In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the
Merciful
Islam and the West
A Speech by Prince Charles
ISLAM AND THE WEST
Speech by HRH The Prince
of Wales, at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford on the occasion of his visit to the
Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies:
Wednesday 27 October
1993
Ladies and gentlemen, it
was suggested to me when I first began to consider the subject of this lecture,
that I should take comfort from the Arab proverb, 'In every head there is some
wisdom'. I confess that I have few qualifications as a scholar to justify my
presence here, in this theatre, where so many people much more learned than I
have preached and generally advanced the sum of human knowledge. I might feel
more prepared if I were an offspring of your distinguished University, rather
than a product of that 'Technical College of the Fens' - though I hope you will
bear in mind that a chair of Arabic was established in 17th century Cambridge a
full four years before your first chair of Arabic at Oxford. Unlike many of
you, I am not an expert on Islam - though I am delighted, for reasons which I
hope will become clear, to be a Vice Patron of the Oxford Centre for Islamic
Studies. The Centre has the potential to be an important and exciting vehicle
for promoting and improving understanding of the Islamic world in Britain, and
one which I hope will earn its place alongside other centres of Islamic study
in Oxford, like the Oriental Institute and the Middle East Centre, as an
institution of which the University, and scholars more widely, will become
justly proud.
Given all the
reservations I have about venturing into a complex and controversial field, you
may well ask why I am here in this marvellous Wren building talking to you on
the subject of Islam and the West. The reason is, ladies and gentlemen, that I
believe wholeheartedly that the links between these two worlds matter more
today than ever before, because the degree of misunderstanding between the
Islamic and Western worlds remains dangerously high, and because the need for
the two to live and work together in our increasingly interdependent world has
never been greater. At the same time I am only too well aware of the minefields
which lie across the path of the inexpert traveller who is bent on exploring
this difficult route. Some of what I shall say will undoubtedly provoke
disagreement, criticism, misunderstanding and probably worse. But perhaps, when
all is said and done, it is worth recalling another Arab proverb: 'What comes
from the lips reaches the ears.. What comes from the heart reaches the heart.'
The depressing fact is
that, despite the advances in technology and mass communications of the second
half of the 20th Century, despite mass travel, the intermingling of races, the
ever growing reduction - or so we believe - of the mysteries of our world,
misunderstandings between Islam and the West continue. Indeed, they may be
growing. As far as the West is concerned, this cannot be because of ignorance.
There are one billion Muslims worldwide. Many millions of them live in
countries of the Commonwealth. Ten million or more live in the West, and around
one million in Britain. Our own Islamic community has been growing and
flourishing for decades. There are nearly 500 mosques in Britain. Popular
interest in Islamic culture in Britain is growing fast. Many of you will recall
- and I think some of you took part in - the wonderful Festival of Islam which
Her Majesty The Queen opened in 1976. Islam is all around us. And yet distrust,
even fear, persist. In the post-Cold War world of the 1990s, the prospects for
peace should be greater than at any time in this century. In the Middle East,
the remarkable and encouraging events of recent weeks have created new hope for
an end to an issue which has divided the world and been so dramatic a source of
violence and hatred. But the dangers have not disappeared. In the Muslim world,
we are seeing the unique way of life of the Marsh Arabs of Southern Iraq,
thousands of years old, being systematically devastated and destroyed. I
confess that for a whole year I have wanted to find a suitable opportunity to
express my despair and outrage at the unmentionable horrors being perpetrated
in Southern Iraq. To me, the supreme and tragic irony of what has been
happening to the Shia population of Iraq - especially in the ancient city and
holy shrine of Kerbala - is that after the Western allies took immense care to
avoid bombing such holy places (and I remember begging General Schwarzkopf when
I met him in Riyadh in December 1990 to do his best to protect such shrines
during any conflict) it was Saddam Hussein himself, and his terrifying regime,
who caused the destruction of some of Islam's holiest sites. And now we have
had to witness the deliberate draining of the marshes and the near total
destruction of a unique habitat, together with an entire population that has
depended upon it since the dawn of human civilization. The international
community has been told the draining of the marshes is for agricultural
purposes. How many more obscene lies do we have to be told before action is taken?
