Plato Quotes
Many men are loved by their enemies, and hated by their friends, and are the friends of their enemies, and the enemies of their friends.
Plato. Lysis. Translated by Benjamin Jowett, Oxford University Press, 1892, p. 60.
This quotation shows The Prophet relaying a message from Allah. This quotation is often used to explain the reason that Islamic nations often support each other regardless of interests, legality, or morality of the position. If the other Muslim nation is a friend of Allah’s, and one opposes the other Islamic nation, then one is not only standing against Allah’s “friend” but Allah himself might make war on you for standing against his friend. So for Islamic nations like Turkey and Pakistan to even be supportive of anti-terrorist activities against Islamic terrorists is a politically, culturally and religiously very difficult thing to do because fundamentalists will cite this quotation and warn that the policy may well be “standing in enmity” against one of Allah’s friends. For most Islamic nations, their religious culture produces a basic instinct to support other Islamic nations against heretics (the Judeo-Christian West or the Hindu-Buddhist East) lest Allah declare war on them.
Plato (/ˈpleɪtoʊ/ PLAY-toe; Greek: Πλάτων Plátōn, pronounced [plá.tɔːn] in Classical Attic; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was an Athenian philosopher during the Classical period in Ancient Greece, founder of the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world.
