Mankind’s Debt to the Prophet
Sayid Abul’Hasan Ali Nadvi
In
certain parts of the world, people enjoy freedom of conscience and choice, are
free to lead their lives in peace and amity, to devote their energies to
teaching and preaching, researching and making new discoveries. Yet even these
parts of the world have not always been so tolerant, nor free from strife, nor
disposed towards the co-existence of different peoples, sects and groups, still
less sufficiently broad-minded, to accommodate differences of opinion.
Mankind
has seemed, many times, to be bent upon self-destruction, and passed through
stages when, by its own misdeeds, it has forfeited any right to survival. Men
have sometimes behaved like crazed and ferocious beasts, flinging all culture
and civilization, arts, literature, decency, the canons of moral and civil law,
to the winds.
All
of us know that the writing of history is of a relatively recent origin. The
‘pre-historic’ era was very much longer. The decline of mankind when it
relapsed into savagery was by no means an agreeable task for historians and
writers to record. Nevertheless, we do find narratives of the downfall of
empires and the decay of human society, told at long intervals in the pages of
history. The first of these date from the fifty century A.D. some are briefly
touched and upon here.
H.G.
Wells, the well-known historian, writes about the decay of the Byzantine and
Sassanid Empires as follows:
Science and political
philosophy seemed dead now in both these warring and decaying empires. The last
philosophers of Athens, until their suppression, preserved the text a of the
great literature of the past with an infinite reverence and want of
understanding. But there remained no class of men in the world, no free
gentleman with bold and independent habits of thought to carry on the tradition
of frank statement and inquiry embodied in these writings. The social and
political chaos accounts largely for the disappearance of the class, but there
was also another reason why the human intelligence was sterile and feverish
during this age of intolerance. Both empires were religious empires in a new
way, in a way that greatly hampered the free activities of the human mind.
The
same writer, after describing the onslaught of the Sassanids on Byzantium and
their eventual victory, comments on the social and moral degradation to which
both these great nations had fallen:
A prophetic amateur of
history surveying the world in the opening of the seventh century might have
concluded very reasonably that it was only a question of a few centuries before
the whole of Europe and Asia fell under Mongolian domination. There were no
signs of order or union in Western Europe, and the Byzantine and Persian
empires were manifestly bent upon mutual destruction. India also was divided
and wasted.
Another
writer, Robert Briffault strikes a similar note:
From the fifth to the
tenth century Europe lay sunk in a night of barbarism which grew darker and
darker. It was a barbarism far more awful and horrible than that of the
primitive savage, for it was the decomposing body of what had once been a great
civilization. The features and impress of that civilization were all but
completely effaced. Where its development had been fullest, e.g., in Italy and
Gaul, all was ruin, squalor and dissolution.
The
Civilizations nurtured by ancient religions were disintegrating; this according
to J.H. Denison. In Emotion as the Civilization, he writes:
In the fifth and sixth
centuries the civilized world stood on the verge of chaos. The old emotional
cultures that had made civilization possible, since they had given to men a
sense of unity and of reverence for their rulers, had broken down and nothing
had been found adequate to take their place...
It seemed then that the
great civilization which it had taken four thousand years to construct was on
the verge of disintegration, and that mankind was likely to return to that
condition of barbarism when every tribe and sect was against the next, and law
and order was unknown ... The old tribal sanctions had lost their power ... The
new sanctions created by Christianity were working division and destruction
instead of unity and order. It was a time fraught with tragedy. Civilization,
like a gigantic tree whose foliage had overarched the world and whose branches
had borne the golden fruits of art and science and literature, stood tottering
... rotten to the core.
