MUSLIM CIVILIZATION
THE CAUSES OF DECLINE AND THE NEED FOR REFORM
Dr. M. Umer Chapra
The Islamic Foundation,
Markfield Conference Centre,
Ratby Lane, Markfield, Leicestershire,
LE67 9SY, UK
Pages: 225
Price: £12.99
2010
Reviewed by KHAN YASIR
If an invincibly strong fort collapses like a pack of cards, the surviving dwellers (if any) will definitely have questions. Many will ask: “How it all happened?” and carry on with their life. Some would go on to enquire: “Why it all happened?” and stop thinking thereafter. Only the rarest of the rare will go beyond to brood over the question, “How shall the fort be built again?”
As far as the political power is concerned, Islamic civilisation after dominating the world since its very inception collapsed in 1924 with disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. People of all the three types mentioned above are found in Muslim society as elsewhere. Unfortunately, the number of those who go beyond first and second questions is very less. Dr. M. Umer Chapra however is one among those ‘social engineers’ who have pondered over the painful destruction of ‘Islamic fort’ with much insight and came up with what I would call a scientific study of Ummah’s rise and decline.
Muslim Civilisation: The Causes of Decline and the Need for Reform in this sense is a masterpiece though readers could never find a single thing which is not common, ordinary or unknown. The speciality of the book lies not in revelation but presentation of all that we knew in such an organised manner that the reader feels nothing coerced upon him and thinks that all that the writer has written was actually in his mind, and may even think to the extent, “why have I not written this book?”
Such a scientific study is perhaps the very purpose of history and this is the Qur’ānic approach to history as Ishtiaq Qureshi says that the Qur’ān “does not look upon the present as merely transient, not upon the past as the sum total of merely so many transients and insignificant presents… [It] draws attention repeatedly to the misdeeds of previous people and their destruction as the result of these misdoings”. And Khurshid Ahmed takes the point a little further while discussing the principle of istikhlaf (vicegerency and stewardship) that the Qur’ān, “has also assigned to man and woman the role not only to learn from history but also to fashion it”.
Khurshid Ahmed, in his precious Foreword to the book, summarises the basic theme of the book and sets the background for the reader from which Umer Chapra has to take off on his rigorous scientific, academic and historic journey in search of causes of decline and strategies for revival of the Muslim Ummah. Khurshid Ahmed argues that the real strength of Muslim civilisation was a simultaneous pursuit of moral excellence and material strength. Whenever this balance was disturbed, it succumbed to the forces of decline and disintegration. In short, Muslim decline was never due to Islam but due to departure from it. He also explained that this decline was not a nosedive from a peak but more like share market stocks with periodic rise and falls.
“After every decline,” he says, “there has been a fresh wave of revival characterised by efforts of renovation and regeneration that responded creatively to the challenges of the time”. This “continuity” has been much emphasised, as “break” will question the very authenticity of the ideals in the first place. In this regard a return to Islam is the most pivotal strategy for rise of the Ummah. Many suggest education, employment, technological advancement, etc. as a key for development of the Ummah, but he considers all this as means to that end and not an end in themselves.
Chapra begins his book with Some Crucial Questions. He argues that the Muslim world despite having 1/5th of the world’s population and being rich in natural resources, produces only around 8% of the purchasing power adjusted GNP of the world.
The author makes it clear that no society could be able to sustain continued progress for 1400 years and there is no reason that Muslim civilisation could be an exception. Irrespective of the message that the author wants to convey it is mentionable that Islamic civilisation could indeed be an exception if Muslims refuse to commit what Toynbee has referred to as civilisational suicide.
The focus of the book is future and hence: an analysis of past. The author seems very much impressed by the historical understandings of the great Ibn Khaldun. The author says that Ibn Khaldun was “well aware that the reversal could not be dreamed of without first drawing lessons from history and determining the factors that had led the Muslim civilisation to bloom out of its humble beginnings… and to decline thereafter”. Ibn Khaldun believed in predictability of future on the basis of analysis of past. And “Hence, the primary task of historiography was not to confine itself merely to just recording of historical events. It was rather to analyse the causes and origins, or the hows and whys, of the various phenomena in human history so as to be able to predict what might happen in future”. However throughout the book it seems that the author is too much impressed by Ibn Khaldun and has dealt with Khaldun’s critique very mildly.
The Ibn Khaldun model which the author summarises in eight points is the crux of the book. Each point has been dealt with in detail. The points are mentioned below for a cursory glance over the conclusions drawn by the Islamic scholar;
- The strength of the sovereign does not materialise except through the implementation of the shariah.
- The shariah cannot be implemented except by the sovereign.
- The sovereign cannot gain strength except through the people.
- The people cannot be sustained except by wealth.
- Wealth cannot be acquired except through development.
- Development cannot be attained except through justice.
- Justice is the criterion by which God will evaluate mankind.
- The sovereign is charged with the responsibility of actualising justice.
