anybody else was forced to change his beliefs. Rather, there was a degree of social harmony which both the British Raj and the secular Congress party government after it were unable to achieve -a failure which led to the arrival of Hindu extremists to government, and the committing of horrible crimes against mosques and churches alike. As for Spain -which was another mode of civilization- it suffices to mention without elaboration the religious and academic freedom that flowered there in contrast to the severe fanaticism of nearby Europe. It is sufficient for us to merely recall the Catholic inquisition that followed the fall of Islamic civilization there, and the total annihilation of its cultured people at the hands of those who learned the basics of civilization from them. Perhaps it would be appropriate to mention the example that many Muslims and non-Muslims hold to be the worst in Islamic history: the example of the Turks. This was the example that Martin Luther used to cite as the ideal of freedom of belief in contrast to the blind papist tyranny. He was amazed that a Turk could be a Jew or Christian, not only a Muslim, and that every Muslim could read the Qur’an at the time when the Pope alone reserved the right to interpret the Gospel and prohibited its translation.

This inspired his 95 theses that he nailed to the door of the church at Wittenburg, which came to embody the Protestant doctrine upon which the United States was founded. Istanbul was an international center of culture in which all religions and philosophies coexisted, not only in its architectural advancement that dazzled ambassadors and travelers then (and continues to do so), but also its moral and cultural advancement.

It is enough to know that the worst period of violence and violation of human rights in Turkey is associated with the removal of Islamic law, and the imitation and implementation of Western secular nationalism and legal systems from the end of the nineteenth century until the present. Yet secular Turkey is the second-place strategic ally of America after Israel.

In general, we say that Islamic justice and values are not founded on a philosophical opinion, or political theory, but that they are established on the imitation of the prophets, especially Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad –blessing and peace be upon them all. That is sufficient in itself to be the true universal values, and therefore, it is the duty of every person to morally be a Muslim, regardless of whether he is a Muslim, Christian, Jew, or follower of any other religion.

The difference between Islamic values, and those found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is very great. Islam does not make dignity, freedom, justice, and legal equality to be rights that must be sought, but duties whose execution is incumbent on both plaintiff and defendant. Moreover, it is incumbent on others to strive to enforce them on both parties, and to advise each individual of his rights should he be unaware of them, and to protest against the other party if he should reject those rights.

In contrast, the undefined terms and vague indications of values in the statements of the American founding fathers, and the authors of the International Declaration of Human Rights, and other social philosophers since the European Enlightenment until today, and in contrast to the absence of discussion of international relations and foreign policy in the American constitution (since it is no more than the document of a local alliance at a particular stage of an isolated people whose features had yet to be completed, such as these can never be universal) in contrast to all of that we say that in the divine book -the Qur’an- we find hundreds of clear and explicated verses defining accurately and in detail, the values which all humanity must apply in sincere service to God - not as eyeservice or pretense- since He will judge them because of it on the Day of Judgment: