Islamic civilization is a global civilization

 Islamic civilization was built on the basis of its belief in Islam and its aversion to religious intolerance and its respect for all other religions and its recognition of the right of its owners to practice its teachings as they want.

This was a manifestation of Islamic civilization since it existed, and in Islamic history there are many examples set by the Muslim caliphs and rulers when they approached scholars of all races and sects without distinguishing between religion, religion, doctrine and doctrine.

In this regard, it suffices to point out that many of the physicians of the Umayyad caliphs were non-Muslims.

The opinion of Western scholars in the greatness of Islamic civilization

Many Christians and Jews have recognized this by tolerating Muslims. Patriarch Ayshoubayah, who took office in 647 AH 657 AH, said that the Muslims whom God enabled to rule the world are not enemies of Christianity, they respect our saint and priest and respect our places of worship.

Sir Thomas Arnold said:

 “The victorious Muslims have treated the Arab Christians with great tolerance since the first century of the Hijrah, and we can acknowledge that whoever converted to Islam from among the Christians embraced it according to his desire and will, and that the Christian Arabs who live in our present time among Muslim groups are a witness to this tolerance.”

 Islamic civilization combines religion and the world

Islamic civilization has another distinctive character that combines religion and the world and between spirit and matter. Muslims have been able to marry between the teachings of religion and experimental scientific research.

It was one of the most prominent characteristics of Islamic civilization that it possessed the power that arises from the mixing of the world of spirit and the world of matter and strangeness, we find a European researcher such as Barak saying in his book titled the Arabs of Yesterday and the Arabs of Tomorrow that the character that distinguished Islamic civilization is the character that did not separate between matter and thought and between sight In things and their details and between colleges and general ideas, he went on to say in his book:

When the Arabs discussed matters of the heavens and the affairs of the spirit and thought, they knew how to justify in this field, And when they discussed the matters of the world, how they think about life and how they harness matter, until they were excellent in both cases

The Islamic mind has been able to generate a unified tendency that looks at the universe as one view in all its fields, and this is inferred by a society among Muslim scholars of double care between literature and philosophy on the one hand, and science and experience on the other hand, at one time, it is sufficient in this field to mention the names of philosophers and scientists such as Avinessna, Ibn Rushd, Al-Biruni, Al-Khwarizmi, all of them and others met their interest in literature, religion and philosophy with interest in science and the experimental researcher.

This distinctive character and Islamic civilization was praised by Fantago in his book The Arab Miracle, which is based on combining aspects of intellectual and spiritual civilization with aspects of material civilization, those who mixed between thought and action.

 Thus, the excellent and creative Islamic thought did not know the separation between the directions of thought and spirit and between the directions of matter and reality.

Thus, the Islamic civilization was able to avoid the dangers of disturbing the balance in thought between spirit and matter, so that one did not prevail over the other, but rather made the material side complementary to the religious and spiritual side.

The great Western philosopher and educator Dewey praised this when he said:

The mind does not become meaningful except when its work is focused on scientific attitudes, and this aspect of Islamic civilization made it realistic, combining words and deeds, and achieved at the same time the spiritual transcendence and the demands of material life.

One of the manifestations of Islamic civilization is its belief in science and knowledge and its eagerness to spread it, whatever its source, without monopolizing virtue or withholding it from people.

As for the Western European civilization now, it seeks freedom for itself and for its children, and it oppresses the developing peoples. Western civilization fought freedom in the Islamic and African worlds, and chose the goods of the peoples and usurped them, in contrast to what the Islamic civilization did, where the peoples of the world were equal to them, freedom for all and goodness for all.

The caliphs respected human thought and did not impose barriers on creativity and innovation, because knowledge, in their view, was the enjoyment and right of all human beings, there was no difference between an Arab and a non-Arab or a black and white.

All these factors together led to an Islamic civilization based on free thought and experimental science for all kingdoms and supporters, and this is what made Islamic civilization an intellectual heritage and a science for all humanity.

 Therefore, we did not hear or read about an ordeal that befell a Muslim scholar because of an opinion he expressed or wrote. 

Rather, we found the patronage of rulers and loyalty to scholars, and science attends their councils, among the scholars, even Abu Al-Aswad Al-Du’ali said, “At the time of permission, the kings are the rulers of the people, and the scholars are the rulers of the kings.”

situation in Europe at the time

At the same time, Europe was in complete darkness, and the churchmen at that time were judging science and scholars and persecuting every new opinion holder, until they sentenced the scientist Galileo to death when he called out his ideas about the sphericity of the earth and its rotation. 

The Islamic civilization was spread in a different geographical environment, and it was not all a desert environment, but rather it had the desert and the urban, and it had plains and heights, and there were deserts, valleys and riverbeds, and it was not of one race, but rather environments that included different races. This geographical and human diversity gives the Islamic civilization resources and sources of material advancement and civilization. 

This human diversity under the banner of a unified belief and thought provides this Islamic civilization with diverse talents and renewed vitality and also gave it the ability to keep up with time and confront its changes and gave it vitality, ability and survival.

Scholars, imams, and merchants had freedom of movement in the various parts of the far-flung Islamic state, from the coasts of North Africa to China to the West and East Indies to Malay countries.

Muslims in all these places were messengers of civilization, culture, science and light, and they were broad-minded, and they were aware of their message and the right of man to have, to take, to be influenced and influenced, and this in turn was the magic of mixing and mixing between Islamic countries and made them a single Islamic unit interconnected, and thanks to what the people of art and industry found in terms of freedom, encouragement and appointment, it moved.

These industries and arts are from one country to another and from one people to another without being impeded by any obstacle or prevented by a ruler.

All of this made the Islamic civilization emerge from its narrow borders to wide, sprawling borders that include many peoples and different races and live under the burdens of one belief, and this is what made it a global civilization from which the modern European civilization emanated.