At
a time when mankind and human civilization were on the edge of destruction, the
Lord and Creator of the word caused a man to be born in Arabia who was
entrusted with the most difficult task: not only to rescue mankind from
imminent destruction but also to raise it to sublime height, heights hitherto
beyond the knowledge of historians and the imagination of poets. If there were
not incontrovertible historical evidence to demonstrate his achievements, it
would be difficult to believe such greatness. This man was Muhammad
who was born in the sixth century. He
saved mankind from imminent danger, gave it new life, new ambition, fresh
energy, a revitalised sense of human dignity and intellect, as also a new found
idealism. It was because of him that a new era came about, an era of
spirituality in art and literature, of personal sincerity and selfless service
of others, all of which produced an ordered, graceful and kindly culture. His
most precious gifts to man were his devotion to righteousness and aversion to
evil, his hatred of false gods and a passion for establishing justice and
morality, and a readiness to lay down one’s life for these righteous goals.
Such goals ultimately are the fountainhead and incentive for all reforms and
improvements. Whatever great and sublime heights man has attained have been the
result of such noble sentiments — indeed, all material resources, means and
methods owe their existence to human will and determination. That great
benefactor of humanity replaced barbarism and brutality with the milk of human
kindness, magnanimity and courtesy. He struggled unceasingly for the
propagation of his noble teachings with complete disregard for his own self,
his life or prestige.
Precisely
because of this struggle, there arose from among an uncivilized and
ill-mannered people noble-hearted men who led a graceful and kindly life, men
who started a new era of courtesy and warmth in human history, who engendered
gentleness and goodness in those around them. The world obtained a fresh lease
of life; justice and fairness became its hallmark; the weak were emboldened to
claim their rights from the haughty and strong; mercy and kindness became the
norms. It was a time when humanitarianism became a driving force, faith and
conviction captured human hearts, mankind began to take pride in selflessness,
and virtuous behaviour became habitual with people.
We
list below, in brief, the precious gifts of Islam which have played a key role
in the advancement of human values and culture. A new and bright world, quite
different from the decaying and disintegrating humanity at the time of its
advent, came into being as a result of these Islamic contributions:
1.
The clear and unambiguous creed of the Oneness of God.
2.
The concept of human equality and brotherhood.
3.
The concept of human dignity and man being the masterpiece of God’s creation.
4.
Acknowledgement of the proper status of women and the restoration of their
legitimate rights.
5.
The rejection of despair and the infusion of hope and confidence in human
beings.
6.
The fusion of the secular and the sacred, the refusal to accept any cleavage
between them.
7.
The integration of religion and knowledge, making one dependent on the other
and raising respect for knowledge by declaring it a means of attaining nearness
to God.
8.
Emphasis on the use of intellectual faculties in religious and spiritual
matters and encouraging the study and contemplation of natural phenomena.
9.
Charging the followers of Islam with the responsibility of spreading virtue and
goodness in the world, and making it a duty incumbent on them to restore truth
and justice.
10.
The establishment of a universal creed and culture.
I
will not elaborate upon these points here. Instead, I would rather cite a few
eminent western thinkers and writers who have acknowledged these virtues of
Islam. one of the bases of culture and civilization — something that enhances
gentility, and refinement, civility in conduct as well as in literature — is
the acknowledgement of a truth, appreciation of the great achievements of
others and returning thanks to those who have done us any favour. The day this
noble sentiment is expelled from our lives, literature, ethical standards,
intellectual labours, even the right of expressing our thoughts freely, will
become meaningless. It will not be a world to live in and die for. It will be a
world of beasts and brutes where the ruling passion is to fend for oneself
alone. No sentiment will remain except the fulfilment of carnal desires. All
rightly ordered relationships between teacher and taught, benefactor and
beneficiary, physician and patient, even between parents and children, will
peter out and lose their significance.
Gratitude,
as defined by William H. Davidson, a contributor to the Encyclopaedia of
Religion and Ethics, is a spontaneous and natural sentiment generated by
the kindness and benefit conferred by someone. It is a human virtue, at once
abiding and universal. Davidson in this respect says:
Gratitude has been defined
as that delightful emotion of love to him who has conferred a kindness on us,
the very feeling of which is itself no small part of the benefit conferred.
