THE MODERN AGE AND ISLAM

Freedom of thought is held to be the summum bonum of the modern age and is generally thought to be the result of the western scientific revolution. It is true that this is its immediate cause, but the scientific revolution itself (as has been explained in previous chapters) was the result of the Islamic revolution based upon monotheism.

The French philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), was one of the founders of modern democracy. His book, The Social Contract, begins with these words: “Man was born free, but I find him in chains.” The sentiment thus expressed-this lamentation over human bondage—is not in actual fact Rousseau’s gift to humanity. It is rather an echo of a more splendid utterance of the Islamic Caliph, ‘Umar Ibn-Khattab (586-644), which he made to his governor of Egypt: “O ‘Amr, since when have you enslaved people whose mothers gave birth to them in freedom?” (Futuh Misr wa Akhbaruha by Ibn al-Hakam, p. 183) The occasion for this rebuke was the flogging by ‘Amr’s son of a young Egyptian who had beaten him in a horse race as recounted above.

The revolution to bring freedom and democracy to the people which began in Europe, later spreading to the rest of the world in modern times, is but the second stage of that revolutionary process which was set in motion in the seventh century by Islam.