is – 3rd Banu Thalabah – 1st Qura – 2nd Jandal – Fidak – 2nd Qura – Uraynah – Hisma – Umar – Abu Bakr – Banu Murrah – Banu Uwal – Yemen – v · d · e

In the course of Muhammad's proselytizing in Makkah/Mecca, he initially viewed Christians and Jews (both of whom he referred to as "People of the Book") as natural allies, sharing the core principles of his teachings, and anticipated their acceptance and support. Ten years after his first revelation in Mount Hira,^[7] a delegation consisting of the representatives of the twelve important clans of Medina pledged to physically protect Muhammad and invited him as a neutral outsider to Medina to serve as chief arbitrator for the entire community, which had been fighting with each other for around a hundred years and was in need of an authority.^[8][9][10]

Among the things Muhammad did in order to settle down the longstanding grievances among the tribes of Medina was drafting a document known as the Constitution of Medina. The community defined in the Constitution of Medina had a religious outlook but was also shaped by the practical considerations and substantially preserved the legal forms of the old Arab tribes.^[11] Muhammad also adopted some features of the Jewish worship and customs such as fasting on the Yom Kippur day. According to Alford Welch, the Jewish practice of having three daily prayer rituals appears to have been a factor in the introduction of the Islamic midday prayer but that Muhammad's adoption of facing north towards Qiblah (position of Jerusalem - Islam's first Qiblah or direction of prayer, and now present Qiblah towards Kabah in Makkah) when performing the daily prayers however was also practiced among other groups in Arabia.

Many Medinans converted to the faith of the Meccan immigrants, particularly pagan and polytheist tribes, but Jews kept aloof though few converts from them.^[12] The Jews rejected Muhammad's claim to prophethood.^[9] Their opposition was due to political as well as religious reasons, as many Jews in Medina had close links with Abd-Allah ibn Ubayy, who is partial to the Jews and would have been Medina's Prince if not for Muhammad's arrival.^[8][13] The Jews were also unwilling to admit that a non-Jew could be a prophet and further argued that some passages in the Qur'an contradicted with the Torah.^[8] The Islamic response remains that Abraham was an ancestor to the Arabs through Ishmael. It was also an undeniable fact that he was not a Jew or Christian, since the Jews are either to be taken as the followers of Moses or as the descendants of Abraham's grandson, Jacob. The Qur'an therefore claimed that it was restoring the pure monotheism of Abraham which had been corrupted in various ways, clearly specified, by Jews and Christians.

Mark Cohen adds that Muhammad appeared "centuries after the cessation of biblical prophecy" and "couched his message in a verbiage foreign to Judaism both in its format and rhetoric."^[14] Maimonides, a Jew, referred to Muhammad as a false prophet. Moreover, Maimonides asserted that Muhammad's claim to prophethood was in itself what disqualified him, because it contradicted the prophecy of Moses, the Torah and the Oral Tradition. His argument further asserted that Muhammad being illiterate also disqualified him from being a prophet.^[15]

In the Constitution of Medina, Jews were given equality to Muslims in exchange for political loyalty^[9][16] and were allowed to practice their own culture and religion. However, as Muhammad encountered unyielding ridicule from the Jews, Muslims began to adopt a more negative view on the Jews. Jews' violation of the Constitution of Medina by aiding the enemies of the community finally brought on major battles of Badr and Uhud^[17] which resulted in Muslim's victory and the exile of the Banu Qainuqa and Banu Nadir, two of the main three Jewish tribes from Medina.

[edit] Other prophets

Both regard many people as being prophets with exceptions. Both unlike Christianity teach Eber, Job, and Joseph were prophets.^{[18][19][20][21][22][23]} However according to one sage in Judaism the whole story attributed to Job was an allegory and Job never actually existed.^[24][25][26] Rashi, a Jewish commentator on the Hebrew Scriptures quotes a text dating to 160CE, which is also quoted in the Talmud on his commentary on Genesis 10 to show that Eber was a prophet.

[edit] Jews in the Qur'an

The Qur'an mentions the Children of Israel numerous times. It refers to their history as an example of a community whom were favored by God but repeatedly transgressed in the sight of their Lord. The Qur'an mentions that their transgression included slaying some of the prophets^[27], succumbing to the worship of the Golden Calf.

The Qur'an says that all righteous Jews are promised nearness to God in Heaven:

• And there are, certainly, among the People of the Book (the Jews and Christians), those who believe in God, in the revelation given to you, and in the revelation given to them, bowing in humility to God: They will not sell the Signs of God for a miserable gain! For them is a reward with their Lord, and God is swift in account.

—Qur'an, sura 3 (Al-Imran), ayat 199^[28]

• Not all of them are alike: Of the People of the Book (the Jews and Christians) are a portion that stand (for the right): They rehearse the Signs of God all night long, and they prostrate themselves in adoration.
  They believe in God and the Last Day; they enjoin what is right, and forbid what is wrong; and they hasten (in emulation) in (all) good works. They are in the ranks of the righteous.
  Of the good that they do, nothing will be rejected of them; for God knoweth well those that do right.

—Qur'an, sura 3 (Al-Imran), ayat 113-115^[29]

• Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians,- any who believe in God and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.

—Qur'an, sura 2 (Al-Baqarah), ayat 62^[30]

Historical interaction

History of the Jews under Muslim rule

Jews have often lived in predominantly Islamic nations. Since many national borders have changed over the fourteen centuries of Islamic history, a single community, such as the Jewish community in Cairo, may have been contained in a number of different nations over different periods.

[edit] Middle Ages

In the Iberian Peninsula, under Muslim rule, Jews were able to make great advances in mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, chemistry and philology.^[31] This era is sometimes referred to as the Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula.^[32]

Traditionally Jews living in Muslim lands, known (along with Christians) as dhimmis, were allowed to practice their religion and to administor their internal affairs but subject to certain conditions.^[33] They had to pay the jizya (a per capita tax imposed on free adult non-Muslim males) to the Muslim government but is exempted from paying the zakat (a tax imposed on free adult of Muslim males).^[33] Dhimmis were prohibited from bearing arms or giving testimony in most Muslim court cases, for there were many Sharia laws which did not apply to Dhimmis, who practiced Halakha.^[34] A common misconception is that of the requirement of distinctive clothing, which is a law not taught by the Qur'an or hadith but invented by the Shia in early medieval Baghdad.^[35] Jews rarely faced martyrdom or exile, or forced compulsion to change their religion, and they were mostly free in their choice of residence and profession.^[36] The notable examples of massacre of Jews include the killing or forcible conversion of them by the rulers of the Almohad dynasty in Al-Andalus in the 12th century.^[37] Notable examples of the cases where the choice of residence was taken away from them includes confining Jews to walled quarters (mellahs) in Morocco beginning from the 15th century and especially since the early 19th century.^[38] Most conversions were voluntary and happened for various reasons. However, there were some forced conversions in the 12th century under the Almohad dynasty of North Africa and al-Andalus as well as in Persia.^[39]

The medieval Volga state of Khazaria converted to Judaism, whereas its subject Volga Bulgaria converted to Islam.

Conversion of Jews to Islam

Islam seeks converts, and often proselytizes to Jews. In modern times, some notable converts to Islam from a Jewish background include Muhammad Asad (b. Leopold Weiss), Prof. Abdallah Schleifer (b. Marc Schleifer), Youssef Darwish, and Maryam Jameelah (b. Margret Marcus). More than 200 Israeli Jews converted to Islam between 2000 and 2008.

Historically, in accordance with traditional Islamic law, Jews generally enjoyed freedom of religion in Islamic states as People of the Book. However, certain rulers did historically enact forced conversions for political reasons and religious reasons in regards to youth and orphans. A number of groups who converted from Judaism to Islam have remained Muslim, while maintaining a connection to and interest in their Jewish heritage. These groups include the anusim or Daggataun of Timbuktu who converted in 1492, when Askia Muhammed came to power in Timbuktu and decreed that Jews must convert to Islam or leave,^[40] and the Chala, a portion of the Bukharan Jewish community who were pressured and many times forced to convert to Islam.^[41]

In Persia, during the Safavid dynasty of the 16th and 17th centuries, Jews were forced to proclaim publicly that they had converted to Islam, and were given the name Jadid-al-Islam (New Muslims). In 1661, an Islamic edict was issued overturning these forced conversions, and the Jews returned to practicing Judaism openly. Similarly, to end a pogrom in 1839, the Jews of Mashhad were forced to convert en masse to Islam. They practiced Judaism secretly for over a century before openly returning to their faith. At the turn of the 21st century, around 10,000 lived in Israel, another 4,000 in New York City, and 1,000 elsewhere.^[42] (See Allahdad incident).

In Turkey, the claimed messiah Sabbatai Zevi was forced to convert to Islam in 1668.^[43] Most of his followers abandoned him, but several thousand converted to Islam as well, while continuing to see themselves as Jews.^[43] They became known as the Dönmeh (a Turkish word for a religious convert). Some Donmeh remain today, primarily in Turkey.

Conversion of Muslims to Judaism

Judaism does not proselytize, and often discourages conversion to Judaism; maintaining that all people have a covenant with God, and instead encourages non-Jews to uphold the Seven Laws given to Noah. Conversions to Judaism are therefore relatively rare, including those from the Islamic world. One famous Muslim who converted to Judaism was Ovadyah, famous from his contact with Maimonides.^[44] Reza Jabari, an Iranian flight attendant who hijacked the air carrier Kish Air flight 707 between Tehran and the resort island of Kish in September 1995, and landed in Israel converted to Judaism after serving four-and-a-half years in an Israeli prison. He settled among Iranian Jews in the Israeli Red Sea resort town of Eilat.^[45] Another such case includes Avraham Sinai, a former Hezbollah fighter who, after the Israel-Lebanon War ended, fled to Israel and converted from Islam to become a religious and practicing Jew.^[46]

Contemporary era

Iran contains the largest number of Jews among Muslim countries and Uzbekistan and Turkey have the next largest communities. Iran's Jewish community is officially recognized as a religious minority group by the government, and, like the Zoroastrians, they were allocated a seat in the Iranian parliament. In 2000 it was estimated that at that time there were still 30–35,000 Jews in Iran, other sources put the figure as low as 20–25,000.^[47]

In present times, the Arab-Israeli conflict is a defining event in the relationship between Muslims and Jews. The State of Israel was proclaimed on 14 May 1948, one day before the expiry of the British Mandate of Palestine.^[48] Not long after, five Arab countries – Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq – attacked Israel, launching the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.^[48] After almost a year of fighting, a ceasefire was declared and temporary borders, known as the Green Line, were instituted. Jordan annexed what became known as the West Bank and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip. Israel was admitted as a member of the United Nations on 11 May 1949.^[49] During the course of the hostilities, 711,000 Arabs, according to UN estimates, fled or were expelled.^[50] 1948 also saw a similar Jewish exodus from Arab lands "because of Arab persecution resulting from the very attempt to establish a Jewish state in Palestine."^[51]

Interfaith activities

The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek has argued that the term Judeo-Muslim to describe the middle-east culture against the western Christian culture would be more appropriate in these days,^[52] claiming as well a reduced influence from the Jewish culture on the western world due to the historical persecution and exclusion of the Jewish minority. (Though there is also a different perspective on Jewish contributions and influence.^[53])

A Judaeo-Christian-Muslim concept thus refers to the three main monotheistic religions, commonly known as the Abrahamic Religions. Formal exchanges between the three religions, modeled on the decades-old Jewish-Christian interfaith dialogue groups, became common in American cities following the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Oslo accords.