Gratitude is an unselfish joyous response to kindness — a response that is
immediate and spontaneous; the ultimate meaning of which is that human nature
is so constituted that affection and unity between persons is the foundation of
it, ill-will and enmity (all indications to the contrary notwithstanding) being
abnormal and depraved.5
Ingratitude
is, thus, a moral depravity and a perversion of human nature, a sign of
benumbed human conscience. The lowest depth to which this immorality can fall
is the ingratitude shown to founders of religion, the teachers of morals and
the greatest benefactors of humanity. Grotesque parody in deliberately
offensive language is not appropriate from anyone, let alone of those noble
souls who have founded religions, for it hurts the feelings of millions who not
only follow them but who are also willing to lay down their lives for them.
Efforts at such offensiveness also entail a denial of truth. No cultured
people, country or society should tolerate or defend anyone so depraved and
unmannerly, who possesses no conscience.
Now
let us refer to the compliments paid to the greatest benefactor of humanity by
a few eminent men of letters from this part of the world where I am speaking.
One of these candid men, Lamartine of France, says in his tribute to the prophet
hood of Muhammad
:
If greatness of purpose,
smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human
genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modern history with
Muhammed?
The most famous men
created arms, laws and empires only. They founded, if anything at all, no more
than material powers which often crumbled away before their eyes. This man
moved not only armies, legislations, empires, peoples and dynasties, but
millions of men in one-third of the then inhabited world; and more than that,
he moved the altars, the gods, the religions, the ideas, the beliefs and souls.
On the basis of a Book, every letter of which has become law, he created a
spiritual nationality which blended together peoples of every tongue and of
every race. He has left us as the indelible characteristic of his Muslim
nationality, the hatred of false gods and the passion for the One and
immaterial God. This avenging patriotism of Heaven formed the virtue of the
followers of Mohammad; the conquest of one-third of the earth to this dogma was
his miracle; or rather it was not the miracle of man but that of reason. The
idea of the unity of God, proclaimed amidst the exhaustion of fabulous the
genies, was in itself such a miracle that upon its utterance from his lips it
destroyed all the ancient temples of idols and set on fire one-third of the
world.
John
William Draper, the reputed author of A History of the Intellectual
Development of Europe, writes:
Four years after the death
of Justinian, A.D. 569, was born at Mecca, in Arabia, the man who, of all men,
has exercised the greatest influence upon the human race.
He says further:
Muhammad possessed that
combination of qualities which more than once has decided the fate of empires
... Asserting that everlasting truth, he did not engage in vain metaphysics,
but applied himself to improving the social condition of the people by
regulations respecting personal cleanliness, sobriety, fasting and prayer.
The
great historian-philosopher of this century, A.J. Toynbee, is on record as
saying that:
The extinction of race
consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding achievements of
Islam, and in the contemporary world there is, as it happens, a crying need for
the propagation of this Islamic virtue.9
It
is a strange coincidence that over a hundred years ago Thomas Carlyle chose
Muhammad
as the supreme hero, and now, in the
closing decades of the twentieth century, Michael H. Hart of the United States
of America has prepared a list of 100 most influential persons in history,
placing the Prophet at the top.
The
Prophet of Islam
and his followers conferred favours
on humanity which have played an unforgettable role in the promotion and
development of culture and civilization. We will mention here only two of
these, amply supported by historical evidence.
Students
of history are aware that in the thirteenth century the civilized world,
divided by the two great religions, Christianity and Islam, was suddenly
confronted with a situation which threatened the imminent destruction of both
the then vast empires, their arts and sciences, their cultures and morals. In
short, all that the human race had laboriously achieved during the past
hundreds of years once again faced its reduction to barbarism. This was brought
about by the sudden rise of Genghis Khan (Tamuchin), a chieftain of the nomadic
Mongol tribes, who possessed remarkable qualities of leadership and was able to
subdue all that sat in his way. In 619/1219, Genghis Khan turned towards the
western and northern civilized countries, ravaging them with fire and sword.
How severe a blow the Mongol invasion dealt to all social and cultural progress
can be gauged by a few graphic descriptions of Mongol rapine and slaughter, as
given by Harold Lamb, Genghis Khan’s biographer:
"Cities in his path
were often obliterated, and rivers diverted from their courses; deserts were
peopled with the fleeing and dying, and when he had passed, wolves and ravens
often were the sole living things in once populated lands.
