Showing results by author "Dr. Ismail Raji Al-Faruqi" in All Categories

There can be no doubt that the essence of Islamic civilization is Islam; or that the essence of Islam is tawhid, the act of affirming Allah to be the One, absolute, transcendent Creator, Lord and Master of all that is. These two fundamental premises are self-evident. They have never been in doubt by those belonging to this civilization or participating in it. Only in recent times have missionaries, Orientalists, and other interpreters of Islam subjected these premises to doubt.

Genuine understanding of Islam, the religion, will reveal ... that Islam is a later moment of that very consciousness which produced Judaism and Christianity; that Islam, the culture, is as much a source of the Western civilization of the present millennium as classical Greece and Rome ... that Islam’s anti-clericalism made it the first “Protestant” revolution, that its rationalismmade it the first “Enlightenment,” that its pragmatism made it the first “technocracy,” and that its law of war and peace made it the first “United Nations.