Muhammad Shahzad
History clearly witnesses the root causes of fall of Islamic civilization. it is sad to discuss that Muslim world still doesn’t seem to seriously address the issues that have beencontinuously damaging the whole Islamic civilization. At current turning point of Global politics, it will not be surprising to predict that if Muslim world still showed traditional attitudeto these long term technical issues, it will not be easy to be show enough resilience. Muslims’ bounding to pre-existing interpretations of Islamic scholars and consequently lack of creative considerations (ijtihad) about emerging modern issues, internal political conflicts and lagging in exploration( as mentioned by Christopher Lescells in his book “A short history of the World”). During the rise of European civilization in 18th century, Muslims had strictly bounded themselves to pre-existing analytical writings and so couldn’t better asses the non-traditionally rising basis of European civilization. The situation led to a sort ofcompetitionas articulated by Maulana Maudoodi( Tarjaman ul Quran Oct 1935),” Actually this competition was not between European and Islamic civilization but of a Muslims’ depressed, frozen, and diminished civilization with a civilization having fresh life, agility, light of knowledge and warmth of work”. It should not sound to be awkward that it was a defeat of Muslims but not Islamicideology. Islamic teachings are enough resilient and fit human nature and society. Many Europeans, sincerely seeking for right path of life and unaware of Islamic social values, are still surprised after listening about ideal Islamic way of life. Muslim world must urgently understand the sensitivity of time. It is not “The End of History” with ultimate triumph of liberalism but Islamic world can still regain its dignity by overcoming on their historical weaknesses. it’s the time of space exploration that will lead to a new world order as once navigational exploration did in 15th century. Muslim world must actively focus on space technology, Artificial intelligence and balanced political alignment in changing world order. While Islamic rulers should also focus on diminishing the division of Islamic and world education, instead every religious student should be capable of assessing the dynamics of modern world system and vice versa. it will lead to revival of doing ijtihaad to deal the modern problems in a new way under the shadow of golden Islamic principles. It’s also highly inspired idea for Muslim world that instead of being sensitive to modern way of cultural dissemination , they should promote Islamic Dramas and film industries fully reflecting the Islamic values and their glorified history. Muslims’ rigidity and concreteness should now be replaced with flexibility otherwise next phase of 500 years may be quite dangerous for Islamic civilization and may lead to irreversible destruction. Writer is the student of IR and politics with deep interest of socio-religious issues.