Even at the eleventh hour it is still not too late to prevent a total
cataclysm. I pray that this might at least be a cause in which Islam and the
West could join forces for the sake of our common humanity. I have highlighted
this particular example because it is so avoidable. Elsewhere, the violence and
hatred are more intractable and deep-seated, as we go on seeing every day to
our horror in the wretched suffering of peoples across the world - in the
former Yugoslavia, in Somalia, Angola, Sudan, in so many of the former Soviet
Republics. In Yugoslavia the terrible sufferings of the Bosnian Muslims,
alongside that of other communities in that cruel war, help keep alive many of
the fears and prejudices which our two worlds retain of each other. Conflict,
of course, comes about because of the misuse of power and the clash of ideals,
not to mention the inflammatory activities of unscrupulous and bigoted leaders.
But it also arises, tragically, from an inability to understand, and from the
powerful emotions which out of misunderstanding lead to distrust and fear.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must not slide into a new era of danger and division
because governments and peoples, communities and religions, cannot live
together in peace in a shrinking world.
It is odd, in many ways,
that misunderstandings between Islam and the West should persist. For that
which binds our two worlds together is so much more powerful than that which
divides us. Muslims, Christians - and Jews - are all 'peoples of the Book'.
Islam and Christianity share a common monotheistic vision: a belief in one
divine God, in the transience of our earthly life, in our accountability for
our actions, and in the assurance of life to come. We share many key values in
common: respect for knowledge, for justice, compassion towards the poor and
underprivileged, the importance of family life, respect for parents. 'Honour
thy father and thy mother' is a Quranic precept too. Our history has been
closely bound up together. There, however, is one root of the problem. For much
of that history has been one of conflict: fourteen centuries too often marked
by mutual hostility. That has given rise to an enduring tradition of fear and
distrust, because our two worlds have so often seen that past in contradictory
ways. To Western school children, the two hundred years of Crusades are
traditionally seen as a series of heroic, chivalrous exploits in which the
kings, knights, princes - and children - of Europe tried to wrest Jerusalem
from the wicked Muslim infidel. To Muslims, the Crusades were an episode of
great cruelty and terrible plunder, of Western infidel soldiers of fortune and
horrific atrocities, perhaps exemplified best by the massacres committed by the
Crusaders when, in 1099, they took back Jerusalem, the third holiest city in
Islam. For us in the West, 1492 speaks of human endeavour and new horizons, of
Columbus and the discovery of the Americas. To Muslims, 1492 is a year of
tragedy - the year Granada fell to Ferdinand and Isabella, signifying the end
of eight centuries of Muslim civilisation in Europe. The point, I think, is not
that one or other picture is more true, or has a monopoly of truth. It is that
misunderstandings arise when we fail to appreciate how others look at the
world, its history, and our respective roles in it.
The corollary of how we
in the West see our history has so often been to regard Islam as a threat - in
mediaeval times as a military conqueror, and in more modern times as a source
of intolerance, extremism and terrorism. One can understand how the taking of
Constantinople, when it fell to Sultan Mehmet in 1453, and the close-run
defeats of the Turks outside Vienna in 1529 and 1683, should have sent shivers
of fear through Europe's rulers. The history of the Balkans under Ottoman rule provided
examples of cruelty which sank deep into Western feelings. But the threat has
not been one way. With Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, followed by the
invasions and conquests of the 19th century, the pendulum swung, and almost all
the Arab world became occupied by the Western powers. With the fall of the
Ottoman Empire, Europe's triumph over Islam seemed complete. Those days of
conquest are over. But even now our common attitude to Islam suffers because
the way we understand it has been hijacked by the extreme and the superficial.
To many of us in the West, Islam is seen in terms of the tragic civil war in
Lebanon, the killings and bombings perpetrated by extremist groups in the
Middle East, and by what is commonly referred to as 'Islamic fundamentalism'.
Our judgement of Islam has been grossly distorted by taking the extremes to be
the norm. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a serious mistake. It is like judging
the quality of life in Britain by the existence of murder and rape, child abuse
and drug addition. The extremes exist, and they must be dealt with. But when
used as a basis to judge a society, they lead to distortion and unfairness.
