“I have always felt that tradition is not a man-made element in our lives,
but a God-given intuition of natural rhythms, of the fundamental harmony
which emerges from the union of those paradoxical opposites which exist in
every aspect of nature. Tradition reflects the timeless order of the
cosmos, and anchors us into an awareness of the great mysteries of the
universe so that, as Blake put it, we can see the whole universe in an
atom and eternity in a moment. That is why I believe Man is so much more
than just a biological phenomenon resting on what we now seem to define
as "the bottom line" of the great balance sheet of life, according to
which art and culture are seen increasingly as optional extras in life.
This view is so contrary, for example, to the outlook of the Muslim
craftsman or artist, which was never concerned with display for its own
sake, nor with progressing ever forward in his own ingenuity, but was
content to submit a man's craft to God. That outlook reflects, I believe,
the memorable passage in the Qur'an, withersoever you turn there is the
face of God and God is all embracing, all knowing". While appreciating
that this essential innocence has been destroyed, and destroyed
everywhere, I nevertheless believe that the survival of civilised values,
as we have inherited them from our ancestors, depends on the corresponding
survival in our hearts of that profound sense of the sacred and the
spiritual."
Prince Charles, A Sense of the Sacred: Building Bridges Between Islam and the West© Copyright St James's Palace and the Press Association Ltd 1998.