Quranic Concept of History (JR130)

Quranic Concept of History (JR130)

Introduction

The Koran narrates various past incidents and events to establish an argument. Therefore the use made of history in the Koran deserves to be studied and understood. This effort presents various interactions and explanations related to the Korans concept of history; comparison with other monotheist religions is also presented. 

According to the Quran, Allah (God) has created the universe with a certain purpose, and all its parts are strictly under His control, carrying out His divine scheme without the slightest deviation. Similarly, man too has been created with a certain purpose. Yet man, is completely free to do what he wants, and act upon his own decisions. However, in spite of this freedom, he is watched constantly by Allah, for He does not allow any such deviation over a long period that would nullify the plan of His creation.

Creation plan of Allah

The universe made by Allah is so vast that, despite the enormous progress made by human beings in their attempts to fathom the universe, many of its secrets still remain unknown. The planet Earth, made by Allah as part of the cosmos is unique in the entire universe, in that it has been endowed with an atmosphere and all the other factors, which are essential to make it habitable for man.

After creating a favorable world in the form of the Earth, Allah created the first man Aadam (Adam), may Allah exalt his mention, and his feminine counterpart, Eve. Although the precise date of this event is unknown, it is a fact that the first pair of human beings to set foot on earth were Adam, may Allah exalt his mention, and Eve.

Adam was the first man as well as the first Prophet. The way of Allah is to select a man as His Messenger from amongst human beings themselves, in order to send His revelations to humankind. Therefore, Allah revealed to Adam, may Allah exalt his mention, through an angel the purpose of man's inhabiting the earth. According to this plan, Allah created a creature in the form of man, upon whom He bestowed freedom. Where the rest of the universe had no choice but to submit to the will of Allah, it is desirable for man to opt for this divine plan of his own free will.

This plan of divine will is based on two basic principles:  Monotheism and Justice. Monotheism holds man to worshipping one God alone, and not associating anyone or anything in this worship. Justice holds man to adhering completely too ethical principles in dealing with other human beings, and refraining from all kinds of injustice and oppression.

Along with this, Allah Almighty informed man that, although he appeared to be free, he was fully accountable to Him. Allah has a complete record of man's actions. In the eternal life after death Allah would judge everyone according to this record. The one who exercised his freedom wrongly would be thrown into eternal hellfire.

Adam, may Allah exalt his mention, died at a ripe old age. For a long period his people continued to adhere faithfully to the divine guidance. However, later, idolatry replaced Monotheism and people began to adopt the ways of injustice and oppression instead of justice and rectitude. After about 1000 years, the perversion became so all pervading that they were completely distanced from the path of the Sharee'ah (Divine Law) as shown by Adam, may Allah exalt his mention.

The age of perversion 

Allah subsequently sent Noah, may Allah exalt his mention, as His Messenger.   He continued to show people the right path, generation after generation. However, only a few people heeded his words. The rest persisted in their sinful ways. Then, in accordance with the ways of Allah, a huge flood engulfed them by way of punishment. Nooh (Noah), may Allah exalt his mention, and his small band of followers was saved in a boat, while all the rest drowned.

At that time, human population was probably concentrated only in the region of Asia, possibly the piedmont areas between modern Afghanistan and Turkey. The men and women saved in the wake of this flood settled afterwards in other parts of the world. Their race multiplied until it spread over the three continents of Asia, Africa and Europe.

After the death of Noah, may Allah exalt his mention, his people continued to adhere to the divine path shown by him, for a considerable period of time. However, again rot set in the later generations and they deviated from the path of Monotheism and justice. Allah's Messengers, may Allah exalt their mention, - the Quran has mentioned twenty five by name -- continued to come for several thousand years.

A Hadeeth (saying of Prophet Muhammad, , (may Allah exalt his mention) tells us that nearly 100,000 messengers came to the world. In this way a long period elapsed between Aadam, may Allah exalt his mention, and ‘Eesaa (Jesus), May Allah exalt his mention; whereas earlier Allah's Messengers continued to come to the world in almost every generation. However, only a few people believed in them while the majority rejected these prophets in every age.

The reasons for perversion

what were the reasons for this continued transgression? There were two main reasons: political absolutism and ignorance about the world of nature. In ancient times the system of monarchy prevailed everywhere. The kings of those days had adopted an easy strategy for the consolidation of their empire, and that was to apply a complete curb on intellectual freedom. As a result, Science could not make any progress in the days of old.

The same was the case with religion. The policy adopted by these kings was not to allow their subjects to follow any religion other than that approved of by the king. Superstitious religion served their purpose only too well. Therefore, not only did they themselves embrace superstitious religion, they also compelled their subjects to adhere to it. People were denied the right to think freely and opt for any religion other than the official one.

This policy of the king produced the evil of religious persecution. History shows that religious persecution has continued from time immemorial in one form or another.

The other factor was ignorance. In ancient times, man knew too little about the world and its phenomena. Political absolutism had placed an almost total ban on scientific research. Therefore, all kinds of superstitions prevailed regarding natural phenomena. It was generally held that the Sun, Moon and the stars possessed supernatural powers.

Similarly, it was believed that the sea, mountains and other such natural features were endowed with some extraordinary, mysterious power that exercised decisive control over human destiny.

The problem of evil
Those who want to interpret human history in the light of predetermined law, as is done in the physical world, are doomed to failure. While the physical world may be explainable within the framework of pre-determinism, the events of the human world are simply not amenable to interpretation in terms of any such law.

Others want to interpret the events of the human world in the context of freedom, but they are not satisfied either with their interpretation. This is because in spite of human freedom, the suffering experienced in this world has no valid understandable explanation. The failure of both these interpretations is due to the fact that they attempt to explain the whole in the light of a part -- which is simply not possible.

The truth is that the right principle by which to interpret human history is neither that of pre-determinism nor of freedom. According to Islam, there is only one correct principle to interpret human history and that is the principle of test. Man has been placed in the present world for the purpose of being tested. The eternal future of humankind will depend on the outcome of this test.

