During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the heart of
the
Islamic world presented a picture similar to the one which had induced the Prophet Uzair (AS),
also known as
Ezira or
Esdras,
to utter these words involuntarily
on seeing Jerusalem
in
ruins after the
Captivity:
“How shall Allah bring it (ever) to life after its death?”
(Al-Qur’an 2 :
259)
Then Allah’s grace was shown to the Muslim Ummah
as it was to the Jews. Allah (SWT) says in the Holy Qur’an:
“Then We established you once again against them, and We aided you with wealth
and
children, and We multiplied you in manpower”.
(Al-Qur’an 17
: 6)
There is, however, a difference here. The previous
Muslim Ummah, that is the Jews, involved only
one
race. Hence their
renaissance
was
obliviously
restricted to that race. But there was no such restriction in the case of the
Ummah of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW). Here the task of renewal and renaissance was not performed by
the original Arabs, but by other
people of the Islamic world. Most of the descendants of those Tartars who
were the
cause of dreadful destruction of the
Islamic world, had
converted to Islam. Two other barbaric tribes
like them were also fortunate enough to accept the Islamic faith.
One
of
these tribes, the Taimuri Turks, laid the foundations of a splendid Muslim rule in India, and thereby enlarged the
right wing of Islamic world. A second
tribe,
the Usmanian
Turks, at first established themselves firmly in Asia Minor,
then gradually raised the
magnificent edifice of
the Muslim Empire which extended far to the north-west. It established its supremacy over
all
Eastern Europe until it reached the borders of Vienna. On the other side, it
took upon itself, the responsibility
of
leadership and security of
the
entire Islamic world, including Northern Africa. It also
revived the Caliphate, and in this way
the
lost splendour and
grandeur
of the Islamic
world was
once
again restored. The important point to note here is
that this task was performed
by the Turks and not
by the Arabs.
Strange are the ways
of
Providence! The
consolidation of the Usmanian Caliphate produced a Muslim renaissance in the heart of Islamic world, but
at the same time the
deluge of the European
colonialism began,
and it
was soon to become the second and extremely long period
of
Divine chastisement
of
the Muslim Ummah. It eventually
conquered
the right
and left wings
of
the Islamic world.
It
is unquestionably true
that the enlightenment of Europe after the dark ages
was the result
of
Islamic progress. The Muslims introduced
oriental and occidental arts and sciences to
Europe. But when Europe awakened, and its power accumulated, it inflicted a disaster upon
the Muslims. They held both
the Eastern and
Western extremes of Europe. In Eastern Europe, after
the period of
the
first chastisement had ended, process of renaissance had
begun. The great
Usmanian Empire served as a security guard over the central part of the
Islamic territory. But in the West, the Kingdom
of
Spain was presenting the
picture of a dying nation. According to an Urdu poetic line ‘Feebleness is a crime which brings
the punishment
of death’4. Feeble Spain proved
the first prey of European
colonialism, and in the fifteenth century this
magnificent empire was brought to a sudden and complete end. In
1492 A.D., after the downfall
of Granada, similar
conditions prevailed in Spain which are described
in
the Qur’anic verses in connection with previous nations which
had
been the target of Divine retribution. What had been once the lands of Muslims became ‘as though they had
not
dwelt there’
(Al-Qur’an 11:68). And presented the
scene of ‘nothing was to be seen but the (ruins) of their houses’ (Al- Qur’an 46:25).
[*4 Urdu]
In 1498 Vasco de Gama discovered a new sea route
to India. Soon after
this
the falcon of
European colonialism swooped down upon
the Eastern sectors of the Islamic
world, and soon Indonesia, Malaysia and
India were gripped
in the
tyrannical clutches
of European
nations.
This process
of
colonization which started
in
the sixteenth century reached
its zenith in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
During this period the
Usmanian Caliphate
had also passed its peak and had become the ‘sick man’ of Europe.
In other words, eight centuries after the fall of the
Abbasid Caliphate the same power
vacuum appeared once again in
the
heart of the Islamic world. Due
to Muslims’ weakness the tide of Western colonialism headed towards it, and
the time for the fulfilment of the second
threat of retribution had
come.
This second phase of retribution inflicted by Allah
(SWT) on
the Muslim Ummah
commenced at the beginning of the twentieth century. The sovereignty of the
Usmanian Caliphate after the World War I,
was curtailed within the limits of Asia
Minor.
The
entire Arab world
including North Africa, after
being fragmented
into small nation states, came directly under the sway
of
European nations or was indirectly governed by them.
Thus the
condition prevailed which the
Prophet Muhammad
(SAW) had
predicted in these
words:
“There will come a time in which the nations
of the world will invite one another to invade you in the same manner in which a person
who arranges a feast calls upon his guests
to partake of the victuals”.
