:00:00. > :00:07.Vauxhall plant in Luton and elsewhere. Now it is time for Meet
:00:08. > :00:10.The Author. Christopher de Bellaigue wants to challenge our understanding
:00:11. > :00:15.or our miss understanding of Islam. Who is to say that that is not one
:00:16. > :00:21.of the most important questions of our time. The Islamic Enlightenment,
:00:22. > :00:31.the modern struggle of faith and reason is his book. He presents the
:00:32. > :00:37.other side of the story of faith. He charts the progress of intellectual
:00:38. > :00:42.and scientific ideas and presents an issue of the real struggle that is
:00:43. > :01:00.going on. Between those would deny it and set it back. Welcome.
:01:01. > :01:08.Your account of Enlightenment in the Islamic world through the 19th
:01:09. > :01:16.century and into the 20th, will be too many people unknown. Why? The
:01:17. > :01:22.reason why it is unknown is partly because people will think Islamic
:01:23. > :01:27.Enlightenment, is that a contradiction in terms? The idea of
:01:28. > :01:34.a movement towards enlightenment values in the Islamic world has been
:01:35. > :01:42.included in the west because of natural ignorance in the west -- not
:01:43. > :01:45.been included. We have been so involved in the Islamic world that
:01:46. > :01:48.we have needed a kind of justification for being there. One
:01:49. > :01:52.of those is that the Islamic world has not got its act together and we
:01:53. > :01:56.need to be there. That's go back to the beginning of your story. You
:01:57. > :02:00.take this to a period just after the Napoleonic War. You argue that there
:02:01. > :02:04.was an interaction between what we might call the west, just for sake
:02:05. > :02:08.of shorthand, and the Islamic world that was profound and its effect.
:02:09. > :02:12.What was the effect that happened intellectually, scientifically and
:02:13. > :02:17.so on? Is started with a militarily. Everybody wanted a strong military
:02:18. > :02:21.and technology and ideas entered through structures that were sent
:02:22. > :02:25.out from Western countries in order to instruct new armies of the Middle
:02:26. > :02:30.East. It very quickly spread because you cannot quarantine ideas of that
:02:31. > :02:35.kind. Spread into society, it spread into the nature of the relationship
:02:36. > :02:40.between the ruler and the rules, democratic ideas began to bubble up.
:02:41. > :02:44.Science began to evolve, theatres of anatomy were opened, the novel
:02:45. > :02:48.entered the consciousness of the Middle East. All sorts of ideas,
:02:49. > :02:52.along with technologies, where telescoped into a matter of a few
:02:53. > :02:56.decades and suddenly by the end of the 19th century, the Middle East
:02:57. > :02:59.looked radically different from how it had looked at the beginning. Many
:03:00. > :03:03.people looking at this would save that is all very good and well, but
:03:04. > :03:06.we look to the Middle East now and what we see in some places is
:03:07. > :03:11.autocracy that look suspiciously medieval, they will argue about the
:03:12. > :03:15.activities of the Islamic State as being barbaric and they will say if
:03:16. > :03:20.all this is true in the 19th century, what went wrong? What
:03:21. > :03:24.happened is that the high watermark of liberalism and what I would
:03:25. > :03:28.consider Enlightenment values in the Middle East really was about the
:03:29. > :03:34.beginning of the First World War. There had been revolutions in
:03:35. > :03:41.Turkey, Iran to introduce limits to the monarch's rule and his
:03:42. > :03:43.prerogatives. A move towards democracy and representative
:03:44. > :03:47.Government and a lot of other things that we would represent with that.
:03:48. > :03:53.The autonomy of the individual. After the world war, the region was
:03:54. > :04:03.obliterating. The hole changed. That's right. The hole. The French
:04:04. > :04:08.and the British could not stop themselves from coming in and
:04:09. > :04:15.carving it up. Moving toward independence and self-determination,
:04:16. > :04:22.the movement was on the other direction. The reaction took two
:04:23. > :04:29.forms. The first was what we would call Islamist and the other was a
:04:30. > :04:34.kind of emulation of the west, but in its almost fascist it formed.
