4 September 2014 A.D. Prof. Bernard
Lewis: Quotations on Islam from Notable
Non-Muslims
Here’s
one quote Prof. Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis,
FBA (born May 31, 1916) is a British-American scholar in Oriental studies, and
political commentator. He is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near
Eastern Studies at Princeton University. He specializes in the history of Islam
and the interaction between Islam and the West, and is especially famous in
academic circles for his works on the history of the Ottoman Empire.
“The golden age of equal rights [in Spain] was a
myth, and belief in it was a result, more than a cause, of Jewish sympathy for
Islam. The myth was invented by Jews in nineteenth-century Europe as a reproach
to Christians.[20]
“There was a time when scholars and other writers
in communist eastern Europe relied on writers and publishers in the free West
to speak the truth about their history, their culture, and their predicament.
Today it is those who told the truth, no those who concealed or denied it, who
are respected and welcomed in these countries. Historians in free countries
have a moral and professional obligation no to shrink the difficult issues and
subjects that some people would place under a sort of taboo; not to submit to
voluntary censorship, but to deal with these matters fairly, honestly, without
apologetics, without polemic, and, of course, competently. Those who enjoy
freedom have a moral obligation to use that freedom for those who do not
possess it. We live in a time when great efforts have been made, and continue
to be made to falsify the record of the part and to make history a tool of
propaganda; when governments, religious movements, political parties, and
sectional groups of every kind are busy rewriting history as they would wish it
to have been, as they would like their followers to believe that it was. All
this is very dangerous indeed, to ourselves and to others, however we may
define otherness - dangerous to our common humanity. Because, make no mistake,
those who are unwilling to confront the past will be unable to understand the
present and unfit to face the future.[21]
“During the first formative centuries of its
existence, Christianity was separated from and indeed antagonistic to the
state, with which it only later became involved. From the lifetime of its
founder, Islam was the state, and the identity of religion and government is
indelibly stamped on the memories and awareness of the faithful from their own
sacred writings, history, and experience.[22]
“...it is the duty of those who have accepted them
[Allah's word and message] to strive unceasingly to convert or at least to
subjugate those who have not. This obligation is without limit of time or
space. It must continue until the whole world has either accepted the Islamic
faith or submitted to the power of the Islamic state.[23] “
For illustrative quotes on Islam from Barack Hussein Obama:
For the rest of Obama’s 40
theological quotes and scholarship, see the URL.
From the 1662 Book of
Common Prayer, the Collect for Good
Friday:
O
MERCIFUL God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing
that thou hast made, nor wouldest the death of a sinner, but rather that he
should be converted and live; Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and
Hereticks, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of
thy Word; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that they may be
saved among the remnant of the true Israelites, and be made one fold under one
shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy
Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
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