For example, people in
this country frequently argue that the Sharia law of the Islamic world is
cruel, barbaric and unjust. Our newspapers, above all, love to peddle those
unthinking prejudices. The truth is, of course, different and always more
complex. My own understanding is that extremes, like the cutting off of hands,
are rarely practised. The guiding principle and spirit of Islamic law, taken
straight from the Qur'an, should be those of equity and compassion. We need to
study its actual application before we make judgements. We must distinguish
between systems of justice administered with integrity, and systems of justice
as we may see them practised which have been deformed for political reasons
into something no longer Islamic. We must bear in mind the sharp debate taking
place in the Islamic world itself about the extent of the universality or
timelessness of Sharia law, and the degree to which the application of that law
is continually changing and evolving.
We should also
distinguish Islam from the customs of some Islamic states. Another obvious
Western prejudice is to judge the position of women in Islamic society by the
extreme cases. Yet Islam is not a monolith and the picture is not simple.
Remember, if you will, that Islamic countries like Turkey, Egypt and Syria gave
women the vote as early as Europe did its women - and much earlier than in
Switzerland! In those countries women have long enjoyed equal pay, and the
opportunity to play a full working role in their societies. The rights of
Muslim women to property and inheritance, to some protection if divorced, and
to the conducting of business, were rights prescribed by the Qur'an twelve
hundred years ago, even if they were not everywhere translated into practice.
In Britain at least, some of these rights were novel even to my grandmother's
generation! Benazir Bhutto and Begum Khaleda Zia became prime ministers in
their own traditional societies when Britain had for the first time ever in its
history elected a female prime minister. That, I think, does not smack of a
mediaeval society. Women are not automatically second-class citizens because
they live in Islamic countries. We cannot judge the position of women in Islam
aright if we take the most conservative Islamic states as representative of the
whole. For example, the veiling of women is not at all universal across the
Islamic world. Indeed, I was intrigued to learn that the custom of wearing the
veil owed much to Byzantine and Sassanian traditions, nothing to the Prophet of
Islam. Some Muslim women never adopted the veil, others have discarded it,
others - particularly the younger generation - have more recently chosen to
wear the veil or the headscarf as a personal statement of their Muslim
identity. But we should not confuse the modesty of dress prescribed by the
Qur'an for men as well as women with the outward forms of secular custom or
social status which have their origins elsewhere.
We in the West need also
to understand the Islamic world's view of us. There is nothing to be gained,
and much harm to be done, by refusing to comprehend the extent to which many
people in the Islamic world genuinely fear our own Western materialism and mass
culture as a deadly challenge to their Islamic culture and way of life. Some of
us may think the material trappings of Western society which we have exported
to the Islamic world - television, fast-food, and the electronic gadgets of our
everyday lifes - are a modernising, self-evidently good, influence. But we fall
into the trap of dreadful arrogance if we confuse 'modernity' in other
countries with their becoming more like us. The fact is that our form of
materialism can be offensive to devout Muslims - and I do not just mean the
extremists among them. We must understand that reaction, just as the West's
attitude to some of the more rigorous aspects of Islamic life needs to be
understood in the Islamic world. This, I believe, would help us understand what
we have commonly come to see as the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. We need
to be careful of that emotive label, 'fundamentalism', and distinguish, as
Muslims do, between revivalists, who choose to take the practice of their
religion most devoutly, and fanatics or extremists who use this devotion for
political ends. Among the many religious, social and political causes of what
we might more accurately call the Islamic revival is a powerful feeling of
disenchantment, of the realisation that Western technology and material things
are insufficient, and that a deeper meaning to life lies elsewhere in the
essence of Islamic belief.
At the same time, we
must not be tempted to believe that extremism is in some way the hallmark and
essence of the Muslim. Extremism is no more the monopoly of Islam than it is
the monopoly of other religions, including Christianity. The vast majority of
Muslims, though personally pious, are moderate in their politics. Theirs is the
'religion of the middle way'. The Prophet himself always disliked and feared
extremism. Perhaps the fear of Islamic revivalism which coloured the 1980's is
now beginning to give way in the West to an understanding of the genuine
spiritual forces behind this groundswell. But if we are to understand this
important movement, we must learn to distinguish clearly between what the vast
majority of Muslims believe and the terrible violence of a small minority among
them which civilized people everywhere must condemn.
