4. LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

4. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity ~ 160 ~ revolution in thought, which it fully exploited. The scientific and democratic revolution of Europe might be termed the “secular edition” of the monotheistic revolution of Islam. As this phrase implies, the West has separated the religious and secular aspects of the Islamic revolution. The situation being such, it would be no exaggeration to say that if Islam were to be deleted from human history, all social and human progress should have to be deleted along with it. The world would then fall back into the Dark Ages where it lay for so long in intellectual shackles before the Islamic revolution came to bring it enlightenment. FREEDOM OF THOUGHT In ancient times, civil liberties did not include freedom of thought. Censorship, in varying degrees of rigorousness, has, in fact, been a worldwide phenomenon in all periods of history. And whether communities have been large or small has made no difference. The Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics devotes no less than 25 pages to showing, under the heading of ‘persecution.’ how at all stages of ancient