Program 7: Ismail & Isaac    MP3
Islam and the West Today

      The relationship between the Islamic and Western worlds has been dominated by centuries of conflict since the beginnings of Islam itself over fourteen hundred years ago. In the West Islam brings to mind images of the Crusades, of 'infidels' and sensual cruelty and decadence.

     But for the Muslims there are equally powerful and tragic images of Western invasions culminating in the humiliation of colonial conquest. The relationship is also ambiguous because Islam and the West have so much in common. Not only belief in the same God, but also common cultural threads.

     The great French Orientalist Louis Massignon compared this strange relationship to that of Abraham's two sons - Ismail and Isaac. For Massignon and countless others since, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, the real tragedy arose because Isaac - the West-turned its back on Ismail - the Islamic world - and chose competition and conflict over cooperation and friendship.

     Can Islam and the West build bridges of trust to replace the centuries of hostility?

     Do they want to? Do they need to? And is it really possible?

People interviewed in this program: Ali Dessouki, Kemal al-Sharif, Albert Hourani, Abdullah Muhammad Ahmed, Kamel Hassan, Muhammad Sakr, Harun Nasution, Fuad Zakaria, Khalid Ishaque, Sa'ad Ibrahim, Sadiq al-Mahdi, Waddah Faris, Hasan al-Turabi, Ismail Serageldin, Mian Tufayl, Manzoor Ahmed, Anwar Ibrahim, Zakia Badawia, Ibrahim Sa'ad, Khurshid Ahmad, AbuBakr Bagader, Ahmed Bahafuzzulah, Khalid Ishaque