Conflict of Ideas

Much of this progress was made possible because Muslims had come into contact with other people, who held other views. The exchange of views between the two helped produce this great intellectual advancement among Muslims. Later, the disciplines that Muslims had played such an important role in developing reached lands such as Italy, Spain, and France. As a result of this, new sciences emerged in Europe that finally culminated in the modern industrial revolution. The emergence of modern science and the industrial revolution in the West, are a direct result of the European contact with the Muslim awakening in the early Muslim period. As long as they remained closed within the confines of their land, the Arabs could not produce any great intellectual feats. But when they came out of their land and came face to face with other peoples at the intellectual level, those very same Arabs made such progress that soon, they became leaders in various fields of thought and science. This miraculous event came about as a result of free intellectual exchange. Intellectual critique or expression of intellectual disagreement is, actually, another name for intellectual exchange or exchange of views. In any society, the greater the intellectual freedom the more the intellectual exchange that will take place. And, during this intellectual exchange, critique and expression of intellectual disagreement and difference of opinion will also emerge. This must be accepted as inevitable, for it is a course established by nature—both for individuals as well as for communities as a whole.