Ladies and gentlemen, if
there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is
also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilisation owe to the
Islamic world. It is a failure which stems, I think, from the straightjacket of
history which we have inherited. The mediaeval Islamic world, from Central Asia
to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning
flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West,
as an alien culture, society and system of belief, we have tended to ignore or
erase its great relevance to our own history. For example, we have
underestimated the importance of 800 years of Islamic society and culture in
Spain between the 8th and 15th centuries. The contribution of Muslim Spain to
the preservation of classical learning during the Dark Ages, and to the first
flowerings of the Renaissance, has long been recognised. But Islamic Spain was
much more than a mere larder where Hellenistic knowledge was kept for later
consumption by the emerging modern Western world. Not only did Muslim Spain
gather and preserve the intellectual content of ancient Greek and Roman
civilisation, it also interpreted and expanded upon that civilisation, and made
a vital contribution of its own in so many fields of human endeavour - in
science, astronomy, mathematics, algebra (itself an Arabic word), law, history,
medicine, pharmacology, optics, agriculture, architecture, theology, music.
Averroes and Avenzoor, like their counterparts Avicenna and Rhazes in the East,
contributed to the study and practice of medicine in ways from which Europe
benefited for centuries afterwards.
Islam nurtured and
preserved the quest for learning. In the words of the tradition, 'the ink of
the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr'. Cordoba in the 10th
century was by far the most civilised city of Europe. We know of lending
libraries in Spain at the time King Alfred was making terrible blunders with
the culinary arts in this country. It is said that the 400,000 volumes in its
ruler's library amounted to more books than all the libraries of the rest of
Europe put together. That was made possible because the Muslim world acquired
from China the skill of making paper more than four hundred years before the
rest of non-Muslim Europe. Many of the traits on which modern Europe prides
itself came to it from Muslim Spain. Diplomacy, free trade, open borders, the
techniques of academic research, of anthropology, etiquette, fashion,
alternative medicine, hospitals, all came from this great city of cities.
Mediaeval Islam was a religion of remarkable tolerance for its time, allowing
Jews and Christians the right to practise their inherited beliefs, and setting
an example which was not, unfortunately, copied for many centuries in the West.
The surprise, ladies and gentlemen, is the extent to which Islam has been a
part of Europe for so long, first in Spain, then in the Balkans, and the extent
to which it has contributed so much towards the civilisation which we all too
often think of, wrongly, as entirely Western. Islam is part of our past and
present, in all fields of human endeavour. It has helped to create modern
Europe. It is part of our own inheritance, not a thing apart.
More than this, Islam
can teach us today a way of understanding and living in the world which
Christianity itself is poorer for having lost. At the heart of Islam is its
preservation of an integral view of the Universe. Islam - like Buddhism and
Hinduism - refuses to separate man and nature, religion and science, mind and
matter, and has preserved a metaphysical and unified view of ourselves and the
world around us. At the core of Christianity there still lies an integral view
of the sanctity of the world, and a clear sense of the trusteeship and
responsibility given to us for our natural surroundings. In the words of that
marvellous seventeenth century poet and hymn writer, George Herbert: 'A man
that looks on glass, on it may stay his eye, Or if he pleaseth, through it
pass, and then the heaven espy.'
But the West gradually
lost this integrated vision of the world with Copernicus and Descartes and the
coming of the scientific revolution. A comprehensive philosophy of nature is no
longer part of our everyday beliefs. I cannot help feeling that, if we could
now only rediscover that earlier, all-embracing approach to the world around
us, to see and understand its deeper meaning, we could begin to get away from
the increasing tendency in the West to live on the surface of our surroundings,
where we study our world in order to manipulate and dominate it, turning
harmony and beauty into disequilibrium and chaos. It is a sad fact, I believe,
that in so many ways the external world we have created in the last few hundred
years has come to reflect our own divided and confused inner state. Western
civilisation has become increasingly acquisitive and exploitive in defiance of
our environmental responsibilities. This crucial sense of oneness and
trusteeship of the vital sacramental and spiritual character of the world about
us is surely something important we can relearn from Islam. I am quite sure
some will instantly accuse me, as they usually do, of living in the past, of
refusing to come to terms with reality and modern life. On the contrary, ladies
and gentlemen, what I am appealing for is a wider, deeper, more careful
understanding of our world: for a metaphysical as well as material dimension to
our lives, in order to recover the balance we have abandoned, the absence of
which, I believe, will prove disastrous in the long term. If the ways of
thought in Islam and other religions can help us in that search, then there are
things for us to learn in this system of belief which I suggest we ignore at
our peril.
