Civilization and Society is a collection of essays written over the last five or six years. I am fully aware that I cannot speak for anybody but myself. I can claim, however, that I have judged issues from the perspective of a Muslim, keenly conscious that while he cannot understand either himself or the world without reference to Islam and its history, he must also be alive to the fact that there is a large area of his experience which he can explain only in the light of events in the non-Islamic world. This can sometimes create agonizing problems. But the truth has to be faced boldly.