Islam and Civilizational Dialogue: The Quest for a Truly Universal Civilization

THE BOOK is comprised of eleven chapters on essays the author has written mostly over the last three years on various aspects of civilizational dialogue, ranging from Islam's traditional role as a civilazational bridge between Eastern and Western civilizations to its anticipated role as the prime mover of contemporary and future civilizational dialogues. A few chapters deal with civilizational dialogue in specific areas like science and technology, philosophy of medicine, cosmology, the arts and the role of the artist. The inclusion of these chapters gives an added value to the book since it helps to illustrate in a clear manner the wide applications of the aide of civilizational dialogue to the vast domain of human life s well as to illustrate the immediate relevance of civilizational dialogue to contemporary global human situations and predicaments. 
 : : : The central theme of the book is Islam's past, present and future dialogues with other cultures and civilizations. Islam has made a positive and major contribution to the development of the idea of universal human civilization and of the enrichment of global human culture through its constructive civilizational engagement with the rest of the world. The author argues that, on the basis of its past achievement, Islam has both the necessary sense of civilizational mission and efficient spiritual and intellectual means to conduct a world-wide conversation not only with its sister religion in the Abrahamic family, namely Judaism and Christianity but also with Far Eastern religions like Confucianism, Buddhism and even Shintoism in the pursuit of a truly universal civilization and a global ethics based on shared spiritual and moral and ethical values.

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