|
This question should worry every
student of the rise and fall of the Muslim people. At
their dawn they rose high and reached the far ends of
the then known world with a speed unknown in history.
Equally steep has been their fall, too steep for a
recovery. Hard facts of history lead a group of
students to the conclusion that while Islam
undoubtedly infused a new spirit among the Arabs,
enabling them to over-throw the Persian and the Roman
empires and become master of the world, it did not
have the capacity to keep pace with the times, Islam
lagged behind and the steep rise of the Muslims took a
precipitous downward trend for good. The experiment
has failed and it would, according to M. Abul Kalam
Azad, be stupid to give it another trial, see his book
India Wins Freedom (page 227). There is another group
of students, which though not so out-spoken, finds it
hard to reconcile that if Islam sponsors eternal truth
and is capable of keeping abreast of the times, why it
should have, only a while, come to a dead stop.
Skepticism born out of the irreconcilable, shakes the
very foundation of their faith in the eternal truth of
Islam. The question is important and deserves to be
seriously considered and satisfactorily answered.
What is Islam
Everything in this
wonderful universe is, on the face of it, bound firmly
by God's permanent and inviolable laws. Says the Holy
Quran “Nature' Islam. Laws on Nature have never
failed, nor have they ever ceased to operate. They
work non-stop without let or hindrance, you will see
no imperfection in God's creation, (67/3).
On the same pattern there are inviolable principles
and permanent values for mankind, made known to man
through Revelation, which enable him, individually as
well as collectively, to grow and develop in life and
taste all the good it can afford here and in the
hereafter. Unlike things in nature, however, which
must observe God's laws, man is free to adopt or
reject them and to follow whatever his desires might
dictate. But whereas observance of God's laws assures
a rich and fruitful life, adoption of manmade laws
offers no such guarantee and might, on the other hand,
lead life to decay and destruction.
Struggle Between Right and Wrong
The way of life
revealed by God and called Al Deen or Al-Islam,
provides that whatever gifts this beautiful earth of
Ours has in store or can produce, should be available
to all mankind in an equal manner. There is a section
of people, however, who dislike it and would, on the
basis of might, control the sources of production, so
that they might with-hold God's gifts from His
creatures and avail of them personally according to
their sweet will. The group, opposed as it is to God's
way of life (Al Islam), places all sorts of hindrances
in its establishment among mankind, bringing about,
what the Holy Quran describes as a struggle between
Right and Wrong. Whereas Islam has unquestioned sway
in nature, it has to contend with stiff opposition in
human society. Consider the example of a seed sown in
the earth. Given the requisite means of growth a
healthy and vigorous seed will sprout, the shoot will
rise high slowly and a day will come for the tiny
little seed to swing as a full fledged and robust
tree. The seed has the capacity to grow and attain its
destiny. Likewise the eternal laws and the permanent
values which, as already referred to, make up
Al-Islam, have the capacity to overcome impediments in
the way of their materialization and to attain their
goal. In the words of the Holy Quran the healthy
concept of life, Kalema-e-Tayib, has the capacity to
go up to Him. (35/10),
that is, to attain the heights which God has destined
for it. In other words Right has the capacity and
power to grapple with and overcome wrong and pursue
its own course. Happenings in human society, past and
present, seem, however, to belie the conclusion. There
is untruth everywhere, having full sway and giving no
quarter to truth. Tyranny, exploitation, dishonesty,
fraud are rampant. Appearances may, however, be
deceptive. Let us clear the misunderstanding
underlying the confusion.
Slow Speed
According to the
Holy Quran the concepts of life revealed by God have
the capacity and inherent strength to clear
impediments and prevail but they do so at a slow
speed, that is when judged by man's counting. He
directs the affair from heaven to earth
(32/5),
that is, at His will, He formulates a plan in the high
heavens, but initiates it practically at the lowest
level, even as the live seed is buried under the earth
to become a hung tree later on, then it goes up to Him
in a day whose measure is a thousand years of your
counting (32/5). God's plans, based always on truth,
must materialize. Impediments cannot hold them up. But
they progress at a speed too slow to be visible.
Abstract truths apart, even in the case of material
things the pace of evolution remains imperceptible.
Scientists say that in organic evolution the smallest
change in a species takes thousands of years to take
effect. During this long period the change goes on
taking shape gradually but unnoticed and becomes
visible only at the end of a millennium. This should
give art idea of the speed at which God's plans
materialize, whose one day measures a thousand or even
fifty thousand years
(70/4) of our counting. One might sit
by a plant day and night, for weeks or months or even
years, but although it will be growing all the time,
he will not perceive the change as it is coming on
slowly, very slowly. In a watch if the minute hand
drops and the hour hand moves on from one hour mark to
the next, the movement' remains invisible to the naked
eye.
