Mankind's Debt To The Prophet
Mankind's Debt To The Prophet
Mankind's Debt To The Prophet
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 texta 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.1
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.
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 (peace be upon
him) 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:
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.
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 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 prophethood of Muhammad (peace the
upon him):
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
(peace the upon him) 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.
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 benefitted 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 offense 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.
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 (on whom be the peace and
blessings of God) favours which are unique and unparallaled: