2. HOLDING SACRED THAT WHICH IS NOT SACRED

2. Holding Sacred that which is not Sacred ~ 101 ~ work gained great momentum during the Arab rule in Spain and Sicily. Finally, it reached Europe, where it gave the first impetus to the industrial revolution. It is generally accepted that modern progress and its ramifications are related to industrial revolution. In fact, it could be said that all progress has come in its wake. Industrial revolution itself is another name for the exploitation of the hidden resources of the earth. For example, man mined coal and then converted it into energy. He harnessed the power of flowing water and converted that into electricity. He extracted minerals from beneath the earth’s surface and transformed them into machines. And this is how the industrial revolution came into existence. Now, why was it, that when all these resources had been available on the earth since time immemorial, man had not been able to utilize them in order to found a developed civilization prior to the advent of Islam? There is only one answer: polytheism had placed an insurmountable barrier in his path.