June 16, 2006

Quantum Note

Two Views of History—II

Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal

 The secular view of history has gone through several radical transformations during the last four hundred years. Its ancient believers employed simplistic methods when writing the histories of a people. While writing history, they would discover key individuals in the mass of people and ascribe all events to their will; this made the whole nation and armies subject to the will of these chosen persons. For these historians, the direct participation of a deity in human affairs provided a simple explanation for all historical phenomena: the will of the hero was guided by the deity, and the collective will of a people was, in turn, controlled by the heroes. This is a sequential architectural edifice built upon Homeric tales by Virgil, Dante, Milton, and Goethe.

Modern secular historians have maintained the essence of these formulations, but rejected any direct involvement of a deity in human affairs. Instead, they have invented a plethora of theories. Biographical historians turn to an Alexander or a Napoleon to narrate their story of civilisations, ascribing the historical process to the genius of their heroes. Universal historians, dealing with all nations, reject this mode of writing history and explain the rise and fall of a nation in terms of multiplicity of political, economic, and social factors. Ultimately, however, they too resort to hero worship to explain historical change. Dialectical and cultural historians employ yet other criteria for evaluating the progress or decay of a nation.

  According to all these views of history, the movement of a nation or a people is dependent on the actions of this or that individual, the emergence of a certain idea, or the development and possession of specific machines. This view, however, is unable to explain any connection between these pre-requisites and the ultimate fate of a nation or civilisation. It, moreover, relies on laying out post-hoc explanations of faits accomplis, rather than providing any insight into the working of history itself. It devises theories to suit already known facts, leaving aside moral and ethical considerations springing from its consequences and involving millions of human beings.

  The way a nation sees its history is not merely a theoretical issue; it colours its present and, in many ways, foreshadows its future. For the Muslim world, one of the most dangerous legacies of the colonial past is the distortion of its view of history. Since the colonial era, the sack of Baghdad in 1258 has become a key point in Muslim history, supposedly defining the demise of the Ummah—a construct which is pure fiction, for the concept of the Ummah was not burnt with the ‘City of Peace’. What changed in 1258 was merely a shift in socio-political structure, from the centralised state (ruled from Baghdad as the capital and seat of the caliphate since 750) to a decentralised state.

To take the sack of Baghdad as the beginning of the decline of the Muslim Ummah is, therefore, historically absurd. The Muslim counterattack against the Mongols came within two years of the destruction of Baghdad, leading to the first defeat of the Mongol forces in the battle of Ayn Jalut, north of Jerusalem on 3 September 1260.  The caliphate was re-instituted in Cairo in June 1261, when an Abbasid prince was proclaimed Caliph under the name of al-Mustansar. This institution remained in Egypt until 1517 when it was transferred to the Ottoman capital, where the caliphate remained until it was abolished by Mustafa Kemal on 3 March 1924. Long before its demise, however, most of the Muslim lands had been colonised by the West. It was during this colonised period that the concept of ‘Ummah’ received its final blow.

  During this period, the concept of Ummah went through a major transformation due to the dominance of the secular view of history. The colonial powers propagated the idea of nation states based on tribal, ethnic and linguistic affiliations, thus fostering regional and sectarian differences among the various people who constituted the Ummah in the first place. Towards the end of their rule, these powers brutally institutionalised nation-states in the colonised lands, destroying the unity of the Ummah—at least for the time being.

  The secular view of history has now firmly established itself as never before. In its new formulation, it proclaims that because of its superior socio-economic system as well as because of its mastery of science and technology, the West has an upper hand in the affairs of the world. It goes further and claims that the present world order is destined to remain virtually inviolable forever, having culminated all histories. This “End of History” illusion is propagated daily by media in various obvious and not so obvious forms. It is regarded as an indisputable fact in the West, and the idea has also attained a degree of acceptance among some Muslims.

  A logical consequence of the acceptance of this erroneous notion is the continuation of a pseudo-independent existence of 1.5 billion Muslims in nation states being ruled by unrepresentative governments beholden to the West for their existence. This secular view of history inevitably colours the present and taints the future; its tyranny binds the entire Ummah in invisible chains, sterilising any power to change its present state.

The religious view of history, on the other hand, has the potential to give hope to believers that the present world order is but a transient reality destined to change. It provides insights into the nature of power and renders the most powerful on earth powerless by drawing attention to the historical realities, such as the power of a Pharaoh or a Nimrud, which was destroyed by Allah’s Will.

The sacred view of history, therefore, provides Muslims with new insight into their present, and holds the possibility of a radical change in the world situation. It is the duty of Muslim intellectuals to re-interpret the current state of the world in the light of the Qur’anic view of history. This would show why the present world order is not inviolable or immutable. This reconstruction will also give hope to the masses, and will catalyze a movement with the aim of establishing a new world order based on the Qur'anic teachings. This will not only dispel the erroneous views of history, but also liberate the Ummah from its present bondage.

(Concluded)

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