If everything had been completely predetermined in the world, the element of trial would have been absent. Granting freedom to people did involve the risk of some people misusing their freedom, which gave rise to the problem of human suffering. Suffering results from evil, yet this suffering or evil, is a very small price to pay for a very precious thing. Although, man has a will, the will of Almighty Allah encompasses all wills, so nothing happens in the universe unless Allah ordained for it to happen.

According to Islam that person is most precious who leads his life in this world in such a manner that, despite facing all sorts of temptations, he succeeds in overcoming them. Despite having the power to misuse his freedom, he refrains from doing so. Despite the possibility of leading an unprincipled life, he chooses his own free will to be a man of principle. To identify such individuals, it is essential that an atmosphere of freedom prevail in the world. This is not possible under any other system.

   Few different views:

1.      Cyclical Views: History goes in cycles. So there is no meaning. Things happen in a cyclical, nonsensical, meaningless way. There is no God or purpose behind events. This is the Greek view. Nietzschean view is also cyclical; it is the modern cyclical view. E.g. Spangler.

2.      Providential View: History completely guided by God: controlled by Him. That either a group or the human species is chosen by God. There are a chosen people with this view, e.g. Judaism.. This is similar to the cyclical view in that there is no human input at all.

3.      Secular Deterministic View: (Hegelian, Marxist views) History is propelled by non-human forces, economic motives. Freud: Eros, sexual drives. Hegel: The idea of the absolute state. Conflicts within matter that manifests itself through human society.

In all three views the idea of the autonomous human individual who can choose, who is responsible, and who carries moral burdens disappears altogether in a variety of determinism either cyclical, materialism, or providential. In all three there is no freedom of the will. There is an Islamic World Outlook, a philosophy, a concept of history. It is based on a basic duality. God created the world, but does not dwell in it. He is removed from it. He cares for it, and guides it, but is always beyond it : Transcendental (Muazza). It is not dualism but duality. It is not God versus the world, but God beyond the world. We can interact with Him. God has granted us autonomy (Fitra) rights and drives. He has given us a mind to judge. He gave us a message, and a burden. We deserve to be the center of the universe. He left us free to choose, after giving us guidance, a covenant. He gave us all the tools. It is all up to us. He has given us history. History is the realm of freedom. We can save or damn ourselves.

The idea of “Seal of the Prophets " ( Khatam al Nabi) has to be introduced. It is central in the Islamic view of History. In the past God has felt that man needed continuous guidance through prophets. Now he sent the Quran as the final message. It is a fulfillment of the previous ones, a synthesis, not different. Now we have the Quran and the mind and nature, and we have the freedom to choose. Therefore he is the last Prophet. We have all the ingredients to be free agents in history.

There is no more interaction in history. He has given the final word in his covenant. From now on we are free. Through our own interpretation we can get guidance and reach some kind of truth. I would like to place this in contrast to the “End of History Idea ". Where did it come from? Fukuyama: is not someone crazy, it all of a sudden came to his mind. I argue that with the concept of determinism, comes the “End of History Idea ", especially within the secular view, because in the secular view there is a movement within matter itself propelling nature, the economic drive, the erotic drive. In the case of Fukuyama it is the economic drive: he declares the triumph of liberal capitalism and democracy. This is inevitable in any materialistic point of view. Unless the movement of matter is infinite, i.e. attributing to it the characteristics of God. In other words he thinks in terms of metaphysics. He has embarked on the concept of infinity, which is really metaphysical. So within materialism there has to be an end to history.

History According to the Islamic view it moves basically through the human will, not guided by laws of nature, but laws of God, and helped by nature, being an open book. From the secular materialistic point of view, history moves by some materialistic power, e.g. means of production, or the state moving history forward. The characteristic of all the materialistic ideas is that they all have an ending. So a secular messiah, e.g. Robespierre, Stalin, Hitler, Fukuyama, all claim, here is paradise, here is the end of history. With Islam there is no end in history at all, except the day of judgment, which is outside history. In Judaism the Day of Judgment is within history. In Christianity the second coming is the end of history and is also within history. In Islam there is no end in history. God is external to history; he guides history, but is not in it, he transcends it. In Islam history lasts forever, and within its realm man has freedom to choose.

  From the very beginning it was believed that history is determined by human choice, but guided by God. It was already projected from the history of the Prophet. They always wanted to write a comprehensive history. Ibn Khaldun did not exclude providence altogether. He did see patterns like asabiya  etc., but always saw the human will acting in history.a history that has meaning and is guided by a transcendental power. Western concept cannot accept this duality. Either it is one or the other. When the West looks at Ibn Khalduns Philosophy, they strip it of its duality, and make him look like a pure secular materialist.   .

IQBAL’S CONCEPTION OF HISTORY

Iqbal’s early interest in history is evident from the fact that, as early as in 1913, he compiled an elementary book of history as text-book under the title Tārīkh-i Hind for school students similar to text-books of Urdu and Persian. He firmly believed that the fall and rise of nations, if studied in historical perspective, may save nations from decline and disaster and help them to preserve their cultural heritage. He had deep insight of human history and Muslim society and penetrating eyes on their social and Cultural Revolution. He studied particularly the history of Islam. References and allusions to events in Islam are copiously given in his works of prose and poetry and events and anecdotes are found in abundance in his writings.

In the year 1910 he gave a lecture in the Strachey Hall, Muslim Aligarh University. It was later translated into Urdu by Maulānā Zafar ‘Alī Khan under the title “Millat-i Baidā’ Par Ek ‘Imrānī Nazar”.

This was a very important lecture from the point of view of his analysis of the causes of the rise and fall of nations, particularly with reference to Muslims’ decline in educational, social and cultural fields. Like Ibn Khaldūn, a great Muslim historian, he analyses the moral and cultural experiences of different nations and states that human experiences are governed by a definite set of historical laws. If examined from anthropological and sociological point of view, it appears that there are stages of development of human faculties of different nations. Bravery, kindness and self-control are the virtues exemplified in notable personalities. If we take examples from the history of Muslim India these qualities are reflected in Taimūr, Bābar and ‘Alamgīr, respectively. He considered Aurangzeb ‘Alamgīr as a pioneer of Muslim nationhood in the history of Muslin’s of the subcontinent—the same ‘Alamgīr who is described by some historians as tyrant, fanatic and a symbol of machination against non-Muslims.

