ISLAM CHANGED PEOPLE


If the purpose of education and civilization is to engender a sense of pride, dignity, and honor in individuals so that they improve their state and consequently that of society, Islamic education and civilization have done this. History records many instances when Islam realized this goal in far-flung lands. For example, Isaac Taylor delivered a speech at the Church Congress of England about Islam's effects and influence on people, at which he said:

When Muhammadanism is embraced, paganism, fetishism, infanticide and witchcraft disappear. Filth is replaced by cleanliness and the new convert acquires personal dignity and self-respect. Immodest dances and promiscuous intercourse of the sexes cease; female chastity is rewarded as a virtue; industry replaces idleness; license gives place to law; order and sobriety prevail; blood feuds, cruelty to animals and slaves are eradicated... Islam swept away corruption and superstitions. Islam was a revolt against empty polemics... It gave hope to the slave, brotherhood to mankind, and recognition to the fundamental facts of human nature. The virtues which Islam inculcates are temperance, cleanliness, chastity, justice, fortitude, courage, benevolence, hospitality, veracity and resignation... Islam preaches a practical brotherhood, the social equality of all Muslims. Slavery is not part of the creed of Islam. Polygamy is a more difficult question. Moses did not prohibit it. It was practiced by David and it is not directly forbidden in the New Testament. Muhammad limited the unbounded license of polygamy. It is the exception rather than the rule... In resignation to God's Will, temperance, chastity, veracity and in brotherhood of believers they (the Muslims) set us a pattern which we should do well to follow. Islam has abolished drunkenness, gambling and prostitution, the three curses of the Christian lands. Islam has done more for civilization than Christianity. The conquest of one-third of the earth to his (Muhammad's) creed was a miracle.

Although Islam ruled two-thirds of the old civilized world for at least 11 centuries, the Muslims' laziness and negligence of what was going on around them caused their civilization to decline. However, Islam itself did not—and cannot—decline. Military victories and a superiority complex induced Muslims to rest on their laurels and neglect further scientific research. They abandoned themselves to living their own lives and reciting the Qur'an without studying its deeper meanings. Meanwhile Europe was making great advances in science, which it had borrowed from Islamic civilization.[1]

Western civilization cannot last long, for it is materialistic and does not satisfy humanity's perennial needs. Western sociologists, among them Oswald Spengler, predict its collapse, saying that it is against basic human nature and values. Islam has been available to humanity for 1,400 years, and the luminous world of the future can be founded upon the firm foundation of its ethics and spirituality, as well as its socioeconomic and administrative structures.


[1] As mentioned earlier, all sciences in reality are the languages of the Divine Book of Creation, another aspect of the religion. Given this, whoever does not study this book will lose in the worldly life. Muslims ignored this truth, and so fell under European domination. Western civilization's oppression, exclusionism, and imperialism also have contributed greatly to this result.

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