These factors are very interrelated and interdependent. A trigger mechanism that led to decline in one factor may jeopardise the whole cycle of development and reverse it and the reverse can also happen.
Many argue: Islam is not relevant and is the cause of decline of Muslim Ummah! The author counters while discussing the factors that contributed to the rise of Muslims, that “What Islam did was to activate all the developmental factors in a positive direction”. It was a candid acknowledgement of this factor by Schatzmiller when he said, “all the factors which enabled Europe to succeed were available to Islam much earlier”. He also cites Noland who says rather reluctantly after referring to various econometric analysis at cross-country and within-country levels that, “Islam does not appear to be drag on growth or an anchor on development as alleged. If anything, the opposite appears to be true”.
The author then discusses transformation of human beings and institutions, agricultural and rural advances, urban prosperity and intellectual advances that Islam triggered in pagan Arabian society and concluded, “if it had not been for the inspiration and boost provided by Islam, the Arab Bedouin society would not have been able to survive the death of the prophet in 11/632, or the end of Rightly-Guided Caliphate in 41/661. It not only did this but was also able to withstand the overthrow of the Ummayad and Abbasid caliphates, thwart the repeated attacks by crusaders (1095-1291) and convert the conquerors themselves from Central Asia and China to Islam”.
He also discussed factors that are responsible for the Muslim decline. After answering the question ‘is Islam the cause of Muslim decline?’ in a reverberating NO, he asks, is moral degeneration the cause of Muslim decline, and answers that moral decay is an effect rather than a cause. Then he asks, did the start of political illegitimacy trigger the decline, and it is at this point that he pauses and deliberates at length. He opines that this appears to be the primary trigger mechanism that started the decline of Muslim civilisation through what he referred to as “operation of circular causation” to the corruption of all other institutions and even to moral and economic decline. This sentence perhaps best epitomises the core argument, “Just as the market system cannot operate effectively without competition and orderly markets, and stands in need of the state to ensure these, so also the Islamic system cannot operate effectively without reforming the individual as well as the institution that affect his behaviour”.
In the next chapter he discusses very technically, mathematically, statistically, in short: scientifically, the economic decline of Muslims over the ages. He, for example, discusses the phenomena of large standing armies and resultant deficits in the Ottoman Empire from 1562 to 1623. He argues that when a state was facing financial problems, the government should have cut its military and unproductive spending. But it seems very hard to universalise the author’s conclusion. If a state starts facing problems then sometimes negligence from maintaining a strong army often backfires. The example of Islamic Andulus and specifically Granada substantiates this point. They were the states where there was every type of development ranging from economic to intellectual but as military and security responsibilities were neglected, they paid dearly. Even the statistical analysis the author has presented, if taken true to the word, is not immune from objections from other dimensions.
Security is the primary responsibility of the state; this is perhaps one of the rarest principles of political science on which the Qur’ān and Machiavelli have the same opinion. The Qur’ān itself exhorts believers; “Make ready for an encounter against them all the forces and well-readied horses you can muster so that you can overawe the enemies of Allah and others besides them of whom you are unaware but of whom Allah is aware.” (Al-Anfal: 60) This is not an indication for wartime but peacetime as the phrase – others besides whom you may not know – indicates.
The statistical analysis of the author mentions a terrifying 67% budget deficit during the era of Mehmed III. Do readers (and the author too) remember who this Mehmed III is? He is the Ottoman ruler who is immortal in the annals of Islamic history as Sultan Mohammed Fatih – the Conqueror of Constantinople. Can we imagine that the Conqueror of Constantinople ignored the threats by the same, decreased his military expenditures and met the same fate as Granada had done? However the general argument is that unproductive expenses (not military expenses) should have been curtailed as they are a common cause of discontent among the population.
The author’s criticism of some other economic policies is however precise; for example, awarding large territories to govern (in Urdu jagir) to sycophants, unjust taxations to meet luxurious lifestyle of the palace, debasing the currency, external borrowing, corruption, sale of political positions, etc. All this happened that vindicated Al-Mawardy’s argument that, “there is nothing that leads to a faster decay of the world and degeneration of people’s conscience than injustice”. Through a thorough analysis of Turkey in comparison with other emerging European powers the author traces the journey of Turkey from a position of ‘magnificence’ to that of ‘sick man of Europe’. This chapter is particularly interesting for economists.
Then the author deals with decline in education, science and technology. Here he discusses the diminishing state support to academic, intellectual and scientific activities. The extremist posture that was adopted by both conservatives and rationalists against each other created an environment not feasible for interaction and debate as was the case in the prophetic era. In these pages the author succinctly summarises the intellectual history of Islam with a critical look at extreme rationalists like Mutazilites and extreme conservatives like Hashawiyyah. The role and contribution (and even a critical analysis) of Razi, Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Taiymiyyah, Ibn Khaldun and Almaqrizi, etc. is analysed. The author then proceeds with a precious discussion on contrasts between the Muslim and western enlightenment movements. His discussion on future of rationalism in the Muslim world is revealing after a balanced appraisal of history (for e.g. actual fault of Mutazilites). Foreign domination too strengthens conservative elements and bar the intellectual freedom. The author wisely argues against government taking any position in delicate matters of theology as this has often proved too costly in the past; Al-Mamun’s tryst with the Mutazili notion of Quran-is-a- creature still haunts a student of Islamic history.
