clash of civilizations

is a real danger. It is crucially important for the West to not be provoked into an equally historic but also equally irrational reaction against the irrational anti-secular vision of the islamic world.

But even Lewis warned against buying entirely into the Islamist vision by overreacting to it. 'It is crucially important,' he added. 'That we on our side should not be provoked into an equally historic but also equally irrational reaction against that rival.'

is the idea that, until religion is vanquished from the realm of politics in the middle east in a reformation analogous to the west's, a clash will ensue as a perhaps irrational, but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both.

All this has lent new credence to the projection made a quarter century ago by the scholar Bernard Lewis who coined the phrase 'clash of civilizations' (though it was later made famous by political scientist Samuel Huntington) that the Arab world would not advance until it had its own Reformation analogous to the West's, vanquishing religion from the realm of politics and confining it to the mosque. Until that happens, Lewis argued in his original 1990 essay in which he also included the Islamic Republic of Iran 'This is no less than a clash of civilizations the perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both.'

clash of civilizations, n.All

clash of civilizations