And consternation filled all
Christendom, a generation after the death of Genghis Khan, when the terrible
Mongol horsemen were riding over Western Europe, when Boleslas of Poland and
Bela of Hungary fled from stricken fields, and Henry, Duke of Silesia, died
under the arrows with his Teutonic Knights at Liegnitz12 — sharing the fate of the
Grand-Duke George of Russia.13
Such details are too
horrible to dwell upon today. It was a war carried to its utmost extent — an
extent that was very nearly approached in the last European War. It was the
slaughter of human beings without hatred — simply to make an end of them.
Unchecked by human valour,
they were able to overcome the terrors of vast deserts, the barriers of
mountains and seas, the severities of climate, and the ravages of famine and
pestilence. No danger could appeal them, no stronghold could resist them, no
prayer for mercy could move them.
His achievement is
recorded for the most part by his enemies. So devastating was his impact upon
civilization that virtually a new beginning had to be made in half the world.
The empires of Chathay, of Prester John, of Black Cathay, of Kharesem, and —
after his death — the Caliphate of Baghdad, of Russia and for a while the
principalities of Poland, ceased to be. When this indomitable barbarian conquered
a nation all other warfare come to an end. The whole scheme of things, whether
sorry or otherwise, was altered, and among the survivors of a Mongol conquest
peace endured for a long time.
Harold
Lamb correctly says that the impact of the Mongols, brought about by Genghis
Khan, has been well summed up by the authors of the Cambridge Medieval
History in these words:
This ‘new power in
history’ — the ability of one man to alter human civilization — began with
Genghis Khan and ended with his grandson Kublai, when the Mangol empire tended
to break up. It has not reappeared since.
The
terror of the Mongol invasion was not confined to Turkistan, Iran and Iraq
alone. Mongol atrocities provoked trembling even in far-off corners of the
world where they could hardly have been expected to carry their arms. Edward
Gibbon writes in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:
The Latin world was
darkened by this cloud of savage hostility; a Russian fugitive carried the
alarm to Sweden; and the remote nations of the Baltic and the ocean trembled at
the approach of the Tartars, whom their fear and ignorance were inclined to
separate from the human species.
The
Mongols first attacked Bukhara and razed it to dust. Not a single soul was
spared by them. Thereafter, they laid Samarkand to ruin and massacred its
entire population. The same was the fate of other urban centres in the then
Islamic world. The Tartars would indeed have most probably devastated the whole
of Christendom (then divided politically and suffering from numerous social
evils), as stated by H.G. Wells:
A prophetic amateur of
history surveying the world in the opening of the seventh century might have
concluded very reasonably that it was only a question of a few centuries before
the whole of Europe and Asia fell under Mongolian domination.
Harold Lamb also writes:
We only know that the
German and Polish forces broke before the onset of the Mongol standard, and
were almost exterminated; Henry and his barons died to a man, as did the Hospitallers..
In less than two months they had overrun Europe from the headwaiters of the
Elbe to the sea, had defeated three great armies and a dozen smaller ones and
had taken by assault all the towns excepting Olmutz.
Then
a miraculous event changed the course of history. It not only allowed the
civilized world to heave a sigh of relief but also permitted culture and
civilization to be built afresh. The hearts of the indomitable Mongols were
captured by the faith of their subjects who had lost all power and prestige.
Arnold writes in The Preaching of Islam:
In spite of all
difficulties, however, the Mongols and savage tribes that followed in their
wake were at length brought to submit to the faith of those Muslim peoples whom
they had crushed beneath their feet.
The
names of only a few dedicated servants of Islam who won the savage Tartars to
their faith are known to the world, but their venture was no less daring nor
the achievement less significant than a great and successful reform movement.
