Where the previous prophets of old had gone
no further than proclaiming the truth, and had not been able to bring about a
revolution on the basis of their teachings, the Prophet Muhammad and his Companions
made monotheism a living concept. They were the first such group ever to bring
about such a revival in human history.
First
of all, they completely eradicated all forms of polytheism and animism in
Arabia, and based their lives, in practice, on monotheism belief. Then they
forged ahead to replace polytheism with monotheism throughout the known
inhabited world. They destroyed all the idols and the edifices which protected
them in the lands that they conquered in Asia and Africa, thus giving monotheism
its place on a universal scale. This fact has been acknowledged by
orientalists. We quote here from Michael Hart’s book, The Hundred : A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History,
published in New York. Of the Prophet, it says:
He
was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular
levels
This universal monotheism revolution
brought about by Islam made it possible to bring the age of superstition to an
end. The phenomenon of nature was displaced from its pedestal of worship for
man. Everything else was a mere object of creation.
An American encyclopedia rightly says of
Islam: “Its advent changed the course of human history”. With the ousting of
the phenomenon of nature from its place as an object of worship, it immediately
assumed its rightful role – an object of investigation and conquest. This
process originated in Medina in the 7th century AD, then was passed
on to the centres of the Muslim empire, Damascus and Baghdad, later crossing
the sea and entering Spain and Sicily. It surged even further forward and
reached Italy and France. This historical process continued till the modern
scientific revolution was brought to maturity. The modern western revolution of
science is thus the culmination of the Islamic revolution.
Today’s
Muslims
Now a question does arise here. How is it
that the Muslims of today, who are the followers of that same Islam which
taught science to the whole world in its initial stages, are at present lagging
far behind others in scientific education? The sole reason is political The
scientific revolution brought about by Muslims in their initial stage of growth
was diverted to other western nations via Spain. Afterwards most of the
progress in science was made by Europeans. Although, during this time, most
parts of the world still politically remained in the hands of the Muslims,
scientific development was continuously going on in western Europe after the
crusades. The major advances in the field of science by Muslims at this early
stage of their development ultimately took concrete shape in their victory at
the end of the crusades which lasted 200 years from 1095 to 1270. In these wars
almost the whole of Europe unitedly attacked the Muslim world in order to
recapture their holy places from it, but to no avail. On this subject Pears
Encyclopaedia says:
“Millions of
lives and an enormous amount of treasure were scarified in these enterprises.
And when all was done, Jerusalem remained in the possession of the ‘infidels.”
The end of the crusades meant total victory
for Muslims and total defeat for Christian Europe. Paradoxically, the victory, far from being a
great gain, proved to be a great setback for Muslims. The Christians in spite
of their total defeat, were the greatest beneficiaries. This was because the
Muslims fell to rejoicing over their victory and, becoming complacent,
neglected to remain alert to the movements of the enemy. The gratification that
came with such phenomenal success was enough to slow, if not destroy, all
potential development.
Christian Europe, on the other hand,
greatly benefitted from its defeat. There began a process of rethinking among
them which made them conscious of their weakness and of the necessity to
obviate them. Such was the thinking of those who openly advocated the necessity
to learn Arabic, the language of the Muslims, and to translate all the
important books from Arabic into Latin. This movement quickly gained ground,
and most of the books by Muslims scholars were indeed translated into Latin,
the academic language of Europe in those days.
This process went on for many centuries.
While Muslims were savouring their
success and wasting their energies, Christian Europe had taken up the challenge
in real earnest – launching ‘spiritual crusades’ as they termed it – and having
thrown themselves into the task with such enthusiasm and energy, they made
consistently good progress.
This journey of Europe continued till 18th-centruy
achievements made it obvious to all and sundry Europe had left the Muslims far
behind. Western Europe was now leading
the world in modern science and technology. It replaced the hand by the
machine. Manual labour was now replaced by mechanization. Moreover, it invented
long-range weapons greatly in contrast to the old style of weapons which were
only suitable for hand-to-hand fighting. First it held sway over the land, then
the sea, then the air. Man and animal power gave way to the machine, sail gave
way to steam and, finally, heavier-than-air matter was lifted off the ground.
With such land, sea and air power, the west had become a force which the
Muslims could not fend off with their existing means and resources. Thus
equipped with all the paraphernalia of modernity, the west entered into the
Muslim world, the Muslims, in their state of inertia, failed to arrest their
advance. The western nations, directly or indirectly, quickly gained control
over the whole of the Muslim world.
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