Following 9/11, there was a break-down in interfaith dialogue that included mosques, due to the increased attention to Islamic sermons in American mosques, that revealed “anti-Jewish and anti-Israel outbursts by previously respected Muslim clerics and community leaders.”

One of the country’s most prominent mosques is the New York Islamic Cultural Center, built with funding from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia. Its imam, Mohammad Al-Gamei'a, disappeared two days after 9/11.

Back in Egypt, he was interviewed on an Arabic-language Web site, charging that the "Zionist media" had covered up Jewish responsibility for the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. He agreed with Osama bin Laden's accusations in bin Laden's Letter to America, claiming that Jews were guilty of "disseminating corruption, heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism, and drugs." And he said that Muslims in America were afraid to go to the hospital for fear that some Jewish doctors had "poisoned" Muslim children. "These people murdered the prophets; do you think they will stop spilling our blood? No," he said.

The interview was published 4 October on a Web site affiliated with Cairo's Al-Azhar University, Islam's most respected theological academy. Immediately after 9/11, Imam Al-Gamei'a had presided over an interfaith service at his mosque. At the service the imam was quoted as saying, "We emphasize the condemnation of all persons, whoever they be, who have carried out this inhuman act." The Reverend James Parks Morton, president of the Interfaith Center of New York, who attended the service, called Imam Al-Gamei'a's subsequent comments "astonishing." "It makes interfaith dialogue all the more important," Reverend Morton said.^[54]

Post 9/11 remarks made by Muslim leaders in Cleveland and Los Angeles also led to the suspension of longstanding Muslim-Jewish dialogues. Some Jewish community leaders cite the statements as the latest evidence that Muslim-Jewish dialogue is futile in today's charged atmosphere. John Rosove, senior rabbi of Temple Israel of Hollywood, and other Jewish participants withdrew from the three-year-old Muslim-Jewish dialogue group after one of the Muslim participants, Salam al-Marayati of MPAC, suggested in a radio interview that Israel should be put on the list of suspects behind the 11 September attacks.^[54] However in January 2011, MPAC member Wa’el Azmeh and Temple Israel engaged in an interfaith dialogue.^[55].

In Cleveland, Jewish community leaders put Muslim-Jewish relations on hold after the spiritual leader of a prominent mosque appeared in (a 1991) videotape …aired after 9/11 by a local TV station. Imam Fawaz Damra calls for "directing all the rifles at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation and that is the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews." The revelation was all the more shocking since Imam Damra had been an active participant in local interfaith activities.^[54]

Good Jewish-Muslim relations continue in Detroit, which has the nation's largest Arab-American community. Jewish organizations there have established good relations with a religious group called the Islamic Supreme Council of North America.

In Los Angeles there has been a formation of an interfaith think tank through the partnership of neighboring institutions the University of Southern California, The Hebrew Union College, and Omar Foundation. The Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement has an extensive online resource center with scholarly works on similar topics from Muslim and Jewish perspectives. The Center of Muslim-Jewish Engagement has begun to launch an interfaith religious text-study group to build bonds and form a positive community promoting interfaith relations.

Common aspects

A Sefer Torah opened for liturgical use in a synagogue service

11th Century North African Qur’an in the British Museum

There are many common aspects between Islam and Judaism. As Islam developed it gradually became the major religion closest to Judaism, both of them being strictly Monotheist religious traditions originating in a Semitic Middle Eastern culture. As opposed to Christianity, which originated from interaction between ancient Greek and Hebrew cultures, Islam is similar to Judaism in its fundamental religious outlook, structure, jurisprudence and practice.^[3] There are many traditions within Islam originating from traditions within the Hebrew Bible or from postbiblical Jewish traditions. These practices are known collectively as the Isra'iliyat.^[56]

The Qur'an speaks extensively about the Children of Israel (Banû Isrâ'îl) and recognizes that the Jews (a-Yahûd) are, according to lineage, descendants of Prophet Abraham through his son Isaac and grandson Jacob. They were chosen by Allah for a mission: "And We chose them, purposely, above (all) creatures." [Sûrah al-Dukhân: 32] Allah raised among them many Prophets and bestowed upon them what He had not bestowed upon many others: "And (remember) when Musa said unto his people: O my people ! Remember Allah's favor unto you, how He placed among you Prophets, and He made you Kings, and gave you that (which) He gave not to any (other) of (His) creatures." [Sûrah al-Mâ'idah: 20] He, also, exalted them over other nations of the earth and granted them many favors: "O Children of Israel! Remember My favor wherewith I favored you and how I preferred you to (all) creatures." [Sûrah al-Baqarah: 47] They were chosen by God for a mission (44:32) and God raised among them many Prophets and bestowed upon them what He had not bestowed upon many others (5:20).^[57][58]

Holy scripture

Further information: People of the Book and Biblical narratives and the Qur'an

Islam and Judaism share the idea of a revealed Scripture. Even though they differ over the precise text and its interpretations, the Hebrew Torah and the Muslim Qur'an share a lot of narrative as well as injunctions. From this, they share many other fundamental religious concepts such as the belief in a day of Divine Judgment. Reflecting the vintage of the religions, the Torah is traditionally in the form of a scroll and the Qur'an in the form of a codex.

Muslims commonly refer to Jews (and Christians) as fellow "People of the Book": people who follow the same general teachings in relation to the worship of the one God worshipped by Abraham - Allah. The Qur'an distinguishes between "People of the Book" (Jews and Christians), who should be tolerated even if they hold to their faiths, and idolaters (polytheists) who are not given that same degree of tolerance (See Al-Baqara, 256). Some restrictions for Muslims are relaxed, such as Muslim males being allowed to marry a woman from the "People of the Book" (Qur'an, 5:5), or Muslims being allowed to eat Kosher meat.^[59]

Religious law

Judaism and Islam are unique in having systems of religious law based on oral tradition that can override the written laws and that does not distinguish between holy and secular spheres.^[60] In Islam the laws are called Sharia, In Judaism they are known as Halakha. Both Judaism and Islam consider the study of religious law to be a form of worship and an end in itself.

Rules of conduct

The most obvious common practice is the statement of the absolute unity of God, which Muslims observe in their five times daily prayers (Salah), and Jews state at least twice (Shema Yisrael), along with praying 3 times daily. The two faiths also share the central practices of fasting and almsgiving, as well as dietary laws and other aspects of ritual purity. Under the strict dietary laws, lawful food is called Kosher in Judaism and Halal in Islam. Both religions prohibit the consumption of pork. Halal restrictions are similar to a subset of the Kashrut dietary laws, so all kosher foods are considered halal, while not all halal foods are Kosher. Halal laws, for instance, do not prohibit the mixing of milk and meat or the consumption of shellfish, each of which are prohibited by the kosher laws.

Both Islam and traditional Judaism ban homosexuality and forbid human sexual relations outside of marriage^[61] and necessitate abstinence during the wife's menstruation. Both practice circumcision for males.

Further information: Jewish observances and Five Pillars of Islam

Other similarities

Islam and Judaism both consider the Christian doctrine of the trinity and the belief of Jesus being God as explicitly against the tenets of monotheism. Idolatry, worshiping graven images, is likewise forbidden in both religions. Both believe in angels and demons (Sahtahn in Hebrew/Judaism and Al-Shai'tan in Arabic/Islam) (However, many Jews do not consider angels nor demons to be literal beings as stated by Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon) and many angels possess similar names and roles in both religions. Neither religion subscribes to the concept of original sin. Both view homosexuality as sinful. Narrative similarities between Jewish texts and the Hadith have also been noted. Both state Potiphar's wife was named Zuleika. ^[62]

There is a small bone in the body at the base of the spinal column called the Luz bone (known by differing traditions as either the coccyx or the seventh cervical vertebra) from which the body will be rebuilt at the time of resurrection, according to Muslims and Jews who share the belief that this bone does not decay^{[citation needed]}. Muslims books refer to this bone as "^Ajbu al-Thanab" (عَجْبُ الذَّنَب). Rabbi Joshua Ben Hananiah replied to Hadrian, as to how man revived in the world to come, "From Luz, in the back-bone."

Interplay between Jewish and Islamic thought

Judeo-Islamic philosophies (800 - 1400)

Manuscript page in Arabic written in Hebrew letters by Maimonides (12th century CE).

Maimonides (12th century CE), one of the great Jewish scholars of Al-Andalus.

There was a great deal of intellectual cultural diffusion between Muslim and Jewish rationalist philosophers of the medieval era, especially in Muslim Spain.

See also: Jewish philosophy and Early Islamic philosophy

Saadia Gaon

One of the most important early Jewish philosophers influenced by Islamic philosophy is Rav Saadia Gaon (892–942). His most important work is Emunoth ve-Deoth (Book of Beliefs and Opinions). In this work Saadia treats of the questions that interested the Mutakallimun so deeply — such as the creation of matter, the unity of God, the divine attributes, the soul, etc. — and he criticizes the philosophers severely.

The 12th century saw the apotheosis of pure philosophy. This supreme exaltation of philosophy was due, in great measure, to Ghazali (1058–1111) among the Arabs, and to Judah ha-Levi (1140) among the Jews. Like Ghazali, Judah ha-Levi took upon himself to free religion from the shackles of speculative philosophy, and to this end wrote the Kuzari, in which he sought to discredit all schools of philosophy alike.

