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Hazrat
Umar was succeeded by Hazrat Usman who ruled for some twelve years during which
time the Islamic expansion continued. He is also known as the caliph who had
the definitive text of the Noble Quran copied and sent to the four corners of
the Islamic world. He was in turn succeeded by Hazrat Ali who is known to this
day for his eloquent sermons and letters, and also for his bravery. With his
death the rule of the "rightly guided" caliphs, who hold a special
place of respect in the hearts of Muslims, came to an end.
The
Umayyad caliphate established in 661 was to last for about a century. During
this time Damascus became the capital of an Islamic world which stretched from
the western borders of China to southern France. Not only did the Islamic conquests
continue during this period through North Africa to Spain and France in the
West and to Sind, Central Asia and Transoxiana in the East, but the basic social
and legal institutions of the newly founded Islamic world were established.
The
Abbasids, who succeeded the Umayyads, shifted the capital to Baghdad which soon
developed into an incomparable center of learning and culture as well as the
administrative and political heart of a vast world.
They
ruled for over 500 years but gradually their power waned and they remained only
symbolic rulers bestowing legitimacy upon various sultans and princes who wielded
actual military power. The Abbasid caliphate was finally abolished when Hulagu,
the Mongol ruler, captured Baghdad in 1258, destroying much of the city including
its incomparable libraries.
While the Abbasids ruled in Baghdad, a number of powerful dynasties such as the Fatimids, Ayyubids and Mamluks held power in Egypt, Syria and Palestine. The most important event in this area as far as the relation between Islam and the Western world was concerned was the series of Crusades declared by the Pope and espoused by various European kings. The purpose, although political, was outwardly to recapture the Holy Land and especially Jerusalem for Christianity. Although there was at the beginning some success and local European rule was set up in parts of Syria and Palestine, Muslims finally prevailed and in 1187 Saladin, the great Muslim leader, recaptured Jerusalem and defeated the Crusaders.
When
the Abbasids captured Damascus, one of the Umayyad princes escaped and made
the long journey from there to Spain to found Umayyad rule there, thus beginning
the golden age of Islam in Spain. Qurtuba was established as the capital and
soon became Europe's greatest city not only in population but from the point
of view of its cultural and intellectual life. The Umayyads ruled over two centuries
until they weakened and were replaced by local rulers.
Meanwhile
in North Africa, various local dynasties held sway until two powerful Berber
dynasties succeeded in uniting much of North Africa and also Spain in the 12th
and 13th centuries. After them this area was ruled once again by local dynasties
such as the Sharifids of Morocco who still rule in that country. As for Spain
itself, Muslim power continued to wane until the last Muslim dynasty was defeated
in Granada in 1492 thus bringing nearly eight hundred years of Muslim rule in
Spain to an end.
The
Mongols devastated the eastern lands of Islam and ruled from the Sinai Desert
to India for a century. But they soon converted to Islam and became known as
the Il-Khanids. They were in turn succeeded by Timur and his descendents who
made Samarqand their capital and ruled from 1369 to 1500. The sudden rise of
Timur delayed the formation and expansion of the Ottoman empire but soon the
Ottomans became the dominant power in the Islamic world.
While
the Ottomans were concerned mostly with the westem front of their empire, to
the east in Persia a new dynasty called the Safavids came to power in 1502.
The Safavids established a powerful state of their own which flourished for
over two centuries and became known for the flowering of the arts. Their capital,
Isfahan, became one of the most beautiful cities with its blue tiled mosques
and exquisite houses. The Afghan invasion of 1736 put an end to Safavid rule
and prepared the independence of Afghanistan which occured fommally in the 19th
century. Persia itself fell into tummoil until Nader Shah, the last Oriental
conqueror, reunited the country and even conquered India. But the rule of the
dynasty established by him was short-lived. The Zand dynasty soon took over
to be overthrown by the Qajars in 1779 who made Tehran their capital and ruled
until 1921 when they were in turn replaced by the Pahlavis.
As
for India, Islam entered into the land east of the Indus River peacefully. Gradually
Muslims gained political power beginning in the early 13th century. But this
period which marked the expansion of both Islam and Islamic culture came to
an end with the conquest of much of India in 1526 by Babur, one of the Timurid
princes. He established the powerful Mogul empire which produced such famous
rulers as Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan and which lasted, despite the gradual
rise of British power in India, until 1857 when it was officially abolished.
As
far as Africa is concemed, Islam entered into East Africa at the very beginning
of the Islamic period but remained confined to the coast for some time, only
the Sudan and Somaliland becoming gradually both Arabized and Islamized. West
Africa felt the presence of Islam through North African traders who travelled
with their camel caravans south of the Sahara. By the 14th century there were
already Muslim sultanates in such areas as Mali, and Timbuctu in West Africa
and Harar in East Africa had become seats of Islamic leaming.
