Islam and the West

The widely held belief that a deep historical and ideological gulf exists between Islam and the West is turned on its head in this thought-provoking book

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We have rapidly grown used to the idea, particularly since the declaration of a worldwide war on terrorism, that between Islam and the West there exists a deep historical and ideological gulf. Christopher J. Walker turns such accepted views on their head and paints instead a picture of two belief systems that have a long history of toleration and mutual influence. Indeed, Islam has given a great deal to civilisation: essentially modern notions of free enquiry, rational experimentation, rational experimentation and the independence of science from religious authority are legacies of the Islamic world. Islam and the West is a thought-provoking study covering some of the cardinal encounters between Islamic and Western countries.