These are indeed seen as innately evil, and those who promote or accept them as the 'enemies of God.' This phrase, which recurs so frequently in the language of the Iranian leadership, in both their judicial proceedings and their political pronouncements, must seem very strange to the modern outsider, whether religious or secular. There is no Cuba, no Vietnam, in the Muslim world, and no place where American forces are involved as combatants or even as 'advisers.' But there is a Libya, an Iran, and a Lebanon, and a surge of hatred that distresses, alarms, and above all baffles Americans.Īt times this hatred goes beyond hostility to specific interests or actions or policies or even countries and becomes a rejection of Western civilization as such, not only what it does but what it is, and the principles and values that it practices and professes. Certainly nowhere in the Muslim world, in the Middle East or elsewhere, has American policy suffered disasters or encountered problems comparable to those in Southeast Asia or Central America. There are still significant numbers, in some quarters perhaps a majority, of Muslims with whom we share certain basic cultural and moral, social and political, beliefs and aspirations there is still an imposing Western presence-cultural, economic, diplomatic-in Muslim lands, some of which are Western allies. The Muslim world is far from unanimous in its rejection of the West, nor have the Muslim regions of the Third World been the most passionate and the most extreme in their hostility. We should not exaggerate the dimensions of the problem. It is our misfortune that part, though by no means all or even most, of the Muslim world is now going through such a period, and that much, though again not all, of that hatred is directed against us.
But Islam, like other religions, has also known periods when it inspired in some of its followers a mood of hatred and violence. It inspired a great civilization in which others besides Muslims lived creative and useful lives and which, by its achievement, enriched the whole world. It has taught people of different races to live in brotherhood and people of different creeds to live side by side in reasonable tolerance. It has given dignity and meaning to drab and impoverished lives. Islam has brought comfort and peace of mind to countless millions of men and women. Let me be explicit about what I, as a historian of Islam who is not a Muslim, mean by that. Islam is one of the world's great religions. There is one, however, that in its worldwide distribution, its continuing vitality, its universalist aspirations, can be compared to Christianity, and that is Islam. Most of these traditions, despite their often very high level of sophistication and achievement, remained or became local-limited to one region or one culture or one people. There are other religious traditions in which religion and politics are differently perceived, and in which, therefore, the problems and the possible solutions are radically different from those we know in the West. This formulation of the problems posed by the relations between religion and politics, and the possible solutions to those problems, arise from Christian, not universal, principles and experience. And since they are two, they may be joined or separated, subordinate or independent, and conflicts may arise between them over questions of demarcation and jurisdiction.
Unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's.' While opinions have differed as to the real meaning of this phrase, it has generally been interpreted as legitimizing a situation in which two institutions exist side by side, each with its own laws and chain of authority-one concerned with religion, called the Church, the other concerned with politics, called the State.
Christians are enjoined in their Scriptures to 'render. If the idea that religion and politics should be separated is relatively new, dating back a mere three hundred years, the idea that they are distinct dates back almost to the beginnings of Christianity.
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It was in the United States, however, that the principle was first given the force of law and gradually, in the course of two centuries, became a reality. This idea was not entirely new it had some precedents in the writings of Spinoza, Locke, and the philosophers of the European Enlightenment. In one of his letters Thomas Jefferson remarked that in matters of religion 'the maxim of civil government' should be reversed and we should rather say, 'Divided we stand, united, we fall.' In this remark Jefferson was setting forth with classic terseness an idea that has come to be regarded as essentially American: the separation of Church and State.
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