The Sept. 11 attacks became the "ground for legitimacy" for the operation in question. It's difficult to foresee how long this operation will persist, how deep it will be and how wide its scope will extend. However, this much is true -- the thesis of a "clash of civilizations" developed by Samuel Huntington is gradually turning into the thesis of "clash of religions," and the envisaged conflict is between the West and Islam. The really dangerous development is that the age of globalization has the capacity to engulf the entire world into the conflict envisaged between the West and Islam, whereas this age's possibilities and advantages should be used for the good, security, welfare and freedom of humanity. Unfortunately, those who planned and indoctrinated this conflict are either not adequately aware of the magnitude of the danger, or they don't care an iota about this threat; or they are fully aware of its implications but they deliberately continue with it. Although it is Huntington who has made the "clash of civilizations" thesis famous, the mastermind of this thesis is definitely not him. The real mastermind of this thesis and the architect of it in the background is the Orientalist Bernard Lewis. As those acquainted with Orientalism know, Lewis asks the question "What went wrong?" and places the Islamic world directly opposite the West. According to him, while the West was extraordinarily keen on learning and benefiting from the East, Muslims were never willing to learn and improve themselves. And in addition to not making any efforts to improve themselves, Muslims also don't want to live together with non-Muslims whom they term "the others" and dismiss in reality as inferior. According to their categorical classification, the entire world is divided into two opposing poles: "Dar'u-l Islam," the Islamic lands where Muslims can live their religion observing all its rules; and "Dar'u-l Harb," the lands of non-Muslims with whom they are forever in warfare.
We should delve into what purpose Lewis's willingness to consider a periodical or historical definition, developed by the Islamic jurists of the Abbasids in an attempt to find legal ground for the dynasty's ongoing war with the Byzantine Empire, as the foundation of the Islamic belief is serving. As all Muslims should know, the "Dar'u-l Islam/Dar'u-l Harb" classification cannot be found anywhere in the holy Quran or in the hadith (the sayings and actions of the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him) sources as they are only formulations developed by Islamic jurists for international relations. Nevertheless, Muslim merchants and travelers always traveled to non-Muslim cities and countries throughout history, and the mutual visits never stopped. Recent research shows that the Islamic coins printed in the 11th century were used in England. Muslims did not go as far as Spain, Sicily, China and Jakarta only swinging their swords on horseback; tradesmen and Sufis also traveled extensively to all those places in peace. And quite contrary to a fallacy continuously inculcated by modern history, the human mobilization power in the past was so huge that Al-Ghazali -- a very important Muslim theologian and one of the most celebrated scholars in the history of Sufi Islamic thought -- upon noticing that a book he saw in a shop in Damascus had been written three months ago in Andalusia, showed this as a proof of "the backwardness of science," stating that the elapsed time for the transfer of the book was unacceptable. This activity and mobility in the fields of science, wisdom and learning could also be seen in trade and other sorts of human relations.
Lewis must be knowledgeable enough to know this simple fact. Despite this, the reason why he claims that Muslims don't want to live with non-Muslims is that he wants to condition the Western public's subconscious against the Muslims who live in Europe and America. Our cunning and artful Orientalist wants to instill this into the ordinary Westerner's mind through an indirect path. "If Muslims are tenacious enough to live in the West despite this 'fact' in their religion; this is because they want to dye the entire cultural structure of the West in their own color. Europe is putting its intrinsic structure at stake in the name of multi-culturedness. If it wants to preserve its existence, it should know that it cannot live together with Muslims, and should always keep them under pressure and domination. The West is following a wrong path by not being sufficiently aware of this danger."