Gradually
Islam penetrated both inland and southward. There also appeared major charismatic
figures who inspired intense resistance against European domination. The process
of the Islamization of Africa did not cease during the colonial period and continues
even today with the result that most Africans are now Muslims carrying on a
tradition which has had practically as long a history in certain areas of sub-Saharan
Africa as Islam itself.
Muslims
were early arrivals in North America. By the eighteenth century there were many
thousands of them, working as slaves on plantations. These early communities,
cut off from their heritage and families, inevitably lost their Islamic identity
as time went by. Today many Afro-American Muslims play an important role in
the Islamic community.
The
nineteenth century, however, saw the beginnings of an influx of Arab Muslims,
most of whom settled in the major industrial centers where they worshipped in
hired rooms. The early twentieth century witnessed the arrival of several hundred
thousand Muslims from Eastem Europe: the first Albanian mosque was opened in
Maine in 1915; others soon followed, and a group of Polish Muslims opened a
mosque in Brooklyn in 1928.
In
1947 the Washington Islamic Center was founded during the term of President
Truman, and several nationwide organizations were set up in the fifties. The
same period saw the establishment of other communities whose lives were in many
ways modelled after Islam. More recently, numerous members of these groups have
entered the fold of Muslim orthodoxy. Today there are about five million Muslims
in America.
At
the height of European colonial expansion in the 19th century, most of the Islamic
world was under colonial rule with the exception of a few regions such as the
heart of the Ottoman empire, Persia, Afghanistan, Yemen and certain parts of
Arabia. But even these areas were under foreign influence or, in the case of
the Ottomans, under constant threat. After the First World War with the breakup
of the Ottoman empire, a number of Arab states such as Iraq became independent,
others like Jordan were created as a new entity and yet others like Palestine,
Syria and Lebanon were either mandated or turned into French colonies. As for
Arabia, it was at this time that Saudi Arabia became finally consolidated. As
for other parts of the Islamic world, Egypt which had been ruled by the descendents
of Muhammad Ali since the l9th century became more independent as a result of
the fall of the Ottomans, Turkey was turned into a secular republic by Ataturk,
and the Pahlavi dynasty began a new chapter in Persia where its name reverted
to its eastern traditional form of Iran. But most of the rest of the Islamic
world remained under colonial rule.
It was only after the Second World War and the dismemberment of the British, French, Dutch and Spanish empires that the rest of the Islamic world gained its independence. In the Arab world, Syria and Lebanon became independent at the end of the war as did Libya and the shaykdoms around the Gulf and the Arabian Sea by the 1960's. The North African countries of Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria had to fight a difficult and, in the case of Algeria, long and protracted war to gain their freedom which did not come until a decade later for Tunisia and Morocco and two decades later for Algeria. Only Palestine did not become independent but was partitioned in 1948 with the establishment of the state of Israel.
While
the world of Islam has entered into the modern world in the form of national
states, continuous attempts are made to create closer cooperation within the
Islamic world as a whole and to bring about greater unity. This is seen not
only in the meetings of the Muslim heads of state and the establishment of the
OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) with its own secretariat, but also in
the creation of institutions dealing with the whole of the Islamic world. Among
the most important of these is the Muslim World League (Rabitat al-alam al-Islami
) with its headquarters in Makkah. Saudi Arabia has in fact played a pivotal
role in the creation and maintenance of such organizations.
Revival
and Reassertation of Islam
Muslims
did not wish to gain only their political independence. They also wished to
assert their own religious and cultural identity. From the 18th century onward
Muslim reformers appeared upon the scene who sought to reassert the teachings
of Islam and to reform society on the basis of Islamic teachings. One of the
first among this group was Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, who hailed from the
Arabian peninsula and died there in 1792. This reformer was supported by Muhammad
ibn al-Sa'ud, the founder of the first Saudi state. With this support Muhammad
ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab was able to spread his teachings not only in Arabia but even
beyond its borders to other Islamic lands where his reforms continue to wield
influence to this day.
