ISLAM IN HISTORY
ISLAM IN HISTORY
Ideological Power
AT the time of the advent of Islam fourteen hundred years ago, the entire world was dominated by superstition at the ideological level and kingship at the political level. Today the world has been set free from both these things, the credit for this goes to Islam. For the first time in human history Islam set a process which culminated in the cessation of the age of kingship and superstition.
In older times nature worship was the direct result of superstition. It was this nature worship which placed an obstacle in the path of man exploring natural forces and harnessing it for the benefit of humanity. Islam, put an end, all over the world to the worship of everything save one God.
Something, which is an object of worship cannot be at the same time an object of investigation. That is why nature worship served as a mental block for all kinds of progress. When Islam displaced nature from the pedestal of worship and declared that, “Have you not seen that God has subjected to you whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth and has completed His favours to you, both seen and unseen?“ (THE QURAN 31:20)
Only then the door of discovering nature and exploiting it in their favour was rendered possible.
Islam started a process which culminated in the
cessation of the age of kingship and superstition.
This line of thinking was set off in Makkah, from where it travelled on to Madinah. Afterwards, on its way to Damascus and Baghdad, it reached Spain and then it spread on to the entirety of Europe.
This process continued in history for about a span of one thousand years until the emergence of the scientific or technological revolution. Islam is responsible for the emergence of this new age, and the end of kingship.
In ancient times the whole world was dominated by kingship. It was a system of absolute dictatorship (coercion) which had put an end to ISLAM IN HISTORY Ideological Power Spirit of Islam Issue 28 April 2015 33 all kinds of human freedom. Religious persecution was one aspect of it, which was pervasive everywhere in the olden times. The end of this age of kingship and tyranny too came in the wake of the emergence of Islam.
There were two great empires in the world in those times. They were the Roman and Sassanid empires. They represented the system of absolutism. The followers of Islam encountered those empires. This encounter was apparently one like of an ant and an elephant. But with the succour of God, the followers of Islam were successful in dealing a death blow to the system of absolutism which brought about the age of human freedom for the first time in human history. In the Bible we find predictions about the advent and the mission of the Prophet of Islam. One of the chapter of the Bible describes the P rophet of Islam and his companions in these words: “He looked and startled the nations. And the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual lulls bowed. (Habakkuk 3: 6)”
People accepted Islam due to the ideological qualitybest
of Islam, and not because of its political power.
The battles fought in the first phase of Islam were aimed at exterminating the system of coercion in order that the doors should be opened to human progress. By his very nature, man wants to gush forth like flowing water towards progress. By his very instincts he wants to go on making progress. So progress is an automatic process which cannot be stopped, except by an external barrier.
The ancient political coercion was a severe obstacle of this kind. By removing this obstacle, Islam opened the doors of progress for humanity.
At the time of the emergence of Islam, there was only one person who adhered to it, that was, the Prophet himself. But today, there are more than a billion people all over the world, who adhere to it. The general propagation of Islam has nothing to do with battles or the sword. The entire propagation of Islam took place on ideological strength. In the initial stages the historical team of Islam was comprised of mostly Makkan and Madinan people. But we know that no offensive war was waged with Makkah and Madinah. Later on, the believers went to other 34 Spirit of Islam Issue 28 April 2015 countries and in those countries a large number of people entered into the fold of Islam of their own volition, the political and military powers had no role in this. The battles that took place in those days were concerned only with the army of those respective rulers and were strictly confined to the battlefield, far from the general population to affect them.
People accepted Islam due to the ideological quality of Islam, and not because of its political power. The well-known Egyptologist, Sir Arthur Keith has rightly observed. He writes:
‘The Egyptians were conquered not by the sword, but by the Koran.’
(Sir Arthur Keith, a New Theory of Human Evolution, London, Watts & Co., 1950, p. 303)
Similarly Islam spread in the sub-continent on a large scale, but this is attributed to the internal virtues of Islam. This reality has been acknowledged by non-Muslim scholars also. For fact, Swami Vivekanand writes:
‘It is nonsense to say that the Hindus were converted by the sword.’ (Letters of Swami Vivekanand, p. 95)
Another extraordinary incident took place in the 13th century in the history of Islam. The Mongol hordes coming from the mountains entered the Muslim world. They devastated the Muslim civilization right from Samarqand to Aleppo.
The spread of Islam in the sub-continent is attributed to
the internal virtues of Islam.
The Muslims thus lost their political glory in the 19th and the 20th century. They were in no position to achieve any objective by using force. Yet despite this position of subjugation the spread of Islam has been going on uninterrupted. Even today, people are entering the fold of Islam based on their own findings about its veracity. It would be true to say that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the entire world is faced with an ideological void. This void can be filled by Islam like it did, in the past.
Here it would be quite appropriate to quote a reference from Time Magazine. In 1990, Time magazine published a special report about the failure of communism. Its caption read: “Karl Marx makes room for Muhammad.” This is a factual statement. Islam's ideology has the potential to give solutions to the problems of the world. To bring this potentiality into reality the need of the hour is to present Islam before the world as it is from the original sources.
True Reform
The legal system and the administration have their limits.
Genuine reform will come about only if the spirit of
reform is generated among the people concerned.
Simple Living
Simplicity is that state of living in which man has realized
the purpose of his life and given it the utmost importance,
while regarding everything else as secondary. 