An Intellectual Barrier

An Intellectual Barrier Judging from this tradition of the Prophet and the subsequent history, it seems that ‘barrier’ here does not refer to any physical obstacle but is instead an intellectual barrier—that of nature worship. The demolition of this belief is symbolised by the physical disintegration of the boundary, after which all the doors of progress and development were opened to Western countries. Consequently, they were able to dominate the rest of the outer world. In reality, all the potential sources of development were hidden in nature, the discovery of which led to the birth of Western civilisation. These resources had existed in nature from the very outset, but human beings had given nature the status of God, leading to nature worship. Viewing nature as an object of worship, man did not at that time dare to conduct any research into it. However, in the first quarter of the 7th century, when Islam spread the revolutionary belief in the One God, nature worship was replaced by God worship; nature was no longer sacred. Now nature became something to conquer rather than to worship. It was the starting point of our modern materialistic civilisation.