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Originally Posted by fullyveiled muslimah
Short Answer:
When muslims fail to practice Islam and adhere to its tenets, we fail as a society. A steady drift away from true Islam always marks the end of whatever greatness the muslims achieve.
Long Answer:
When we look at a great civilizations rise and fall, it can almost always be attributed to a drifting away from the foundations on which it was built. What, you may ask, was the thing or foundation that made muslim civilization and way of life flourish? I can tell you what it wasn't. It wasn't a vast powerful army, not a desire for worldy wealth, not a desire to subjugate others. The thing that started the muslims on such a path of success was Islam itself, love for Allah and His rasul, and a strict adherence to the practices of Islam. The muslims in the beginning had vast amounts of self-control and discipline. They practiced Islam by caring for other people and animals.
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I have studied history in the Middle East. Many assert that the Islamic Arab state started on a war of conquest without explaining it. What I read was that Heraklios, Emperor of Byzantium had just fought a war with Sassanid Persia. People in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt were monophysite Christians who were persecuted by the Orthodox Byzantine Empire. Heraklios sent a large army maing consisting of Hun mercenaries and many from provinces that were stirring against the Empire. Heraklios sent his army because he feared a Syrian insurrection that could strip Syria and Palestine from the Empire. He worried that Arabia might help the insurrectionists.
So when this vast army was moving south from Asia Minor toward the southeastern border (Nabataea and Arabia), the Arabs feared an invasion and Heraklios might have actually planned an invasion. He had exchanged angry letters with Muhammad (PBUH). So the Arab Army went forth to halt the Byzantine advance. What happened is that Syrian Monophysite Christians joined the Muslim Army defeating the Byzantines. Having taken Syria and Lebanon, Palestine was relatively undefended. The Muslims occupied it without any seriour resistance. Many of the Christians welcomed Muslim rule because they were persecuted by the Orthodox Byzantine. The same happened in Egypt. Military patrols by the Muslim Army from Sinai toward Alexandria met with enthusiasm by the Egyptians who also prefered Islamic rule to Byzantine rule. The same happened in Libya.
Byzantium continued to fight a stalemate war in Eastern Asia Minor, and put up stiff resistence in Tunisia (Carthage). The Moors, enemies of Byzantium allied with the Arab armies and Islam easily "conquered" or "converted" everything from Armenia to Morocco. In Spain a usurped Visigoth King invited Tarik to land his army in Spain. Resistence in Spain rapidly fizzled out. So there were wars, but in the eyes of Syrians and North Africans it was more wars of liberation. Christians were not molested. The Arian Christians of Visigothic Spain felt more commonality with Monotheistic Islam than Trinitarian Christianity. So many Visigothic and Hispanic Spaniards converted. The well-fare of those around them regardless of religious creed was a thing that the muslims took personal responsibility for, and people lived together in peace.
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I am going to tell a little known story about the first attempts at spreading Islam. During the life of the Prophet (saw) he used to have letters dictated. These letters contained an introduction of himself, and his mission and a peaceful invitation to accept Islam. He would have these letters delivered by a delegation of muslims to the head of a sovereign state. The reason for sending it to the head of a state was because this is a method that had worked with the tribes in Arabia. If the leader of a people accepts Islam, then it is likely that his subjects will follow suit. Usually, he received one of three reactions to such invitation.
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Quite true. It was the letters that Heraklios regarded as threatening and especially in view of the native unrest in Byzantine Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. There was no armed resistence by Egyptians to the Arab occupation. Today, most Egyptians are ethnically Coptic Egyptians (Hamitic) and only Arabic in language and religion. Likewise in Libya and Morocco, althought Islamic and Arabic speaking are Hamitic Moors. And on the Eastern side of this all, was Persia, which fell easily after attempting to invade Arabia. Now Persia/Iran is ethnically Irani-European with some Mongol-Turkish mixture with only a small contribution of Arab genes. Almost all Turks in central Asia became Muslim but I cannot find out if it was purely conversion or Arab conquest. I think that Mongol (Ikhan) and Turkish (Timur e-lenk) conquest of southwest Asia led to their conversion by the conquered subjects and they took Islam back to the central Asian plains with them. I am not aware the Malasia and Indonesia were conquered by any foreign Islamic Army.
