No single nation or group can today afford to remain aloof from the rest of the world. Economic development has ceased to be local. Its character has become world-wide. It ignores, at least in its tendency, political boundaries and geographical distances. It carries with itself -and possibly this is even more important than the purely material side of the problem -the ever-increasing necessity of a transfer not only of merchandise but also of thoughts and cultural values. But whereas those two forces, the economic and the cultural, often go hand in hand, there is a difference in their dynamic rules. The elementary laws of economics require that the exchange of goods between nations be mutual; this means that no nation can act as a buyer only while another nation is always a seller; in the long run, each of them must play both parts simultaneously, giving to, and taking from, each other, be it directly or through the medium of other actors in the play of economic forces. But in the cultural field this iron rule of exchange is not a necessity, at least not always a visible one: that is to say, the transfer of ideas and cultural influences is not necessarily based on the principle of give-and-take. It lies in human nature that nations and civilizations which are politically and economically more virile exert a strong fascination on the weaker or less active communities, and influence them in the intellectual and social spheres without being influenced themselves. Such is the situation today with regard to the relations between the Western and the Muslim worlds.
Mohammad Asad's Islam at Crossroad
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