Maimonides

Maimonides endeavored to harmonize the philosophy of Aristotle with Judaism; and to this end he composed the work, Dalalat al-Ḥairin (Guide for the Perplexed) — known better under its Hebrew title Moreh Nevuchim — which served for many centuries as the subject of discussion and comment by Jewish thinkers. In this work, Maimonides considers creation, the unity of God, the attributes of God, the soul, etc., and treats them in accordance with the theories of Aristotle to the extent in which these latter do not conflict with religion. For example, while accepting the teachings of Aristotle upon matter and form, he pronounces against the eternity of matter. Nor does he accept Aristotle's theory that God can have a knowledge of universals only, and not of particulars. If He had no knowledge of particulars, He would be subject to constant change. Maimonides argues: "God perceives future events before they happen, and this perception never fails Him. Therefore there are no new ideas to present themselves to Him. He knows that such and such an individual does not yet exist, but that he will be born at such a time, exist for such a period, and then return into non-existence. When then this individual comes into being, God does not learn any new fact; nothing has happened that He knew not of, for He knew this individual, such as he is now, before his birth" (Moreh, i.20). While seeking thus to avoid the troublesome consequences certain Aristotelian theories would entail upon religion, Maimonides could not altogether escape those involved in Aristotle's idea of the unity of souls; and herein he laid himself open to the attacks of the orthodox.

Arabic philosophy also found a following with the Jews, to whom belongs the honor of having transmitted it to the Christian world.^{[citation needed]} A series of eminent men — such as the Tibbons, Narboni, and Gersonides — joined in translating the Arabic philosophical works into Hebrew and commenting upon them. The works of Ibn Roshd especially became the subject of their study, due in great measure to Maimonides, who, in a letter addressed to his pupil Joseph ben Judah, spoke in the highest terms of Ibn Roshd's commentary.

In a response, Maimonides discusses the relationship between Judaism and Islam:

The Ishmaelites are not at all idolaters; [idolatry] has long been severed from their mouths and hearts; and they attribute to God a proper unity, a unity concerning which there is no doubt. And because they lie about us, and falsely attribute to us the statement that God has a son, is no reason for us to lie about them and say that they are idolaters . . . And should anyone say that the house that they honor [the Kaaba] is a house of idolatry and an idol is hidden within it, which their ancestors used to worship, then what of it? The hearts of those who bow down toward it today are [directed] only toward Heaven . . . [Regarding] the Ishmaelites today – idolatry has been severed from the mouths of all of them [including] women and children. Their error and foolishness is in other things which cannot be put into writing because of the renegades and wicked among Israel [i.e., apostates]. But as regards the unity of God they have no error at all.^[63]

Influence on exegesis

Saadia Gaon's commentary on the Bible bears the stamp of the Mutazilites; and its author, while not admitting any positive attributes of God, except these of essence, endeavors to interpret Biblical passages in such a way as to rid them of anthropomorphism. The Jewish commentator, Abraham ibn Ezra, explains the Biblical account of Creation and other Scriptural passages in a philosophical sense. Nahmanides (Rabbi Moshe ben Nahman), too, and other commentators, show the influence of the philosophical ideas current in their respective epochs. This salutary inspiration, which lasted for five consecutive centuries, yielded to that other influence alone that came from the neglected depths of Jewish and of Neoplatonic mysticism, and which took the name of Kabbalah. Islamic commentary on the Qur'an, or tafsir, also draws heavily on Jewish sources. This is called Isra'iliyat.

History

• Al-Andalus
  • Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain
• History of Islam
• History of Judaism
• History of the Jews under Muslim rule
• Jewish tribes of Arabia

Culture

• Arab Jews
• Sephardi Jews
• Mizrahi Jews
• The Hebrews
• Semitic peoples
• People of the Book
• Joint Jewish and Islamic philosophies
• Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement

Issues

• Arab-Israeli Conflict
• Islam and antisemitism
• Jewish views on Muhammad
• Muhammad's views on Jews
• Persecution of Jews
• Projects working for peace among Israelis and Arabs
• Muslim Zionism
• Uzair

Comparative religion

• Comparative religion
• Christianity and Judaism
• Christianity and Islam

Notes

1. ^ Yahud, Encyclopedia of Islam
2. ^ Prager, D; Telushkin, J. Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983. pp. 110-126.
3. ^ ^{a b} Jewish-Muslim Relations, Past & Present, Rabbi David Rosen
4. ^ The religion of Semites, ch 1
5. ^ Genesis 20
6. ^ Sources for the following are:
   • J.Z.Smith 98, p.276
   • Anidjar 2001, p.3
7. ^ Uri Rubin, Muhammad, Encyclopedia of the Quran
8. ^ ^{a b c} The Cambridge History of Islam, (1997), p. 39
9. ^ ^{a b c} Esposito, John. (1998), Islam: the Straight Path, extended edition. Oxford university press, p.17.
10. ^ 'Muhammad, Encyclopedia of Islam', Alford Welch
11. ^ Muhammad, Encyclopedia of Islam, Alford Welch
12. ^ Watt (1956), p. 175, p. 177
13. ^ Gerhard Endress, Islam, Columbia University Press, p.29
14. ^ Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages, p. 23, Princeton University Press
15. ^ ALLUSION TO MUHAMMAD IN MAIMONIDES' THEORY OF PROPHECY IN HIS GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED By Yehuda Shamir, University of Cincinnati
16. ^ Jacob Neusner, God's Rule: The Politics of World Religions, p. 153, Georgetown University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-87840-910-6
17. ^ See ^{[Qur'an 2:100]}
18. ^ Bereishit – Chapter 10 – Genesis
19. ^ says Joseph is extolled by the Rabbis for being well versed in the Torah, for being a prophet, and for supporting his brothers
20. ^ Bava Batra 15b.]
21. ^ Prophet Hud
22. ^ Prophet Yusuf
23. ^ IslamTutor.com -> The Prophets Of Islam – A Referenced List
24. ^ – "One of the amoraim expressed his opinion in the presence of Samuel b. Naḥmani that Job never existed and that the whole story was a fable (B. B. 15a)."
25. ^ – "Job never was and never existed, but is only a parable." (Tr. Baba Bathra 15a)
26. ^ http://www.yutorah.org/_materials/SWeiss_102307.pdf "Job never existed and was never created, but was only a mashal [ie.a fictional tale]" (b. Baba Bathra 15a). Those, on the other hand, who believe that he "existed and was created" and that the story happened, do not know at what time and in what place he lived."
27. ^ Qur'an 2:61
28. ^ Qur'an 3:199
29. ^ Qur'an 3:113
30. ^ Qur'an 2:62
31. ^ Cowling (2005), p. 265
32. ^ Poliakov (1974), pg.91-6
33. ^ ^{a b} Lewis (1984), pp.10,20
34. ^ Lewis (1987), p. 9, 27
35. ^ Lewis (1999), p.131
36. ^ Lewis (1999), p.131; (1984), pp.8,62
37. ^ Lewis (1984), p. 52; Stillman (1979), p.77
38. ^ Lewis (1984), p. 28
39. ^ Lewis (1984), pp.17,18,94,95; Stillman (1979), p.27
40. ^ Primack, Karen. "The Renewal of Jewish Identity in Timbuktu", kulanu.org. Retrieved 12 November 2006.
41. ^ Abbas, Najam. "The Outsiders" (review of Chala (The Outcast) by Mansur Surosh Dushanb), kulanu.org. Retrieved 16 April 2007.
42. ^ Ross, Dan. Acts of Faith, Schocken Books, New York, 1984, pp. 67–82. ISBN 0-8052-0759-7
43. ^ ^{a b} Yardeni, Dan. (2010-04-25) Jewish History / Waiting for the Messiah - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News. Haaretz.co.il. Retrieved on 2010-10-19.
44. ^ Cambridge Journals Online - Abstract. Journals.cambridge.org (2005-05-12). Retrieved on 2010-10-19.
45. ^ Iranian Muslim converts to Judaism
46. ^ Avraham Sinai: From Undercover Hizbullah Shiite To Orthodox Jew,Avraham Shmuel Lewin, Jewish Press Israel Correspondent. Jewishpress.com (2006-09-27). Retrieved on 2010-10-19.
47. ^ Report, Reuters, 16 February 2000, cited from Bahá'í Library Online. The Encyclopaedia Judaica estimated the number of Jews in Iran at 25,000 in 1996.
48. ^ ^{a b} "Part 3: Partition, War and Independence". The Mideast: A Century of Conflict. National Public Radio. 2002-10-02. http://www.npr.org/news/specials/mideast/history/history3.html. Retrieved 2007-07-13.
49. ^ Two Hundred and Seventh Plenary Meeting. The United Nations. 1949-05-11. http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/1ce874ab1832a53e852570bb006dfaf6/0b3ab8d2a7c0273d8525694b00726d1b. Retrieved 2007-07-13.
50. ^ General Progress Report and Supplementary Report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Covering the Period from 11 December 1949 to 23 October 1950. The United Nations Conciliation Commission. 1950-10-23. http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/93037e3b939746de8525610200567883. Retrieved 2007-07-13. (U.N. General Assembly Official Records, Fifth Session, Supplement No. 18, Document A/1367/Rev. 1)
51. ^ "Instead, the new arrivals were Oriental-Sephardic Jews from the Middle Eastern and North African countries—culturally, religiously, and racially very different from the Ashkenazi (European) founders of the state. And most Orientals came not for strong ideological reasons but because of Arab persecution resulting from the very attempt to establish a Jewish state." Dekmejian, R. Hrair. Patterns of Political Leadership: Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, SUNY Press, 1975, pp. 246–247. ISBN 0-87395-291-X
52. ^ Slavoj Zizek—A Glance into the Archives of Islam
53. ^ "Jewish Nobel Prize winners". Jinfo.org. http://www.jinfo.org/Nobel_Prizes.html.
54. ^ ^{a b c} Doandio, Rachel and Julia Goldman
55. ^ First steps Formally and informally, local Jews and Muslims get to know each other
56. ^ Islam and Judaism, Rabbi Justin Jaron Lewis
57. ^ http://reocities.com/compassionplease/MuslimsChoice
58. ^ (TAM). The American Muslim (2005-12-01). Retrieved on 2010-10-19.
59. ^ Machine-slaughtered Meat, Shaykh Muhammad ibn Adam al-Kawthari, eat-halal.com. Retrieved 23 March 2006.
60. ^ Islam and Judaism – Influences Contrasts and Parallels, www.houseofdavid.ca
61. ^ (Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, "The Meaning of the Quran, Volume 3", note 7-1, p. 241, 2000, Islamic Publications
62. ^ A Coat of Many Cultures
63. ^ Islam and the halakhah | Judaism | Find Articles at BNET. Findarticles.com. Retrieved on 2010-10-19.

