The 6th century Arabian desert land was one of that middle of nowhere points on earth with its sun hammered lands of drifting sands and rubble waste. Its redundant landscape of never ending dunes stretched miles after miles and remained untouched by humans for eternity. With dry storms raging day after day sending sand scurrying the earth for a thousand miles, this landscape had more in common with the surface of Venus than to the planet it truly belonged.
Life was largely out of sight, barring a few rare sights of Bedouin nomads who moved about nervously in search of water, people and life. These were a herd of godforsaken people who perhaps went astray on their way out of Africa and lost themselves forever in this sea of never ending sands and scorching sun. While civilizations rose and fell elsewhere in the world, these men lived lives that specialized merely in the essential animal art of survival in conditions barely tolerable to others and enjoyed the safety of the undesired.
Over generations there were only more and more of these helpless souls moving about the sands now as hostile nomadic tribes and fighting each other ferociously over the non existent resources they had been cursed with. A privileged few became merchants and braved the desert to reach far off lands to trade their humble consignments of dates and palm for real world goods that they never knew existed.
The aggregation of these nomads along the banks of the red sea lead to the rise of small yet bustling caravan towns, the people of which were some of the most occult in their traditions. In one of these towns called Mecca where Abraham built the first mosque for the worship of his "One God" several centuries before, now lived people who worshipped a different idol on every new day of the year and performed nude ritual fornications that included the sacrifice of human beings to please their 360 gods! Female infanticide was rampant and woman were traded as commodities. A few rich merchants controlled the town and entangled the poor into a vicious slump of usury.
Born in this time of moral despondency and despair was the orphan child – Mohammed. Although born into comparative poverty he was raised by his paternal uncle into a just and charismatic young man. His wisdom and reputation as an honest trader had become legendry across Arabia. Though he eventually became a wealthy merchant he spent most of his time in solitude into the mountains of Hira trying to transcend human pettiness, searching for the meaning of life and what it really meant to be human.
He was forty years old and it was the fifth consecutive year of his retreat to Hira when one night angel Gabriel embraced him and commanded "read in the name of the Lord who created man from a clot!" as he was chosen to be the messenger of God to all of mankind. As a petrified and profusely sweating Mohammed trembled to ask what he should be reading, he in avertedly spurted out by himself the words "In the name of God that there is no god but the only God" – the opening lines of the Quran! This profound experience changed him forever. The merchant returned to Mecca a changed man and began to preach the fundamental tenets of human life.
Over the next 23 years as the Quran was revealed to him verse by verse he fiercely fought the detrimental forces of society and eradicated the gross injustices of the time. He painstakingly strived to not just preach but rather put into day to day practice the extraordinary ideas that were envisioned in those poetic verses. In the process he evolved a composite lifestyle for every practicing individual and an ideal social structure for a society of such individuals that transformed the message of Islam from being a spiritual state of mind into a practical way of life. He liberated and empowered woman by instituting rights of property, ownership, inheritance, education, marriage and divorce upon them. He prescribed modesty and discipline for both men and woman as the sole means to a moral and just society.
By the time of his death, he had effectively united the 200 hostile tribes of Arabia into one political unit unified by their fervent belief in their one God. By doing so, for the first time in history Prophet Mohammed united the tattered tribal strength into one formidable force and liberated them into a movement that became legendry for its might. This eventually led to a united desert tribe swarming out of the peninsula in single strength and embarking upon the most astonishing series of conquests in human history that held a cultural and political sway over most of the world for over a millennia.
By the 8th century the Islamic empire stretched from Spain in the west to the borders of India and China in the East. With the ascent of the Abbasid Caliphate with its capital in Baghdad the period know as the Islamic golden Age (from 8th to 15th century) in world history was formally inaugurated. Inspired by quotes such as "The ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr" of the prophet, the Caliphate championed the cause of knowledge. By establishing 'The House of knowledge' in Baghdad the caliphate effectively became the intellectual centre of the world at that time, where scholars from across the world were brought together to consolidate the knowledge gained from the great civilizations of Roman, Mesopotamia, Indian, Chinese, Persian, Egyptian, Greek and Byzantine. 'The great translation movement' soon followed, during which all the world's literature were translated into Arabic first and then into Latin, Hebrew and Persian. The Chinese innovation of paper which remained a closely guarded secret was brought into mainstream and improvised to suit large scale use. The world's first public libraries, degree granting universities, hospitals and Research institutes were established. Significant advancements in Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, Astrology, Cartography and Medicine were made. Poetry, Arts and Architecture flourished. Trade routes to Africa, India and the Far East were established and a few unsuccessful trans-atlantic missions were also pursued.
The flourishing trade links and the resultant merchant economy laid the path for the first ideas of proto capitalism and free market economy during the medieval Islamic period often called 'Pax-Islamica'. The foundation stones of capitalism were laid by a vigorous monetary economy on the basis of the expanding levels of circulation of a stable high value currency - the dinar. This was further strengthened through innovations such as contracts, bills of exchange, partnerships, cheques, savings accounts, loaning, exchange rates, bankers and money changers. These concepts were then adopted and further advanced in medieval Europe from the 13th century onwards.
