ahmedi
28-03-06, 11:32 AM
Sheikh Salman al-Oadah|
I have for a long time been deeply concerned with investigating the causes of the Muslim world's backwardness which has been a sad fact for many centuries now. The Muslim world has long ceased to play a leading role in human civilization and has proven a failure in many spheres of life.
This is not a new question. Quite possibly, Muslims have been posing this question for many centuries. When Islam was driven out of Spain by the Christians after eight centuries of Muslim rule, its impact reverberated throughout the Muslim world. The Muslims asked themselves why it happened and why they were unable to do anything about it. They wrote what they wrote about it and said what they said, leaving behind them a legacy of poetry and prose.
When the Mongols raided the Muslim lands, similar questions were raised. This was no less true during the Crusades. European imperialism and hegemony over most of the Muslim world brought these questions out more poignantly as almost all Muslims surrendered to their power.
But today, the question is being asked with greater earnest than ever before. This is reflected in the quantity of what is being written on it by Islamic scholars. The most famous book on this subject is Why the Muslims Stay Backwards while Others Advance by Amir Shakīb Arslān. From Ankara to Cairo to Damascus to Jakarta to Riyadh, the question is being asked over and over again: What is the reason behind the backwardness of the Muslims and the advancement of others?
Many people are asking: Who did this to us? Who is the enemy who brought upon us this weakness and this backwardness? Who has brought us to our sorry state?
However, the Qur'ān guides us to a different way of phrasing the question. Instead of asking who did this to us, we need to ask ourselves: How did we get into this situation? We need to emphasize the fact that we are the cause of our own problems, not some outsiders.
This meaning is conveyed in the Qur'ān by dozens of verses, a few of which follow:
"Every soul earns the results of its deeds on none but itself: no bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another." [Sūrah al-An`ām: 164]
"Whatever good happens to you is from Allah; but whatever evil happens to you is from your own self." [Sūrah al-Nisā': 79]
"And if anyone earns sin, he earns it against His own soul" [Sūrah al-Nisā': 111]
"What! When a single disaster smites you, although ye smote your enemies with one twice as great, do ye say?- "Whence is this?" Say (to them): "It is from yourselves: For Allah hath power over all things."" [Sūrah آl `Imrān: 165]
"To Us they did no harm, but they wronged their own souls." [Sūrah al-A`rāf: 160]
"Because Allah will never change the grace which He hath bestowed on a people until they change what is in their own souls." [Sūrah al-Anfāl: 53]
"Allah does not change a people's lot unless they change what is in their hearts." [Sūrah al-Ra`d: 11]
Verses like these provide us with an unequivocal Qur'anic principle that the basis of change comes from within oneself. We learn from these verses that the Muslims must take full credit for what has happened to them. Therefore, they must start with themselves and cultivate a proper Islamic character if they wish to change their present state and bring about reform.
There are two aspects to making a change within oneself. The first is conceptual. It entails correcting one's methodology and one's approach to thinking and analyzing matters. The second is that of intention, personal conviction, and action.
A person can be seen as a combination of knowledge and action. Islamic law, like all the manifestations of the Divine Message, came to reform both of these. It came to correct the ideas and concepts of the people as well as their deeds. It brought harmony between correct knowledge and action. This, then, is the crux of the matter.
Before we go further with this, let us consider some statistics that illustrate the current state of the Muslim world.
Bernard Lewis, often called "the doyen of Middle Eastern studies", is the author of a number of books on Islam and the Muslims. One of his latest works is What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response. In it, he offers some troubling statistics:
- The Muslims make up a quarter of the world's population, but they possess only 6% of the world's wealth.
- Two-thirds of the world's poor who live on less than $2 US a day are Muslims. Moreover, this income is depreciating by 2% annually. This is the greatest depreciation suffered by individuals in the so-called developing world.
- There is not a single Muslim country among the top 30 wealthiest nations.
