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Question
Why
then have Muslims not developed
sciences and discovered such Quranic
truths, and why are they under the
dominion of the West?
Answer
To
the extent that the time and the
prevalent conditions conditions allowed
them to, Muslims did discover the truths
of the Qur’an and, obeying its
injunctions, founded a magnificent
civilization, which lasted for many
centuries.
A
typical example: while explaining the
meaning of the verse, We send the wind
fertilizing, and cause water to descend
from the sky, and give it you to drink
(15.22), Ibn Jarir al-Tabari writes
about how the winds fertilize clouds so
that rain may form. The verse clearly
mentions the winds fertilizing clouds
because it is about the formation of
rain. As has recently been discovered,
clouds are also charged with electricity
and it is only when positive and
negative poles in clouds form a circuit
that rain forms.
Also,
in his Tafsir named al-Bahr al-Muhit,
Abu Hayyan al-Andalusi records from Abu
Ja’far ibn al-Zubayr that from the
initial verses of sura al-Rum, Alif
Lam Mim. The Romans have been
defeated in the nearer land, and they,
after their defeat, will be victorious
within nine years-God’s is command in
the former case and in the latter-and in
that day believers will rejoice in God’s
help to victory. He helps to victory
whom He wills. He is the Mighty, the
Merciful, Abu’l Hakem ibn Barrajan
deduced many years before the exact
date-with its year, month and day-the
recapture of Jerusalem by Muslims from
the Crusaders in 1187.
Islam
ruled two-thirds of the old civilized
world for at least eleven centuries.
During its whole history of fourteen
centuries, it has had to confront
continual onslaughts from both the East
and West and it was able to retain its
superiority until the eighteenth
century. However, when moral and
spiritual decay and laziness and
negligence of what was going on around
them were added to the endless attacks
from the West and East, the magnificence
and supremacy of the Islamic
civilization began to decline until its
collapse in the first quarter of the
twentieth century. Military victories
and a sense of superiority had induced
the Muslims to become content with what
they had achieved and to neglect further
researches in sciences. They had
abandoned themselves to living their own
lives, reciting the Qur’an but without
ever studying its deeper meanings.
Meanwhile the Western world had been
making great advances in sciences and
technology, which they had carried
forward from the Islamic civilization.
As already mentioned, sciences are in
reality the languages of the Divine book
of creation and an aspect of religion.
Therefore, whoever neglects to study
this book and benefit from it is
destined to lose in the worldly life,
and this negligence was one of the main
reasons why Muslims fell under the
domination of the West.
It
is impossible that the present Western
civilization will endure long since it
is materialistic and far from satisfying
man’s perennial needs. Western
sociologists such as Oswald Spengler and
others have predicted the collapse of
this civilization, which is against
basic human nature and values. Either it
will abandon itself to its inevitable
decay or equip itself with the creeds
and moral and spiritual values of Islam,
as well as its social and economic
principles. In other words, Muslims will
re-discover that, in essence, science
and religion are two aspects of the same
reality and know that to be a Muslim
means, first of all, to represent the
beauties of Islam in practical life. The
luminous world of the future will be
founded upon the firm foundations of
Islamic morality, spirituality and its
socio-economic and political order.
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