Clash of Civilization: The Conflict which has no Frontier

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Clash of Civilization: The Conflict which has no Frontier

God has created human being and has given him such instinct that he cannot live alone

Tuesday March 19, 2019 6:05 PM, Shah Abdul Hannan

Clash of Civilization

The world is witnessing at the present time a conflict between western and Islamic civilizations. We were not that much conscious about this conflict in the past. But it is true that there was conflict between these two civilizations at different levels. For example, in terms of faith, legal system and culture.

Sometimes conflict turned into confrontations. Muslim power occupied some Christian territories. They conquered Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Egypt etc. At that time many Jews and Christians lived in those countries. Later Turks occupied parts of Eastern Europe. On the other hand, we have seen Christians to occupy a part of Egypt, a part of Palestine and Syria at the time of Crusades. Later, the European, or it can be said the Christian power, occupied the whole world. They conquered the whole of Asia and Africa, most of which were Muslim lands. Thus there were differences, conflicts and confrontations.

But this hasn’t been theorized until recently, may be because it was not clear or obvious or may be then scholars did not want to develop an unpleasant theory of clash of civilization. On the other hand it cannot also be said that there was always conflicting atmosphere. Sometimes there was competition – even cooperation.

But it is Huntington who made it an all out and absolute theory in his book “The Clash of Civilization”. Huntington’s theory justified a sub-conscious feeling into a conscious clash of civilization. He did not do well to the humanity by sensitizing them on this issue. As a matter of fact, none of the civilizations, western or Islamic, has uniformity in culture or civilization.

Western civilization has many variations. It has different characteristics. Still it has an overall unity. Unity on the basis of materialism and secularism. Their conviction is that social life should not be guided by the injunctions of the Creator and that politics and economics should not be guided by religious values. This type of secularist view has shaped the modern civilization into a sort of materialism which only inspires to earn, enjoy and indulge.

It is not to deny that this civilization has many worthy contributions, however its dark sides are quite evident. On the other hand, Islamic civilization has also many local or variant shapes in terms of culture though the basic beliefs and values are the same, being based on the core teachings of the Quran and the Sunnah. It has overall unity which is evident in the countries within its domain, be it Indonesia, Pakistan, Morocco, Bangladesh or Turkey. Their faith is same. Their culture is quite similar. Their moral values are same. They adhere to Quran and Sunnah generally.

Now I would like to discuss the characteristics of the conflict. This conflict is such that it is not limited to any state border. This conflict has entered into every village, into every ward, district, town and city, into every locality. In the same way conflict is there in every office and educational institution. Everywhere, because of western cultural penetration, there are enthusiastic supporters of western cultural practice. Their goal is to make our entertainment like them, to make our movies like them, to make our media like them and to make our drama and literature filled with sexuality. Television is being used as a powerful tool in realization of this goal. By dint of television, conflict has penetrated into every home. They are trying to force their culture and we are trying to protect it. We are not only protecting, we have also become agents of spread of Islamic culture in the West because of immigration and converted new Muslims. These Muslims are trying to live with Islamic culture even though they are encircled with the western culture. Their presence there show that Islamic culture is superior than western one - in Islamic culture, the family is stronger, parents get more respect, children get more attention, illicit sexuality is shunned, family structure is well protected and so on.

The West is feeling pressure in the cultural field. They are facing the challenge of this culture in their own heart. Thus it is not only we who are facing challenges but the West also thinks that they are being challenged. Moreover some people of the West are sympathetic to Islamic culture. Some of them are converting to Islam too. West is considering this phenomenon also as a challenge to its culture. In the same way, west is also trying to politically dominate Muslim world and the Third World. Particularly they are more interested in dominating the Muslim world. They are trying to motivate and cultivate people of these countries to work in their favor. They prepare their supporters in each Muslim country from among the intellectuals to work for them.

They are using various means to achieve their objectives. They are trying to keep their dominance in the economic field also. They have built their economy mostly by exploiting the wealth of Asia and Africa for last two hundred years. They are trying to keep that dominance still today. They have forced the world especially the Muslim world to an imbalanced competition in the name of globalization. The same thing is also true for education. They are trying to influence us with the “Social Sciences”, most of these disciplines developed completely on their ideological viewpoint. In the present Sociology there is no place for God. Sociology presumes that religion is a human creation. But they could have portrayed the society as the creation of God.

God has created human being and has given him such instinct that he cannot live alone. Thereby he is inclined to live in a socialized environment. He is inclined to form family. Everyone in the society is dependent on each other. This idea towards society, man and its Creator could have been incorporated in sociology. On the contrary in line of the western thought they have rejected the concept of God totally in sociology. There was no justification to develop sociology on the basis of atheism alone.

Also in natural sciences there is no mention of God anywhere as Creator of the Universe and the Maker of natural laws. Sometimes they mention Nature, what it is I do not know.

Capitalism is claimed by the west to be the best system for the world. Its darker sides have been overlooked completely. In the theory of capitalism there is hardly any reference to the problems of the poor. No solution is suggested about this in its theory. It is a different matter that they are taking measures in many places to tackle poverty going out of the framework of the theory of capitalism. Still they are ignoring this fact.

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