THE
ELEMENTS
OF ISLAM
(Excerpts Only)
By:
Shaykh
Fadhlalla Haeri
Chapter
5 (Continued)
The
History of The Muslims
International
Islam and Independent Sultans (945-1258)
By the tenth century the Abbasid caliphate was already
disintegrating, and the world of Islam was no longer contained as a single political unit. Muslims at this time could be divided into three general geographical areas. One area was the land
of Iran, southern Mesopotamia and the lands beyond the Oxus (Transoxiana).
These were ruled by the central power in Baghdad. Another area included Egypt,
Syria and western Arabia, with the center of power located in the Fatimid City
of Cairo. The third area included North Africa, the Maghreb and
Andalus.
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The
Crusades
The Crusades of the Middle East were medieval Christian military expeditions undertaken between 1095 and 1291 to
'recover' the Holy Lands from the Muslims. There were eight major Crusades and some minor, peripheral military excursions.
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Mongols,
Mughals and Other Dynasties (1258-1503)
The first great Mongol raids were launched around
1220-1231 in Azerbaijan and north-east Iran, causing enormous destruction to cities. Ghengis Khan (d.1127) and his heirs continued their conquests and expansion until by 1256 the Mongols had devastated and brought under their rule most Iranian and Arab lands, except the Ayyubids in Egypt and the Seljuqs
in Anatolia.
Ironically, the same Mongols who ruled over Iran from 1256 and destroyed much of Baghdad in 1258 were converted to Islam in 1295 and brought renewed vitality to the Muslims. Soon after their conversion they patronized science, history and art forms inspired by other segments of Eurasian society including, among others, pagan, Buddhist and Christian.
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National
Empires and the Shift in Power
From the time of the Mongol conquest of Baghdad until the early sixteenth century, we can discern a pattern of regular rises and falls of small and large kingdoms, or varying ethnicities and depth of commitment to original Islam. By the sixteenth century the socio-political map displayed three distinct areas:
The
Ottoman Empire Until 1789
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The
Timurid Empire (until 1763)
The Indian Timurid Empire commenced with Babar. He
was driven from his Timurid state to Farghanah and after re-establishing his power in Kabul took north India. He was succeeded by Humayun Sher Shah and Akbar (1556-1605). As the third Mughal Emperor, Akbar fostered Hindu-Muslim cultural and religious rapprochement, which caused the arts and crafts to flourish. Court scholars and historians elevated Akbar to the status of 'Perfect Man'.
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The
Safavid Empire and Its Successors (1509-1779)
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The
Shift in Power
Between 1500 and 1800 (and in particular after 1600) the power of the Christian Churches dwindled and the secular
'rational' European powers came to dominate the world from the French Revolution onwards. The interaction with the Muslim world during the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries (mostly via Spain) formed the background to the Renaissance of Europe and the subsequent discovery and conquest of the New World. The dynamic momentum of European awakening, laced with Christian dogma and intensive national competition and greed, spilled over into the plunder of new territories. The discovery of America, circumnavigation of the world, and the wealth that was brought back to Europe fuelled early commercial and later industrial development which led to the industrial dominance of Europe in the eighteenth century.
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The
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: European Techno-Economical
Control
To understand the overwhelming power and influence the
West acquired within Muslim lands, we need to look at four Muslim political entities: the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and India.
The
Ottoman Empire
Mahmud II (1808-1839) exercised greater centralized control when he modernized
the military and administration and destroyed the Janissaries. The European powers then stepped in to save the Ottomans from Mehmed
`Ali of Egypt who was about to overrun them. This protection earned them all the mercantile concessions giving them virtual control over the
Ottoman Empire.
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Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) emerged from the War of Independence
(1919-1922) as a national hero, only to abolish the caliphate and Shari`ah
Courts. A year later he also abolished the Sufi tariqahs and the
fez. This led in 1928 to the disestablishment of Islam, the introduction of the Latin alphabet, and European rimmed hats to replace the
fez (one cannot perform the prayers with such headgear as the width of the rim prevents prostration and no self-respecting Muslim would pray without a headcover). By 1947 Turkey had become a hostage state indebted to the Western banking and political systems.
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Egypt
The cultural and material impact caused by Napoleon's occupation of Egypt on the
élite of Egyptian society drew them towards the French way of life and culture. By 1805 Mehmed
`Ali started his ambitious program of modernization and westernization.
In 1816 he confiscated trust (waqf) properties, and sent numerous educational missions to Europe. His powerful ambitions were being realized so rapidly that when he almost overtook the Ottomans in Turkey, the European powers forced him to withdraw and eventually dismantled
his industrial complexes, for they threatened to undermine the predominance of his Western Masters' industries.
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Iran
European influence and rivalry between the British and Russians date from the time of Fath
`Ali Shah (1767-1834). Caucasia was ceded to Russia, and other central Asian territories were taken over. Nasiruddin Shah (1848-1896), infatuated with Europe and Britain, had by 1857 granted them significant concessions. In 1872 commercial and monetaristic capitulation was completed when Baron de Reuters was granted monopolistic concessions on banking and mining. The Shah's assassination in 1896 was followed by great unrest and frustration. In 1901 oil was discovered and the country occupied by Britain and Russia, who appointed Reza Khan as head of a Turkish-style secular republic (or Shahdom) in 1925.
Reza Shah brutally transplanted a westernizing style of government (imitating Ataturk). His despotic laws on dress and religion did not save him from being deposed in 1941 by the British and Russians, for by then he had begun to believe in the myth of his independence.
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India
Britain had established its hegemony over India by 1818 through conquest or treaty, and occupied the remaining Indus Basin by 1849. The war against the British between 1857 and 1858 resulted in considerable anti-Muslim discrimination, producing such modernists as Sir Seyyed Ahmad Khan who loyally advocated adapting British culture to
Shari'ah law.
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Summary
By the middle of the twentieth century, Western-inspired modernizing movements were rampant all over Muslim lands. The pattern subscribed to was to emulate Western socioeconomic democracies, mainly along the lines of republics and multi-party systems. By the time Israel was created in 1948 the Muslim peoples had been broken up into dozens of states, protectorates and emirates. Occasional feeble attempts to enforce
Shari`ah laws erupted here and there, but no revival of Islamic values has changed the basic status quo.
By the middle of this century
[i.e., 20th] all Muslim territories had been brought firmly into the grip of the invisible mercantile controls of the Western (and
latterly Japanese) multi-national, multi-faceted financial services with their headquarters in Wall Street, London, Tokyo and Frankfurt. The ultimate
objective of most of the fragmented national governments has been to maximize short-term economic (and often military) gains in order to anaesthetize their people and thus maintain control. By 1990 over forty so-called Muslim states found it impossible to meet and agree on any vital
political or economic issue affecting their so-called sovereign states, or the world at large.
Muslims
Within the Soviet Empire
In 639 Arab Muslims entered Azerbaijan and within three years occupied Daghestan. In 673 the Muslims crossed the Amu Darya river and laid siege to Bukhara. By the early eighth century Islam had become the dominant religion in all this territory. Between the ninth and thirteenth centuries Islam spread peacefully along the north
– south trade routes along the Volga (the far route), as well as east
– west from the Black Sea to China (the silk road). By the tenth century the Middle Volga (present-day Tartar territory) was predominantly
Muslim, as were the Urals by the twelfth. Until the end of the sixteenth century central Asia was one of the most prestigious cultural and spiritual areas of the entire Muslim world.
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Muslims
Elsewhere
Since the dawn of Islam
numerous Muslim communities and nations have sprung up in Africa,
Asia, Europe and elsewhere.
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