To grasp fully Iqbal’s concept of history, it must be remembered that the absolute unity of God and the innate freedom of man’s inner self are the basic principles through which, accord­ing to him, the socio-economic and moral values in a society are governed. As a matter of fact, moral and ethical degradation resulted in the economic and political backwardness of the Muslims in the subcontinent. Nations which do not change their lot by moral, economic and social improvement have no right to exist on earth. They are bound to crumble and collapse. History does not sympathise with any individual or nation. It is cruel to those who deviate from the set pattern prescribed by historical forces and is favourable only to those who follow the Divine laws. Survival of the fittest does not mean only the physical fitness, but moral and spiritual strength is also necessary to gain power and a place in the annals of history. He illustrates this point in the following line:

“You are fully aware of the reasons of the decline of the Muslims;

It is certainly not on account of want of money.”

According to Iqbal, history changes its course. New events take place with the forces of evolution; nevertheless the basic facts of history remain the same. According to him, the love for power, lust for money, domination over the weak all are universal facts of life and have remained the same throughout different periods of history.

“Adam is old but the idols are young.”

Thus his vision of human history is not merely the narration of facts; it is rather realization of the empirical truth. According to him, life is not only for the conquest of the universe; its ultimate achievement is nearness to God. He considers history an unbreakable chain between man and God. Living individuals, by their collective self, change the course of history. They create history. When this chain of historic man and God is weakened, it ends in tragedies. Thus the philosophical side of history, according to him, is that the events in this world never lead to mental peace. Man has to struggle to conquer happiness.

In his note-book. Stray Reflections, he notes:

“History is a sort of applied ethics. If ethics is to be an experimental science like other sciences, it must be based on the revelations of human experience. A public declaration of this view will surely shock the susceptibilities even of those who claim to be orthodox in morality but whose public conduct is determined by the teachings of history “

In his opinion, the interpretation of history is a delicate and sensitive matter. The facts from fiction are to be sifted with care and caution. He says:

“History is only an interpretation of human motives; and, since we are liable to misinterpret the motives of our contemporaries and even of our own intimate friends and associates in daily life, it must be far more difficult rightly to interpret the motives of those who lived centuries before us. The record of history, therefore, should be accepted with great caution.”

He is delighted to read the glorious history of the Muslim community, and praises them in the following words:

‘The more you reflect on the history of the Muslim community, the more wonderful does it appear. From the day of its foundation up to the beginning of the sixteenth century—about a thousand years—this energetic race (I say race since Islam has functioned as a race-making race) was continually busy in the all-absorbing occupation of political expansion. Yet in this storm of continuous activity this wonderful people found sufficient time to unearth and preserve the treasures of ancient sciences, to make material additions to them to build a literature of a unique character, and above all to develop a complete system of law—the most valuable legacy that Muslim lawyers have left to us.”

His poetic mind thinks of a beautiful simile and compares history to a gramophone. He says that “History is a sort of a huge gramophone in which the voices of nations are preserved.”

Now coming to the philosophical side of history, as a source of human knowledge, Iqbal considers history as a great power of inner experience. According to him, the function of Sufism in Islam has been to systematize mystic experience. But according to him Ibn Khaldūn was the only Muslim historian who approached it in a thoroughly scientific spirit. In his book Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam Iqbal writes:

“But inner experience is only one source of human knowledge. According to the Quran there are two other sources of knowledge-Nature and History; and it is in tapping these sources of knowledge, that the spirit of Islam is seen at its best.”

He further elaborates that

“It is one of the most essential teachings of the Quran that nations are collectively judged, and suffer for their misdeeds here and now. . . . The Quran constantly cites historical instances, and urges upon the reader to reflect on the past and present experience of mankind.”

Every nation has its fixed period (Holy Qur’ān, vii. 32). Iqbal in his lecture, “The Spirit of Muslim Culture,” included in his monumental work Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, has discussed at length the Quranic references in history. The Qur’ān extends farther than mere indication of historical generalisation. He says :

“Since accuracy in recording facts which constitute the material of history is an indispensable condition of history as a science, and an accurate knowledge of facts ultimately depends on those who report them, the very first principle of historical criticism is that the reporter’s personal character is an important factor in judging his testimony. . . . The growth of historical sense in Islam is a fascinating subject.”

lbn Khaldūn, Ibn Ishāq, Tabarī, and Mas’ūdī are the product of the desire to furnish permanent sources of inspiration to posterity. According to Iqbal, the possibility of a scientific treatment of history means a wider experience, a greater maturity of practical reason, and finally a fuller realisation of certain basic ideas regarding the nature of life and time. These are based on two Quranic teachings: (I) the unity of human origin ; (2) a keen perception of time and concept of life as a continuous movement in time.

Iqbal’s concept of history is derived from Quranic teaching. Elaborating this aspect in the essay referred to above he says that “considering the direction in which the culture of Islam had unfolded itself, only a Muslim could have viewed history as a continuous, collective movement, a real inevitable development in time.”

A living nation with the help of its collective ego may change the current of history. It will be an epoch-making nation. But if the collective unity is broken and forces of disintegration start working, the tragic side of the history of a nation is manifested. The creation of Pakistan is a unique feature of Muslim history. It is our sacred duty to preserve and safeguard it keeping in line with the golden period of Muslim history.

Ibn Khaldun and the Philosophy of History

Imadaldin Al-Jubouri , on the medieval Islamic philosopher, who pioneered the scientific understanding of history.

The Arabic philosopher and historian ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) was the first pioneer to discover that history, like any other science, required research. “It is the science of circumstances and events and its causes are profound, thus it is an ancient, original part of wisdom and deserves to be one of its sciences.”

In his The Introduction (1377), ibn Khaldun also wrote, “History is an art of valuable doctrine, numerous in advantages and honourable in purpose; it informs us about bygone nations in the context of their habits, the prophets in the context of their lives and kings in the context of their states and politics, so those who seek the guidance of the past in either worldly or religious matters may have that advantage.”