Their memory shall always be cherished as much by the Muslims, as by
Christendom, or rather by all mankind, since they rescued the world from the
barbarism of a savage race, the insecurity of widespread upheaval, and allowed
it to once again devote its energies to the establishment of social and
political stability. Normalcy thus restored, the world was allowed to resume
its journey of cultural development and the promotion of arts and crafts,
learning and teaching, preaching and writing.
After
the death of Genghis Khan, his vast conquests were divided into four dominions
headed by his sons’ children. The message of Islam then began to spread among
all these four sections of the Mongol empire and before long all were converted
to Islam.
The
Tartars not only accepted Islam but a number of great scholars, writers, poets,
mystics and fighters in the way of God, rose from amongst them. Their
conversion to Islam completely changed their outlook and disposition as also
their attitude towards humanity and civilization. This, in turn, benefited not
only the Islamic East but also Christendom and even India. The Tartars made
nine or ten attempts to capture India during the thirteenth century but the
Sultans of Turkish descent, among whom Alauddin Khilji (d. 716/1316) and his
commander Ghiyathuddin Tughluq (d. 716/1316) and his commander Ghiyathuddin
Tughluq (d. 725/1324) were the more prominent, repelled them on each occasion.
It was on account of them that the cultural and intellectual heritage of this
ancient and prosperous country was saved from destruction and the two great
religions, Islam and Hinduism, continued to flourish there.
This
achievement of Islam, the transformation of the Tartars into a civilized
people, was a service of a defensive nature rendered to humanity in general and
to the West in particular.
Another
accomplishment of Islam, in contrast to the one just described, was its
introduction of a new way of thinking and learning. It was like a flash of
light in the Dark Ages of Europe one which paved the way for its Renaissance.
It transformed not only Europe but helped the entire human race to benefited
from new researches and discoveries. A new era of empirical sciences was
inaugurated which has changed the face of the earth. The intellectual patrimony
of the ancients (consisting of philosophy, mathematics and medicine) found it
way to Europe through Muslim Spain. This intellectual gift consisted of
observation and experiment a replacement of inductive logic with deductive
logic where by Europe’s whole way of thinking was changed. Science and
technology were the main fruits. All the discoveries made by European
scientific explorations — in short, whatever success has so far been achieved
in harnessing the forces of nature — are directly related to inductive
reasoning, not known to Europe until it was bequeathed to it by Muslim Spain.
The noted French historian, Gustave Ie Bon, writes of the Arab contribution to
Modern Europe:
Observation,
experimentation and inductive logic which form the fundamentals of modern
knowledge are attributed to Roger Bacon but it needs to be acknowledged that
this process of reasoning was entirely an Arab discovery.
Robert
Briffault has also reached the same conclusion, for he says:
There is not a single
aspect of European growth in which the decisive influence of Islamic
civilization is not traceable.
He further says:
It is not science only
which brought Europe back to life. Other and manifold influences from the
civilization of Islam communicated its first glow to European life.
Those
who have studied the history of the Catholic Church and the Reformation are
aware of the profound effect Islamic teachings had on the minds of those who
initiated reform in Christendom. We can, for example, see the influence of
Islam reflected in the thought of Martin Luther’s (1483-1546) Reformation
movement. The revolt against autocratic leadership in the Catholic Church in
medieval Europe also reveals the influence of Islam, which had no organised
church.
It
is, thus, our moral duty to acknowledge both these great favours conferred by
Islam which have had a revolutionary impact on the world. When we speak of
those who conferred these gifts or reassess their achievements we must at least
keep in mind the rules of courtesy which have been accepted by all nations and
cultured peoples and schools of thought. We should not abandon the norms of
politeness, moderation, dignity and truthfulness, for these have been commended
by the scriptures of all religions, moral treatises, as also by great writers
and critics. It is on such civilized behaviour that good relations between
different religions, communities and peoples depend, such behaviour alone makes
possible a purposeful dialogue between people holding different views. In its
absence, all serious writings, critiques and reviews must degenerate into
obscene and sensational novels, vulgar and outrageous parodies. Such writings
can unleash negative and disruptive forces, not only contemptible in themselves
and harmful to serious intellectual endeavour, but also likely to embitter
relations between different nations and countries.