By the early years of the 12th century, Europe had already begun redeeming itself out of the dark ages (which it had slipped into with the decline of the Roman Empire in the 5th century) and unified forces under the banner of "The Crusaders". The holy army that was formulated to curtail the growing influence of the Arabs in order to protect its own culture and faith. Though these rising conflicts from the west had significantly dented the supremacy of the Caliphate, the final death knell was sounded by the ravaging Mongols. A devastating military force that originated in central China and took the world by storm in the 13th century, building one of the largest empires the world had ever seen. As a combined effect of these two forces the Islamic caliphate had declined out of its Golden Age and was confined back to the largely dry and harsh east & central Asia and North Africa by the 16th century by when the Great Mughals in India were also on a decline.
And just as it always happens with history - When civilizations clash, the loser is obliterated and the winners write the history books – books that glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. And it is this fabled partial history that becomes a part of our legacy while the rest of it buries itself in the sands of time.
This in essence is the story of Islam – which was in effect a spiritual idea that brought about a radical social change in 7th century Arabia and eventually manifested itself into a political movement that held a cultural sway over most of the world for almost 8 centuries that followed. But to understand Islam in its present context, it is perhaps more important to know the rest of its story.
In the years that followed the decline of Islamic powerhouses in Europe and Asia, the tattered Muslim community spread itself thin across Central Asia and North Africa where they formed small territorial kingdoms and controlled the mostly arid lands of the region living in constant threat of invasion by the colonizing powers emerging out of the European renaissance. With no means for agriculture to develop and the trade routes via the Persian gulf being increasingly influenced by the Europeans these tiny kingdoms of central Asia and N Africa over the next few centuries turned into some of the most under developed countries in the world with the poorest of human development indexes. This remained so until the end of the second world war as the reigning super powers of the era were pre-occupied with power struggles in greener pastures in India, South East Africa, Australasia and the Americas.
Post World War II as the new world order was being scripted and the international boundaries were being re-drawn, most of the colonized world gained independence and the world aligned itself behind the two contemporary but complementary ideas of the time. And thus was laid the foundation for the Third and the most deadly installment of the World Wars – The Cold War.
I call this the deadliest of the three wars simply because unlike the two previous editions that were fought over political supremacy this one was fought over intellectual supremacy. And was therefore essentially driven by mind wars of sinister propaganda and conspiracies, resulting in staggering long term rifts within humanity the consequences of which have now proved to be more lethal than the "small boy" and the "fat man" dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki!
It was during these times, the so far non-consequent kingdoms of central Asia and Africa along with a few other pastures in South East Asia, Africa and South America gained significance as the venues of these proxy wars. They turned into practical laboratories where these warring ideologies could be tested on the ground. In most of the cases, the states were beginning to endorse communism and this was being resisted by injecting capitalism into local rebels and insurgent groups that destabilized and eventually destroyed the state. It is perhaps ironic that some of the bloodiest of world battles were fought on the pretext of promoting peace and equality through intellectual ideologies such as 'Democracy' and 'Communism' on immature societies. And this was because the powers that evolved and promoted these ideologies failed to acknowledge its essential character of self evolution and practical relevance. It is through centuries of arguments and experiments that these ideas evolve as an extended outcome of mass empowerment movements such as an agricultural or industrial revolution and not as an overnight change. Therefore any attempt to enforce these ideas on societies that lacked these fundamental tenets and the intellectual wisdom to comprehend the nuances of such a system could only fail.
It was also at this time that international terrorism as a phenomenon emerged on the world stage. Several parts of Europe and the western world witnessed a surge in terrorism and violence as a result of the unrest within the Jewish immigrant community that remained scattered across the region in the aftermath of the holocaust, on its eternal search for a homeland. This phenomenon was only on an escalation until the UN (United States) intervened and established that craved homeland. But this was done at a cost, not at a cost to the forces that were originally responsible for the ravaged status of that community but rather to a set of people who had little idea of the excruciating pain that was inflicted upon that community. This juxtaposed two distrustful societies vehemently charged with their own versions of the idea of justice at the geographic centre of the world where the three major faiths on Earth are said to converge and quite ironically created a permanent rift between them.
These two contemporary events only prove one fact, that terrorism is in a sense the war of the weak and the obliterated and a War is in effect terrorism by the rich and the powerful. And no matter on what pretext these are propagated, they are both essentially two sides of the same coin of human pettiness. Therefore it could only be naïve to believe that it is the pretext that in essence drives the violence.