Ibn Khaldun’s theory divided history into two main parts: the historical manifest and the historical gist. According to him, history should not limit itself to recording events, but should examine environments, social mores and political bases: “True history exists to tell us about human social life, which is the world’s environment, and the nature of that environment as it appears from various events. It deals with civilisation, savagery and tribalism, with the various ways in which people obtain power over each other, and their results, with states and their hierarchies and with the people’s occupations, lifestyles, sciences, handicrafts and everything else that takes place in that environment under various circumstances.”

Ibn Khaldun’s method relied on criticism, observation, comparison and examination. He used scientific criticism to analyse accounts of historical events, the sources of these accounts and the techniques used by historians, examining and comparing various different accounts in order to get rid of falsifications and exaggerations and obtain some objective idea of what had actually happened. Many accounts contained lies because they had been written to flatter some ruler or to further the interests of some sect, the new smakers and storytellers deliberately cheating and falsifying things for their own purposes. Ibn Khaldun, therefore, urged the historian to become erudite, accurate in observation and skilled in comparing text with subtext in order to be capable of effective criticism and clarification.

Although ibn Khaldun strongly believed in God, he never mentioned any celestial aim for history, or any divine end at which history would come to stop. He states, in fact, the “past is like the future, water from water”, which seems to imply that human history has no end. Ibn Khaldun went further to criticise other historians for imposing metaphysical ideas upon historical events to make the latter appear subordinate to the gods or to divine providence, turning history, properly a science, into something more closely akin to the arts and literature.

As a result, some Muslims and Westerners seized his concept of history to denounce ibn Khaldun as an atheist, a charge of which he was innocent; his point was that the science of history was not subject to metaphysics and could not be made so. Ibn Khaldun never questioned the existence of God. His work, according to him, was “inspired by God, pure inspiration”, which should be evidence enough of his belief in God.

However, his views on prophecy are crystal clear, unlike those of certain of his predecessors in Muslim philosophy, in particular Alfarabi (870-950) and Avicenna (980-1037). As an experimental philosopher he was interested in the holy experiments of the Prophet Mohammed (570-632), which means he cannot have seen history as having no end. If the existence of God is regarded as an absolute fact and His prophets and their religious experiments as proof of this fact, then the statement that in history the past is just like the future must mean it consists of a continuous series of events not stopping with any nation, but continuing in cycles.

Ibn Khaldun believed even the minutest of facts should be scrutinised in analysing historical events, since these were not simple phenomena, but complex. He regarded history as far from easy to study, being “the knowledge of qualitative events and their causes in depth.” Since metaphysical theories of history were in his view irrelevant, Ibn Khaldun imported the idea of causality from the theoretical field of philosophy into the practical arena of history by concentrating on the worldly ‘causes and reasons’ of historical events. His method was directly inductive, relying on the senses and the intellect without referring to any other norm. There was, in his view, a yawning void between the abstractive and the experimental, the first being based on logic and second on the reality of the sensible world. The subject of divine knowledge was an invisible spirit unable to be subjected to experimentation and of which there was no sensory evidence, so there could be no certain proof of it in this world. Since the sensible and the non-sensible thus had no terms in common, ibn Khaldun banished the abstractive or divine world from his logical syllogisms. This is precisely the approach taken by modern positivism, and even pragmatism followed in ibn Khaldun’s footsteps during its early stages.

In his diagnosis of “the causes of lies in history”, ibn Khaldun identifies a number of reasons, such as: sectarianism, misplaced trust in the sources, ignorance of some hidden purpose and the wish to flatter rulers. Hence, many historians, copyists and tellers have made the mistake of accepting untrue accounts or recording events that did not take place because they have relied on report alone, without bothering to research its sources closely for truth or falsehood, compare it with anything else or apply their own intelligence to it. In this they have showed themselves to be poor historians. For example, al-Mas’udi and various other Arab historians accepted that the Israelite armies led by the Prophet Moses numbered 600,000 or more men aged twenty and upwards. If we examine this tale carefully it is clearly false. When Jacob and his kinsmen entered Egypt there were only seventy of them. Only four generations separated Jacob and Moses. Where, then, did Moses get this huge multitude of youths and men? The Israeli themselves, moreover, reported that Solomon’s army numbered 12,000 and his horses 1400, while calling his kingdom the vigour of their state and an expansion of their reign.

Al-Mas’ud also succeeded in ignoring physical reality. How exactly was this huge army squeezed into the maze? How could so massive a force have been lined up and moved in so limited an area of land? In the area of historical knowledge al-Mas’ud did no better. Historically each kingdom was manned by a certain number of garrisons according to its size. A kingdom having six hundred thousand or more fighters would have had borders far exceeding the limits of the ancient kingdom of Israel.

In his prescription of “requirements for a historian”, ibn Khaldun stated that several things were essential if a historian were to be qualified to deal with historical events and stories:

1. An understanding of the rules of politics and the nature of people.

2. Knowledge of the natural environment and how it differs according to time and place.

3. Acquaintance with the social environments of the various different nations in terms of way of life, morals, incomes, doctrines and so forth.

4. An understanding of the present time and an ability to compare it with the past.

5. Knowledge of the origins and motives of states and sects, their declared principles, their rules and major events in their histories.

To achieve a critical understanding of historical events, then, the historian must study the general circumstances of the period with which he is dealing and compare the particular events in which he is interested. He should then explore any similar events that have taken place at other periods along with the general circumstances of these periods. When he has completed these two main stages he should be able to recognise events as reasonable and probably true, or unacceptable and almost certainly false. Certain events need only be studied separately, along with the general circumstances of their periods, to know which parts of them must be true or false.

In his analysis of ‘the intellect’, ibn Khaldun believes the intellect has limits it cannot exceed and that these prevent it from reaching a complete understanding of God and His attributes. This is its reality, and man cannot upgrade it or increase its level of capability. Ibn Khaldun insisted that the intellect could not be aware of “the reality of the soul and the divine” or of anything else existing in the higher world, because it was incapable of reaching, knowing or proving it. We can be aware only of what is material; if a thing is immaterial we can neither prove it nor base any proof upon it.