- Among the 5000 products in the various fields of production with which various countries distinguish themselves, none of them are a point of distinction for any Muslim country.
- Except for oil, caviar, and Persian rugs, the 57 member countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference offer nothing to the international marketplace.
- The debt of the Muslim countries is estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The level of self-sufficiency in these countries is in perpetual decline.
- The median life expectancy for the Muslim individual is twenty years shorter than that for an equivalent person in the West. This is due to the disparity in health services, nutrition, and education. We can also add to this the factors of subjugation and repression.
- 40% of educated, young Muslims fail to obtain adequate employment in their own countries. They either remain in their countries without work or they are forced to immigrate to other countries. Moroccans, Tunisians, and Algerians generally immigrate to France. Egyptians and Syrians generally go to America or other places in Europe.
- While in the West, unemployment has varied between 5 and 12% throughout the past two decades, it has been consistently more than 20% in the Muslim world and continues to grow worse.
Muslim graduates and laborers are in desperate need of employment. They are unable to provide homes for themselves. This means that a good number of young Muslim men are unable to marry and establish families for themselves. Many young women never find husbands. In Iran, as many as 40% of the women under twenty will probably never marry. Saudi newspapers a few months ago released similar alarming statistics for Saudi Arabia.
- Lack of sufficient water is a problem facing the entire Muslim world.
- According to a study conducted by the World Health Organization, there is only one Muslim country - Oman - among the 40 countries that provide their citizens with adequate, up-to-date healthcare.
- Politically, the Muslim world exerts only the weakest influence over world events. The door is slammed shut on Muslim countries that aspire to join the company of the world's decision makers. A handful of Western countries make up that exclusive club.
- Of the thirty worst conflicts that rage in the world. 28 of them concern Muslim people or Muslim countries.
- In the past three decades, more than 2.5 million Muslims have been killed in wars within the Muslim world.
- Two-thirds of the world's political prisoners languish in prisons in the Muslim world.
- 80% of the world's refugees are Muslims.
- Every country in the world that has completely collapsed and fallen into utter incapacity is a Muslim country. A good example of such a country is Somalia.
- The Muslim world is the least productive part of the world when it comes to scientific research and technology.
These statistics demonstrate a level of backwardness in the Muslim world in the domains of healthcare, education, economics, and human rights. These issues might have people willing to deal with them, since they are issues faced globally. In these matters, the Muslim world can be compared and contrasted with other countries and regions. What we have mentioned has been of a purely descriptive nature.
However, there are a number of other issues that need to be brought up in order to complete the picture.
I prepared a questionnaire to which hundreds of our young people responded. Its purpose was only to get an idea of the present situation with respect to the moral and religious conduct of our people. It revealed another aspect of our backwardness. It would be a mistake to try to separate this aspect of our backwardness from the former that we have already discussed. To make such a distinction shows a perspective plagued by double standards.
The questions and answers were as follows:
Question: What percentage of the Muslim community prays their prayers in congregation:
Answer: 20%
Question: What percentage prays their prayers at home?
Answer: 20%
Question: What percentage prays occasionally and abandons prayer occasionally?
Answer: 30%
Question: What percentage of Muslims are circumcised?
Answer: 80%
Question: What percentage gets married Islamically?
Answer: 75%
Question: What percentage buries their dead according to Islamic rites?
Answer: 90%
Question: What percentage pays Zakāh?
Answer: This question cannot be easily answered, since Zakāh is not always given openly. Even in the early Islamic era, the state only collected a portion of the Zakāh. Nevertheless, 70% of the respondents opined that no more that 55% of the Muslims pay their Zakāh.
Question: What percentage of Muslims observes the fast of Ramadan?
Answer: 70% This indicates that many Muslim are willing to engage in purely devotional acts of worship but are more neglectful when the worship has a financial aspect to it. This shows a degree of miserliness, selfishness, and love of the world.
There are other factors that are more difficult to assess in detail, like adherence to moral values on the personal level, as well as in relation to others like spouses and parents, society at large, and when dealing with enemies.
