Several years ago, I rejected the culture and way of life of the West and embraced Islam. Why? The simple answer is that I found in Islam a most noble, a most civilized, way of life: in truth, I found it to be the most civilized way of life I had ever known.

What I discovered about Islam - and what led me to convert to Islam - was the truth that Islam embodies honour. Islam provides a set of guidelines, a code of conduct, which guidelines and code of conduct - if followed - result in people living their life in a honourable, and thus a civilized, way.

What I found - and what at first astonished me - was that I felt more comfortable in the presence of Muslims than I did among my own people. Why? Because they were, or strived to be, honourable; because they possessed manners: attributes I knew from experience were often sadly lacking among my own people, and Westerners in general.

Why were Muslims like this? Because they were Muslims: that is, because they submitted to Allah (SWT); because they were aware of and believed in Tawhid, in the Unity of Allah (SWT) and accepted that Allah (SWT) had given them, in the Quran and the Sunnah, all the laws, the rules, the examples, they needed to live a good, a reasonable, a civilized, an honourable, life.

In brief, I came to understand that Muslims not only possessed a sacred, a numinous, perspective - an awareness of God - but also made this real in their everyday lives though their submission to Allah (SWT).

I came to feel, to know, to understand that in Islam the sacred really was still sacred. Thus, for example, the reverence Muslims have for the Quran (not even touching it unless they have performed the ritual cleaning that is Wudhu) and the genuine respect and reverence they feel toward Allah (SWT), exemplified by the many prostrations during prayer.

I could not but help contrast all this with the outright often selfish and profane arrogance of many people in the West who scorned the very idea of ritual cleaning or indeed of anything being sacred; who would refuse to prostrate themselves, and who lacked the civilized manners which I found Muslims to possess.

In brief, I came to find in Islam a civilized way of life.
 

The Arrogance of the West:

Recently, I have had made many attempts to explain the real nature of Islam to Westerners, especially those who study and teach in Western academic institutions.

I have discovered that there really is not only an immense ignorance about Islam among the peoples of the West but also - and perhaps more importantly - an immense prejudice and arrogance. For the majority of Western people really do consider themselves and their own way of life superior to Muslims and to Islam.

Thus I have found many, many people - especially among so-called "educated", academic Westerners - who say they are "enlightened" (and even liberal) yet who cannot even for one moment consider that there is or may be a valid alternative to their own Western view of reality.

In most of my recent conversations with so-called "educated" Western people the consensus is that the Western way is "enlightened", progressive or whatever, and that the way of Islam is at best "some foreign way of life" and at worst uncivilized, detrimental to "progress" and downright "backward".

Two conversations illustrate the arrogance of the West. The first involved a person who had just returned from a Muslim country. This person had gone there to study some of the art - the culture, the artefacts - of that country. Talking on their return, this person kept mentioning the "disagreeable rules" they had encountered, such as the separation of men and women, and the requirement that women dress in a certain way.

The view of this person was that what they experienced - the rules, the artefacts, even the ideas - were just part of the culture of that country, which culture could and should change, by "adapting" to the Western world.

In addition this person was very pleased that "global communication" - the exchange of ideas and ideologies to use their own words - was causing changes in this and Muslim countries, by which of course they meant the infiltration of Western ideas and Western ways.

This person - through a respected academic and authority in their own limited field - made no attempt whatsoever to really understand what they dismissively called "the culture" of the country, and insisted on interpreting everything, from the country's art to its people, from the viewpoint of the West. Thus the art, the artefacts, of that country were viewed through the theories, the work, of Western artists, Western philosophy, and never, ever, from an Islamic point of view. For instance, beautiful Mosques were just beautiful works of architecture, not places where people met to bow down in submission to Allah (SWT) and certainly not places where a Westerner might learn something. Beautiful calligraphy was just beautiful calligraphy, not divine words which could - if followed - guide people to live in an honourable, a civilized, way.

The second conversation involved a Western academic who had the arrogance to deliver a lecture in which he made reference to the "clash of civilizations" - to the present conflict between Islam and the West. Even before this lecture I - known to him as a convert to Islam - had offered to explain about Islam, read from the Quran and Ahadith, and answer any questions he might have. But he was not interested, so certain was he of the validity, the truth, of Western values, Western law, the Western way of life.

Unfortunately, these two conversations are typical of the many I have had since the Jumaadi Al-Thaani attacks. For all the rhetoric spewed forth in the West about reason, and tolerance, few people - especially in the academic world - actually cultivate never mind use the civilizing faculty of reason.
 

Why there is no Clash of Civilizations:

There is no "clash of civilizations" because the West is not a civilization, merely a collection of modern nations who all follow the same way of life and whose people share the same fundamental values, system of government and outlook on life.

The West is not a civilization because a civilization requires certain standards of behaviour among its people (that is, honourable conduct and manners) just as it requires its scholars, its leaders - all those who lead and hold positions of trust and authority - to cultivate and use the faculty of reason.

In contrast, the Ummah - as I have discovered - is indeed a civilization, but one at present without a territory, a home, a country. (The one recent attempt to create such a country - the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1) - has been arrogantly destroyed by the West.)

However, a clash does exist, but it is a clash of world-views, of ways of life. A clash between the Way of Al-Islam, and the material way of the West with its consumer-capitalist, global, culture and its arrogant people.

I have abandoned the West and embraced the Way of Al-Islam because I know that the Islamic way of life is morally superior to the way of West. I have embraced Islam because I found it to be guide to how we can live in a rational, honourable, civilized way. I have embraced Islam because I believe it can create a decent, good, noble society: a better world.

I have rejected the West because I know it is the way of greed, hypocrisy, dishonour, arrogance, profanity and overwhelming pride.

The difference between the the West and Islam can be simply stated: the West believes in the human idea of "progress" achieved through continual change, and in the ability of human beings to not only determine their own fate but to determine what is right and wrong. In complete contrast, the Way of Al-Islam is the way of submission to Allah (SWT) alone: they way that accepts that we human beings are fallible, and have to rely on our Creator for guidance.

In brief: the West believes in and relies on in its technology, its military power, its economic wealth, its ever-changing philosophical, social and political ideas and theories. In contrast, Muslims believe in, and only rely on, Allah (SWT) and turn to the unchanging Allah-given guidance of the Quran and Sunnah.

The West hautily refuses to submit to anyone or to anything, and desires in its arrogance to dominate the whole world and have the whole world abide by its laws, its ideas, its way of life. In contrast, Muslims humbly and with thanks submit to Allah (SWT) and the guidance He has given in the Quran and Sunnah.

 
"Some people submit to Allah out of desire for reward: that, surely, is the submission of traders. Other people submit to Allah out of fear, and that, surely, is the submission of slaves. Yet another group submit to Allah out of gratefulness, and this, most certainly, is the submission of free human beings." (Source: Nahjul Balagha, Saying 237)

(1) "Our system is a true example of an Islamic system. For the enemies of our way of life and our Ummah, this system is like a thorn in their eyes, and they are trying to destroy it under various pretexts." (Mullah Mohammad 'Umar)