The Islamic World and Modern Challenges
By
Aman Singh, New Age Islam
5 January
2024
Islam Only Spread Because Of The Democratic
Thought Of The Prophet Mohammad. It Got A Wider Horizon Because Its Message Was
To Absolve Racism. When Prophet Mohammad Was Making A Hajj To Mecca, He Did It
Without Shedding An Ounce Of Blood. Mohammad Resolved The Situation Through
Practical As Well As Moral Means.
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The Islamic
World is facing several challenges nowadays. Its challenge has also not
emanated from modern times. In other words, we cannot discount the significance
of world history. According to a 1959 article by Najmoud Din Bammat, “Islam
today has to go through several revolutions at once: a religious revolution
like the Reformation; an intellectual and moral revolution like the
eighteenth-century Enlightenment; an economic and social revolution like the
European Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century; and, in the age of
the two great Eastern and Western blocs or systems, several small nationalist
revolutions of its own. At a time when pacts are being forged on a world scale,
the Muslim countries are still waiting and searching for their Garibaldis”.
Why has the
Islamic world fallen behind in a number of areas? This is not the whole truth.
Islam originated from a period 1000 years ago when the Industrial Revolution
came into being. That doesn’t mean that no scientific inventions took place
through Islam. It was under Islam that some of the most remarkable discoveries
were made. In trigonometry, the Muslims discovered the sine and tangent. The
Muslim geographers rectified imperfect measurements of latitude and longitude
made by Ptolemy.
The Muslims
also deserve high marks for optics, for chemistry too i.e. the discovery of the
distillation of alcohol, the manufacture of elixirs and Sulphur acid. Islam
only spread because of the democratic thought of the prophet Mohammad. It got a
wider horizon because its message was to absolve racism. When prophet Mohammad
was making a hajj to Mecca, he did it without shedding an ounce of blood.
Mohammad resolved the situation through practical as well as moral means.
Fernand
Braudel has also reiterated in a passage what S. D. Goitin has remarked:
“Was it the fault of the 'Barbarians'? This is
what a recent historian, S. D. Goitin has suggested. They had been the military
saviours of Islam against the threats from Asia and the West. Had they also
sapped it from within?”
This
passage reminds me of how a country like India has come into being. A country
like India too has been built only because it had internal purges and thus
later only it was able to build a military to protect itself. India had its
heroes in the form of social reformers and communists. Mahatma Gandhi, Jyotiba
and Savitribai Phule, Periyar were all social reformers. It has also seen
militant struggles against feudal oppression led by communists and
revolutionaries. All of which are being diluted under the current Hindutva
government.
The Soviet
Union and China themselves became what they are today because they had internal
purges. Both of them fought the bourgeoisie of their respective nations. The
situation has become different today and the methods to be adopted have also
become different. Wherever countries are fighting in themselves or among each
other western countries supply weapons to the regressive side. Like the Taliban
in Afghanistan and ISIS in Iraq. Before the West intervened Afghanistan had democracy
and Iraq too had peace. The war on those countries for their natural resources
like oil opium and other natural resources had a very debilitating consequence
on its citizens.
The
internal purges required to establish a state are not only required for
appetites but the appetites of the coming generations too. Internal purges are
only possible if there is faith in humanity and humanism. Not just Allah, Ram
or any other god. Reading the Quran or Sunnah is important. But the same has
been written 1300 years back. Its moral guidelines for living are important but
equally is its non-applicability in modern times. Prophet Mohammad himself used
the term ‘ijtihad’ to explain circumstances where the Quran or Sunnah is not
applicable and called on sound reason to resolve such circumstances.
But Muslims
who aren’t educated as well as those who are partly educated rely on just the
Quran or Sunnah. The more things cannot be able to brought under the light of
reason, the easier to be able to judge, so says the modern caliphate.
Fernand
Braudel has also given solutions to the problems faced by the Islamic world. He
says,
“In the
struggle for development, every economy has certain advantages or trump cards.
Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria have oil; Egypt has the fertile Nile
Valley, the Suez Canal, and high Morocco has industrial development, very often
intelligently devised; Indonesia has rubber, oil and tin mines; Pakistan has
vast resources of wheat and jute.
These
assets are invaluable: but the task remains difficult and risky. The problems
to be solved are intricate. At once economic and social, they are so closely
interrelated that it seems impossible to tackle them one by one. Taken
together, they demand a formidable plan of campaign. This involves, in fact:
• Above all, better farming. This means doing
violence to archaic property laws, attacking the multiple problems of
irrigation, and stopping the erosion and devastation of arable land. In a word,
agrarian policy and technology.
• Establishing industrial firms (State-owned or
private, in heavy industry or light), and if possible integrating them into the
country's economy as a whole. They need to be based on the economy's global
structure and contribute to its general growth.
• Solving the problem of investments — a
burning question because it involves foreign aid (which may be private
international capital, brought in via Swiss banks, or Governmental assistance
from the Soviet Union, the United States, France, or the European Community).
• Creating a market. Here, there are two
problems. First, a market presupposes a certain standard of living (which is
what all these measures are intended to attain); and secondly, any effective
market needs to be far bigger than on a merely national scale. Hence various plans,
launched with more enthusiasm than success, for a Pan-Arab market, a Maghreb
market or an African market. The dreams are sensible: what is hard is to make
them come true.
• Educating and training the workforce, all the
more necessary in that automation, otherwise feasible in industries starting
from scratch, would not solve the urgent, crucial problem of unemployment and
surplus labour.
• Training managers and others: engineers,
teachers and administrators. Teaching and technical training are on the agenda,
and they are long-term tasks. Only great eagerness to learn, on the part of the
people, will make it possible to overcome immense difficulties here”.
The woman's
question too is as important as the above-mentioned points. I am not going to
generalise the question of women here. Those countries who lag in the
above-mentioned points surely won't be able to treat their citizens equally.
here are
few opportunities for employment and education for everyone in the war-torn
countries of Afghanistan and Iraq, which are better referred to as the backward
regions. This is especially true for women. The CIA-led Western coup took over
Afghanistan. While still suffering from civil conflict, Syria is one example of
a country where women can live in a democracy. Nonetheless, women in Iran are
not only compelled to wear the burqa but also have limited access to work and
educational possibilities. Those who can do so come from very wealthy families
and go to countries in the West and Europe.
In Iran,
women who speak out against the veil system face imprisonment, flogging, and
even death by beating. Mahsa Amini's situation is the most recent; numerous
other Iranian women are incarcerated for speaking out against the veil system.
After falling under Western control, Libya also allowed the slave trade to
flourish once more. The only exceptions are still Uzbekistan and the Islamic
countries under Soviet influence. In certain areas, the West attempted to sow
discord and establish an Islamic state. And it wrecked devastation where it
succeeded. similar to Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan.
The less
developed Arab countries share essentially similar political and socioeconomic
frameworks. Similarly, there are certain areas where the Arab world may work
together. The first would be a kind of
democratic revolution, with the rights to free education, universal suffrage,
and the right to express disagreement. A quest for the future goes hand in hand
with revolutions, which do not adhere to fads or trends. I am not referring to colour revolutions
spearheaded by the West, but rather revolutions that alter the population's
spatiotemporal longevity.
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Aman Singh
a lawyer, is pursuing masters in history from Indira Gandhi National Open
University.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/islamic-world-modern-challenges/d/131458
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