I have for a long time been deeply concerned with investigating the causes of the Muslim world's backwardness which has been a sad fact for many centuries now. The Muslim world has long ceased to play a leading role in human civilization and has proven a failure in many spheres of life.
This is not a new question. Quite possibly, Muslims have been posing this question for many centuries. When Islam was driven out of Spain by the Christians after eight centuries of Muslim rule, its impact reverberated throughout the Muslim world. The Muslims asked themselves why it happened and why they were unable to do anything about it. They wrote what they wrote about it and said what they said, leaving behind them a legacy of poetry and prose.
When the Mongols raided the Muslim lands, similar questions were raised. This was no less true during the Crusades. European imperialism and hegemony over most of the Muslim world brought these questions out more poignantly as almost all Muslims surrendered to their power.
But today, the question is being asked with greater earnest than ever before. This is reflected in the quantity of what is being written on it by Islamic scholars. The most famous book on this subject is Why the Muslims Stay Backwards while Others Advance by Amir Shakīb Arslān. From Ankara to Cairo to Damascus to Jakarta to Riyadh, the question is being asked over and over again: What is the reason behind the backwardness of the Muslims and the advancement of others?
Many people are asking: Who did this to us? Who is the enemy who brought upon us this weakness and this backwardness? Who has brought us to our sorry state?
However, the Qur'ān guides us to a different way of phrasing the question. Instead of asking who did this to us, we need to ask ourselves: How did we get into this situation? We need to emphasize the fact that we are the cause of our own problems, not some outsiders.
This meaning is conveyed in the Qur'ān by dozens of verses, a few of which follow:
"Every soul earns the results of its deeds on none but itself: no bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another." [Sūrah al-An`ām: 164]
"Whatever good happens to you is from Allah; but whatever evil happens to you is from your own self." [Sūrah al-Nisā': 79]
"And if anyone earns sin, he earns it against His own soul" [Sūrah al-Nisā': 111]
"What! When a single disaster smites you, although ye smote your enemies with one twice as great, do ye say?- "Whence is this?" Say (to them): "It is from yourselves: For Allah hath power over all things."" [Sūrah آl `Imrān: 165]
"To Us they did no harm, but they wronged their own souls." [Sūrah al-A`rāf: 160]
"Because Allah will never change the grace which He hath bestowed on a people until they change what is in their own souls." [Sūrah al-Anfāl: 53]
"Allah does not change a people's lot unless they change what is in their hearts." [Sūrah al-Ra`d: 11]
Verses like these provide us with an unequivocal Qur'anic principle that the basis of change comes from within oneself. We learn from these verses that the Muslims must take full credit for what has happened to them. Therefore, they must start with themselves and cultivate a proper Islamic character if they wish to change their present state and bring about reform.
There are two aspects to making a change within oneself. The first is conceptual. It entails correcting one's methodology and one's approach to thinking and analyzing matters. The second is that of intention, personal conviction, and action.
A person can be seen as a combination of knowledge and action. Islamic law, like all the manifestations of the Divine Message, came to reform both of these. It came to correct the ideas and concepts of the people as well as their deeds. It brought harmony between correct knowledge and action. This, then, is the crux of the matter.
Before we go further with this, let us consider some statistics that illustrate the current state of the Muslim world.
Bernard Lewis, often called "the doyen of Middle Eastern studies", is the author of a number of books on Islam and the Muslims. One of his latest works is What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response. In it, he offers some troubling statistics:
- The Muslims make up a quarter of the world's population, but they possess only 6% of the world's wealth.
- Two-thirds of the world's poor who live on less than $2 US a day are Muslims. Moreover, this income is depreciating by 2% annually. This is the greatest depreciation suffered by individuals in the so-called developing world.
- There is not a single Muslim country among the top 30 wealthiest nations.
- Among the 5000 products in the various fields of production with which various countries distinguish themselves, none of them are a point of distinction for any Muslim country.
