The Fault in Ourselves!

The period, extending from about 9 to 13 centuries, is widely regarded as the golden era in the history of Islam. Thanks to those five centuries, the Muslims can take pride in Islamic civilization, because of such epoch-making attributes as the establishment of Bait-Ul Hikmah institution, the making of astronomical observatories along with the development of public health and education infrastructure with the spread of hospitals and schools in the vast geography the Muslims had spread over. Baghdad was the intellectual centre of the world where scholars used to travel from distant lands. Ibn Haitham and Omar Khayyam were considered the precursors of modern scientists as well as the bearers of the universal cosmic intelligence.

Europe, on the other hand, was sunk in the gloom of the Dark Ages, ruled by errant ignorance and led by a witch-hunting bevy of religious leaders. For about a thousand-year period before the Renaissance took place, the Christian Church had literally ruled Europe with an iron hand, contributing to intolerance, prejudice, suspicion, and superstition as well as making scholarly learning a taboo. Disapproving every attempt at independent thinking, the Church violently suppressed all academic and scholarly endeavours which explicitly and implicitly defied religious faith and contemporary doctrine.

Led by Church officials, religious tribunals used to sentence suspected witches and heretics to death by torture, while scientists and scholars were disembowelled, hung, or burnt at the stake or they were tied with horses and torn apart. Even the dead were not forgiven. The famous Archbishop Ussher had concluded from his study of the Bible that the Earth began at 9 a.m. on Sunday October 23, 4004 B.C. – even though a long-dead scientist, Wycliffe, had provided evidence based on fossils and geology that the Earth was at least some hundred thousand years old.

However, the Renaissance period in the 14th century threw off the yoke of the Church. Now scientists in Europe were free to indulge in intellectual pursuits, resulting in several inventions and discoveries, which as a result ushered in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Europe. The ascendancy of European countries coincided with the gradual downfall of the Muslims. Although historians disagree on the underlying reasons behind the diminishing influence of Muslims, most scholars regard the obduracy of Muslim rulers, in contrast with their Western counterparts, was the prime reason behind the Muslim decline as they failed to help them adapt to the changing needs of the time.

As time went by, Muslim caliphs started looking at the scientists and intellectuals with suspicion and doing so, they used their power and influence to make sure that renegade scientists and philosophers toe the line of the official narrative.

The right-wing caliphs began to employ the weapon of ex-communication (takfir) to punish those whose views ran counter to the officially mandated ones. Those who were excommunicated, at some time or the other, were great luminaries such as Imam Ali, Imam Abu Hanifa and Imam Malik bin Anas, founders of two of the four recognized schools of Islamic theology; Imam Ghazali, Sheikh-ul-Akbar Ibn-i-Arabi, Imam Ibn-i-Taymiyya, Sayyid Muhammad Jonpuri and scientists like Ibn Rushd, Abu Ali Sina, Ibn-ul-Haitham, and others. Often, the verdict of ex-communication was a local sectarian aberration. However, sentences of death were carried out; among those martyred were: Mansur Al Hallaj, Sheikh-ul-Ashraq Shahabuddin Suhrawardi, and Sheikh Alaaee Sarmad.

The moment when Europe was gradually freeing itself from the yoke of the Church, Muslims were turning their back on science, while the West accepted it with open arms and will. Pursuing science and the rest of the intellectual pursuits, Europeans were able to invent sophisticated weaponry and developed a well-equipped military in modern lines. In so doing, the West also developed their economy and introduced democracy as a system of governance.

On the contrary, Muslim rulers started regarding scientific discoveries as un-Islamic phenomena and considered every step towards progression as an innovation to Islam. That attitude gave a final blow to the scientific research and discovery in the Muslim countries. Consequently, the Muslim had to face the brutal onslaught of 18th-century mercantile imperialism, whereas the backward Muslim society was merely reduced to be a defenceless lot. Almost the entire Muslim world, ranging from West Africa to the East Asia, was rapidly colonized. However, the defeat was not in military terms alone. For instance, modern inventions such as the telegraph, steamship, machine-produced goods, and advanced organizational methods, which were the backbone of the emerging Western civilization, greatly helped the Western powers to colonize Muslim countries without much resistance of difficulty.

Although the end of the Second World War resulted in the decolonization of the Muslim world, the Muslims have yet to achieve their past glory. The failures, and eventual demise of secular nationalist-socialist governments - such as Mossadeq in Iran, Nasser in Egypt, Sukarno in Indonesia, and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan - led to an immense disappointment and frustration, paving the way for the resurgence of neo-fundamentalist movements that continue to fail the Muslim world even today. We are in the habit of always looking at the world through the prism of Islamic-nationalist ideology and we openly refuse to acknowledge our own shortcomings. This attitude doesn't contribute to the upliftment of Muslims. It only serves to make us a laughing stock in front of others.

Briefly put, everything that goes wrong for the Muslim, is regarded as the American or Jewish conspiracy. However, the Muslim downfall and backwardness is now because of a so-called Zionist-US conspiracy; it is a collective failure of Muslim clerics who have miserably failed to reconcile Islam with science, individual freedom, and liberty. As long as we continue to blame others for our own shortcomings, we will continue to stagnate. Once again, the fault is not in our stars.