Page 88 - A Call for a Turkish-Islamic Union

A CALL FOR A TURKISH-ISLAMIC UNION

diplomacy formed the basis of the modern
era's multi-track diplomacy.
Ottoman civilization had a direct impact
on Western European culture: The Ottomans
introduced rice farming to Hungry, the Habs-
burg envoy Busbecq introduced tulips to the
Benelux countries after visiting Istanbul in the

sixteenth century, the Italians acquired their
fabric weaving and dying techniques from the
Ottomans, and the Ottomans introduced the
tradition of military bands to Europe. 5
These historical facts show that Islamic
morality played a leading role in the modern
world's development. From the very beginning

of its revelation, Islam has served as a guiding
light, leading humanity to truth, reality, and
beauty. The Muslims took their morality with
them wherever they went, along with compas-
sion, reason, science, art, esthetics, hygiene,
and prosperity. At a time when Europe was
sunk in dark dogmatism and barbarism, the Is-
lamic world was the world's most advanced
and modern civilization. The values acquired

by individual Europeans from the world of
Islam played a fundamental role in developing
European civilization. Historian Eugene Myers
expresses this reality in the following way:
… From the late ninth century until the
twelfth, Islamic influence on Western science
and culture was great… The cultural im-
portance of the work of Islamic scholars and
translators for the development of science

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