Ibn Khaldun offered the intellect little encouragement to dwell on metaphysics, preferring to emulate Algazel (1059-1111), by dealing a final and near-fatal blow to philosophical thought by the Arabic-Islamic intellect. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that in closing one door ibn Khaldun threw open to the human mind an entirely new one: the sociology and philosophy of history.

Since the 18th century, the western world has taken ibn Khaldun seriously, especially as his scientific ideas were very much like those that were to develop much later on in human history. He has, however, still not taken his rightful place as the founder of philosophy of history and the pioneer of sociology, although translations of his historical and social treatises have helped to some extent.

Extracts from “The Quranic Concept of History” by Mazheeruddin Siddiqi published by Islamic Research Institute Islamabad

The Quran lays great emphasis upon the fact that the process of history is not neutral in respect of nations and communities for it clearly says

“God is on the side of those who fear Him and do good” (XV1:127)

Fear here relates to the law of divine retribution which encompasses the process of history .The law in itself is merely a statement of the essentials of inter dependent existence within human societies.

Communities that are virtuous in its conduct, towards its own members as well as those outside its fold can rely on divine support.

Virtue ,justice, fair dealing and other qualities which lead to the betterment of human relationships help human effort to succeed at both individual and collective levels .The historical process defeats the purpose of wrong doers .God does not entrust the leadership of mankind to a people who are ethically inferior(in that point of time) and cannot maintain justice either among themselves or in relation to others .This is because the historical process is an ethically oriented one and ,therefore, does not allow ,a group of people, who do not fulfill the minimum requirements of justice, fair play and honesty in dealings with others ,to rise to the position of leadership .

The  norms of justice ,ethics and morals also evolve with time  .These are not stationary concepts but are dynamic ones .Human societies have and are undergoing through a process of evolution and this entails that all aspects that relate to community living also evolve with time .What is considered just and moral in one period is not unacceptable in subsequent times .The reference to moral and ethical norms in this analysis is related to the time relationship of these values .These are  not deemed as fixed and static concepts .

The historical process is depicted by a continuous, albeit haphazard and even regressive at times, process.

The Quran views the historical process as selective in the sense that it sifts those who are morally weak from those who can function effectively as the standard bearer of culture and civilization in the moral and spiritual sense of the word.

The historical process is therefore selective in so far as it tends to preserve what is of value to mankind, but allows everything else to perish.

The focus here is not individuals but groups .The way in which a group responds to challenges thrown up by natural forces; social changes; or through impact of other societies brings out its moral qualities.

Historical events and the changes they bring about are the agents through which the selective process in history works out .The course of history itself is a moral agency through which the morally superior elements rise to the top while those who are morally inferior slide to the bottom.

The Quran also says “Or do those who do evil deeds think that We shall make them as those who believe and do good ----- their life and death shall be equal?” (XCV:21) .This means that the ideological ,social and economic structure of a societies makes the difference between them .Corrupt societies , without an ideal (moral or religious) cannot be accorded the same treatment , by the historical process, as a society which subscribes to virtuous ideals and healthier beliefs.

Religion promises reward and punishment in the hereafter but the historical process requires that the punishment (or reward) be meted out in this life, here, and now (does not mean immediately, as the punishment process works out gradually) .It is essential that goodness and virtue in a group receive their due sooner or later, in some form or another and wickedness in any nation meets with punishment at some stage or the other in their history.

The Quran also says “Allah has promised to those of you who believe and do good that He will surely make them rulers in the earth, as He made those before them rulers, and He will establish for them their religion, which He has chosen for them, and that He will surely give them security in exchange after their fear” (XXIV: 55) and “And certainly We wrote in the Book after the reminder that My righteous servants shall inherit My land” (XXI: 105).

Both above verses apply to the community and not to individuals’.

Social groups that accept faith and consequently begin a life based on virtue and goodliness.

The group also acquires social virtues like: spirit of mutual cooperation; a feeling of corporate personality; a readiness to take risks in the interest of the community.

Change does not happen instantaneously but takes time ,the process is ,usually long drawn out ,until a time when the community in question disintegrates ,by natural or other means .The process also does involve frequent warnings through a number of ways .These warnings may be wars ,strikes ,civil commotion ,and social convulsions .This would mean that chances to reform are frequently offered and only when the group shuns all efforts towards reform that it is eliminated .The punishment in itself usually involves the loosening or elimination of bonds and ties that hold a group together .The group becomes a collection of individuals working against each other and form easy prey to other groups or ideas .

The historical process involves actions of men and not their beliefs .If a belief becomes ossified and is held merely as a sacred tradition of the past it has no effect on the historical process since it is unable to influence human behavior .Ideas that were once great could become outdated and consequently useless .Tyranny ,injustice and oppression are the causes that bring about destruction of an community .Every society has some unfairness but what is referred to here is grave injustice which amounts to oppression ,this oppression may be by one section of the population upon another or by the group against other peoples .When God wishes to destroy a people He puts wicked people at their head .

The Koran also suggests that prosperity without the counter balance of the fear of God tends to corrupt .The main idea of the Koran seems to be that it is not affluence that is undesirable but the spiritual imbalance that in fact causes the decadence and ultimate destruction .People could live in affluence without losing the spiritual and moral values which keep in check the moral and social disorders that result in decadence and destruction .Prosperity and affluence can co-exist with a spiritually balanced life in the realms of beliefs and conduct .

The Koran also asserts that it is not enough for one to lead a righteous life .The social requirements obligate the individual to see that others also lead such a life ,this because it is in the interest of the group to be collectively just and correct else the group will perish .Thus the common good requires that the structure of the society and its system be such that behavior that threatens the collective existence is condemned and stopped .It would seem that the Koran suggest that unbridled materialism brings disaster and that there is need to regulate materialism to ensure that individual efforts do not transgress the rights of others .

The Koran also suggest that a system that cannot renew itself from time to time must degenerate and produce corruption and injustice , which can be removed only by the victory of another group with a different system of life and moral values .