The author concludes this discussion very remarkably at the hope of spreading democracy and awareness in the Muslim world and warns the extreme secularists of today’s era who are treading Mutazili path. He says that they are “generating conflict and tension, and using force to impose their views, just like the Mutazilites, by virtue of the political power that some of them now have at their command”. He continues with determination, “force did not succeed in the past, and is not likely to do so now”.
The author proceeds to discuss on social decline. He discusses the growing distance between government and the people and also lament over the stagnation of fiqh for which besides other reasons he also singled out the over-cautious measure of Ulema to avoid the rulers, governments and royal courts that in the author’s parlance “deprived rulers of the sincere advice which Ulema of the calibre of Abu Yusuf were previously able to give to the likes of Harun Rashid”.
This you-do-not-see-them and they-do-not-see-you policy resulted in three major evils. First, it deprived the Muslim world of political reform. Secondly, Ulema suspicious towards philosophy due to behaviour of Mutazilas, confined the syllabi of madrasas primarily to theological subjects. And thirdly, their seclusion from echelons of power confined their area of influence to mosques and madrasas. However, discussing the ‘deterioration in the position of woman’ he seems to be slightly partial in advocating women’s liberty. May be this partiality has its root in the fact that the position of women is deplorable even in the Muslim society in total disregard of Islamic principles but this should not lead one to extremes especially while intellectually dealing with the phenomenon.
He did not misquote Ahadith and historical instances but he misses-a-lot while quoting. For example, he didn’t find (or if found then didn’t mention) the guidelines of the Qur’ān for women to hide their faces. According to him, it was ‘optional’ in the Prophetic era, which is misappropriation of facts.
‘Some lessons from Muslim history’, in my view, is the most important chapter of the book. The lessons that he has deduced are as follows:
Accountability before the people is indispensable for motivating rulers to perform their tasks effectively and responsibly.
Freedom of expression should be ensured as it is a major mechanism for self correction in the political system.
It is not possible for political authority to impose its own worldview on people and so such misadventures should be avoided.
Once people are alienated, the government loses grassroots support and looks to foreign power for aid which is self-defeating policy.
Islam is not the cause of Muslim decline.
The author has analysed the failure of Muslims to learn lessons from history and their present deplorable status. Only 13 out of 57 member countries of OIC have democracy. Only 4 Muslim countries cherish genuine freedom of expression. Six of ten most corrupt countries are Muslim. These 57 Muslim countries are home to 22% of world population but represents only 5.2% of the world real GDP. Although the author says that paying attention to only political and economic variables to reverse the cycle of decline may not be enough. From here the author argues a case for ideological and heart transformation for development. In the need for reform he says without any reservations, “the best place to start would be where the Prophet himself (pbuh) started”. And this is the area of moral reform. He quotes Kroeber, Nigel Lawson and Schweitzer who endorses the same point with the same intensity. Schweitzer says, “If ethical foundation is lacking, then civilisation collapses even when in other directions creative and intellectual forces of the stronger nature are at work.” Nigel Lawson is unequivocal, “No political or economic order can long survive except on a moral base.”
This is followed by some suggestions for justice, development and alleviation of poverty; proliferating education and microfinance; reform of all institutions (for example, mosques), political reforms, etc. The author has ruled out any armed struggle for bringing about political reform in the Muslim countries and hopes that domestic and international pressure for democracy, spreading education, gradual improvement in economic condition, globalisation and communication revolutions will cause a healthy influence on future course of events – Tunisia, Egypt and now the unrest in Libya and Yemen has only vindicated the predictions of the author.
The author has also discussed, and discussed affirmatively, the possibility of a western help in transformation of Muslim societies. In my humble opinion the major cause of sustenance of the democracy-deficit, lack of freedom of expression, oppressions over Islamic movements, illiteracy and other problems are aggravated by these very western powers. To expect any sincere help from them is only to deceive ourselves. What the west has done in the name of spreading liberty and democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq is before us. They have much to claim for anarchy in Pakistan. Their reticent support to Ben Ali and Mubarak in Tunisia and Egypt respectively has proved this point beyond any doubt. Muslims for their development should only rely on themselves and Allah. His suggestions for Islamic movements are important; for example, spreading awareness, struggle for political reform, working for social welfare. But Islamic movements across the world are indulged in these activities as per their respective conditions. Some more concrete suggestions were required in this regard.
In a nutshell, this is a remarkable reader which concludes in the words of Murad Hoffman by exhorting Muslims to be ‘fundamentalist’ in real sense of the term. The author ends his book on a hopeful note and reminder:
So lose not heart,
Nor fall into despair,
For you are bound to rise,
If you are true in faith (3: 139).