This chapter concerns the problem of openness of civilizations to dialogue in the history of Muslim-Arab World. Its thrust is to analyze the preconditions of openness to cultural interaction, tolerance and pluralism.

In the course of almost six centuries, from VII to XIII AD, Muslim civilization displayed its openness in a constant dialogue with other cultures and civilizations. In the last instance, this openness was promoted by the spirit of religious and cultural tolerance prevailing in the oikumene of the Arab-Muslim Caliphate, which stretched from the Indus to Gibraltar. The Persian wisdom and Greek reason became component parts of the Muslim spiritual culture. In conditions of political-legal and religious pluralism within the framework of Islam, the creators of the classical culture of the Arab-Muslim middle ages were not only Arabs, but also representatives of many other peoples. Despite various collisions and wars between the Arab-Muslim world and Medieval Europe, as well as the various collisions within the Caliphate itself, Baghdad, Cairo, and Cordoba became the major cultural centres which defined the course of interaction with other civilizations. This openness to dialogue has, precisely, allowed medieval Europe to consider as a component of its own culture not only the heritage of antiquity received from the Arabs, but also the many achievements of classical Arab-Muslim in the fields of philosophy, science and culture. It is interesting to note, that on the basis of interaction between civilizations independent cultures were generated and developed which simultaneously belonged to Islamic and European civilizations.

It is obviously important to note, that the openness to dialogue and the fruitfulness of interaction of Muslim and European cultures was determined by the circumstance that they were generated and developed in the area of a uniform Mediterranean civilization. The stability of interaction of cultures within the framework of the Mediterranean civilization was connected to basic principles of a uniform outlook based on the ancient culture and Abrahamic religious tradition. The consolidating basis of the medieval Muslim world, consisting of three Caliphates (Baghdad, Fatimids and Cordovan) and various other Emirates, were tolerance and pluralism. Arab-Muslim culture has produced the great Ibn Rushd (Averroes), whose basic ideas determined the course of development of late medieval Europe in the doctrine of the Latin Averroists about the "duality of truth", but of itself Muslim culture did not know Averroism.

Nowadays, the civilizational alternative, in many respects, is defined and determined by three interconnected problems whose decision must allow the onetime united Muslim world to attain open dialogue with other civilizations. The issue is the attempts and trials in harmonizing and coordinating Islam, Nationalism and Modernity. Islam, as a rule, is seen as a civilizational basis, nationalism as a state-cultural component, and modernism as the general context which should allow the Muslim world to give an answer to the challenge presented by the Post-industrial era. In the present time we can say, that the process of formation of a nation-state identity of Muslim countries is not yet completed. It is shaken by radical religious and socio-political transformations, which do not permit on the whole speaking about the readiness of the Muslim world for dialogue with other cultures and civilizations. Though for the sake of justice, it is necessary to note, that some Muslim countries made major break-throughs in this direction, this is not so much a cultural as a technological dialogue.

In the modern dialogue of civilizations a major role is allocated to the countries of the Muslim East. This is understandable. Historically Muslim civilization was a component part of Mediterranean civilization. But the strengthening of the political role of Islam from the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, the growth of Islamic "revivalist" movements after the Iranian revolution of 1979, and the strengthening of the tendency of international Islamic solidarity has caused in minds of Western nations a sensation of danger and fear. Accordingly, there has arisen aversion and hostility to what in western literature is called "militant Islam or fundamentalism". For Muslims this has generated in response a rebirth of a feeling of the dignity of religious traditions and piety. In this connection, many questions arise: What are the specific features of Muslim civilization? What place could Muslim civilization occupy in the movement of humankind toward its true purpose–human freedom?

Today there are more than one billion Muslims in the world, and they comprise the majority of the population of almost 50 countries. In Europe and America the number of Muslim minorities is rapidly growing. For example, in Germany there are up to 3 million Muslims, in France more than 3 million, in Italy about 400 thousand, in the USA more Muslims than Jews. In Rome in 1992 the first mosque was opened; which incidentally is the largest in Europe. In western countries tension is growing between the authorities and Muslim communities. In the USA, the idea of clash of civilizations, specially the clash of Western and Muslim civilizations is taking root.

