THE EAST AND THE WEST: THE MOMENT OF UNITY OF TWO POLES

KENUL BUNYADZADE

ABSTRACT

The West and the Islamic East have inevitably influenced each other throughout history.
To a certain extent they can be described as two sides of a single imaginary coin. That is
why they can be discussed as two sides of the same phenomenon starting with the time
Islam. Prof. Khalilov has rightly defended the idea that if the idea of civilization is closely
connected with religious values we could then speak of civilizations as corresponding to
their religions. In this brief work I shall try to trace how philosophy and ways of thinking
as a whole have de¬veloped and influenced the relations between the civilizations and
their results. In recent history academics have been turning with increasing frequency to
ancient history in search of arguments to support the division between the East and the
West. I intend to analyze this phenomenon by showing that while in the past the problem
of a divided world did not exist, today it has moved to the fore and can be discerned as
the primary cause of practically all the global challenges.