Time, knowledge, and the clash of Civilizations: An Islamic approach

Abstract

For Muslims, Islam is time conscious and eternal, its wisdom and rules having emanated from High are not only constant but are, simultaneously, responsive to changing circumstances of every environment and culture or civilization. Its philosophies apply to all times and places. The religion establishes the moral guidelines for good behavior at all aspects of life on which legal rules can develop and it also orders humans to regulate their activities in worldly life according to their time, conditions and environmental backgrounds. Contrary to this, some people presume that the passage of time provides adequate ground for the need for new guidance. For them, a religion revealed fourteen centuries ago must have grown unfashionable and unsuitable to satisfy the needs of the new epoch, meet the challenges of scientific knowledge, and augment the excitement of modern civilizations. This paper examines the Islamic perspective of time and the all-encompassing nature of its wisdom or knowledge (which is beyond the absolute restriction of time and space) and its approach to the clash of civilizations. The theoretical framework is Huntington’s CoC-theory. It argues that the clash between the Islamic nations and Western powers, for Muslims, is not a struggle for cultural identity as the theory postulated, but as a result of the desire of the West to obstruct the establishment of values based on Islamic religious wisdom which is dearer to the Islamic nations than the West estimates