[edit] References

• Abbas, Zia (2007). "Israel: The History and how Jews, Christians and Muslims Can Achieve Peace". ISBN 0-595-42619-0
• Lewis, Bernard (1999). Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice. W. W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-393-31839-7
• Lewis, Bernard (1984). The Jews of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00807-8
• Lewis, Bernard , Cultures in Conflict: Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Age of Discovery, US: Oxford University Press (1995)
• Cowling, Geoffrey (2005). Introduction to World Religions. Singapore: First Fortress Press. ISBN 0-8006-3714-3.
• This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.
• Poliakov, Leon (1974). The History of Anti-semitism. New York: The Vanguard Press.
• Stillman, Norman (1979). The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America. ISBN 0-8276-0198-0
• Stillman, Norman (2006). "Yahud". Encyclopaedia of Islam. Eds.: P.J. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill. Brill Online
• Zuckermann Ghil'ad (2006). "'Etymythological Othering' and the Power of 'Lexical Engineering' in Judaism, Islam and Christianity. A Socio-Philo(sopho)logical Perspective", Explorations in the Sociology of Language and Religion, edited by Tope Omoniyi and Joshua A. Fishman, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 237–258. ISBN 90 272 2710 1

The Clash of Civilizations

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
Author	Samuel P. Huntington
Publisher	Simon & Schuster
Publication date	1996
ISBN	0-684-84441-9
OCLC Number	38269418

The Clash of Civilizations is a theory, proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world.

The theory was originally formulated in a 1992 lecture^[1] at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article titled "The Clash of Civilizations?",^[2] in response to Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

The term itself was first used by Bernard Lewis in an article in the September 1990 issue of The Atlantic Monthly titled "The Roots of Muslim Rage".^[3]

This expression derives from clash of cultures, already used during the colonial period and the Belle Époque.^[4]

Contents [hide] 1 Overview 2 Huntington's "major civilizations" 3 Huntington's thesis of civilizational clash 3.1 Core state and fault line conflicts 4 Modernization, westernization, and "torn countries" 5 Criticism 5.1 Opposing concepts 5.1.1 The Intermediate Region 6 See also 7 Bibliography 8 References 9 External links

Overview

Huntington began his thinking by surveying the diverse theories about the nature of global politics in the post-Cold War period. Some theorists and writers argued that human rights, liberal democracy and capitalist free market economy had become the only remaining ideological alternative for nations in the post-Cold War world. Specifically, Francis Fukuyama argued that the world had reached the 'end of history' in a Hegelian sense.

Huntington believed that while the age of ideology had ended, the world had only reverted to a normal state of affairs characterized by cultural conflict. In his thesis, he argued that the primary axis of conflict in the future will be along cultural and religious lines.

As an extension, he posits that the concept of different civilizations, as the highest rank of cultural identity, will become increasingly useful in analyzing the potential for conflict.

In the 1993 Foreign Affairs article, Huntington writes:

It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.^[2]

In the end of the article, he writes:

This is not to advocate the desirability of conflicts between civilizations. It is to set forth descriptive hypothesis as to what the future may be like.^[2]

Huntington's "major civilizations"

The clash of civilizations according to Huntington (1996), as presented in the book. The author states that, instead of belonging to one of the "major" civilizations, Ethiopia and Haiti are "Lone" countries, and that Israel could be considered a unique state with its own civilization, but one which is extremely similar to the West. Huntington also believes that the Anglophone Caribbean, former British colonies in the Caribbean, constitutes a distinct entity.^[5]

Huntington divided the world into the "major civilizations" in his thesis as such:

• Western civilization, centered on Australasia, Northern America, and Europe (excluding Orthodox Eastern and South-Eastern Europe but including Catholic Central and East-Central Europe). Huntington also includes the rest of Oceania. Whether Latin America and the former member states of the Soviet Union are included, or are instead their own separate civilizations, will be an important future consideration for those regions, according to Huntington.
• Latin America. Includes Central America (excluding Belize^{[citation needed]}), South America (excluding the Guianas), Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. May be considered a part of Western civilization, though it has slightly distinct social and political structures from Europe and Northern America. Many people of the Southern Cone, however, regard themselves as full members of the Western civilization.
• The Orthodox world of the former Soviet Union (excluding the Baltic states, most of Central Asia and Azerbaijan), the former Yugoslavia (excluding Slovenia and Croatia), Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, and Romania.
• The Eastern world is the mix of the Buddhist, Sinic, Hindu, and Japonic civilizations.
  • The Buddhist areas of Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand are identified as separate from other civilizations, but Huntington believes that they do not constitute a major civilization in the sense of international affairs.
  • The Sinic civilization of China, the Koreas, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam. This group also includes the Chinese diaspora, especially in relation to Southeast Asia.
  • Hindu civilization, located chiefly in India, Bhutan and Nepal, and culturally adhered to by the global Indian diaspora.
  • Japan, considered a hybrid of Chinese civilization and older Altaic patterns.
• The Muslim world of the Greater Middle East (excluding Armenia, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Israel, Kazakhstan, Malta, and Sudan), northern West Africa, Albania, Bangladesh, Brunei, Comoros, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Maldives.
• The civilization of Sub-Saharan Africa located in Southern Africa, Middle Africa (excluding Chad), East Africa (excluding the Horn of Africa, Comoros, Kenya, Mauritius, and Tanzania), Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Considered as a possible 8th civilization by Huntington.
• Instead of belonging to one of the "major" civilizations, Ethiopia and Haiti are labeled as "Lone" countries. Israel could be considered a unique state with its own civilization, Huntington writes, but one which is extremely similar to the West. Huntington also believes that the Anglophone Caribbean, former British colonies in the Caribbean, constitutes a distinct entity.
• There are also others which are considered "cleft countries" because they contain large groups of people identifying with separate civilizations. Examples include India ("cleft" between its Hindu majority and large Muslim minority), Ukraine ("cleft" between its Eastern Rite Catholic-dominated western section and its Orthodox-dominated east), France (cleft between Sub-Saharan African, in the case of French Guiana; and the West), Benin, Chad, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Togo (all cleft between Islam and Sub-Saharan Africa), Guyana and Suriname (cleft between Hindu and Sub-Saharan African), China (cleft between Sinic, Buddhist, in the case of Tibet; and the West, in the case of Hong Kong and Macau), and the Philippines (cleft between Islam, in the case of Mindanao; Sinic, and the West). Sudan was also included as "cleft" between Islam and Sub-Saharan Africa; this division is set to become a formal split in July 2011 following an overwhelming vote for independence by Southern Sudan in a January 2011 referendum.

Huntington's thesis of civilizational clash

Emerging alignments as predicted by Huntington in 1996. Thicker lines represent more conflictual relationships.

Huntington argues that the trends of global conflict after the end of the Cold War are increasingly appearing at these civilizational divisions. Wars such as those following the break up of Yugoslavia, in Chechnya, and between India and Pakistan were cited as evidence of inter-civilizational conflict.

Huntington also argues that the widespread Western belief in the universality of the West's values and political systems is naïve and that continued insistence on democratization and such "universal" norms will only further antagonize other civilizations. Huntington sees the West as reluctant to accept this because it built the international system, wrote its laws, and gave it substance in the form of the United Nations.

Huntington identifies a major shift of economic, military, and political power from the West to the other civilizations of the world, most significantly to what he identifies as the two "challenger civilizations", Sinic and Islam.

In Huntington's view, East Asian Sinic civilization is culturally asserting itself and its values relative to the West due to its rapid economic growth. Specifically, he believes that China's goals are to reassert itself as the regional hegemon, and that other countries in the region will 'bandwagon' with China due to the history of hierarchical command structures implicit in the Confucian Sinic civilization, as opposed to the individualism and pluralism valued in the West.

In other words, regional powers such as the two Koreas and Vietnam will acquiesce to Chinese demands and become more supportive of China rather than attempting to oppose it. Huntington therefore believes that the rise of China poses one of the most significant problems and the most powerful long-term threat to the West, as Chinese cultural assertion clashes with the American desire for the lack of a regional hegemony in East Asia.^{[citation needed]}

Huntington argues that the Islamic civilization has experienced a massive population explosion which is fueling instability both on the borders of Islam and in its interior, where fundamentalist movements are becoming increasingly popular. Manifestations of what he terms the "Islamic Resurgence" include the 1979 Iranian revolution and the first Gulf War.

Perhaps the most controversial statement Huntington made in the Foreign Affairs article was that "Islam has bloody borders". Huntington believes this to be a real consequence of several factors, including the previously mentioned Muslim youth bulge and population growth and Islamic proximity to many civilizations including Sinic, Orthodox, Western, and African.

Huntington sees Islamic civilization as a potential ally to China, both having more revisionist goals and sharing common conflicts with other civilizations, especially the West. Specifically, he identifies common Chinese and Islamic interests in the areas of weapons proliferation, human rights, and democracy that conflict with those of the West, and feels that these are areas in which the two civilizations will cooperate.

Russia, Japan, and India are what Huntington terms 'swing civilizations' and may favor either side. Russia, for example, clashes with the many Muslim ethnic groups on its southern border (such as Chechnya) but—according to Huntington—cooperates with Iran to avoid further Muslim-Orthodox violence in Southern Russia, and to help continue the flow of oil. Huntington argues that a "Sino-Islamic connection" is emerging in which China will cooperate more closely with Iran, Pakistan, and other states to augment its international position.

Huntington also argues that civilizational conflicts are "particularly prevalent between Muslims and non-Muslims", identifying the "bloody borders" between Islamic and non-Islamic civilizations. This conflict dates back as far as the initial thrust of Islam into Europe,^{[citation needed]} its eventual expulsion in the Iberian reconquest, the attacks of the Ottoman Turks on Eastern Europe and Vienna, and the European imperial division of the Islamic nations in the 1800s and 1900s.

