DIALOGUE AMONG CIVILIZATIONS: A PRACTICAL OUTLOOK (IRAN AS THE CASE STUDY)

Mohammad Ali Sheikh

Professor M. A. Sheikh is currently a Member of the Iranian
Parliament. He holds a PhD in Philosophy and Islamic Logic. Currently, he is
the Director of Faculty of Letters and Humanities at the University of
Shaheed Beheshti, Iran. He is the author of five books and numerous
papers.

One of the greatest "dialogues of civilization" occurred in the
wake of the cultural and intellectual revolution of the Prophet Muhammad (s). As
Islam made its rapid spread through the world, it absorbed the intellectual
heritage of newly conquered lands, making it apart of the newborn civilization.
The entrance of Greek philosophy into Islamic theological debates was one such
example. Stimulated by what it found in other civilizations, a renaissance began
in the Islamic world. This renaissance in turn gave birth to new ideas and
thought within Europe, and other parts of the world. The development of
philosophy in the Middle Ages was directly linked to the philosophical debates
and explorations occurring within the Islamic world. Parts of the reason for the
intellectual vitality of Islamic civilization were conflicts that existed within
Islam itself. It was the clash of ideas and ideologies, between different sects,
schools of thoughts, and theological doctrines, that gave birth to the scholarly
achievements that characterized the Islamic civilization. In this paper, I hope
to explore the dynamics of Islam's internal and external conflicts, and how they
gave rise to the deep and complex tradition of Islamic theology.