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Islam So Dominates Islamic Culture That It Had To Play A Role In Its Decline
The cause of the Islamic world’s decline is, like most issues related to Islam, controversial, but worthy of consideration given Islam’s increasing impact on Western culture. Bernard Lewis, a highly respected Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University who has written extensively about the history of Islam, wrote a well-received January 2002 Atlantic Monthly article and subsequent book entitled “What Went Wrong” wherein he set forth many sound reasons that help to explain why the Islamic world declined from its once dominant cultural, economic, and military status to its current state of abject inferiority.
However, Prof. Lewis’ analysis implausibly exonerated Islam as a factor in the Islamic world’s decline. He opined that “to blame Islam as such is usually hazardous and not often attempted.” He further argued that it was not plausible to blame Islam because during most of the Middle Ages it was the world of Islam that contained the major centers of civilization and progress.
While Prof. Lewis’ is correct that Islam once contained the major centers of civilization and progress during the Middle Ages, there is nonetheless a plethora of evidence that overwhelmingly establishes that Islam was a substantial factor in the decline of Islamic civilization.
We refer to the Islamic world using its majority religion to identify the culture for a compelling reason: Islam is more than just a religion. In its original form, Islam is a complete social, political, and religious way of life that absolutely dominates the lives and thoughts of fundamentalist Muslims. As a matter of simple logic and common sense, one is left to wonder how it could possibly be that the religion that so overwhelmingly drives and dominates Islamic culture could somehow have managed to not play a role in its decline? Quite the opposite is true: It would be hard to overestimate Islam’s role in the decline of Islamic civilization.
Islamic Diversity Often Masks Recognition of Islam’s Full Impact On Islamic Civilization
When I discuss Islam, except where otherwise noted, I am referring to the Islam Muhammad preached and practiced which I often refer to as “fundamentalist Islam” or “Muhammadanism.” On the other end of the spectrum of Islamic faith, I refer to Muslims that are largely influenced by non-Islamic factors, but who maintain some connection with Islam because they were born into an Islamic culture, as “cultural Muslims.” The Islamic world also contains Muslims that fall within many points between the two poles of cultural Islam and fundamentalist Islam and many Muslims that fall outside of the two poles (i.e., Twelver Shiite Islam) such that any analysis of Islam’s impact on the Islamic world can be quite challenging. But we should not be overly distracted by the diversity of Islamic belief nor should that diversity be allowed to preclude recognition of the impact of fundamentalist Islam on Islamic culture.
Real Islam is the religion founded in the seventh century by Muhammad Ibn Abdullah and which is based on the Quran, hadiths, and Sira (biography of Muhammad). A fundamentalist Muslim attempts to practice Islam just as the first three generations of Muslims did as set forth in the Quran, hadiths, and Sira.
Notice that line about REAL ISLAM. That is what we are now facing down, in the middle east, The UK, France, and even here in the US (Dearborn, MI, for example).
When wars were fought hand to hand with swords and other such weapons, Islam had an advantage in that many Islamic warriors were absolutely fearless and not only unafraid to die, but sometimes eager to obtain their virgins in Paradise. As technology advanced, while it still takes courage to fight in any war, it is a little easier to fire a weapon from some distance as opposed to slashing and hacking in close combat amidst severed limbs, rivers of blood and the smell of sweat, blood, and human waste. In the modern age, the advantage is to the better educated and better familiarized with advanced technology and religious zeal with its associated fearlessness is no longer a significant advantage.
Not having left an example other than military conquest as a means to sustain Muslim society, Muhammad sowed the seeds of its eventual decline. While some might argue that Muhammad was once a caravan merchant himself thereby setting an example of entrepreneurship, that profession preceded the early Muslim community’s Hijra or migration to Medina. The Islamic world gives overwhelming emphasis to Muhammad’s example after the Hijra to such an extent that even the Islamic calendar is not based on Muhammad’s birth, the date of his first alleged revelation, or the date of his first convert. Instead, the Islamic calendar starts with the Hijra which speaks volumes. It emphasizes that what is important is not when Islam was in its infancy without military or economic power, but that what is important is political and military power. Such a view is well warranted by the statements attributed to Muhammad. Mohammed once was asked: what was the best deed for the Muslim next to believing in Allah and His Apostle? His answer was: “To participate in Jihad in Allah’s cause.” (Fn 10)
Read this great article in its entirety over at FaithFreedom.
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