Huntington also believes that some of the factors contributing to this conflict are that both Christianity (upon which Western civilization is based) and Islam are:

• Missionary religions, seeking conversion of others
• Universal, "all-or-nothing" religions, in the sense that it is believed by both sides that only their faith is the correct one
• Teleological religions, that is, that their values and beliefs represent the goals of existence and purpose in human existence.

More recent factors contributing to a Western-Islamic clash, Huntington wrote, are the Islamic Resurgence and demographic explosion in Islam, coupled with the values of Western universalism - that is, the view that all civilizations should adopt Western values - that infuriate Islamic fundamentalists. All these historical and modern factors combined, Huntington wrote briefly in his Foreign Affairs article and in much more detail in his 1996 book, would lead to a bloody clash between the Islamic and Western civilizations. The political party Hizb ut-Tahrir also reiterate Huntington's views in their published book, "The Inevitability of Clash of Civilisation". ^[6]

Core state and fault line conflicts

In Huntington's view, intercivilizational conflict manifests itself in two forms: fault line conflicts and core state conflicts.

Fault line conflicts are on a local level and occur between adjacent states belonging to different civilizations or within states that are home to populations from different civilizations.

Core state conflicts are on a global level between the major states of different civilizations. Core state conflicts can arise out of fault line conflicts when core states become involved.^[7]

These conflicts may result from a number of causes, such as: relative influence or power (military or economic), discrimination against people from a different civilization, intervention to protect kinsmen in a different civilization, or different values and culture, particularly when one civilization attempts to impose its values on people of a different civilization.^[7]

Modernization, westernization, and "torn countries"

Critics of Huntington's ideas often extend their criticisms to traditional cultures and internal reformers who wish to modernize without adopting the values and attitudes of Western culture. These critics^[who?] sometimes claim that to modernize is necessarily to become Westernized to a very large extent.

In reply, those^[who?] who consider the Clash of Civilizations thesis accurate often point to the example of Japan, claiming that it is not a Western state at its core. They argue that it adopted much Western technology (also inventing technology of its own in recent times), parliamentary democracy, and free enterprise, but has remained culturally very distinct from the West.^{[citation needed]}

China is also cited by some^[who?] as a rising non-Western economy. Many^[who?] also point out the East Asian Tigers or neighboring states as having adapted western economics, while maintaining traditional or authoritarian social government.

Perhaps the ultimate example of non-Western modernization is Russia, the core state of the Orthodox civilization. The variant of this argument that uses Russia as an example relies on the acceptance of a unique non-Western civilization headed by an Orthodox state such as Russia or perhaps an Eastern European country.^{[citation needed]}

Huntington argues that Russia is primarily a non-Western state although he seems to agree that it shares a considerable amount of cultural ancestry with the modern West. Russia was one of the great powers during World War I. It also happened to be a non-Western power.

According to Huntington, the West is distinguished from Orthodox Christian countries by the experience of the Renaissance, Reformation, the Enlightenment, overseas colonialism rather than contiguous expansion and colonialism, and a recent re-infusion of Classical culture through Rome rather than through the continuous trajectory of the Byzantine Empire.

The differences among the modern Slavic states can still be seen today. This issue is also linked to the "universalizing factor" exhibited in some civilizations^{[clarification needed]}.

Huntington refers to countries that are seeking to affiliate with another civilization as "torn countries." Turkey, whose political leadership has systematically tried to Westernize the country since the 1920s, is his chief example.

Turkey's history, culture, and traditions are derived from Islamic civilization, but Turkey's Caucasian elite^[who?] imposed western institutions and dress, embraced the Latin alphabet, joined NATO, and is seeking to join the European Union. Mexico and Russia are also considered to be torn by Huntington. He also gives the example of Australia as a country torn between its Western civilizational heritage and its growing economic engagement with Asia.

According to Huntington, a torn country must meet three requirements to redefine its civilizational identity. Its political and economic elite must support the move. Second, the public must be willing to accept the redefinition. Third, the elites of the civilization that the torn country is trying to join must accept the country.

As noted in the book, to date no torn country has successfully redefined its civilizational identity, this mostly due to the elites of the 'host' civilization refusing to accept the torn country, though if Turkey gained membership of the European Union it has been noted that many of its people would support Westernization^[who?]. If this were to happen it would be the first to redefine its civilizational identity.

Criticism

Huntington has fallen under the stern critique of various academic writers, who have either empirically, historically, logically or ideologically refuted his claims (Fox, 2005; Mungiu Pippidi & Mindruta, 2002; Henderson & Tucker, 2001; Russett, Oneal, & Cox, 2000).^{[8][9][10][11]}

Other books, written for the general public, similarly challenge Huntington's contentious claims. For example, in his work Identity and Violence: The illusion of destiny, The Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen advances several critiques of Huntington's main concept of an inevitable clash along civilizational lines. He argues that violence occurs when individuals see each other as having a singular affiliation (e.g., Hindu, Muslim, Christian), as opposed to multiple affiliations: e.g., Hindu, woman, housewife, mother, artist, daughter, member of a particular socio-economic class etc. In this sense, and to the detriment of civilization distinctiveness, it is argued that all of these dimensions can, and should be a source of a personal identity.^[12]

In another article explicitly referring to Huntington, the same Amartya Sen (1999) points to the fact that "diversity is a feature of most cultures in the world. Western civilization is no exception. The practice of democracy that has won out in the modern West is largely a result of a consensus that has emerged since the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and particularly in the last century or so. To read in this a historical commitment of the West — over the millennia — to democracy, and then to contrast it with non-Western traditions (treating each as monolithic) would be a great mistake" (p. 16).^[13]

In his Terror and Liberalism, Paul Berman proposes another criticism of the civilization clash hypothesis. According to Berman, distinct cultural boundaries do not exist in the present day. He argues there is no "Islamic civilization" nor a "Western civilization", and that the evidence for a civilization clash is not convincing, especially when considering relationships such as that between the United States and Saudi Arabia. In addition, he cites the fact that many Islamic extremists spent a significant amount of time living and/or studying in the Western world. According to Berman, conflict arises because of philosophical beliefs various groups share (or do not share), regardless of cultural or religious identity.^[14]

Edward Said issued a response to Huntington's thesis in his "The Clash of Ignorance".^[15] Said argues that Huntington's categorization of the world's fixed "civilizations" omits the dynamic interdependency and interaction of culture. A long time critic of the Huntingtonian paradigm, and an outspoken proponent of Arab issues, Edward Said (2004) also claimed that not only is the Clash of Civilisations thesis a "reductive and vulgar notion" (p. 226), but it is also an illustration “of the purest invidious racism, a sort of parody of Hitlerian science directed today against Arabs and Muslims” (p. 293). ^[16]

Especially under Said's critique fell Huntington's view of 'Islam' as a monolithical entity:

"My concern […] is that the mere use of the label «Islam», either to explain or indiscriminately condemn «Islam», actually ends up becoming a form of attack […] «Islam» defines a relatively small proportion of what actually takes place in the Islamic world, which numbers a billion people, and includes dozens of countries, societies, traditions, languages and, of course, an infinite number of different experiences. It is simply false to try to trace all this back to something called «Islam», no matter how vociferously polemical Orientalists […] insisted that Islam regulates Islamic societies from top to bottom, that dar al Islam is a single, coherent entity, that church and state are really one in Islam, and so forth." (Said, 1997, p. xvi)

As early as the 1970's, scholars such as Abu Zahra argued that Islam vastly varies contextually and historically. Sections from the Koran that assert equality for men and women have been pointed out and warnings have been issued regarding the very significant gaps that may (and do) exist between erudite, theologically nuanced readings of the Koran on one hand, and widely held popular views and practices on the other. Embracing an already problematic "bulk" of Islam as an explanation for social and cultural phenomena might not only prove unproductive, but is arguably a flawed course of reasoning, since it ignores or neglects specific state policies and interventions (Zahra, 1970, cited in Goddard, Llobera & Shore, 1994, p. 66) ^[17]

Fundamental questions such as what Islam means for Muslims themselves in the modern world are equally "an issue for debate and action in the context of the politics of nation states, the struggle for energy supplies, superpower rivalry, and dependency. What is the «umma», the Islamic community, and how and where is «ijma», or consensus to be formed?" (Gilsenan, 1982, cited in Lukens Bull, 1999, p. 15). ^[18]

Similar anti-Huntingtonian arguments have been woven around the term 'fundamentalism', a "slippery concept […], and word that has come to be associated almost automatically with Islam, although it has a flourishing, usually elided, relationship with Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism" (Said, 1997, p. xvi). ^[19] It has been suggested that "the deliberately created associations between Islam and fundamentalism ensure that the average reader comes to see Islam and fundamentalism as essentially the same thing" (idem). Indeed, Muslim countries such as Indonesia and Tunisia hardly fit into Huntington's fierce Weltanschauung, while his prediction that Turkey might decide to follow some sort of imperial past becomes less plausible by the day, as even newly elected "Islamic" Turkish conservative leaders turn towards Brussels, and not Tashkent, when contemplating foreign affairs.

Opposing concepts

In recent years, the theory of Dialogue Among Civilizations, a response to Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, has become the center of some international attention. The concept, which was introduced by former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, was the basis for United Nations' resolution to name the year 2001 as the Year of Dialogue among Civilizations.^[20][21]

The Alliance of Civilizations (AOC) initiative was proposed at the 59th General Assembly of the United Nations in 2005 by the President of the Spanish Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and co-sponsored by the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The initiative is intended to galvanize collective action across diverse societies to combat extremism, to overcome cultural and social barriers between mainly the Western and predominantly Muslim worlds, and to reduce the tensions and polarization between societies which differ in religious and cultural values.

The Intermediate Region

Huntington's geopolitical model, especially the structures for North Africa and Eurasia, is largely derived from the "Intermediate Region" geopolitical model first formulated by Dimitri Kitsikis and published in 1978.^[22] The Intermediate Region, which spans the Adriatic Sea and the Indus River, is neither western nor eastern (at least, with respect to the Far East) but is considered distinct.

Concerning this region, Huntington departs from Kitsikis contending that a civilizational fault line exists between the two dominant yet differing religions (Orthodox Christianity and Sunni Islam), hence a dynamic of external conflict. However, Kitsikis establishes an integrated civilization comprising these two peoples along with those belonging to the less dominant religions of Shiite Islam, Alevism and Judaism. They have a set of mutual cultural, social, economic and political views and norms which radically differ from those in the West and the Far East.

