The Heritage of Islamic Civilization and Globalization: Between Civilizational Development and Intellectual Protection

The term globalization emerged to reflect the state of civilizational and human development and the increase in global interactions in the economy, trade, communications, ideas, beliefs, and cultures. Naturally, globalization, like any openness or development, has its positive and negative effects. Therefore, faced with all the challenges posed by globalization with its rapid developments and inherent contradictions, the Muslim individual confronts significant ethical and moral challenges, and may even suffer an identity crisis. Given this massive surge of social developments, and in light of imported ideas, cultures, and the rapidly evolving world of communications, this study must explore the possibility of combining two starting points: The first starting point is the necessity of embracing the means of modernity and development, which is the essence of religion and the core of the Islamic civilization's heritage in human development and the flourishing of the world. This is a fundamental principle of Islamic civilization, which drew upon previous civilizations and added its own civilizational and cultural legacy to benefit subsequent civilizations and become a beacon of human knowledge in the world. The second starting point revolves around what is appropriate and inappropriate. Islamic civilization itself, when it embraced the means of modernity... It adopted from previous civilizations what aligned with its humanistic and ethical boundaries and its spiritual message, and rejected what contradicted its message, goal, and vision for civilization. Herein lies the researcher's vision in this paper: to explore the balance between embracing the means of modernity and the social, intellectual, and cultural developments imposed by globalization, and the intellectual safeguards that protect the Muslim individual from the negative aspects and challenges posed by globalization, while adhering to the jurisprudential principles that govern this equation. Thus, the heritage of Islamic civilization encouraged the Muslim to adopt the means of modernity and development without compromising the system of values, as well as to distinguish between what the West offers to serve humanity and what is offered for colonial purposes and for the purposes of penetrating Islamic societies, especially since the incidents of conflict between East and West throughout the ages of history revealed that this conflict was not merely a military conflict, but was in many contexts that included intellectual and moral conflicts, systematic targeting and desperate attempts to penetrate the system of values ​​and distort spiritual dimensions. Herein lies the importance of research on the mechanisms of intellectual protection and adjusting the equation between adopting the means of modernity and the mechanisms of intellectual immunity to confront the negative effects of globalization.