The Koran suggests that ,material progress is not the same thing as spiritual progress .The two are not contradictory but neither are they equivalent to each other .Thus the holders of power and wealth need to be guided by a healthy system of beliefs ,resulting in appropriate moral conduct else they will be ruined and disgraced .Unless wealth is used by its possessors for moral and material uplift of humanity ,it is more likely to bring them to the brink of disaster .unless wealth and economic prosperity goes together with a feeling of humility and an understanding of the social obligations involved in the possession of wealth and power the result could lead to disaster and elimination .

Societies that are unjust become corrupt and lose cohesion .This is because that a society should process a high degree of internal cohesion in order to be able to compete with others in the struggle for supremacy .Internal cohesion requires justice in its widest sense .World leadership is conferred upon nations that can stand the challenge and test of history .

THE QUR’ANIC CONCEPT OF HISTORY

by

Dr. Syed Ali Ashraf

Definition

Any narration of the past is known as 'history'. It is used as a generic term when one talks of ‘the history of civilizations’, ‘the political history of a country’, ‘the economic

History of any region’, ‘the history of religions’ or ‘the history of mankind’. But when one frames the history sylla bus for school children or teaches ‘history’ as a subject in schools and colleges, one generally deals with the political history of races, nations, peoples and mankind. Whether we are teaching the history of the world or the history of a nation or the history of a region, we describe the rise and fall of nations, or the growth and expansion of political progress or downfall of houses and families. Even when we speak of civilizations and cultures, we consider them in the context of peace and war among groups of people or nations or races. In other words, racial, cultural, social, economic nd moral history of mankind is always presented within the context of the growth, expansion and fall of political authority. When the past of mankind is presented in the Qur’an, the same rise and fall of political authority is discussed.

The narration of the past of mankind through history in the restricted sense of the word is therefore, both in the Qur’an and in modern connotation, the narration of the rise and fall of political authority.

The Past

What is this past? How far back do we go when we draw up a syllabus? What particular nations or races or groups of people do we feel confident enough to talk about? What is it that gives us this confidence? Here we try to be what is generally known as ‘scientific’ as if only by scientific methods can we reach the truth about the past. We do not accept any version of the past of mankind which cannot be proved with documents and material evidence. Divine revelations that came to prophets are always ignored because of several reasons. Some people believe revelations to be true and some don’t. It becomes a matter of faith and not a matter which can be proved demonstratively to have happened. Moreover, even if we accept the revelations to be true, can we accept all that is claimed to have been revealed to be genuine? The Qur’an challenges many of

what the Jews claimed to be true about some prophets to have been fabrications by later generations .

 The truth or falsehood of what was claimed to have been revelations could only be verified by later revelations. This was done by the revelations that came to the Prophet of Islam, peace and blessings of Allah be on him. From the purely modern scientific point of view the Prophet’s life and activities have been analysed and verified. Therefore

from the modern historical point of view, revelations stored up in the form of the Qur’an are to be regarded as something genuine. Whether they came from Allah or not depends on a person’s faith in Islam. We cannot compel a non-Muslim to accept revelations to be true. Our methods of determining the scope of history with the help of revelations cannot there- fore be regarded as a universally acceptable method.

Some scholars get very worried because of the restricted recognition of the validity of the revelations. They feel that the so-called ‘scientific’ method is the only valid method be- cause this method confines our attention to something solid and never asks us to travel in the unknown. 2 But this method by its very nature is highly materialistic in character. Just because some people do not have faith and cannot believe in revelations, just because some people are atheists should we ignore our past as revealed to us by Allah Himself? As we are Muslims, revelations should be regarded as a valid means of knowing the past of mankind. It is true that by doing so we are dragging in faith as a means of construct- ing the history of Man. Why we should not do so I do not understand unless it is our weakness in our faith. Those who  God said this especially about the Jews. There are many verses in the Quran  such as Sura 2: 40-42. See also Sura 2:79: “cursed be those who write books themselves and later on say that they have come from God”.

Scientific historians emerged first in Germany. In England  this tendency became popular in the late 19th century do not believe in the existence of God or who cannot accept the concept of a Divine plan in history need not be convinced, nor need we worry about them. The Prophet of Islam, peace be upon him, proved beyond all doubt the validity of all truths about human life revealed to him through the word of Allah which we find enshrined in the Quran. We must therefore accept the past of mankind revealed to us by Allah and thus we should go back to revelations in order to reconstruct the history of Man on this earth.

Range and Scope

The range and scope of this past embrace the whole of mankind from Man’s first advent on the earth till doomsday. The future of mankind is not the primary concern of history.

That aspect of human life falls within the scope only of religion. But the past of mankind narrated in the Qur’an and further explained in the sayings of the Prophet should be considered as portions of human history.

This range has certain characteristics which are at variance with the history that man’s limited investigations into his own past have revealed. Instead of accepting religious statements modern historians have borrowed from biology the concept of evolution, from anthropology the concept of races, from sociology the concept of social change and hence the evolution of civilisations and cultures and from archaeology the cultural patterns of Man in dif- ferent ages . 3 As they know that new investigations may bring to light new facts which may compel them to alter or modify their previous conjectures and conclusions, historians consider their early findings about early Man about whom there is no written record as not final. They do not The impact of these forces can be seen even in the Study of History by Toynbee in spite of the fact that he focused attention on eternal values manifested in history consider God’s statements as valid because they have nothing tangible to prove or disprove them. In other words, their complete denial of the past as presented in the Quran nothing less than sheer arrogance and a proof of their lack of faith. But they want to avoid such discussion be- cause they try to assert that they are ready to talk of Man’s past from what they could find and verify or analyse. In other words, the knowledge that Allah has given to Man through His Prophet is not regarded as acceptable know- ledge. As a result there is hardly any similarity between the two images of the past of mankind. As both of them are covering the same ground and presenting the image of Man from his earliest days till today, the variations and con- flicts become glaring and the philosophical bases of the two need investigation. A glance at the two images would focus our attention on the basic areas of similarity   

If we leave the pre-earthly image as something beyond the scope of the history of Man on this earth, we get the image of the first man and his wife, Adam and Eve, and his children. Adam is a completely new creation endowed with spiritual knowledge and blessed with the duty of a Prophet for his children. We do not get any details about his life. We are informed of his two sons, Abel and Cain. The next picture is of human corruption and the destruction of all unbelievers by a great flood at the time of another Prophet, Noah.

