Passing our eyes through the glass
"Islam is part of our past and our present, in all fields of human endeavour. It has
helped to create modern Europe. It is part of our own inheritance, not a thing
apart.
"More than this, Islam can teach us today a way of understanding and living in the
world which Christianity itself is the poorer for having lost. At the heart of
Islam is its preservation of an integral view of the Universe. Islam - like
Buddhism and Hinduism - refuses to separate man and nature, religion and
science, mind and matter, and has preserved a metaphysical and unified view of
ourselves and the world aruond us. At the core of Christianity there still lies
an integral view of the sanctity of the world, and a clear sense of the trusteeship
and responsibility given to us for our natural surroundings. In the words of
that marvellous 17th century poet and hymn writer George Herbert:
'A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heaven espy.' "
Prince Charles, Islam and the West
A Visit to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
The Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, October 27, 1993
© Copyright St James's Palace and the Press Association Ltd 1998.