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a) The head of a state would decline to accept Islam, but would wish no ill upon the muslims. It was a polite "no". This reaction usually resulted in an alliance and treaty being forged between the muslims and the non-muslim state.
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I think this applied to Iranians of the North of the Plateau, along the south shore of the Caspian Sea. These Persians struck a deal with the Muslim Army occupying the rest of Persia. And they continued on as a Zoroastrian Shahdom known as Tabaristan. A century or so later they converted to Islam. Was this also the case in Cyprus, existing as a neutral island between the Umayyad Caliphate and the residual Byzantine Empire.
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b) The head of state would decline harshly. This pretty much meant that not only did the head of state refuse to accept Islam, the delegation would be killed. This violates the rules of conduct between nations even today. It automatically meant war. That reaction was most often linked to simple disbelief in the messege itself, and/or fear that if accepted would lead to the leader of the state to be removed from his post or killed by his own people, should they opposse his decision.
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I think that Heraklios in sending a large Army south toward Arabia through Syria given his harsh letters would force you to assume this army was sent south for a reason, and most likely and attack on Arabia.
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c) The head of state, after conferring with his viziers and cabinet members, would willingly accept Islam. This lead to an entire population of people becoming muslim, without nary a sword drawn, or blood spilled. After the leader would accept Islam, the delegation sent to deliver the messege would stay on, to assist in matters of religion, and explain to the king and his men how to deliver that messege to the common people without causing a mass uprising and as little civil unrest as possible.
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Do you know if this applied to Egypt? I assume it applied to Sudan, Somalia, and Arabic outposts along the coast of Africa. The African multinational language, Swahili, is (I am told) largely derived from Arabic. Malaya and the Indonesian Islands were not conquered as far as I know. And I think the vast Turkic-Mongol Khanates accepted Islam after conquering Muslims (Ilkhans of Persia, Kwarizim, and Selkuk Turks.) And Islam spread out in those Khanates except for the East Chinese Khanate of Kublai Khan.
This is how the spread of Islam started. Of course there were detractors who decided that swift and violent action should be taken against what was viewed as a new and heretical religion. Not to mention all the politics that played a part in the start of such wars.
If you study history, you will propbably find that as time went on, and the muslims were farther and farther removed from the time of the Prophet, more and more corruption could be found. It is a wrong assumption that it was Islam that caused this corruption, or that it had been interprated wrongly. The start of corruption in the Islamic empires of the past started for the same reason any other corruption started. Amergin, few it is who can drink the wine of power and not become intoxicated. The greed for territory, lust for power, and the attraction to all that that entails was the start of corruption. The root cause of the reason for corruption is what I mentioned above. When muslims fall away from Islam as a whole, it is easier for us to succumb to our less desireable traits. We can begin to cause harm rather than good. Tyranny and oppression replace justice and equal-footing.
Allah takes notice of this. Allah always removes tyranny and oppression after a time, regardless of the perpetrator. For the tyrants Allah has prepared a painful punishment. Makes no difference if the tyrant is muslim or not. Allah hates such practices as it is always damaging to the forward progress of humankind.
I hope that I have answered that question to your satisfaction. If you have any more inquiries on the subject, I know you'll feel free as a bird to post them.
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Aye, it has helped me understand the history that I have studied and rounded out by your input. And some facts were right before my eyes and I didn't notice. That is, the huge number or impressive percentage of Islamic scientists in the British Isles and France. In my younger years I assumed, wrongly that Islam opposed science much like traditional Christianity. You have shown me that is not so, and the Article in the Science Journal, Nature, on Iran showed that Islam and Science are not at odds.
Amergin