Civilization

What is civilization? It actually involves the application of a world view, a particular vision of reality to a human collectivity. Today this definition has become quite ambiguous in the minds of many people because of the eclipse of religion in the modern world and the spread to the rest of the globe since the 19th century.

The importance of ethics. No civilization has not emphasized ethics. Actions have an effect on the soul. Actions are not indifferent. There is no exception, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity. The idea that the structures of society must be bound by certain ethical norms which ultimately affect us as human beings born for immortality. They are there to preserve certain values, the possibilities of certain attitudes, they are following certain religious life which itself is absolutely essential for human being to exist. In traditional civilization art was always an expression of the truths of religion. That is why we distinguish between religious are and sacred art. Religious art is simply an art whose subject happens to be religious. Sacred art is an art whose very forms reflect realities, principles, whose symbols are meta individuals.

Khazali Khorasan he is one of the most important Islamic figures of Islamic history. “If civilization dialogue does not take into consideration the centrality of religion than everything else is secondary.” Fortunately in the West there still remains something of Judaism and Christianity. It has not totally died out.

So this dialogue between Islam and the West, or the Hindu world and the West, I think must first of all address those people in the West who still believe in both the reality and an ethical system which is in fact very similar to our own. All religions are at the heart of civilizations. There are several elements all based one way or another on religion but not identically with it which must be taken into consideration in serious civilization dialogue. First of all the world view. Presiding ideas which the religion itself in its philosophical, theological understanding. What is our ultimate understanding of reality. It that which determines how we act, how we think, how we look upon ourselves whether it is positive or negative.

Tension Is more evident in the oriental, non-western world because colonialism took several centuries. But those tension are also becoming more and more evident for people in the West, between those who want to go back and live traditional life and many of whom have embraced Islam, or Buddhism.