The basic difference between the West and the Muslim East in questions of religion is not the distinction between dogmatic and religious principles; the essence of the problem is connected with secularization. A Muslim, even if personally not a believer, always recognizes the Islamic nature of his/her culture. The faithless in Europe prefer to consider the state something secular, and even at times are surprised to find "vestiges" of official religion in their own culture. In Europe as a whole it is impossible to think of any specific Christian government. Therefore, the aspiration of radical Islam, for example in Iran and Algeria, to take power has sent out shock waves in the West. Any steps connected to religion and its so-called revolutionary character which assumes support of religious authority is considered in the West as strengthening conservatism and religious fundamentalism - in sum as an historical deviation and a retreat from the "road" to democracy. There is an open question: Is Islam as a socio-cultural system and as a religion compatible with secularization?

Secularism, as a matter of fact, is not the abolition of religion. European societies are secular and religious at the same time. This means that religion is reduced to a part of society, but is not abolished. In the history of Islamic civilization we can see very clear examples, especially in the history of classic Muslim philosophy and science, that Islamic civilization was both religious and civil at the same time.

In the Muslim East religion is not simply a subject of personal belief, but the affair of a religious community, the common affair of believers. Thus, Islam as a religion and culture bears a communal character. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that Islam, as the religion of a community, is rather tolerant of coexistence with other internal communities, Christian and Jewish. It is impossible to assert that Muslim society is constant and unchangeable, but with certain exceptions, in the course of the dialogue of West and the Islamic East it is necessary to take into account the communal nature of Islam, which is present now and, probably, always will be.

The problem of a dialogue between Europe and the Muslim East is connected with differences between industrial and industrializing societies more than with differences between religious beliefs. Since modern science and technology came to the Muslim world, Muslim thinkers have felt challenged and adopted different attitudes towards their methods and results. Some of the Muslim reformers, Al-Afghani, M. Abduh, R. Rida and others, thought that Islam was an open-minded religion and therefore its dogmatic positions could not be eroded by scientific and historical knowledge.

Some modern Muslim researchers from Europe and USA, such as S. Nasr, Z. Sardar, I. R. Al-Faruqi, F. Rahman and others in the on-going discourse about the future opportunities of Islamic traditions emphasize not only the problems of modernizing Islam, but also the need to consider the question of islamizing modernity. They try to find adequate definitions for the relations between the Islamic tradition and the modern development of Muslim states. As to the question of modernization we can say that the main question is: can a culture carry an industry or does industry necessarily create a culture? Obviously it is important to develop an adequate evaluation and estimation of the reformist potentiality of Muslim civilization and culture, and its ability for self-innovation. When we speak about modernist or so-called fundamentalist Islam, we have in view not simply a system of beliefs or ideology. "Re-Islamization", underlying both Islamic integrism, Islamism, and "fundamentalism" represents the most effective variant of a culturally protective reaction of the non-European peoples to the globalization of European culture.

In defining the features of Muslim civilization it is very important to take into account the process of interaction of Islam and nationalism as a socio-historical and cultural phenomenon. Doubtless, in the development of Muslim civilization a large contribution came not only from the Arabs and Muslims, but also from Christians and Jews; their cultures can and probably should be considered as components of the Muslim civilization. But another fact of the recent history of Muslim countries is obvious also, namely, that a consolidating basis in defining the paths of social development in these countries frequently is not religion, but nationalism.

A dialogue of civilizations as significant socio-cultural systems having as their spiritual basis those or other values, including the religious, are reduced neither to state, ethnic, nor social connections. The interaction occurs in terms of preservation of their identity and its ability for tolerance. Like any other religion, Islam is not a certain national-religious monolith; it is dominant in different forms in regions whose peoples differ strongly in their historical destinies and traditions. Questions concerning the specific and future of Islamic civilization should be examined not in the context of opposition of East and West, old and new, past and present, authenticity and modernity, reason and belief, heritage and innovation, religious and national, but on the basis of their interrelation. East and West, old and new, past and present, authenticity and modernity, reason and belief, heritage and innovation, religious and national, but on the basis of their interrelation.