THE RISE AND FALL OF
ISLAM
By: Kassim Ahmad
17th January, 2016
Revised and expanded on 19th
March, 2016
The Quran in Surah Ali-‘Imran (3) states that “The only
religion approved by God is Islam.” The Arabic word ‘deen’ essentially mean
‘way of life’ rather that the restricted ritualistic meaning of the word
‘religion’.
This religion of strict monotheism is taught by all prophet-messengers
from Adam to its completion and perfection by Muhammad, the last of all prophet-messegers.
The previous prophet-messengers were sent to national communities. Only Prophet
Muhammad was sent to the entire world. This is stated in the Quran. (7: 158).
The only book he brought was the Quran, a protected divine scripture.
But, as it is wont with human beings, corruption and deterioration
set in and complete their work in after about 300 years (10 generations) to
change the original teachings. Thus, the monotheism of Prophet Moses became polytheism
in Judaism, of Prophet Jesus polytheism in Christianity, and of Muhammad polytheism
in Sunnism. Sunnism is polytheistic in that it has elevated Muhammad to a
second god, against his will.
Sunnism is sectarian “Islam”, worshiping two gods.
Two gods is one too many. It is polititeism.
Fortunately for mankind, the last of God’s scripture, the
Quran, is divinely protected so that all
mankind can always refer to it as its guide. This divine protection lies
internally in the scripture in a mathematically awesome and impossible to
imitate structure called Code 19. This Code is stated in the Quran in Surah Al-Muddaththir (74), verses 30-31. The verses go, “Over it is
nineteen. We appointed angels to be guardians of Hell, and we assign their
number (19) (1) to disturb the disbelievers, (2) to convince the Christians and
the Jews (that this is a divine scripture), (3) to strengthen the faith of the
faithful, (4) to remove all traces of doubt from the hearts of Christians,
Jews, as well as believers, and (5) to expose those who harbor doubt in their
hearts. The disbelievers will say, ‘What does God mean by this allegory?’ God
thus sends astray whomever He wills, and guides whomever He wills. None knows
the soldiers of your Lord except He. This is a reminder for the people.”
The rise of Islam, beginning with the reign of Prophet
Muhammad in the Arabian Peninsular in early Seventh Century, within a short
time of only sixty years shot up to be the Number One power in the then world,
beating the two superpowers, the Byzantian Empire and the Persian Empire.
Historian Philip K. Hitti, in his book, History of the Arabs (1970), states, “If someone in the first third
of the seventh Christian century had had the audacity to prophesy that within a
decade some unheralded, unforeseen power from hitherto barbarous and
little-known land of Arabia was to make its appearance, hurl itself against the
only two world powers of the age, fall heir to the one -- the Sasanid – and
strip the other – the Byzantine -- of its fairest provinces, he would have
undoubtedly have been declared a lunatic. Yet that was exactly what happened.
After the death of the Prophet sterile Arabia seems to have been converted as
if by magic into a nursery of heroes the like of whom both in number and
quality is hard to find anywhere. The military campaigns of Khalid ibn-al-Walid
and ‘Amar ibn-al-‘As which ensued in al-Iraq, Persia, Syria and Egypt remain
among the most brilliantly executed in the history of warfare and bear
favourable comparison with those of Napoleon, Hannibal or Alexander.” (p. 142).
A Western philosophical historian, Robert Briffault, in his
epoch-making book, The Making of Humanity
(1919), after denouncing a conspiracy of silence by most Western historians
on the contributions of Muslim science to modern Europe, surmarised the contribution of Muslim science
to civilization, thus: “The debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not
consist in startling discoveries or revolutionary theories. Science owes a
great deal more to Arab culture , it
owes its existence. The ancient world was, as we saw, pre-scientific. The
astronomy and mathematics of the Greeks were a foreign importation never
thoroughly acclamatised in Greek culture. The Greeks systematized, generalized
and theorized, but he patient ways of
investigation, the accumulation of positive knowledge, the minute methods of
science, detailed and prolonged observation, experimental inquiry, were
altogether alien to the Greek temperament. … What we called science arose in
Europe as result of a new spirit of inquiry, of new methods of investigation,
of the method of experiment, observation, measurement, of the development of
mathematics in a form unknown to the Greeks. That spirit and those methods were
introduced into the European world by the Arabs.” (p. 191)
Muslim civilization lasted eight centuries. In that time,
Baghdad became the capital of the world and Europe became students at the feet
of Baghdad. When the rot set in, Europe took over the banner of civilization
and what is known as the European Renaissance began. Will Western leadership
last for ever? Only time can tell. But
basing ourselves on its truncated epistemology, we can say that it cannot last
forever, at most another two or three decades.
One of two thing will happen. Either Europe and the United
States will adopt the true revolutionary doctrine of Islam, which I characterize as “revolutionary,
life-affirming, and death-defying”, or the Muslims themselves will be reborn
with that true spirit of the Quran and borne in the life Prophet Muhammad and
the early republican-democratic Caliphates.
In the meanwhile, Muslim leaders must answer the question why
the Muslim way of life, guaranteed by God, has collapsed, and how they can
rebuild it. To answer this all-important question, they must re-study the Quran
with a scientific methodology. I can suggest a few signposts.
Firstly, at a certain point in time, Muslim science froze and
deteriorated, due to wrong teaching of certain so-called masters. These were
made into masters by a new priesthood class adopted in imitation of medieval Hinduism
and Christianity. In Islam there is no priesthood class.
Secondly, at a certain point in time, a certain attitude of
fatalism developed in Islam due a new theology preached in accordance to hadith
teachings. Hadiths are essentially fabrications falsely ascribed to the great
name of Prophet Muhammad.
Thirdly, that new theology also
preached salvation in the Afterlife, in a nondescript Theologians’ Nirvana in
imitation of Bhuddism. This led to Muslim apathy in a life waiting for death.
At this point, roughly from the Fourteenth Century onwards, this false Islam
died, with the false Muslims.
Fourthly and lastly, to rebuild, the
Muslims must re-study the Quran (which is their and mankind’s book of guidance)
and the examples of their great leaders in the republican democratic period we
have alluded to, to find correct answers to their current plight. I have
surmarised the teachings of the Quran as “revolutionary, life-affirming and
death-defying”. We must seek salvation
in this life by raising our souls to a higher level. It is this raising of our
souls to a higher level that is necessary for the coming Second Muslim
Civilization, which must come.