In the Intermediate Region, therefore, one cannot speak of a civiliational clash or external conflict, but rather an internal conflict, not for cultural domination, but for political succession. This has been successfully demonstrated by documenting the rise of Christianity from the hellenized Roman Empire, the rise of the Islamic caliphates from the Christianized Roman Empire and the rise of Ottoman rule from the Islamic caliphates and the Christianized Roman Empire.

See also

• Balkanization
• Civilizing mission
• Cultural relativism
• Criticism of multiculturalism
• Fault line war
• Partition of India
• Protracted social conflict
• Religious pluralism

Individuals

• Jacob Burckhardt
• Niall Ferguson, Professor of History at Harvard University
• Thomas Barnett (geostrategist)
• Carroll Quigley

Authors and books

• Francis Fukuyama, American political economist and author of The End of History and the Last Man
• Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West
• Emmanuel Todd's After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order
• Arnold J. Toynbee's A Study of History
• The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?

Bibliography

• Ankerl, Guy. Global communication without universal civilization. INU societal research. Vol.1: Coexisting contemporary civilizations: Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western. Geneva: INU Press. ISBN 2-88155-004-5.
• Barbé, Philippe, "L'Anti-Choc des Civilisations: Méditations Méditerranéennes", Editions de l'Aube, 2006, ISBN 9782752602084
• Barber, Benjamin R., Jihad vs. McWorld, Hardcover: Crown, 1995, ISBN 0812923502; Paperback: Ballantine Books, 1996, ISBN 0345383044
• Blankley, Tony, The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?, Washington, D.C., Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2005 ISBN 0-89526-015-8
• Harris, Lee, Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of History, New York, The Free Press, 2004 ISBN 0-7432-5749-9
• Harrison, Lawrence E. and Samuel P. Huntington (eds.), Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, New York, Basic Books, 2001 ISBN 0-465-03176-5
• Huntington, Samuel P., The Clash of Civilizations?, in "Foreign Affairs", vol. 72, no. 3, Summer 1993, pp. 22–49
• Huntington, Samuel P., The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1996 ISBN 0-684-84441-9
• Huntington, Samuel P. (ed.), The Clash of Civilizations?: The Debate, New York, Foreign Affairs, 1996 ISBN 0-87609-164-8
• Kepel, Gilles, Bad Moon Rising: a chronicle of the Middle East today, London, Saqi Books, 2003 ISBN 0-863-56303-1
• Köchler, Hans (ed.), Civilizations: Conflict or Dialogue?, Vienna, International Progress Organization, 1999 ISBN 3-900704-18-X (Google Print)
• Köchler, Hans, The "Clash of Civilizations": Perception and Reality in the Context of Globalization and International Power Politics, Tbilisi (Georgia), 2004
• Pera, Marcello and Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Senza radici: Europa, Relativismo, Cristianesimo, Islam [transl.: Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Perseus Books Group, 2006 ISBN 0-465-00634-5], Milano, Mondadori, 2004 ISBN 88-04-54474-0
• Peters, Ralph, Fighting for the Future: Will America Triumph?, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, Stackpole Books, 1999 ISBN 0-8117-0651-6
• Sacks, Jonathan, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations, London, Continuum, 2002 ISBN 0-826-46397-5
• Toft, Monica Duffy, The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and the Indivisibility of Territory, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 2003 ISBN 0-691-11354-8
• Tusicisny, Andrej, Civilizational Conflicts: More Frequent, Longer, and Bloodier?, in "Journal of Peace Research", vol. 41, no. 4, 2004, pp. 485–498 (available online)
• Van Creveld, Martin, The Transformation of War, New York & London, The Free Press, 1991 ISBN 0-02-933155-2
• Venn, Couze "Clash of Civilisations", in Prem Poddar et al , Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures--Continental Europe and its Empires, Edinburgh University Press, 2008.

References

1. ^ http://www.aei.org/issue/29196
2. ^ ^{a b c} Official copy (free preview): The Clash of Civilizations?, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993
3. ^ Bernard Lewis: The Roots of Muslim Rage The Atlantic Monthly, September 1990
4. ^ Louis Massignon, La psychologie musulmane (1931), in Idem, Ecrits mémorables, t. I, Paris, Robert Laffont, 2009, p. 629: "Après la venue de Bonaparte au Caire, le clash of cultures entre l'ancienne Chrétienté et l'Islam prit un nouvel aspect, par invasion (sans échange) de l'échelle de valeurs occidentales dans la mentalité collective musulmane".
5. ^ THE WORLD OF CIVILIZATIONS: POST-1990 scanned image
6. ^ The Inevitability of Clash of Civilisation
7. ^ ^{a b} Huntington, Samuel P. (2002) [1997]. "Chapter 9: The Global Politics of Civilizations". The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (The Free Press ed.). London: Simon $ Schuster. p. 207f. ISBN 0-7432-3149-X.
8. ^ Fox, J. (2005). Paradigm Lost: Huntington's Unfulfilled Clash of Civilizations Prediction into the 21st Century. International Politics, 42, pp. 428-457.
9. ^ Mungiu-Pippidi, A., & Mindruta, D. (2002). Was Huntington Right? Testing Cultural Legacies and the Civilization Border. International Politics, 39(2), pp. 193 213.
10. ^ Henderson, E. A., & Tucker, R. (2001). Clear and Present Strangers: The Clash of Civilizations and International Conflict. International Studies Quarterly, 45, pp. 317 338.
11. ^ Russett, B. M., Oneal, J. R., & Cox, M. (2000). Clash of Civilizations, or Realism and Liberalism Déjà Vu? Some Evidence. Journal of Peace Research, 37, pp. 583 608.
12. ^ Sen, Amartya (2006). Identity and Violence. New York: W.W. Norton.
13. ^ Sen A (1999). "Democracy as a Universal Value". Journal of Democracy 10 (3): 3-17.
14. ^ Berman, Paul (2003). Terror and Liberalism. W W Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-05775-5.
15. ^ Edward Said: The Clash of Ignorance The Nation, October 2001
16. ^ Said, E. W. (2004). From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map. New York: Pantheon, 2004.
17. ^ Goddard, V., Llobera, J., & Shore, C. (1994). The Anthropology of Europe: Identity and Boundaries in Conflict. Oxford: Berg.
18. ^ Lukens Bull, R. (1999). Between Text and Practice: Considerations in the Anthropological Study of Islam. Marburg Journal of Religion: 4(2) (electronic version).
19. ^ Said, E. W. (1997). Covering Islam. How the Media and the Experts Detemine How We See the Rest of the World (Fully rev. ed.), New York: Vintage Books.
20. ^ http://www.unesco.org/dialogue2001/en/khatami.htm Unesco.org Retrieved on 05-24-07
21. ^ http://www.dialoguecentre.org/about.html Dialoguecentre.org Retrieved on 05-24-07
22. ^ Dimitri Kitsikis, A Comparative History of Greece and Turkey in the 20th century. In Greek, Συγκριτική Ἱστορία Ἑλλάδος καί Τουρκίας στόν 20ό αἰῶνα, Athens, Hestia, 1978. Supplemented 2nd edition: Hestia, 1990. 3rd edition: Hestia, 1998, 357 pp.. In Turkish, Yırmı Asırda Karşılaştırmalı Türk-Yunan Tarihi, İstanbul, Türk Dünyası Araştırmaları Dergisi, II-8, 1980.

Islam and clothing

Adherents of Islam are concerned with clothing in two contexts: clothing for everyday wear, inside and outside the house; and clothing required in specifically religious contexts.

Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for greater purity for them: And Allah is well acquainted with all that they do.

And say that the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And O ye Believers! turn ye all together towards Allah, that ye may attain Bliss.

—Sura 24 (An-Nur), ayat 30-31, Qur'an^[1]

O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them. That will be better, so that they may be recognized and not harassed. Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful.

—Sura 33 (Al-Ahzab), ayah 59, Qur'an^[2]

However, there are many different interpretations of what "modesty" requires. Most agree^{[citation needed]} that it is covering the awrah, from the belly button to the knees for men and from the head to the toes for women except the hands and the face or eyes, depending on what view one follows.

Islamic dress in Europe

Islamic dress in Europe, notably the variety of headdresses worn by Muslim women, has become a prominent symbol of the presence of Islam in western Europe. In several countries the adherence to hijab (an Arabic noun meaning "to cover") has led to political controversies and proposals for a legal ban. The Netherlands government has decided to introduce a ban on face-covering clothing, popularly described as the "burqa ban", although it does not only apply to the Afghan-model burqa. Other countries, such as France are debating similar legislation, or have more limited prohibitions. Some of them apply only to face-covering clothing such as the burqa, chador, boushiya, or niqab; some apply to any clothing with an Islamic religious symbolism such as the khimar, a type of headscarf. (Some countries already have laws banning the wearing of masks in public, which can be applied to veils that conceal the face). The issue has different names in different countries, and "the veil" or "hijab" may be used as general terms for the debate, representing more than just the veil itself, or the concept of modesty embodied in hijab.

Although the Balkans and Eastern Europe have indigenous Muslim populations, most Muslims in western Europe are members of immigrant communities. The issue of Islamic dress is linked with issues of immigration and the position of Islam in western society. European Commissioner Franco Frattini said in November 2006, that he did not favour a ban on the burqa.^[3] This is apparently the first official statement on the issue of prohibition of Islamic dress from the European Commission, the executive of the European Union. The reasons given for prohibition vary. Legal bans on face-covering clothing are often justified on security grounds, as an anti-terrorism measure.^{[citation needed]}

Ayaan Hirsi Ali sees Islam as incompatible with Western values, at least in its present form. She advocates the values of 'Enlightenment liberalism', including secularism and equality of women. For her, the burqa or chador are both a symbol of religious obscurantism and the oppression of women. Western Enlightenment values, in her view, require prohibition, regardless of whether a woman has freely chosen Islamic dress. Islamic dress is also seen as a symbol of the existence of parallel societies (German: Parallelgesellschaft), and the failure of integration: in 2006 British Prime Minister Tony Blair described it as a "mark of separation".^[4] Visible symbols of a non-Christian culture conflict with the national identity in European states, which assumes a shared (non-religious) culture. Proposals for a ban may be linked to other related cultural prohibitions: the Dutch politician Geert Wilders proposed a ban on hijabs, in Islamic schools, in new mosques, and in non-western immigration.

