Addressing both houses of the French parliament on June 22, 2009 the first such speech by the head of state in one hundred and fifty years President Nicolas Sarkozy stated that the burqa an Islamic garment that conceals the face with the exception of
Jonathan Laurence’s Coping with Defeat: Sunni Islam, Roman Catholicism, and the Modern State presents a detailed but incomplete comparison of the Islamic and Catholic political-religious empires.
ABOUT A THOUSAND years ago, did something happen in Muslim thought which made the Islamic world resistant to social, intellectual and scientific innovation? As Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish-born writer who lives in America, points out in his new book, “Reopening Muslim Minds”, there are two sorts of people who say “yes” to that question.
The first camp consists of mainstream Sunni Muslim theologians, who rejoice in the fact that in the 11th century, their religion cleansed itself from the alien influence of ancient Greek philosophy of Aristotle, in particular and generally from attitudes which emphasised reason and observation as opposed to the omnipotence of God. The second camp is made up of liberal Western historians who take a sceptical view of Islam’s development. Some maintain that precisely when the medieval Christian West was rediscovering the rationalist spirit of ancient Greek thought, the Muslim world was rejecting that spirit and limiting its own prospects. Muslims
CSPAN2 U May 29, 2012 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.