:04:35. > :04:38.This is the struggle that is still going on today. It is the essence of
:04:39. > :04:45.your argument. It can be boiled down to the struggle between a man in a
:04:46. > :04:50.uniform supported by the west who is keeping the country in some ways
:04:51. > :04:55.secular, in some ways preserving the outward appearances of Western
:04:56. > :04:59.modernity against various forms of Islamists Government, Islamists
:05:00. > :05:06.movements from the authoritarian to the much more anarchic and we see
:05:07. > :05:10.this conflict playing out right now. You know the countries that you talk
:05:11. > :05:15.about very now. You lived in a run for quite a long period in your own
:05:16. > :05:21.life. What you are describing as your account as it is really a
:05:22. > :05:24.tragedy of civilisation. When a coloniser comes in, it doesn't
:05:25. > :05:28.matter how good the idea he brings in is, the fact that he is a
:05:29. > :05:33.coloniser and he is holding a bed net at your neck means that you are
:05:34. > :05:37.naturally going to be resistant. From your perspective, how do you
:05:38. > :05:47.think people should go about trying to heal that divide? People in the
:05:48. > :05:51.Middle Ages now have experienced many interactions with the east and
:05:52. > :05:55.the west. The first was the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan which
:05:56. > :06:00.essentially tried to export an ideology, an idea of liberal
:06:01. > :06:04.democracy and in some ways was optimistic because it argued that
:06:05. > :06:09.you can share ideas and that ideas don't belong with you or me, they
:06:10. > :06:18.are the common heritage of humanity. From that stage, that the disaster,
:06:19. > :06:24.we are now at position where there is a clash. They are making the most
:06:25. > :06:30.amount of noise and wielding power. What about leadership in the Islamic
:06:31. > :06:33.world? Why if you are right, had there not been figures who have
:06:34. > :06:39.emerged in very powerful positions who have said, look, we can find a
:06:40. > :06:50.way through this. We can cross this divide. I have seen many leaders
:06:51. > :06:54.rise in the Islamic world rise. Mr edge one in Turkey is someone who at
:06:55. > :06:59.one stage and have that potential. The potential to act as a bridge
:07:00. > :07:04.between one culture and civilisation and another. For various reasons,
:07:05. > :07:09.the relationship with the rest has soured. He has been in power for too
:07:10. > :07:15.long and has become authoritarian. That hopeful mission he prepared to
:07:16. > :07:20.-- appeared to be on has fallen to dust. You are saying that we are in
:07:21. > :07:26.in the early 19th century has been reversed and that now in the
:07:27. > :07:30.21st-century with all the technical and intellectual advances that we
:07:31. > :07:32.have, we are set on a backward path. Do you think there is any
:07:33. > :07:36.alternative to that as you look into the next two or three decades? The
:07:37. > :07:40.first thing is that I would concur that a lot has been reversed. It is
:07:41. > :07:44.one of the extraordinary facts that I have been confronted with is that
:07:45. > :07:48.at the turn of the 20th century, it was easier to express your religious
:07:49. > :07:52.and sceptical views in Cairo for example then it is today. That is an
:07:53. > :07:57.extraordinary thing if you think about a view of history that
:07:58. > :08:06.involves steps and progression. The alternative? It is simply for people
:08:07. > :08:10.like me and other people to think like me on all sides to continue to
:08:11. > :08:13.make our voices heard. At the moment, we are going into a position
:08:14. > :08:17.where we are becoming a minority. Those who call for accommodation,
:08:18. > :08:25.those who call for dialogue, those who insist that people can meet. We
:08:26. > :08:27.are falling into a minority and we need to make sure that our voices
:08:28. > :08:32.will be heard. There will be a return to that way of thinking and
:08:33. > :08:36.we need to be there to catch it. Christopher de Bellaigue, author of
:08:37. > :08:55.The Islamic Enlightenment thank you very much.
:08:56. > :09:00.Here is loyal latest live weather update. Some rain this evening. Here
:09:01. > :09:01.is the view earlier today