There are lots of talk in the media these days about not letting current events in Afghanistan turn into a conflict between western civilization and the Islamic world. In such a scenario one will have the worldly, humanistic and technologically advanced West facing off against a fanatically religious, medieval opponent bent on turning the clock backwards.

The Middle East at that time was a collection of emirates and caliphates loosely held together by new Turkish overlords newly-arrived from Central Asia. The cities of Damascus, Baghdad, Bokhara and Alexandria were centers of learning and culture. The Muslims welcomed Jewish refugees from furious massacres in Europe and integrated them into society, using their talents as money-managers and administrators.

In the fields of political science and the arts, Arab legislators drew from Aristotle and Plato and integrated their humanistic ideas into the practice of Islamic law. They took to heart the exhortation from the Quran to "seek knowledge, even to China". Most legal disputes were settled through negotiations and criminals were put to death mercifully without torture. The medieval Islamic traveller Ibnu Battuta often contrasted barbaric punishments in non-Muslim lands to the humane practices in Islamic countries.

In the sciences, algebra and chemistry were taught in universities in Cairo alongside religious studies. The term algebra itself came from the Arabic term, as didalkali and alcohol in chemistry. Arab chemists found many of the groups of hydrocarbons that we use in organic chemistry today. The chemical properties of phosphorus were described by Arab scholars in the 10 th century when people in Europe were burning wizards and witches.

Europe had no separation of Church and State. Itinerant preachers moved from village to village preaching the authority of the Church, filling common folk with awe and fear of the religious establishment. Any form of scientific knowledge was condemned as heretical and the practitioners risked excommunication and even death by torture and burning. Education for women was virtually unheard of and there was no prospect for social advancement.

The largest cities in medieval Europe, Paris and Rome were mere towns or hovels compared to Cordova in Islamic Spain. These towns were frequently wracked with violence from raids by robber bands, religious mobs and feudal wars. Many Europeans turned to intense self-denial and the priesthood as means to escape the ugly reality of everyday life in medieval times.

Out of these groups came fanatical Christian groups that cannot reconcile spiritual salvation with the material existence. These groups were so powerful that they threatened the authority of local rulers, in one extreme case an emperor had to put on sack cloth and perform penance in front of the Pope.

The point I am coming to is that the modern West resembles medieval Islamic nations in its openness and riches. It is a society well worth protecting , a beacon for learning and culture. One will find many similarities in civil and public works in America today to those I had described of medieval Damascus. Conversely the description of medieval Europe holds true today in so-called fundamentalist Islamic regimes in Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia.

Osama bin Laden and his henchmen believe that they represent "original" Islam but ironically, they are more similar to the vandals who invaded Palestine under the banner of the Crusaders (the very label that Muslims equate with terror and oppression) almost 1000 years ago. It would do well for modern Muslims to reflect on their own history before blindly supporting "fundamentalist" Islam as it is espoused by the likes of the mullahs in the Taliban or PAS in Malaysia. Osama is not the new Saladin. He is more like Attila the Hun.