In France and Turkey, the emphasis is on the secular nature of the state, and the symbolic nature of the Islamic dress, and bans apply at state institutions (courts, civil service) and in state-funded education. These bans also cover Islamic headscarves, which in some other countries are seen as less controversial, although law court staff in the Netherlands are also forbidden to wear Islamic headscarves on grounds of 'state neutrality'. An apparently less politicised argument is that in specific professions (teaching), a ban on "veils" (niqab) is justified, since face-to-face communication and eye contact is required. This argument has featured prominently in judgements in Britain and the Netherlands, after students or teachers were banned from wearing face-covering clothing. Public and political response to such prohibition proposals is complex, since by definition they mean that the government decides on individual clothing. Some non-Muslims, who would not be affected by a ban, see it as an issue of civil liberties, as a slippery slope leading to further restrictions on private life. A public opinion poll in London showed that 75 percent of Londoners support "the right of all persons to dress in accordance with their religious beliefs".^[5] In another poll in the United Kingdom by Ipsos MORI, 61 percent agreed that "Muslim women are segregating themselves" by wearing a veil, yet 77 percent thought they should have the right to wear it.^[6]

Hijab by country

Main article: Hijab by country

The hijab has different legal and cultural statuses in various countries. There are currently four countries, including France (since 2004), which have banned the wearing of all overt religious symbols, including the hijab (a Muslim headscarf, literally Arabic "to cover"), in public schools and universities or government buildings.^[7]

Currently Tunisia since 1981,^[8] and Turkey since 1997,^[9] are the only Muslim countries which have banned the hijab in public schools and universities or government buildings, whilst Syria banned face veils in universities from July 2010.^[10] In other Muslim states such as Morocco,^[11] there has been some restriction or discrimination against women who wear the hijab. The hijab in these cases is seen as a sign of political Islam or fundamentalism against secular government.

Islamic dress, notably the variety of headdresses worn by Muslim women, has become a prominent symbol of the presence of Islam in western Europe. In several countries this adherence to hijab has led to political controversies and proposals for a legal ban. The Dutch government has decided to introduce a ban on face-covering clothing, popularly described as the "burqa ban", although it does not only apply to the Afghan-model burqa.

Other countries are debating similar legislation, or have more limited prohibitions. Some of them apply only to face-covering clothing such as the burqa, chador, boushiya, or niqāb; some apply to any clothing with an Islamic religious symbolism such as the khimar, a type of headscarf. (Some countries already have laws banning the wearing of masks in public, which can be applied to veils that conceal the face). The issue has different names in different countries, and "the veil" or "hijab" may be used as general terms for the debate, representing more than just the veil itself, or the concept of modesty embodied in hijab.

Although the Balkans and Eastern Europe have indigenous Muslim populations, most Muslims in western Europe are members of immigrant communities. The issue of Islamic dress is linked with issues of immigration and the position of Islam in Western Europe.

References

1. ^ Qur'an 24:30–31
2. ^ Qur'an 33:59
3. ^ Reformatorisch dagblad: Brussel tegen boerkaverbod, 30 November 2006.
4. ^ Blair's concerns over face veils BBC News Online. October 17, 2006.
5. ^ Guardian: Livingstone decries vilification of Islam, November 20, 2006.
6. ^ Ipsos MORI Muslim Women Wearing Veils.
7. ^ French MPs back headscarf ban BBC News (BBC). Retrieved on 13 February 2009.
8. ^ Abdelhadi, Magdi Tunisia attacked over headscarves, BBC News, September 26, 2006. Accessed June 6, 2008.
9. ^ Turkey headscarf ruling condemned Al Jazeera English (07 June 2008). Retrieved on February 2009.
10. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10684359 Syria bans face veils at universities
11. ^ Richard Hamilton (6 October 2006) Morocco moves to drop headscarf BBC News (BBC). Retrieved on 13 February 2009.

US Dollar Faces Extinction

The United States greenback has become the biggest speculative bubble in history and will soon go the way of the dinosaurs, warns Swiss financial journalist Myret Zaki.

In her latest book, Zaki says that the euro’s future is much brighter and that attacks against the currency are just a smokescreen aimed at hiding the collapse of the American economy.

“The collapse of the American dollar… is inevitable. The world’s biggest economy is nothing but an illusion. To produce $14,000 billion of nation income, the United States has created over $50,000 billion of debt that costs it $4,000 billion in interest payments each year.”

There can be little doubt about Myret Zaki’s opinion of the American dollar and economy, which she considers technically bankrupt, an opinion she backs up in her new book, La fin du dollar (The end of the dollar).

Over the past few years, she has become one of Switzerland’s best known business journalists, with a book about the UBS debacle in the US and another about tax evasion.

swissinfo.ch: You say in your book that the end of the dollar will be the major event of the 21st century. Aren’t you painting the situation more catastrophic than it really is?

Myret Zaki: I realise that predicting such a huge event when there are no tangible warning signs of a violent crisis may seem all doom and gloom. But I reached those conclusions based on extremely rational and factual criteria.

More and more American authors believe that their country’s monetary policy will lead to such a situation. It is simply impossible that it will happen any other way.

swissinfo.ch: It’s not the first time the end of the dollar has been foreseen. What makes the situation different in 2011?

M.Z.: It’s true that it has been announced since the 1970s. But never have so many different factors come together, letting us fear the worst. American debt has reached a record level, the dollar is at a historic low against the Swiss franc and most new American bond issues are being bought by the US Federal Reserve. Other central banks have also been criticising the US, creating a hostile front against American monetary policy.

swissinfo.ch: Besides the end of the dollar, you are also announcing the end of the US as an economic superpower. Isn’t America simply too big to fail?

M.Z.: Everybody has an interest in the US economy staying afloat, so everyone is in denial for the time being. But it won’t last forever. No one will be able to save the Americans. They will have to carry the burden of their bankruptcy alone.

They can expect a very long period of austerity, which has already begun. Forty-five million Americans have already lost their homes, one third of the population is out of the economic system and is not spending, while a number of states are bankrupt. There is nowhere prosperous anymore. Everything is built on debt.

swissinfo.ch: You claim that the weakening of the euro zone is nothing less than a question of national security for the United States. Isn’t that a kind of anti-American paranoia?

M.Z.: We all like America and we prefer to see the world through pink-tinted lenses. But since the end of the Cold War and the creation of the euro in 1999, an economic war has been going on. A competitive offer of sovereign debt based on a strong currency risks lowering demand for American debt.

The United States cannot afford to stop accumulating debt, because that debt has helped them finance wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and consolidate their leading role in the world. It is a vital need for them.

In 2008, the euro was a currency that was taken very seriously by oil-producing nations, sovereign funds and central banks. It was about to overtake the dollar, something the US wanted to prevent at all costs. The world needs a safe place to offload its excess assets and everything is done to make sure Europe isn’t that place. It was precisely at that moment that speculators began attacking the sovereign debt of some European nations.

swissinfo.ch: What will happen if the dollar collapses as predicted?

M.Z.: Europe is the planet’s biggest economic power and it has a strong reference currency. Unlike the United States, it is also expanding. In Asia, the Chinese yuan will become the reference and China is Europe’s biggest ally.

It has an interest in supporting a strong euro so it can diversify its investments. China also needs an ally within the World Trade Organization and the G20 so it can avoid a re-evaluation of its currency. Today, Europe and China are two gravitational forces that are attracting two former US allies, Britain and Japan.

swissinfo.ch: And what about the Swiss franc?

M.Z.: Its value as a safe haven will keep on growing. If there is a crisis concerning the US sovereign debt, investors will turn in mass towards the franc. The Swiss franc has almost the same status as gold and it isn’t about to lose ground against the dollar.

In a monetary system undergoing change, Switzerland will have to decide which way to jump. I’m not convinced the Swiss franc can survive alone, as its position as a safe haven would be too detrimental to Switzerland’s economy.

(Adapted from French by Scott Capper)

1914 Gold Coin Selection World

The last time we spent some time at one of the hot estate sales while visiting some friends we had a nice strike of gold luck. That is we were able to find some really fine examples of 1914 gold coins from various countries around the world in one purchase.

Although this was not a huge amount the gold coins were still nice examples of three very distinctive gold coin dollars all from the year 1914. This included a nice 1914 Indian ten dollar gold eagle, a 1914 France gold twenty francs and a 1914 twenty dollar St. Gaudens gold coin which was in rough shape though the others were in great shape.

The 1914 St. Gaudens offered a very good date as far as collecting coins goes in that it can be scarce compared to more common years. The condition was fairly well circulated so it would not bring the higher end of its potential value however it was still a desirable coin.

The France gold 20 francs piece also offered a tremendous luster. It is rather unusual to find these and if I remember correctly this is one of the only ones we have found over the years. The craftsmanship and the overall design really speak for themselves on this particular coin.

The $10 Indian gold eagle had a San Francisco Mint mark and offered a glorious luster. It had not seen much in the way of light of day over all those years as it was in beautiful condition. This was a really nice example.

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1914 D $250 INDIAN HEAD QUARTER EAGLE GOLD COIN US $222.50

1914 D $500 INDIAN HEAD GOLD HALF EAGLE COIN SCARCE US $471.00

1914 Indian Head Five Dollars $5 Half Eagle Gold Coin US $452.00

1914 US $10 INDIAN HEAD GOLD EAGLE COIN VF US $590.00

1914 S StGaudens $20 Double Eagle NGC MS 64 Gold Coin US $1,795.00

1914 D $250 INDIAN HEAD GOLD QUARTER EAGLE COIN RARE US $330.09

1914 $250 INDIAN HEAD GOLD QUARTER EAGLE COIN SCARCE US $260.00

1914 $2 1 2 D INDIAN HEAD QUARTER EAGLE GOLD COIN NICE US $76.00

1914 St Gaudens Gold $20 Double Eagle Coin US $676.00

1914 D $250 Indian Gold Coin ANACS Certified MS 62 PQ US $1.04

US Revolution unleashes trillions of our dollars for obvious economic solutions

Under US political and economic Orwellian “leadership,” Americans are told:

• Our increasing national debt (public and private) is a “money supply.”
• Government is incapable of creating money to hire unemployed Americans to produce useful work, such as education and infrastructure, that return more to the economy than the cost of inputs and therefore providedecreasing prices as well as full employment and state-of-the-art infrastructure. We’re told unemployment must be endured until the economy “improves.”
• Americans must pay more than the cost of their homes in interest payments to banks, who create this debt out of nothing, rather than have “at cost” interest in public banks.