- Except for oil, caviar, and Persian rugs, the 57 member countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference offer nothing to the international marketplace.
- The debt of the Muslim countries is estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The level of self-sufficiency in these countries is in perpetual decline.
- The median life expectancy for the Muslim individual is twenty years shorter than that for an equivalent person in the West. This is due to the disparity in health services, nutrition, and education. We can also add to this the factors of subjugation and repression.
- 40% of educated, young Muslims fail to obtain adequate employment in their own countries. They either remain in their countries without work or they are forced to immigrate to other countries. Moroccans, Tunisians, and Algerians generally immigrate to France. Egyptians and Syrians generally go to America or other places in Europe.
- While in the West, unemployment has varied between 5 and 12% throughout the past two decades, it has been consistently more than 20% in the Muslim world and continues to grow worse.
Muslim graduates and laborers are in desperate need of employment. They are unable to provide homes for themselves. This means that a good number of young Muslim men are unable to marry and establish families for themselves. Many young women never find husbands. In Iran, as many as 40% of the women under twenty will probably never marry. Saudi newspapers a few months ago released similar alarming statistics for Saudi Arabia.
- Lack of sufficient water is a problem facing the entire Muslim world.
- According to a study conducted by the World Health Organization, there is only one Muslim country - Oman - among the 40 countries that provide their citizens with adequate, up-to-date healthcare.
- Politically, the Muslim world exerts only the weakest influence over world events. The door is slammed shut on Muslim countries that aspire to join the company of the world's decision makers. A handful of Western countries make up that exclusive club.
- Of the thirty worst conflicts that rage in the world. 28 of them concern Muslim people or Muslim countries.
- In the past three decades, more than 2.5 million Muslims have been killed in wars within the Muslim world.
- Two-thirds of the world's political prisoners languish in prisons in the Muslim world.
- 80% of the world's refugees are Muslims.
- Every country in the world that has completely collapsed and fallen into utter incapacity is a Muslim country. A good example of such a country is Somalia.
- The Muslim world is the least productive part of the world when it comes to scientific research and technology.
These statistics demonstrate a level of backwardness in the Muslim world in the domains of healthcare, education, economics, and human rights. These issues might have people willing to deal with them, since they are issues faced globally. In these matters, the Muslim world can be compared and contrasted with other countries and regions. What we have mentioned has been of a purely descriptive nature.
However, there are a number of other issues that need to be brought up in order to complete the picture.
I prepared a questionnaire to which hundreds of our young people responded. Its purpose was only to get an idea of the present situation with respect to the moral and religious conduct of our people. It revealed another aspect of our backwardness. It would be a mistake to try to separate this aspect of our backwardness from the former that we have already discussed. To make such a distinction shows a perspective plagued by double standards.
The questions and answers were as follows:
Question: What percentage of the Muslim community prays their prayers in congregation:
Answer: 20%
Question: What percentage prays their prayers at home?
Answer: 20%
Question: What percentage prays occasionally and abandons prayer occasionally?
Answer: 30%
Question: What percentage of Muslims are circumcised?
Answer: 80%
Question: What percentage gets married Islamically?
Answer: 75%
Question: What percentage buries their dead according to Islamic rites?
Answer: 90%
Question: What percentage pays Zakāh?
Answer: This question cannot be easily answered, since Zakāh is not always given openly. Even in the early Islamic era, the state only collected a portion of the Zakāh. Nevertheless, 70% of the respondents opined that no more that 55% of the Muslims pay their Zakāh.
Question: What percentage of Muslims observes the fast of Ramadan?
Answer: 70% This indicates that many Muslim are willing to engage in purely devotional acts of worship but are more neglectful when the worship has a financial aspect to it. This shows a degree of miserliness, selfishness, and love of the world.
There are other factors that are more difficult to assess in detail, like adherence to moral values on the personal level, as well as in relation to others like spouses and parents, society at large, and when dealing with enemies.