Truth Prevails
In its struggle
with untruth, truth must prevail ultimately although
it may take long to do so. Says the Holy Quern, We
hurl truth against untruth and it crushes its brain
and untruth vanishes away
(21/18), leaving the way clear
for truth to pursue its normal course. It would be
incorrect to expect a result of the struggle within
decades; it needs centuries to determine the outcome
of the struggle. The fact, however, is that a conflict
between a divine principle and a man made system has
always ended in the victory of the former and a rout
of the latter. Examples will be given a little later.
Reiteration
The ground covered
so far might be reiterated briefly;
* Islam is a collection
of inviolable principles revealed by God for the
guidance of man to enable him to attain his destiny in
life.
* Those who would exploit
fellow men, oppose the divine code and give rise to
the struggle between Right and Wrong.
* Right has an inherent
capacity to overcome Wrong and pursue its own course.
* The process is a slow
one, so slow that its one day equals a thousand years
of man's counting.
Pace can be Accelerated
The Process can,
however, be quickened. The verse
(35/10) already quoted healthy
concept of life, Kalema-eTayyib, has the capacity to
go up to Him goes on to say, and healthy action (of
man) gives it a push upward. That is, divine laws left
to themselves, operate at their normal slow speed, but
if at times a people adopt them in giving shape to
their social structure, the speed gets accelerated and
the results which would have normally taken thousands
of years to produce, are achieved within a few days.
Normally divine laws operate by evolution; man's
cooperation makes them work by revolution or, to use
the scientific term, by Emergent Evolution. The
process of normal evolution allows human mind time to
develop gradually and appreciate divine laws. The
onset of emergent evolution brought on by man's
cooperation is however too fast for human mind to keep
pace with. The cooperating community itself is
undoubtedly equipped to appreciate divine laws and
assimilate their spirit, but those outside it lack the
mental development needed for the purpose, and in
consequence experience difficulty in owning them. A
student brought up and educated normally to the final
stage of his study, will tackle difficult problems
with ease; but they will baffle one who is still in
the middle of the course. To enable the latter to
grapple with them, his education must be improved and
special arrangements made for quicker mental
development.
How Human Intellect
Works
The modus operandi
of human intellect consists in the method of trial and
error. It formulates a theory, puts it into practice
and takes decades or even centuries to discover its
weaknesses. Then it devises another theory and repeats
the process. It might take hundreds of years to arrive
at the right solution. The solution thus reached is
then welcome, since during the intervening centuries
the requisite mental development has already taken
place.
What Revelation
Does
Divine Revelation
does away with the method of trial and error. It gives
outright solutions without waiting for the normal
mental development of mankind taking place. Special
effort bas consequently to be made to familiarize
man's mind with the principles revealed much in
advance of the times. The introduction among mankind
of eternal divine laws (Al-Islam) proceeded at the
normal pace apropos man's mental development, who
accepted what was within his ken and remained a
stranger to the rest. All of a sudden Messenger
Muhammad peace be upon him appeared on the scene in
Arabia with a complete code of the laws revealed to
him by Allah Almighty. Portions of the code, which
happened to be beyond the mental stage of his
listeners, aroused opposition. By his inimitable
teaching and practice Messenger tried hard to explain
to them how the code guaranteed human dignity and
welfare. Some of them who shed their prejudices and
cared to understand appreciated Rasoolullah's message
and cooperated with him. He gathered aroui1d him a
concourse of believers and their healthy deeds greatly
accelerated the normal pace of divine laws and in a
short while produced most surprising results
unparalleled in history. There was nothing
extraordinary and supernatural about the achievement.
It followed the eternal divine law that healthy
concept of life has the capacity to go up to Him and
healthy action (of man) gives it a push upward
(35/10). Their deeds accelerated the pace of divine
laws and achieved in the matter of days what should
have normally taken thousands of years to materialize.
Had the cooperation between divine laws and human
activity been maintained, quicker achievements under
the laws would have also maintained their pace, and
who can guess what heights man would have attained by
now! The cooperation ceased, however after a while and
the laws resumed their original speed. The short span
of time during which quicker results were achieved
according to man's counting of time, is the period
during which, in the view of thinkers and historians,
Islam was a success and thereafter it proved a
failure. The bare fact, however, is that while moving
at its normal pace of a day equal to a thousand years,
Islam got extra help from man which accelerated its
speed, but that later on the extra help was withdrawn
leaving Islam to get along at its original normal
pace. The process has been very much like the running
of a stream of water, which as a result of a fall on
the way flows faster for a while and then on the
e4iaustion of the impetus provided by the fall,
resumes flowing at its original speed. To say that the
stream flowed only while the movement of currents was
visible as a result of the fall's impetus and then it
turned into a standing pool would be very short
sighted indeed.
Four Questions
The foregoing gives
rise to four questions, namely;
* What was it which
created in that particular period a body of people
whose healthy deeds gave such a momentum to the
operation of divine laws?
* Why did that thing not
prove lasting?
* If the thing
disappeared, why did the divine truth escape man's
mind as it had developed at the time?
* What proof is there
that the divine laws resumed their normal speed and
Continue to operate at that speed? That is, does the
stream of divine laws continue to flow and has not
turned into a standing pool deprived of all chances of
resuming its flow.....
|
