FREEDOM OF ENQUIRY

~ 42 ~ religious sense, but is also a blessing in many other ways (6:157). One very important way in which it was a blessing was that it brought human history out of the age of darkness, and caused it to enter into the age of light. This was a revolution in thought which unlocked the doors to innumerable worldly benefits. It is this second, worldly, aspect of the Islamic revolution, which the well-known western historian, Henri Pirenne, describes in terms of Islam having “changed the face of the globe. The traditional order of history was overthrown. 11 The present era, which we think of as modern and advanced—the age of science and industry, of freedom and equality—is a direct consequence of this aspect of the Islamic revolution which is called a blessing in the Qur’an. This period, like most other major historical developments, came about gradually, taking almost a thousand years to reach its culmination. This gradual process may be broadly divided into four stages, the first three of which are directly connected with the Islamic revolution. The fourth stage is indirectly related.