A Berber from the mountainous region of Algeria, Mohammed Arkoun is an internationally renowned scholar of Islamic thought. In this book, he advocates a conception of Islam as a stream of experience encompassing majorities and minorities, Sunni and Shi'a, popular mystics and erudite scholars, ancient heroes and modern critics. A product of Islamic

A Berber from the mountainous region of Algeria, Mohammed Arkoun is an internationally renowned scholar of Islamic thought. In this book, he advocates a conception of Islam as a stream of experience encompassing majorities and minorities, Sunni and Shi'a, popular mystics and erudite scholars, ancient heroes and modern critics. A product of Islamic

Miskawayh a une reelle vocation de philosophe, avant d'etre historien: comme les humanistes, il s'efforce de definir la nature organique et psychologique de l'homme, sa relation au monde, sa vocation terrestre et supraterrestre. L'apport du Coran lui-meme residant plus dans la formulation structuree que dans le contenu de l'Ideal moral, tout l'effort de Miskawayh, dans le Traite d'Ethique, consiste a projeter sur l'Image symbolique et ideale de l'homme parfait un eclairage philosophique, et a donner a cette tradition obscurement ressentie et empiriquement vecue une coherence rationnelle, propre a la faire passer du stade d'une moralite limitee a un groupe social ou a une epoque, a celui d'Ethique prise comme discipline independante. Malgre l'abondance et la variete de l'oeuvre d'al-Kindi telle que nous la presente Ibn al-Nadim, malgre l'importance doctrinale de celle de Farabi, il manquait encore jusqu'a Miskawayh un Traite d'Ethique qui fut pour le monde arabe ce que l'Ethique a Nicomaque a ete pour les Grecs, c'est-a-dire qui presentat en un volume une ample theorie de la vie morale. C'est pourquoi, apres que ce traite fut publie en 1969 par l'Institut francais de Damas, puis reimprime en 1980, il prend place maintenant dans une collection de textes philosophiques.

The anthology is an introduction to political cultures in the Islamic world and into relations between the West and Islam. It outlines similarities and differences in the understanding, perception and communication of basic politico-ideological issues like modernity democracy, human rights, violence, the emancipation of women, and economic development and social justice.
It details its analyses in country studies on relations between the USA and Europe on the one side and Algeria, Iran, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Bosnia, Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Central Asia and Pakistan on the other side.
The book, which was first published in Germany, was deemed to be "a convincing reply to Huntington" (S]ddeutsche Zeitung). Mostly German scholars and scholars working in Germany present original insights into a complex matter that although at the heart of international and intercultural relations is often treated in simplistic ways.