Two Categories of Land in the Composition of the Early Muslim World
Most of the Islamic world consists of those countries that were conquered through the efforts of the warriors of the earliest period of Islam. Those who conquered them did so not for territorial expansion or the acquisition of spoils of war, but for the purpose of exalting the word of God in the world. They went forth with their shrouds tied on their heads, intoxicated not with the desire for worldly gain but with the passion for the Hereafter. Therefore, they did not content themselves merely with making the conquered peoples submissive and tax‑paying subjects; rather, they imbued them with the spirit of Islam. They absorbed either the entire population or its vast majority into the Abrahamic community (the Islamic ummah). Through the power of knowledge and practice, they so firmly implanted Islamic thought and Islamic civilisation within them that they themselves became standard‑bearers of Islamic civilisation and teachers of Islamic sciences.
After them came those countries which, although conquered after the first era—at a time when Islamic fervour had cooled and the passion for territorial expansion had begun to replace the pure spirit of striving in the path of God in the hearts of the conquerors—nevertheless witnessed the spread and firm establishment of Islam. There, Islam succeeded in taking root and, overall, attained the status of a strong religion and a national civilisation.
The Case of India
Unfortunately, the case of India is different from both these categories of countries. During the first era, only a very small part of this land was conquered, and even upon that small portion, whatever influence Islamic teachings and civilisation had exerted was utterly wiped out by the flood of esotericism. Later, when the real phase of Muslim conquests in India began, the conquerors no longer possessed the qualities of the Muslims of the first era. Instead of devoting their energies to the propagation of Islam, they expended them on the expansion of their dominion, and instead of demanding obedience to God and His Messenger, they demanded obedience to themselves and the payment of tribute. As a result, even after centuries of rule, the vast majority of India remained non‑Muslim. Islamic civilisation could not take root here. Among those inhabitants who accepted Islam, no proper arrangements were made for their Islamic education and training. Among the newly converted communities, ancient Hindu ideas and customs largely remained intact, and even the long‑established Muslims who came from outside, through interaction with the people of India, began to show tolerance towards polytheistic practices and to follow many ignorant customs.
The Situation Under the Muslim Rule
A study of the history of Islamic India and its present conditions makes it clear that even during the period when Muslim political power prevailed here in full force, the influence of Islam was weak and the environment was not purely Islamic. Although Hindu religion and culture were weak in themselves, and as the religion and culture of a subjugated and defeated people became even weaker, yet due to the tolerance and negligence of Muslim rulers, they continued to dominate the vast majority of the population. Because of their ascendancy over the Indian environment, and because the Islamic education and training of the Muslims themselves was incomplete, a large section of Muslims here could never become as sound, firm, and complete in their beliefs and civilisation as they could have been in a purely Islamic environment.
British Occupation and its Impacts
In the eighteenth century, even that political power—which had been the greatest support of Islamic civilisation in India—was taken away from the Muslims. First, Muslim rule became fragmented into small, scattered states; then the waves of the Marathas, Sikhs, and the British successively wiped out most of these states. Thereafter, divine decree favoured British rule over this land, and within less than a century, the Muslims became subjugated and ruled over in the very land upon which they had governed for centuries. As British rule continued to expand, it progressively stripped Muslims of those powers upon which Islamic civilisation in India depended even partially. It replaced Persian and Arabic with English as the medium of education; abrogated Islamic laws; dismantled Islamic courts; enforced its own laws in civil and criminal matters; and confined the application of Islamic law—even for Muslims themselves—merely to matters such as marriage and divorce. Even the authority over this limited application was transferred from qadis to ordinary civil courts, whose officials were generally non‑Muslims, and under whose hands “Muhammadan Law” has been increasingly distorted. Moreover, from the very beginning, British policy aimed to economically ruin the Muslims and crush that national pride and self‑esteem which had been nurtured in their hearts for centuries as a ruling nation. Consequently, within a single century, this policy left the community impoverished, ignorant, low‑minded, morally corrupt, disgraced, and humiliated.
