Future Prospects of Muslim-Western Dialogue

 Dr. Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri

Introduction :

There is a crucial need for a methodological delimitation of the contours of the relationship between the terms making up the title of this paper, namely the future, dialogue, Muslims and the West. Certainly, the future will belong to the international dialogue that rallies all peoples and nations, the comprehensive civilizational dialogue that represents one of the scientific means wielded by humans with a view to setting up fruitful cooperation relations among all people involved in the dialogue.

However, in default of a number of objective conditions, the association of Muslims with the West in a discussion of the future and analysis of the components of dialogue will lack logic and realism.

Muslims are a close-knit nation embracing the Islamic religion and staunchly adhering to its faith, civilization and culture, a nation unified by its commitment to the righteous religion which made of it One Ummah. The attempt to link such a unique nation with the West, which is a concatenation of farreaching geographical entities, inhabited by peoples of different creeds and backgrounds, will obviously lack a great measure of scientific rigour and methodology in view of the contradictions inherent in the attempted linkage, and not allowing for such a link. It does not stand to reason that a group of people embracing the same religion should be brought together in the same context with a number of geographical entities adhering to a plethora of religions, creeds and doctrines at the same time.

Does not the West count in its very heart Muslims of pure Western origin or other? Certainly, when taken together, Muslims in the West represent a minority, but at any rate, they are part and parcel of the Western societies. Shall we, therefore, put these Muslims aside when we talk about the West or think about initiating a dialogue with it?

Even so, what West do we mean if we adopt the geographical distribution as a criterion? Do we mean Europe and USA, to the exclusion of East Europe and Latin America? And if the Christian West is the addressee and opponent of Muslims, are Muslims the East? If that is so, what about the followers of other revealed or non-revealed religions? But does not the East include also non-Muslims, just as the West includes Muslims.

These subsidiary questions lead to a major question, relating to the specific nature of the West as a whole : Do we mean by West the governments and official institutions, or the peoples, the press, the information and the public opinion reflecting the views of those people? Or is it the universities, research centres, studies and cultural and scientific setups? Or is it rather the parties, organizations and institutions which express the general trends of society? Does this concept of the West include also the Church and its subsidiary institutions? Is it the laic West or the religion-impregnated West? Or do we rather mean the West that involves all these components and elements taken together as the general image of the West?

The attempt to answer these questions in the course of this research would lead to an important conclusion, namely that the West boils down to an integrated civilizational system based on a set of values, principles, ideas, ideologies and policies, a system buzzing with dynamic activity and striving to optimize the yield of its interests and safeguard them using all means and ways.

With this conclusion in mind, we have to fathom the nature of our prospective interlocutor. Likewise, we have to define the philosophy, nature, motives, rationale and goals of this dialogue. But before all that, we have to know the end of this dialogue, that is to say what we want from this dialogue, whether we seek dialogue for dialogue's sake, or we want a dialogue for the achievement of our own interests? With whom to engage in dialogue? Do governments and official institutions dialogue among themselves, or do the non-governmental organizations, grassroots organizations and society's institutions engage in dialogue.

Or is it the elite of scholars, intellectuals and academicians of Muslim countries that initiates dialogue with its counterparts in the West? Founded on these bases, constructive dialogue is geared, in reality, towards achieving these ends altogether.