“Nasr in return makes several points. One is that he has not said the Christian must accept the Muslim belief in order to dialogue, only that the Christian has to recognize that this is the Muslim belief. To talk meaningfully with a person you must see what they are, right now, in themselves, and not what you would like them to be in order for you to talk to them. Nasr also rejects Kung’s assumption that the categories of Western modernity are universal and obligatory for all. ‘Let us imagine for a moment that we are all in Cairo carrying out this dialogue and a Muslim scholar speaks and Professor Kung answers for the Christian side. The Muslim may say that since the Islamic world has followed a certain path and carried out such and such actions, if the West begins to follow the same course, which in all likelihood it will, we will all be able to speak together. Returning to this hemisphere, we see that here is a presumption that the history of Islam in the future will follow the same path as that of Western civilization from Spinoza to the present. I am very doubtful about that …”

We notice in the response of professor Nasr, whose knowledge of English is perfect as well as his acquaintance with Western culture that he, nevertheless, categorically refuses to depart from his Islamic worldview and relinquish his Islamic mind. Even though he teaches at a famous Roman Catholic university, his total allegiance remains to Islam, its history, and its culture. Professor Heim remarked about this Islamic tendency by further commenting:

“Nasr inconveniently fails to agree that this is simply a neutral statement of universal principles that apply equally to people in all cultures and religions, the application of these principles being an area where Muslims have just not yet caught up. Kung’s assurance that adopting the categories of historical consciousness developed in the West need not be feared because Christians have developed ways to cope with them --- ways Muslims presumably would adapt --- seems not to envision the possibility that those ways might be anything less than enviable to others. Nasr gently chides Kung’s confidence that the modern problems, if not the traditional answers, of Christianity constitute the necessary crown of other traditions’ development.” 

[All Emphasis above is mine. JT] Pp. 30, 31 of FT August/September 1992

As mentioned before, the report of this encounter between a Christian scholar and a Muslim scholar strengthened the belief I already entertained that even a thoroughly Western undergraduate and graduate education rarely alters the Muslim mind. I never cease to be amazed how most Westerners fail to realize that Islam is much more than a religion in the accepted meaning of the term. For a Muslim, his faith encompasses a total commitment to the will of Allah, as revealed in the Qur’an, and as further elaborated by Islamic scholars across the centuries. Sometimes, when trying to explain this special feature of Islam to Western audiences, I refer to the words of Whittaker Chambers in his book, Witness. His definition of Marxism which had entrapped him, Alger Hiss and a multitude of Western intellectuals between the two World Wars, was simple: Marxism is a vision of the world without God. It was a total and all-encompassing worldview that demanded unquestioning obedience. But Islam has been and is still a more powerful vision than Marxism, for it is “a vision of the world with Allah in command.” But this Allah has revealed his final and complete will to the Prophet of Islam whose mission is global. Muslims whether they speak English or Arabic or Persian or any other language, have consciously or unconsciously one goal, the defence and spread of their faith by all available means everywhere. While Marxism afflicted our world for several decades during the past century and was instrumental in liquidating millions of innocent people throughout Europe and Asia , its vision was one-dimensional, it harbored no supernatural component in its faith. Islam encompasses this world, and another supernatural world. It plans to conquer the globe, and promises its jihadists the unending pleasures of an earthly paradise. This feature has such a magnetic appeal that sends a daily stream of suicide bombers in Iraq and elsewhere. And because the story of its victims stretches across 1400 years, it is hard for us to fully take it in; especially since most of those horrors were not photographed for posterity!

In recent years, there have been other occasions when Muslim speakers addressed American audiences on C-Span2 or on PBS stations. Sometimes, Muslim speakers had the enthusiastic cooperation of Western colleagues to sell the glories of Islam, such as in documentaries like “Islam: Empire of Faith” and “The Legacy of the Prophet.” How successful they have been is difficult to gauge. But one thing is sure: most of these presentations done specifically by Muslims or with the aid of Western dhimmis, have shed no light on the true nature of Islam. On the contrary, they add to the confusion that almost overwhelms Western people when they confront such specific issues as global jihadism, the explosion of Muslim presence in Western lands, and the possible entry of a

Re- Islamized Turkey into the European Union.

I pray to God that we never experience the fate of millions of Christians, Hindus, Jews, and others, who tasted the bitter fruits of Islamic imperialism across the centuries!  

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