The final blow to this declining community came with the upheaval of 1857. This did not merely eliminate the political power of the Muslims; it also shattered their morale. It enveloped their hearts with dark clouds of despair and humiliation and so overawed them with British authority that not even the slightest trace of robust self‑respect remained. Having sunk to the deepest depths of disgrace and abasement, they were compelled to believe that the only means of safety in the world lay in obedience to the British, the only path to honour lay in serving the British, and the only path to progress lay in imitating the British. Whatever knowledge and civilisation they possessed of their own was regarded as contemptible, a cause of disgrace, and a source of misfortune.
The Fate of the Revivalistic Movements in 19th Century
When, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, Muslims attempted to recover and rise again, they were afflicted by two types of weakness:
- First, in terms of thought and practice, they were already not firmly grounded in Islamic beliefs and civilisation, and they were surrounded by a non‑Islamic environment steeped in ignorant ideas and culture.
- Second, slavery, with all its defects, had come to dominate not only their bodies but also their hearts and souls, and they had been deprived of all those powers by which a nation can preserve its culture and civilisation.
The Trap of Western Educational System Under the Colonial Rule
In this state of double weakness, when the Muslims opened their eyes and looked around, they saw that the British Empire, through its cleverness, had shut all doors to economic advancement and placed the keys in English schools and colleges. There was no option left for Muslims except to acquire English education. Under the guidance of the late Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, a powerful movement arose that instilled throughout the Muslims of India a sense of the necessity of English education. The opposition of the traditionalists proved futile. Those who held the real power of the community in terms of wealth, honour, and influence supported this new movement. Indian Muslims rapidly turned towards English education. The dregs of the nation were left to the old religious seminaries, to serve as mosque imams and elementary teachers, while the finest children of prosperous families were sent to English schools and colleges so that the impressions of European knowledge and sciences might be imprinted upon the blank pages of their hearts and minds.
The Core of Western Thought
This was the final quarter of the nineteenth century. At that time, materialism was at its peak in Europe. In the eighteenth century, science had thoroughly defeated religion. Under the guidance of modern philosophy and new sciences, old theories in politics, economics, ethics, and sociology had been invalidated and replaced by new ones. A distinct civilisation had emerged in Europe, founded entirely upon these modern theories. This great revolution had already excluded religion and religiously‑based principles completely from practical life, leaving only a small space for religious belief in the realm of imagination—but even that was now under fierce attack. Although none of the philosophical sciences had produced any proof (worthy of being called proof) against the divine conception of the universe, philosophers, driven purely by their own inclinations and without evidence, were hostile to God and enemies of the divine worldview. Since they held the intellectual and scientific leadership of the world at that time, a disease of aversion to God (theophobia) spread like a widespread epidemic. Denial of God’s existence; viewing the universe as self‑created and self‑regulated under natural laws; declaring God‑worship to be superstition; describing religion as absurd and religiosity as narrow‑mindedness and obscurantism; and equating naturalism with enlightenment—all of this became fashionable. Anyone, regardless of whether they possessed any competence in philosophy or science, and even if they had never undertaken the slightest investigation of these issues themselves, expressed these views merely to be regarded as “enlightened” in society. To say anything in support of spirituality or the supernatural was considered tantamount to heresy. Even if the greatest scientist were to express such an idea, he would lose all standing in scientific circles, his achievements would be dismissed, and he would no longer be deemed worthy of membership in any scholarly society.