In
the 19th century lslamic assertion took several different forms ranging from
the Mahdi movement of the Sudan and the Sanusiyyah in North Africa which fought
wars against European colonizers, to educational movements such as that of Aligarh
in India aiming to reeducate Muslims. In Egypt which, because of al-Azhar University,
remains to this day central to Islamic learning, a number of reformers appear,
each addressing some aspect of Islamic thought. Some were concerned more with
law, others economics, and yet others the challenges posed by Western civilization
with its powerful science and technology. These included Jamal al-Din al-Afghani
who hailed originally from Persia but settled in Cairo and who was the great
champion of Pan-Islamism, that is the movement to unite the Islamic world politically
as well as religiously. His student, Muhammad 'Abduh, who became the rector
of al-Azhar. was also very influential in Islamic theology and thought. Also
of considerable influence was his Syrian student, Rashid Rida, who held a position
closer to that of 'Abd al-Wahhab and stood for the strict application of the
Shari'ah. Among the most famous of these thinkers is Muhammad Iqbal, the outstanding
poet and philosopher who is considered as the father of Pakistan.
Moreover,
as Western influence began to penetrate more deeply into the fiber of Islamic
society, organizations gradually grew up whose goal was to reform society in
practice along Islamic lines and prevent its secularization. These included
the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-muslimin) founded in Egypt and with branches
in many Muslim countries, and the Jama'at-i Islami of Pakistan founded by the
influential Mawlana Mawdudi. These organizations have been usually peaceful
and have sought to reestablish an Islamic order through education. During the
last two decades, however, as a result of the frustration of many Muslims in
the face of pressures coming from a secularized outside world, some have sought
to reject the negative aspects of Western thought and culture and to return
to an Islamic society based completely on the application of the Shari 'ah.
Today in every Muslim country there are strong movements to preserve and propagate
Islamic teachings. In countries such as Saudi Arabia Islamic Law is already
being applied and in fact is the reason for the prosperity, development and
stability of the country. In other countries where Islamic Law is not being
applied, however, most of the effort of Islamic movements is spent in making
possible the full application of the Shari'ah so that the nation can enjoy prosperity
along with the fulfillment of the faith of its people. In any case the widespread
desire for Muslims to have the religious law of Islam applied and to reassert
their religious values and their own identity must not be equated with exceptional
violent eruptions which do exist but which are usually treated sensationally
and taken out of proportion by the mass media in the West.
In
various parts of the Islamic world there is, however, a sense that educational
institutions must be expanded and also have their standards improved to the
level of the best institutions in the world in various fields of leaming especially
science and technology. At the same time there is an awareness that the educational
system must be based totally on Islamic principles and the influence of alien
cultural and ethical values and norms, to the extent that they are negative,
be diminished. To remedy this problem a number of international Islamic educational
conferences have been held, the first one in Makkah in 1977, and the foremost
thinkers of the Islamic world have been brought together to study and ponder
over the question of the relation between Islam and modern science. This is
an ongoing process which is at the center of attention in many parts of the
Islamic world and which indicates the significance of educational questions
in the Islamic world today.
Influence
of Islamic Science and Learning Upon the West
The
oldest university in the world which is still functioning is the eleven hundred-year-old
Islamic university of Fez, Morocco, known as the Qarawiyyin. This old tradition
of Islamic learning influenced the West greatly through Spain. In this land
where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived for the most part peacefully for many
centuries, translations began to be made in the 11th century mostly in Toledo
of Islamic works into Latin often through the intermediary of Jewish scholars
most of whom knew Arabic and often wrote in Arabic. As a result of these translations,
Islamic thought and through it much of Greek thought became known to the West
and Western schools of learning began to flourish. Even the Islamic educational
system was emulated in Europe and to this day the term chair in a university
reflects the Arabic kursi (literally seat) upon which a teacher would sit to
teach his students in the madrasah (school of higher learning). As European
civillization grew and reached the high Middle Ages, there was hardly a field
of learning or form of art, whether it was literature or architecture, where
there was not some influence of Islam present. Islamic learning became in this
way part and parcel of Western civilization even if with the advent of the Renaissance,
the West not only turned against its own medieval past but also sought to forget
the long relation it had had with the Islamic world, one which was based on
intellectual respect despite religious opposition.
The
Islamic world remains today a vast land stretching from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, with an important presence in Europe and America, animated by the teachings
of Islam and seeking to assert its own identity. Despite the presence of nationalism
and various secular ideologies in their midst, Muslims wish to live in the modern
world but without simply imitating blindly the ways followed by the West. The
Islamic world wishes to live at peace with the West as well as the East but
at the same time not to be dominated by them. It wishes to devote its resources
and energies to building a better life for its people on the basis of the teachings
of Islam and not to squander its resources in either internal or external conflicts.
It seeks finally to create better understanding with the West and to be better
understood by the West. The destinies of the Islamic world and the West cannot
be totally separated and therefore it is only in understanding each other better
that they can serve their own people more successfully and also contribute to
a better life for the whole of humanity.
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