Four Steps to Modernity

Four Steps to Modernity

1992 5 May 6-7 Four Steps to Modernity (674) In Islam, man has found true, unadulterated religion, in the sense that it has swept away all the artificial barriers between God and man for ever. Islam’s sacred scriptures, the Qur’an and the Sunnah rise up like mighty towers to shed their light of guidance upon mankind for all eternity.

The Qur’an at various points stresses the fact that the religion sent by God to mankind in the shape of Islam is not only a source of guidance in the religious sense but is also a blessing in many other ways (6:157). One very important way in which it was 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 as Islam having “changed the face of the globe. The traditional order of history was overthrown.” (History of Western Europe, p. 46.)

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.

1. The period of the Prophet, 610-632.

2. The period of the Pious Caliphs, 632-661.

3. The period of Umayyads and Abbasids, 661-1492 (including Spain)

4. The modern revolution brought about in Europe which started in the 15th century after the crusades under the influence of Muslim civilization.

Till the beginning of the present century, it had been generally understood in the civilized world that the secret of progress was simply to lead man from the traditional to the modern. But, having reached his destination, man has again fallen prey to frustration. His feeling now is that to achieve real progress, man needs to have a more profound philosophical base from which to launch himself. Various articles on this issue have recently been published under such headings as ‘Shallow are the Roots’, etc.

Now, writers in the western world are taking up this issue. One of the more prominent is William E. Connolly who authored Political Theory and Modernity. (published by Blackwell, London)

Professor Connolly writes:

“The whole project of modernity, despite its stunning success, is highly problematic. This is because all attempts to fill the place which God was forced to vacate at the start of the project – with reason, with the general will, the dialectic of history – have been of no avail, and each has ended up in one kind of nihilism or another.”

Before the advent of Islam, the world was in the grip of polytheism. Men’s minds were ruled by polytheistic thoughts. The creature had taken the place of the Creator. Man worshipped innumerable gods. As a result, his whole way of thinking had gone awry, and the door to all progress remained locked.

Then Islam came to the world. Its main objective was to put an end to polytheism and to give monotheism the place of predominance. After great sacrifice on the part of the Prophet and his companions, polytheism was, indeed displaced for ever, giving monotheism the ascendancy. The effect of this revolution was so far-reaching, that monotheism remained in full force for almost a thousand years. Then came the emergence of modern industrial civilization. This civilization initially came into being in western Europe under the influence of the Islamic revolution. Its influence later spread all over the world. The negative aspect of this civilization is its emphasis on materialism to the exclusion of all else. Its positive aspect is its continuation of the effect of the Islamic revolution in emancipating human thought.