Naz Wasim
Naz Wasim is currently a candidate for a PhD in International Politics at the University of Hull. Her doctoral thesis is entitled "Reconceptualizing Panregions at the turn of the 21st Century: A Case Study of Pakistan."Her MA thesis, entitled "The Development of the Sikh Community Identity: 1971, A Step Towards Extremism?" was completed at the University of Chicago. She has published works on the economic and defense situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
This paper challenges Huntington's argument of an impending clash of Civilizations between Christianity and Islam. It suggests that Huntington's argument is in fact strategic. It seeks to identify Islam as threat in order to maintain the unity of the Atlantic alliance NATO and driving a wedge between Europe and the Muslim Middle East.
This paper argues that Europe has in fact had a long history of interaction and interchange with Islam. Both have learnt from each other. Islam even shares the cultural inheritance of the Greeks and has a secular tradition within it. While there has been historic conflict between Europe and Islam, it was not a clash between Civilizations. For example the North African Moors and the Turks never co-ordinated their attack on Europe. There was as much infighting between the Muslims as there was within Christianity. Thus Islam, Christianity and Judaism share the monotheism of the Abrahamic tradition and are sister Civilizations with no inherent conflict. The Muslims consider the Jews and the Christians as Ahle Kitab; they believe in their prophets and Divine Books.