In 1859, Darwin’s book The Origin of Species was published, which poured oil on the fire of naturalism and atheism. Although Darwin’s arguments in support of his particular theory of evolution were weak and required proof—since not one but numerous links before and after every existing link in the evolutionary chain were missing—and although even then philosophers were not satisfied with the theory, to the extent that even its foremost advocate, Huxley, did not fully believe in it, it was nevertheless accepted purely due to aversion to God. It was excessively publicised and used as a powerful weapon against religion, because—according to the philosophers’ unfounded assumption—it provided proof for the claim (though in reality it was itself only a claim in need of proof) that the universe operates on its own under natural laws without any supernatural force. Religious scholars opposed this theory, and at the session of the British Association, the Bishop of Oxford and Gladstone exerted the full force of their oratory against it, but they were defeated. Ultimately, religious circles became so overawed by scientific atheism that when Darwin died in 1882, the Church of England bestowed upon him the greatest honour within its power—permission to be buried in Westminster Abbey. This despite the fact that he was a pioneer among those who dug the grave of religion in Europe and played the greatest role in pushing thought towards atheism, heresy, and irreligion, and in creating the mentality that eventually allowed Bolshevism and Fascism to flourish and bear fruit.
Outcome of Western Educational Influence on the Colonial Subjects
This was the era in which the youth of our community were sent to schools and colleges to benefit from English education and European civilisation. Already devoid of Islamic education, immature in Islamic civilisation, overawed by British rule, and infatuated with the splendour and grandeur of European civilisation, as soon as they entered the atmosphere of English schools, the first effect was that their mental framework changed and their inclination turned away from religion. The foremost influence of that environment was that whatever was presented in the name of a European author or researcher was accepted without hesitation as absolute truth, whereas any statement from the Qur’an, Hadith, or the religious scholars was met with demands for proof. With this transformed mindset, the Western sciences they studied were, in most of their principles and branches, opposed to the principles and detailed injunctions of Islam.
The Fundamental Difference between Islam and the Western Thought
In Islam, the concept of religion is that it is the law of life; in the West, religion is conceived merely as a personal belief with no connection to practical life. In Islam, the first foundation is faith in God, while there, even the existence of God is not accepted. The entire Islamic civilisational system is based on belief in revelation and prophethood, whereas there, the very reality of revelation and the divine origin of prophethood are doubted. In Islam, belief in the Hereafter is the cornerstone of the entire moral system, while there this foundation itself is missing. The acts of worship and obligations prescribed in Islam are regarded there as mere remnants of the age of ignorance, now devoid of any benefit. Likewise, Islamic principles of civilisation and culture are fundamentally different from Western ones.
In law, Islam’s fundamental principle is that God Himself is the Lawgiver; the Messenger of God is the interpreter of the law, and human beings are merely followers of it. In the West, God has no right whatsoever to legislate. The legislature is the lawgiver, and the nation elects the legislature. In politics, Islam’s objective is divine governance, while the West’s objective is national governance. Islam is oriented towards internationalism, while the Western object of worship is nationalism. In economics, Islam emphasises lawful earnings, zakat and charity, and the prohibition of interest, whereas the entire Western economic system runs on interest and profit. In ethics, Islam seeks success in the Hereafter, while the West seeks worldly benefit. In social matters too, Islam’s path differs from the Western path in almost every respect. Modesty and veiling, the boundaries between men and women, plural marriage, laws of marriage and divorce, birth control, the rights of relatives, spousal rights, and many other such issues show differences so clear that explanation is unnecessary—and the reason for this is that the foundational principles of the two systems are different.
Critical Thinking - The Missing Piece
When our youth, with overawed and even servile mentalities and incomplete Islamic education and training, acquired these Western sciences and were reared under the influence of Western civilisation, the outcome was exactly what should have been expected. They failed to develop the capacity for critical evaluation. Whatever they learned from the West was accepted as the standard of correctness and truth. With deficient knowledge, they then measured Islamic principles and laws against that standard. Wherever they found a difference between the two, they never perceived error in the West; rather, they assumed Islam itself to be in error, and became prepared to amend and abolish its principles and laws.
However much modern education may have benefitted the Muslims of India economically and politically, the damage it inflicted upon their religion and civilisation is such that no advantage can ever compensate for it.
(Tarjuman al‑Qur’an, Rajab 1353 AH / October 1934)