From the Quran it appears that there was a time when all people were of the same color. But Allah divided them into different groups having different colors because he wanted that they should know each other and through that knowledge understand the purpose of creation and the glory of Allah.

From Noah till the last Prophet there is a continuous line of Prophet hood and human history, with the rise and fall of nations integrally related to faith and Man’s behavior, his acceptance or denial of the Message that Allah had sent through His prophets. Political authority is shown to have been linked up with the moral and spiritual conduct

of Man. The life of the last Prophet, peace be upon him, proves beyond all doubt that all authority ultimately be- longs to Allah. He chooses those who obey Him and fight for His cause. When a nation disobeys Allah and upsets the code of life granted by Him then Allah sends warnings to that nation in the form of natural calamities. But if the nation does not repent and becomes more hard-hearted then He sends human beings to destroy those people. He also sows the seeds of discord among those nations which give

up His code and proudly and arrogantly pose to be self- sufficient.

There is thus a Divine plan in history. Increase in wealth or a higher standard of living does not mean real happiness. Real happiness consists in pure living, in humility, in resignation to the Will of Allah, and in fighting in His path in order to establish His kingdom on the earth. Any nation that becomes morally degenerated is bound to all and loses its greatness.

The Modern Image

A modern historian would present the first human being or the first group of human beings as having emerged through a biological process, how we do not know. Instead of being a Man endowed with knowledge and of his being a Prophet, the first man, so the historian conjectures, must have been a primitive’ creature, intellectually stunted, and culturally blind. Psychologists and social anthropologists like Jung and others have drawn inferences from their limited observations and formulated this theory about the ‘primitive Man’ and his consciousness. It has now become a fashionable concept.

Once they accept the theory of ‘primitive’ consciousness, it is logical and legitimate for these scholars to formulate a theory about the growth of ‘modern’ consciousness. This

theory has been successfully propounded and used. It is now common knowledge’ that as Man goes on discovering new things in and about the universe and about their physical selves and as he goes on inventing ever-newer instruments of civilization, his life becomes more and more ‘complex’, his mind grows and develops and his values change and go on changing. From a study only of the exter- nal changes and changes in the instruments of civilization, these scholars have concluded about inner change in Man and change in his consciousness about values. They have also denuded values of their absolute framework and made them entirely relative. They forget that neither has Man be- come a more improved creature biologically, or been able to become a superman mentally or intellectually or from the point of view of those aspects of human personality which are essential for living, love and charity. They cannot deny the fact that there has been no change in man’s response to love, kindness, mercy, charity, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, justice, honesty, truthfulness. Man’s reaction to injustice, ruthlessness, lies and bribery remains the same. Similarly a man has not become more aware and more truthful or a more just person because he can travel by a jet plane today. The complexity is of situations and not of values.

According to the Qur’anic concept of Man, therefore, the evolution of civilizations does not indicate a growth from primitivity to modernity in so far as values are concern- ed. On the other hand, the Qur’an divides Man’s existence on this earth into three sections. The first section is comprised of the period that extends from Adam to Muhammad, peace be on them, that is, from the first prophet to the last prophet of Islam. The second section extends from the period of the Khulafa’ -Rashidun till the regeneration of Man after the Second coming of Jesus, peace be on him. The third section shows man’s gradual downfall till he loses all consciousness of values and the whole human race and the creation are destroyed by God.

The history of Man presented in the first section is shown to have been governed by a cyclic process. Man is constantly invaded by material prosperity and moral depravity. Some races were therefore destroyed by God and some are shown to have been regenerated by prophets.  

The history of the Israelites shows this pattern very clearly. They went astray several times and received penalty from God through defeats and captivation. Again some new Pro- phets led them to victory and spiritual regeneration and worldly glory. Thus the rise and fall of nations and races are shown to be integrally related to their obedience or disobedience to the code of life given to them by God.

That is why God repeatedly asks us to go round the earth and see what had happened to past generations and learn a Lesson

But the lesson that a modern archaeologist and a his- torian learn from such a tour or from all excavations and analysis is very different from the lesson that Allah wants us to learn. They analyse the past, reconstruct it as far as it is possible for them to do so but they never try to see or find any divine purpose in the rise and fall of nations. They try to investigate the cause of the fall of such nations or the rise of other nations within the orbit of purely worldly and matter-of-fact existence. God and His laws do not seem to

play any role in human existence. Man’s own machinations, his opportunities and experiments, his endeavors and superiority or inferiority, in strategy or tactics or diplomacy seem to be the only causes of his victory or downfall.

The Qur’an teaches us a completely different lesson. The cause of the suffering that the Muslims incurred at the battle of Uhud has been stated to be their greed and a false sense of arrogance and superiority and a consequent dis- obedience to the order of the Prophet, peace be on him . 6 Similarly the victory of Talut against Jalut and the Philistines did not depend on number of weapons or better All authority belongs to Allah alone. (Qur'an, 3: 21-30)

 ‘Already before your time have precedents been made. Traverse the earth then, and see what has been the end of those who falsify the signs of God’. Qur'an 3: 136.

. Qur’an 3 : 149-171. About God's special help in the battle of Badr see Qur’an 8 : 1-30.

strategy . 7 It depended on sheer faith in God and complete dependence on His help and guidance. Similarly suffering came to the Israelites and they had to wonder in deserts and hills for forty years just because they did not believe that they could win victory against the Canaanites. They disobeyed Moses, peace be on him, and ignored his entreat- ies. 8 Otherwise they would have won because this was the promised land for them. Thus it was their cowardice, and purely materialistic analysis of the situation in which they found themselves weak in number, physical strength and military strategy that prevented them from following the instructions of Moses, peace be on him. Not that military strategy should be ignored. But the ultimate victory does not depend on strategy alone. It depends on Man’s faith and sincerity. The world is presented in the Qur’an as a moral world in which Allah wants the values to be upheld. He helps that nation which upholds those values.