During the inglorious years of the cold war, the communist Soviet Union managed to make some inroads into the underdeveloped heart lands of the world such as Afghanistan and the numerous other -stans in the region and established its political influence. To counter which men from a dozen hapless states in central Asia (Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo along with similar regions in North Africa) were aggregated under the banner of Mujahedeen (or freedom fighters) and deployed into Afghanistan and the region as 'islamic' freedom fighters to curb the growing influence of the Soviet Union as a counter strategy by capitalist America. And by the late 80s these insurgent mujahedeen groups were sufficiently strengthened to drive communism out of the region.
In the years following the Russian defeat in Afghanistan some of the now notorious veterans from the Soviet war in Afghanistan had been left with an army without a cause from which evolved the dangerous derivatives of Al Qaeda and the Taliban that eventually cut loose and wrecked havoc in the world in the name of championing the cause of Palestine independence and other imperialistic influences – the one cause that could undoubtedly send emotions souring across the Muslim world and give these groups long term political relevance and empathy. But the issue of Palestine was essentially a political one with no religious significance whatsoever. It was only a matter of co-incidental detail that a majority of the people displaced in Palestine were Muslims. But it was this very matter of detail that was brewed up into the actual-point-of-contention by the champions of this propaganda to give them a larger support base and created this whole Jihad for Islam frenzy, which was unheard of until the late 20th Century.
Ever since, these groups have only grown more lethal and sinister in their objectives and capabilities. They have successfully turned a regional political conflict into a clash of civilizations and potentially endangered the lives of the billion people in the region and the world at large. And the United States on its futile attempts to curtail the Frankenstein's monster it had once created has already destabilized several nations in the region and thereby only alienated its people creating more hot beds for the monster to thrive on. This has been a dangerous on going phenomenon that only proves one point, Any society that legitimizes violence from within will always be prone to violence from the outside!!
This downward spiral cannot be stalled or even controlled unless the so called guardians of world peace and harmony come to terms with the fact that the concept of a structured society does not exist where it is most needed. These men did not wake up on one fine morning of the 1990s and realized they were Muslims and therefore felt compelled to be suicide bombers as it is being made out to be! Extremism is an endemic phenomenon that thrives on misplaced nationalism and resentment to foreign interference. Terrorism is the extreme form of frustration that is spewed out of utter hopelessness created by generations of living in war ravaged nations and refugee camps, And it is a purely socio-political phenomenon that has no Islamic fundamentals whatsoever. Islam is only being abused by these groups to give their 'cause' a larger support base. And these ill planned global wars on terrorism are only playing into these galleries and creating greater scope for these groups to flourish. Any serious attempt to install global peace should only begin with solving long standing injustices such as the inhuman blockade of the Gaza strip and disproportionate acts of violence in third world countries by global military powers.
Yet another disturbing trend in recent years has been the escalating incidents of 'Islamophobia' in and around the western world, that have brought the fear psychosis from the idiot box to the dinner tables of western households. The ground zero mosque being the most recent of them all. The quintessential guardians of Liberty in France could only think of a much publicized "Ban of the veil" to liberate the 'oppressed' muslim woman from a practice that was more Arabic than Islamic in origin. The print media in Denmark could only resort to a rather insensitive gesture of depicting the prophet as a dog to assert their freedom of expression. And if this was not enough, the parliament of the ever-so-tranquil state of Switzerland passed a resolution to bring down all the minarets that had mushroomed in the country – an act which was in no way different from what the Taliban decided to do with the statues of the Buddha's of Bamyan in Afghanistan which outraged the world! These events are especially concerning as they are for the first time beginning to alienate main stream Muslims who live in civil societies far away from the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan and worse still fuel a fear psychosis in the minds of an average Westerner against the concept of Islam.
All this has only transformed Muslims into a clan that is perceived to be on a collision course with the world, through countless protest marches and demonstrations expressing their displeasure about the numerous acts of insensitivity against them and tirelessly demanding a ban on each of them. Little realizing that a ban of a vicious idea does little to actually cease its existence, at best it merely is a restriction on its expression which is of little value as long as one is aware the idea exists.
Somewhere in between this ever escalating acts of violence and counter violence in the name of Islam and against it, on one side and Islamobhobic propaganda symbolizing it to be the single largest threat to civil society on the other, is lost the true spirit of the idea of Islam and its universal message of equality of all mankind in front of that single force that creates, drives and destroys it.
Like all major faiths in the world, Islam too originated as a result of man's attempts to find answers to those two fundamental questions that has kept us pondering for centuries, the question of origin of life and the question of its culmination which in turn is linked to accountability during the intermediate phase. While providing a robust explanation for each of these questions, Islam also provided an ideal social framework for individual characters and societies to be built upon.
Islam like any philosophy and therefore every other religion has its share of spirituality and ritualism, and as one gets more sophisticated intellectually the proportion of spirituality dominates the ritualistic trait and vice versa. So it is ultimately the actions of the professing individual that seems to determine the greatness of the philosophy rather than the philosophy itself. And in this context has lead to the acts of Muslims defining what Islam is rather than Islam determining who a Muslim should be. And the true Islamic Muslim is simply lost in the maze.
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