In this way the second period of Allah’s
retribution
upon the Muslim Ummah was completed.
In the
first
quarter of the present century almost all Islamic
territories were in the unholy grip of Western colonialism. In 1967,
Allah (SWT), by means of one of His cursed
and condemned nations, inflicted upon the
Arabs a degrading
and shameful
defeat.
This
represented the
completion upon them, the ‘ummiyeen’, of the second
threat given in
the Qur’an:
“…So when the second of the warnings came to pass (We permitted
your enemies) to disfigure your faces, and
to enter your temple, as they had entered before, and to visit with destruction all that fell in their power” 5
(Al-Qur’an
17 : 7)
[*5
It is a strange historical fact that out of two ‘Qiblas’ on this
earth, the blow of defilement and destruction was dealt on all four occasions to the Al-Aqsa Mosque which is wrongly called
the
first Qibla. It should be clearly understood that the
first Qibla is
the Ka’bah, the ‘house of Allah’ as the Qur’an asserts,
‘Verily the first sanctuary appointed for mankind was that of Bakka’ (3:96). The special favour Allah (SWT) has bestowed over it is evident from the ‘Incident of the Elephant’. Through God’s providence
the
political centre of Islam was gradually transferred farther
and farther from the first Qibla, so that whenever this Ummah
would have to face divine retribution, the sanctity of the Ka’bah would not be violated. This was why as early as the rule of the
caliph Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) the political capital
of the Islamic world was transferred from Madina to Kufa. From
there it shifted to Damascus and then to Baghdad, and finally to
Constantinople in
the extreme North. In this way, the Ka’bah – the House of Allah – always remained safe from the invasions of the enemies of Islam. But its true that its sanctity was to some
extent violated once or twice by those who
were nominally
Muslims.]
During the time of
Arab trusteeship once again the
sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque
was trampled,
lost
and taken by the Jews. And now only Allah (SWT) knows how long
it will remain in their possession.
The most
regrettable aspect
of this story is that
Western colonialism completely smashed the unity
of
the Muslim Ummah. In the
beginning of this century
it planted
such seeds of racial and
regional prejudices as are
still yielding bitter
fruits. At
first
they instigated the Arabs against the Turks. As a result of this, the central
region of the Islamic word
was split into two
portions and
the essential as well as symbolic institution of Islamic unity,
the
Caliphate, was destroyed. Then they
fragmented
the Arab world to the extent that, inspite of linguistic unity, the integration and consolidation of the Arab nations is well nigh impossible.
As a direct consequence of racial and
regional
prejudices
that existed within the
Muslim
Ummah, the
Ummah had to suffer the severe retribution described by Almighty Allah (SWT) in the words: ‘He will fragment you and make you to taste each other’s violence’(Al-Qur’an 6
: 65). They were divided into groups and factions and
warred
bitterly against each other. In World
War I, Arabs massacred the Turks. In 1971 the Bengali Muslims freely
shed
the blood of non-Bengali Muslims
and their property,
life
and honour all were trampled upon. ‘So learn a lesson,
O ye
who have eyes’ (Al Qur’an 59 : 2)
In our view, the disgrace of the Arabs in 1967 at the
hands of the Jews, and the degradation in 1971 of an
important segment
of
non-Arab Muslims, can
be regarded as
the final limit
of
the deterioration and
degeneration of
the
Muslim Ummah6.
Although Allah’s warning ‘If ye reverted (to your sin), We shall revert to our punishment‘ (Al-Qur’an 17 : 8) is always before us, His forgiveness may also be manifest--- ‘It may be that your Lord will have mercy upon you’ (Al-Qur’an 17:8).
We hope and pray that no other scar of dishonour would disfigure the face of the Ummah of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW). A lot depends upon the Ummah and its wish and determination to sincerely reform and revitalize itself.
[*6
The degeneration and deterioration of the Ummah continues
in the wake of recent events of Bosnia, Chechenya, Kosova, Gulf
War, Palestine,
Kashmir, Indian Gujurat,
East
Timor, annihilation of Taliban and Afghanistan
and the pending attack
on
Iraq. (November 2002)]
Although Allah’s warning ‘If ye reverted (to your sin), We shall revert to our punishment‘ (Al-Qur’an 17 : 8) is always before us, His forgiveness may also be manifest--- ‘It may be that your Lord will have mercy upon you’ (Al-Qur’an 17:8).
We hope and pray that no other scar of dishonour would disfigure the face of the Ummah of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW). A lot depends upon the Ummah and its wish and determination to sincerely reform and revitalize itself.