When we therefore study the past, we invariably find this principle governing the life of Man. The destruction of ‘Ad and Thamud has been presented in the Qur’an . 9 If we apply principle to the contemporary world we shall see that this principle is intensely operative. If we take the two world wars, we are compelled to admit that victory was granted by God to the side which was morally superior. But corruption, loss of basic values and the giving up of religious principles are now ruining their lives. Their society is facing complete disruption. Their sense of security that a peaceful home-life used to give them, their respect for the individual and the family-life - all these are almost gone.

Prostitution, even incest have been legalised. Though they have a lot of wealth, they do not have any peace of mind. An extremely vicious circle of inflation, price-rises and wage-increases is squeezing the last ounce of happiness from social life. Allah has clearly indicated in the Qur’an that He has fixed a time-limit for these nations. He allows them to follow their lusts till a saturation point is reached. He then showers destruction on such people. England ruled half the world because of all the rising races inthenineteenth cen- tury this race was the most honest and just. The English middle-class was upholding the values of chastity, truth honesty, charity and justice more than any other nation or country. That was why those who established their empire were impeached in their parliament. Now that the same nation has become spiritually apologetic and morally degenerate in sex, they are ruining their basic fiber of honesty, breaking their secure home-life and have already started suffering the consequences, of insecurity and goallessness. This race has lost its undisputed leadership. In spite of this, it still upholds certain basic values which religion preaches such as non-racialism, independence and justice. But sexual degeneration leads to a sense of irresponsibility which automatically leads to extreme selfishness and hence to a loss of charity, righteousness and love for others. These forces of evil are eating the roots of this nation. That is why Nazism has already lured away a group of young men and women who are trying to destroy all those values which this society used to uphold. The formation of such a Front indicates the victory of narrow racialism, and all the future dread of injustice and corruption that follow such a victory.

Twenty years ago it would have been impossible to form such a Front and parade its presence in public. That they can now do so indicates their victory and hence the weakening of the fibre of justice. I only hope that this victory does not gain more adherents. The protests against this group indicate that the fibre of this nation is not completely ruined. But it is difficult for us to ascertain how far the upholding of some values would be able to counterbalance the destruction of other values. Allah has repeatedly said that wealth does not indicate real peace and prosperity. It is given some- times as a trial, sometimes to create further trouble. Some

European countries have a lot of wealth but their society has become tolerant of unfaith and sexual corruption of the worst sort. The very fabric of humanity is at stake. Many western scholars have started lamenting this fate and are unable to give a viable solution. The only solution is a return to Faith and a reassertion of the code of life granted by Allah. But as none of the European nations including Soviet Russia is at all interested in those principles, it seems that Allah has sown in them the seed of discord and would allow this conflict to flourish till they destroy them- selves or return to the fold of Islam and become regenerated.

The Metaphysics

We have so far discussed the past as envisaged in the Qur’an. God has created Man in order to see him realize his true greatness through the principle of worship. And the basic principle of worship is ingrained in the code of life granted to Man by God. So long as Man maintains pre- serves and upholds this code, God promises to grant him victory, glory and greatness. In the political field it means the granting of political authority. Only by getting that authority can Man make that code prevail in the society. If Man does not support that principle, God will allow Man some respite but a time will invariably come when he will totally destroyed.

The second principle operative in human history is the continuous renewal of values through the emergence of Prophets and, after the last Prophet, through the emergence of Reformers who would remind Man of his essential great- ness and how he can achieve that. If a society wants to continue to live and avoid the wrath of God, if it wants to survive in spite of temptations in the form of corruptions, vices and all forms of evil, it must from time to time re- assert Absolute values. History of nations becomes the history of continuous regenerations and continuous conflict between good and evil.

The third principle that the Qur’anic view of history asserts is the difference that exists between material progress and moral standards. Morality is based on Absolute values. They are immutable. Social change therefore does not affect values. It only forces people to lay more emphasis on certain values and less emphasis on others because circumstances demand such treatment. From the point of view of history therefore social changes lead to occasional shifting of emphasis and not to a rejection of values or a reinterpretation of them.

The Qur’anic concept of History therefore differs fundamentally from the Marxist concept and the Christian concept and to a large extent from the Judaic concept. The Marxist concept is based on a purely materialistic view of the universe. There seems to be a mysteriously holy purpose, a natural urge towards the establishment of a universal order where there is no exploitation, and no division of mankind into rich and poor or high and low. Marx tries to prove that such a dream-world will come through because of the basic economic process of life. He then analyses the past and tries to show how all values including religion and religious values are entirely dependent on the process of economic evolution. It is an inevitable economic process of history.

As the Islamic concept is based on a completely different concept of man and values there is no point in comparing these two concepts or in trying to demolish the unsound foundation of this thesis. In trying to do so we would be involved in the discussion of Marxist philosophy from the point of view of Islam. As the fundamentals of these two approaches are completely different all that can be done now is to point out this difference which we have already done.

As regards the Jewish concept of history, the basic concept which governs it is that the Jews are the chosen people and authority should ultimately belong to them. Just as they denied Jesus, they denied Muhammad, peace be on them. Their interpretation of the past takes into account the concept of values, the concept of a Divine purpose in history but somehow they want to limit the power of Divinity by falsifying the predictions of their own prophets who had told them of the coming of the Prophet of Islam. They hope that one day God will again give complete authority, His chosen race. They have so far failed to reply to the challenge of the Qur’an that Allah is sending suffering to

them because of their transgressions in the past and transgressions even now.

The Christian concept is very different. History is seen as a long process making the stage ready for God to become Man so that Man may be redeemed. All historical events of the past therefore were events leading to the emergence of Christ. His crucifixion is the central event in human history. Human history is divided by them into two sections - events leading to the crucifixion and from crucifixion till Doomsday.

Here again, the theological concept is fundamentally different. The moral order is the same as that of the Muslims, the principle of the relationship between the good life and the restoration of authority to a financially crippled group is not the same.

The Qur’anic concept therefore differs basically from the Jewish and the Christian concepts in spite of their similar moral framework. It does not oppose scientific investigations. It only wants the scientific findings and theories to be verified in the light of Islam.