Only Islam can restore peace and tranquillity !

Europe was the scene of a conflict between religion and science, because the church there had arbitrarily embraced certain theories and dogmas (inheriting them from Greece and the Romans) and insisted that they were sacred and gospel truths. So when the theoretical and empirical science demonstrated the error and fallacy of the theories, people there had no other course but to believe in science and disbelieve in the church as well as in the religion these churchmen stood for. The war between religion and science intensified and then enthusiasm to get free from the dominance of these religious man increased as the church in Europe conferred upon itself divine power and proceeded to enforce it in a most tyrannical manner. Thus, for the people there religion came to signify an abominable ghoul that harassed them in their working no less than their sleeping hours. It exacted from men costly extortion and reduced them to an abject state of subordination to the church men, besides calling them to swallow nonsense and the superstitions in the name of God. The torturing of scientists and burning them alive because they said, for instance, that the earth was round, was the ugliest of crimes that made it a sacred duty of every sensible, free-thinking and conscientious individual there to abominable ghoul or at least put it in chains so as not to let it ever again harass and oppress the people besides harming the cause of religion by misrepresenting it and making others feel as if religion contained nothing but falsehood and untruth. 

But what about us, we who live in the Islamic East? Why should we separate science from religion or hold that the two are at variance and at war with each other? Is there even a single scientific fact which has been found to contradict Islam and its basic creed? (No; see “The Book that changed the world”). Were scientists ever subjected to persecution in the domain of Islam? The whole history of Islām is before us. It testifies that there have been great doctors, astronomers, mathematicians, physicists as well as chemists but never were they persecuted for their views. There is no trace of any conflict between science and their religious beliefs to be found in the minds of these great Muslim scientists. Nor did there exist any hostilities between them and the ruling authorities such as might have led to their suffering or burning alive…

…Dazzled by the achievements of science during the 18th and 19th centuries many westerners thought that religion had exhausted all its usefulness and surrendered to science once and for all. Almost all the “eminent” Western psychologists and sociologists expressed themselves in similar terms. Thus Freud, the renowned psychologist, for instance, showing the futility of any advocacy for what religion stood for in modern time, says that the human life passes through three distinct psychological chases: superstition, religion and science. Now being the era of science; all religion is out of date. 

As we have already explained in the preface there were certain causes which led the men of science in Europe to adopt a view of life antagonistic to religion, and based on its hatred. It was due to the great controversy to raged there between men of science and the christian church and made them think – quite justifiably of course – that whatever the church stood for was reactionary, retrogressive, backward and superstitious, and that therefore, the church must of necessity vacate its seat for science so as to enable humanity to move ahead on the path of civilization… 

…The well-known English writer, Somerset Maugham epitomized the whole attitude of modern Europe towards religion when he remarked that Europe had in the present era discovered a new “god” – science, discarding the older true one. The “god” of science has, however, turned out to be extremely fickle, ever changing and constantly shifting positions, upholding today as a fact and reality what it rejected yesterday as false and spurious and vice versa, with the result that we see its “worshippers” doomed to a fate of perpetual restlessness and anxiety, for how can they find rest and peace of mind under such a capricious “god”? That this constant restlessness with which the modern West is afflicted is a fact, borne out by the large number of psychological and nervous disorders that are so common in the Western community of today. 

Still another result of this deification of modern science is that the world we live in, is devoid of all meaning and purpose with no higher order or power to guide it, with a persistent struggle ever going on between opposing forces. As a result, everything in this world suffers change; economic and political systems change; relations between state and individuals alter; even scientific “facts” do change. What can man expect save misery and perpetual restlessness in a world with such sombre setting where no Higher Power exists whom one should turn to for support, strength and comfort in this ruthless struggle of life. 

It is Islam and Islam alone that can restore peace and tranquillity to the world of humanity. It instills in human beings love for goodness and courage to stand up to the forces of evil and tyranny as a necessary condition of obtaining the pleasure of Allah and to make His will predominant on this earth awaiting with patience His reward in the Hereafter Doesn’t mankind need peace, tranquillity, comfort, in a word; Islam? (i.e. These are necessary implications once Islam is established in the heart, limbs and communities). 

What will become of man but for knowing and believing in the eternal life in the Hereafter? In this context man’s life upon earth assumes new dimensions opening far higher horizons or progress before him in the absence of which he is inevitably oppressed by a torturous sense of nothingness, as it means a virtual cutting short of man’s total life-span, making him a mere plaything in the hands of his whims and caprices which teach him nothing but to derive the maximum possible amount of pleasure during this short sojourn upon earth. Mutual rivalries, savage battles and conflicts over the possession of material gains follow, as now there is no Higher Power to lay checks on men’s desires. So, blinded by his greed and lust, each one of them wants to gain whatever he can lay hands on in the shortest possible time. 

Thus man is degraded to lower planes of feeling and thought. His imagination sinks low and so do his ideals and the means to achieve them. They are all marked with abjectness. Mankind is doomed to a perpetual life of hideous internecine wars that scarcely permit it to soar to higher and nobler ends in life. In such a world there is no room for love or sympathy as men are wholly obsessed with their carnal pleasures. They are led by their blind passions. How can they in such a context have lofty aspirations or even appreciate genuine human feelings? 

[Shubuhat hawl al-Islam - By ash-Shaykh Muhammad Qutb (rahimahullah)]