As a professional educator of Advanced Placement US Government and Macroeconomics, as well as having 18 years experience working with US political leadership that led to two UN Summits (1990 World Summit for Children – the largest meeting of heads of state in world history – and the 1997 Microcredit Summit – topic of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize), I invite your thoughtful and heartfelt consideration of my explanation and documentation of our human condition.

The following is a reprint of an article I wrote last year on the obvious economic solutions Americans have available right now, that if implemented, would end the national debt, provide full employment with the best infrastructure possible, and end almost all forms of taxation.

For a podcast interview where I explain this with Professor James Fetzer, click here.

My current work is most strongly represented in the following two papers; first in my “academic/professional voice,” and the second in my “citizen voice.” My bottom line is open and public revolution. Revolution is the only policy route I see available to Americans who choose limited government under the law. The easiest areas to explain, document, and prove the “emperor has no clothes” obvious crimes Americans currently suffer under (with just-as-obvious complicity from corporate media that I document) are Wars of Aggression nowhere close to lawful, and trillions of dollars in criminal economic fraud. These crimes are killing millions of human beings, and causing pain, destruction, and suffering to human beings in the magnitude of trillions of dollars every year.

Today’s causes for revolution dwarf those from 1776.

Open proposal for US revolution: end unlawful wars, parasitic economics

Common Sense for new American Revolution: revolt from US government by dicts

Here is my article from last year, and still fully aplicable:

Solutions to US economic controlled demolition are obvious, but We the People must demand them

Nobel economist Paul Krugman wrote the US economy is “doomed,” Obama “clueless,” and summarizes his analysis of President Obama’s economic leadership with simply:

Oh. My. God.

Mr. Krugman joins a growing list of characteristically dry economic experts expanding the margins of their self-expression to communicate to Americans that kleptocratic parasites have destroyed the US economy.

The good news is that the solutions are obvious, available right now, and elegantly simple to understand and implement.

Let’s start with understanding these solutions, provide a snapshot to professional economists’ horror of our economic destruction, and include to the left PuppetGov’s 8-minute video, “America’s controlled economic implosion” to add visual and artistic dimension to our understanding.

This multi-trillion dollar topic is of crucial importance to understand if you seek an economic future above that of a debt-peon for your progeny and you. Literally, you have nothing more valuable to do with your time and attention.

Solutions:

Fortunately, the structural solutions to our crisis are simple and obvious:

1. Reclaiming over $1 trillion in annual public benefits from ending banks creating bank credit as debt for our monetary system, and enacting monetary reform for public-created money for the direct payment of public goods and services. This idea was supported by 86% of teaching economic professors in the Great Depression, and by many of America’s brightest historical minds. Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman was among the supporters, envisioning less inflation than our current monetary system.
2. Paying our $12 trillion national debt easily and without inflation as new money is created as the banks’ ability to create credit from nothing is slowed. The savings of the annual interest payment to taxpayers is over $400 billion every year.
3. Full employment. The government becomes the employer of last resort for infrastructure improvement that returns more than the cost of the projects, and thereby lowing prices.
4. 2% mortgages, 6% credit cards, 5% interest paid on deposits from state-owned banks (and here for current progress in states).
5. Invest our promise of 0.7% of GNI to fully fund the UN Millennium Goals of ending poverty once and for all. I worked on these goals for over 20 years; the goals are structurally sound but the UN and leading nations are not serious about helping these people. The goals will save a million children’s lives every month while reducing population growth, easing environmental pressure, and removing motivation for violence.
6. A Truth and Reconciliation process would have us discover other areas of suppressed economic breakthroughs, likely including pollution-free energy generation.

As a professional teacher of economics, our experience is that the above information is best communicated with a visual aid, such as through the video Money as Debt in my article on monetary reform and/or Zeitgeist Addendum.

The solvable problems:

Over four million Americans lost jobs in 2009, with December adding 85,000 and January 2010 seeing no improvement to this unnecessary economic and social tragedy. Unemployment is falsely claimed at 10%; it doesn’t count those forced into part-time jobs and those “discouraged” who do not regularly submit new job applications. Including those categories is how unemployment was measured in the Great Depression. Adding those categories today puts unemployment at 22%; worse than all years of the Great Depression except for 1932 and 1933 at 24.9% and 23.6%.

I wrote on this topic in November 2009, including statistics of staggering US poverty, and the empty policy of only symbolic help and rhetoric from government who could end the financial crisis with relative ease, as the above links explain and document. After the first year of the Obama administration, the provided “stimulus package” only stimulated higher unemployment.

The solvable problems center around economic policy that creates protected parasites that collect unregulated and illegal gambling profits on the way up (the FBI reported 80% of the subprime mortgage fraud came from lenders), subsidized losses through “bailouts” on the way down, and then celebrate with unprecedented bonuses to themselves while publiclyclaiming to be doing “God’s work.” Future bailouts getguaranteed in advance without questions while the symbolic program to help struggling homeowners has not yet been launched.

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Professional politicians, economists, and leading journalists are voicing their disgust in unprecedented harsh terms. The leading problems and analyses:

The US Senate called US banking practices the “new Enron,”parasitizing $2-$4 trillion from Americans every year (a staggering $20,000 to $40,000 per household on average).

The US military admits to “losing” ~25% of their annual budget. What the firearms are we really buying with these contrived and endless wars against ideologies?

The US taxpayers are transferring TRILLIONS of their dollars to the financial elites under the political cover of a legalized “bailout” to socialize their gambling losses.

MIT’s Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, wrote in The Quiet Coup that the US economy is managed by short-sighted oligarchs typical of “banana republics.”

Chris Hedges and David Cay Johnston, with Pulitzers in 2002 and 2001 respectively, write that American taxpayers are on the road to permanent serfdom under a police state from oligarchs’ “rapacious looting” and their purchase of a politically-protected luxurious lifestyle and business style at the expense of the exploited slave-labor class the American public has become (Hedges: “Resist or Become Serfs,” ”Wall Street will be back for more,” and Johnston: “Free Lunch”).

William Black, the senior government regulator of the S&L crisis, who Economics Nobel Laureate George Akerlof hailed as the world’s leading expert for understanding how the banking and financial oligarchs loot the public, was interviewed by 30+ Emmy-winning journalist Bill Moyers. Black poignantly labeled the bailout as “criminal fraud” and “the entire strategy is to keep people from getting the fact,” and that the Bush and Obama Administrations are blatantly breaking the law by refusing to enforce bank insolvency laws. Interview Transcript;Black’s book: The best way to rob a bank is to own one: how corporate executives and politicians looted the S&L industry.

Former Assistant Secretary to the Treasurer and Wall Street Journal Editor Paul Craig Roberts blasts government disinformation on employment statistics, calling the US an oligarchy ruled by banksters, with warmongers, war criminals, and “whores” in government looting America into serfdom.

Bank bailout overseer and Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren called the so-called “bailout” as “unaccountable” by design, and created with conscious intent to reward banks’ “reckless gambling” by having every intention to always bail them out.

Renowned futurist Gerald Celente calls the transfer of taxpayer wealth to “fascist oligarchs” as “financial rape” and “mafia economics.”

Bestselling author John Perkins calls the US economy, “corporatism” and “predatory capitalism.”

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and eminent economist Jeffrey Sachs run the numbers of the current so-called bailout plan and point out the unprecedented transfer of wealth from taxpayers to oligarchs. Stiglitz calls it a cheap substitute for capitalism that only has banks and inside investors win while taxpayers fund their winnings. Sachs calls our so-called bailout an unnecessary transfer of wealth that will become worse than we imagine as it sets the stage for further insider manipulations.

Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and President of Solari, and Vladimir Yuri, author of one of the most comprehensive and insightful economics papers I’ve read, “Fractional Reserve Banking as Economic Parasitism: A Scientific, Mathematical & Historical Expose, Critique, and Manifesto,” write specifically in emphasis of parasitism as the defining concept in modern US economics.

Chair of the Economics Department of George Mason University (ranked 8th in the world for political economy by econphd.net), Donald J. Boudreaux, concludes in his economic analysis that US politicians in their economic policy act like pimps who supply taxpayers’ services as enslaved prostitutes to corporate customers who lust after the taxpayers’ money.

The most-read author for monetary reform, Ellen Brown, provides all the information anyone could possibly need to criminally indict Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner from his work as President of the New York Fed in funneling our tax money to pay 100% of Goldman Sachs’ gambling losses through AIG.

And please remember that a year ago Harvard’s Economics Department shamefully admitted that very few economists, including their own faculty, saw the economic crisis coming, understood it, or could prescribe a long-term solution.

Importantly, despite the logic of monetary reform, historical performance and agreement of our many of our brightest minds, failure of our current system, so-called “mainstream” media will not bring these ideas sharply into focus. Indeed, evidence is strong that these very ideas are suppressed by corporate media as a logical strategy of financial oligarchs to remain undetected as parasites.

Therefore, dear reader, it seems up to us to take leadership in demanding these obvious and simple solutions be implemented. Remember when you told yourself that you’d be a competent citizen working for the good of the team? Here’s your opportunity, citizen.

So there you have a summary of my contribution to a brighter future in the creation of money, goods, and services: economics. The crimes we endure are transparent, the solutions obvious, the possibilities such as suppressed energy breakthroughs are unimaginably bright. I invite you to embrace our current disturbing present and optimize your unique, beautiful and powerful expressions to help build our bright future.

Gold Coin Dollar Trading

We have spent a good deal of time over the years attending auctions as well as estate sales which have in all reality turned out to be real duds unfortunately. But this is the reality of modern day treasure hunting and it is simply all a part of the game. If you can not take the wins with the losses then you are probably not cut out to endure the work load of tracking down and then obtaining the goodies such as various gold coin dollar examples.

Finding old gold coins is certainly rewarding every time that it happens but it certainly does not happen every venture which we set out on. Finding the quality sale from the time waster may be a challenge but there are certainly several indicators which help right from the get go.

For many years we have been making great contacts and tend to trade among other coin collectors as well as dealers. This network keeps inventories fresh as well as helps others out with certain coins which they are looking for. Although there is certainly a fine art to trading it can be a great way for anyone to acquire the gold coins which they may otherwise not be able to find or afford.

The main thing to keep in mind is that you will need to have something which the other party wants or else a trade may be much more difficult and you may not exactly win as far as value for your gold coin dollars go.