The
argument that any restraint placed on freedom of expression amounts to
coercion, restriction of personal freedom, or interference in the rights of
individuals under the constitution of an independent country, is simply
untenable. The obscene and offensive description of the benefactors of mankind,
prophets and reformers, particularly if such narration is against the
established facts of history, hurts the feelings of millions who respect and
revere them and is also likely to cause disharmony between different groups
within a country or even between countries. It is an intolerable infringement
of moral values, an offence against humanity that should not be overlooked by
any peace-loving nation upholding the value of harmonious co-existence between
its different ethnic and religious communities. Western political thinkers,
too, do not subscribe to such an unlimited right of freedom of expression. They
have argued that such unlimited liberty would be even more harmful than the
limits placed on freedom of expression. The subject might be treated at great
length, but I will cite here only two authorities who have explained why
limitations on freedom of expression are essential for the maintenance of
public order.
Isaiah
Berlin explains the two concepts of liberty in these words:
To protest against the
laws governing censorship or personal morals as intolerable infringements of
personal liberty presupposes a belief that the activities which such laws
forbid are fundamental needs of men as men, in a good (or, indeed, any)
society. To defend such laws is to hold that these needs are not essential, or
that they cannot be satisfied without sacrificing other values which come
higher — satisfy deeper needs — than individual freedom, determined by some
standard that is not merely subjective, a standard for which some objective
status — in principle or a priori — is claimed.
The extent of man’s or a
people’s liberty to choose to live as they desire must be weighed against the
claims of many other values, of which equality, or justice, or happiness, or
security, or public order are perhaps the most obvious examples. For this
reason, it cannot be unlimited.26
A
speech delivered in the American Senate by Blackstone in 1897 and which forms
the basis of American law on the subject, says about freedom of expression:
Every free man has an
undoubted right in law to air what sentiment he pleases before the public; to
forbid this is to destroy the freedom of the press: but if he publishes what is
improper, mischievous, or illegal, he must take the consequences of his own
temerity. To subject the press to the restrictive power of a licenser... is to
subject all freedom of sentiment to the prejudices of one man, and make him the
arbitrary and infallible judge of all controversial points in learning,
religion and Government. But to punish... any dangerous or offensive writings
which when published, shall on fair and impartial trial be adjudged of
pernicious tendency, is necessary for the preservation of peace and good order,
of Government and religion, the only solid foundations of civil liberty. Thus,
the will of individuals is still left free; the abuse only of that free will is
the object of legal punishment.27
I
would like to conclude my talk with an exhilarating poem by Iqbal, the poet of
the East, as he is known in the Muslim world, in which he enchantingly depicts
the great favours conferred on humanity by the Prophethood of Muhammad
favours which are unique and unparalleled:
Touched by the
breath of the unlettered one,
The sands of
Arabia began to sprout tulips.
Freedom under
his care was reared
The ‘today’ of
nations comes from his ‘yesterday’.
He put heart in
the body of man,
And from his
face the veil he lifted.
Every god of
old he destroyed.
Every withered
branch by his moisture bloomed.
The heat of the
battle of Badr and Hunain,
Haider and
Siddiq, Farooq and Hussain.
In the thick of
battle the majesty of Azan,
The recitation
of As-Saffat28 at the point of sword.
The scimitar of
Ayub, the glance of Bayazid,
Key to the
treasures of this world and the next.
Ecstasy of
heart and mind from the same goblet,
Fusion of
Rumi’s rapture and Razi’s thought.
Knowledge and
wisdom, faith and law, polity and rule.
Yearnings
hidden within the restless hearts.
Al-Hamara and
Taj of beauty breath-taking.
To which even
angels pay tribute.
These, too, a
fragment of his priceless bequest,
Of his glimpses
just one glimpse.
His exterior
these enthralling sights,
Of his interior
even the knowledge unaware.
Boundless
praise be to the Apostle blessed,
Who imparted
faith to elevate a handful of dust.
