The Role of Ulama in the Modern Age

Temporal Changes could only be—and it turned out to be precisely so— terrible self-destruction, with their goal remaining as distant as before. TEMPORAL CHANGES The true secret behind the dominance of the Western powers was that they had transformed the human mindset. To successfully meet the challenge of the Western nations, it was now necessary to counter them in the realm of ideas. A fundamental mistake of the Ulama of modern times is that they have taken the dominance of Western nations to be simply a political phenomenon. However, this dominance is a reflection of a powerful civilisation. It indicates that the political aspect is secondary. Even if the dominant Western nations were politically defeated, their dominance would remain intact. It was very-well illustrated in the aftermath of the Second World War. The dominance of the Tartars in the 13th century over large parts of the then Muslim world was simply by the rule of the sword—that is to say, it was mere political dominance. Suppose the Tartars had been