Ladies and gentlemen, we
live today in one world, forged by instant communications, by television, by
the exchange of information on a scale undreamed of by our grandparents. The
world economy functions as an inter-dependant entity. Problems of society, the
quality of life and the environment, are global in their causes and effects,
and none of us any longer has the luxury of being able to solve them on our
own. The Islamic and Western worlds share problems common to us all: how we
adapt to change in our societies, how we help young people who feel alienated
from their parents or society's values, how we deal with Aids, drugs, and the
disintegration of the family. Of course, these problems vary in nature and
intensity between societies. But the similarity of human experience is
considerable. The international trade in hard drugs is one example, the damage
we are collectively doing to our environment is another. We have to solve these
threats to our communities and our lives together. Simply getting to know each
other can achieve wonders. I remember vividly, for example, taking a group of
Muslims and non-Muslims some years ago to see the work of the Marylebone Health
Centre in London, of which I am patron. The enthusiasm and common determination
that shared experience generated was immensely heart-warming. Ladies and gentleman,
somehow we have to learn to understand each other, and to educate our children
- a new generation -whose attitudes and cultural outlook may be different from
ours so that they understand too. We have to show trust, mutual respect and
tolerance, if we are to find the common ground between us and work together to
find solutions. The community enterprise approach of my own Trust, and the very
successful Volunteers Scheme it has run for some years, show how much can be
achieved by a common effort which spans the classes, cultures and religions.
The Islamic and Western world can no longer afford to stand apart from a common
effort to solve their common problems. We cannot afford to revive the
territorial and political confrontations of the past. We have to share
experiences, to explain ourselves to each other, to understand and tolerate,
and build on the positive principles our cultures have in common. That trade
has to be two-way. Each of us needs to understand the importance of
conciliation, of reflection - TADABBUR - to open our minds and unlock our
hearts to each other. I am utterly convinced that the Islamic and Western
worlds have much to learn from each other. Just as the oil engineer in the Gulf
may be European, so the heart transplant surgeon in Britain may be Egyptian.
If this need for
tolerance and exchange is true internationally, it applies with special force
within Britain itself. Britain is a multi-racial and multi-cultural society. I
have already mentioned the size of our the cause of promoting understanding.
Ladies and gentlemen,
if, in the last half hour, your eyes have wandered up to the marvellous
allegory of Truth descending on the arts and sciences in Sir Robert Streeter's
ceiling above you, I am sure you will have noticed Ignorance being violently
banished from the arena - just there in front of the organ casing. I feel some
sympathy for Ignorance, and hope I may be able to vacate this theatre in
somewhat better condition. Before I go, I cannot put to you strongly enough the
importance of the issues which I have tried to touch on so imperfectly. These
two worlds, the Islamic and the Western, are at something of a crossroads in
their relations. We must not let them stand apart. I do not accept the argument
that they are on a course to clash in a new era of antagonism. I am utterly
convinced that our two worlds have much to offer each other. We have much to do
together. I am delighted that the dialogue has begun, both in Britain and
elsewhere. But we shall need to work harder to understand each other, to drain
out any poison between us, and to lay the ghost of suspicion and fear. The
further down that road we can travel, the better the world that we shall create
for our children and for future generations.
Ladies and gentlemen,
if, in the last half hour, your eyes have wandered up to the marvellous
allegory of Truth descending on the arts and sciences in Sir Robert Streeter's
ceiling above you, I am sure you will have noticed Ignorance being violently
banished from the arena - just there in front of the organ casing. I feel some
sympathy for Ignorance, and hope I may be able to vacate this theatre in
somewhat better condition. Before I go, I cannot put to you strongly enough the
importance of the issues which I have tried to touch on so imperfectly. These
two worlds, the Islamic and the Western, are at something of a crossroads in
their relations. We must not let them stand apart. I do not accept the argument
that they are on a course to clash in a new era of antagonism. I am utterly
convinced that our two worlds have much to offer each other. We have much to do
together. I am delighted that the dialogue has begun, both in Britain and
elsewhere. But we shall need to work harder to understand each other, to drain
out any poison between us, and to lay the ghost of suspicion and fear. The
further down that road we can travel, the better the world that we shall create
for our children and for future generations.
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