THE OXFORD HISTORY OF ISLAM
Ed. John L. Esposito,
Reviewed by Maryam Jameelah

Ed. John L. Esposito, The Oxford History of Islam, Oxford University Press, New York, 1999, pp. 749.

“…The most hideous aspect of this counter-revolution (Monarchy replacing the Rightly-Guided Caliphate) was the emergence of all three types of Ignorance (i.e. atheism, polytheism and asceticism) under the guise of Islam and their fast-spreading influence in the Islamic community. Atheism grabbed power and authority in the name of Khilafat, but in reality, it was monarchy, the very antithesis of Islam. This change worked a tremendously far-reaching negative influence on the lives and mental attitudes of the chiefs, government officials, soldiers and the ease loving people in general to the extent that their very view of morality and social life was altogether perverted. Then naturally an urge was felt to (project) un-Godly arts, literature, philosophy and science so as to make them fit in with the new patterns of life and trends of thought. Such things can flourish only under the patronage of wealth and authority. Here then was a large opening for them to emerge freely. Such were the general intellectual conditions that favoured the downpour of all admixtures of philosophy, literature and science from the Greek, Iranian and Indian skies on the Muslim soil… Not only that: the fine arts, which are strictly un-Islamic, found patronage from those who had been forbidden to practice these ugly arts. Polytheism made incursions on the common man’s mind and led him into the blind alleys of ignorance and sin. People of the un-Godly communities who embraced Islam… and the world-seeking ulema worked hard to distort Qur’an and misinterpret the Hadith with a view for making grave and saint-worship an integral part of their system of Islam. Monasticism attacked the religious scholars, spiritual guides, righteous and good-natured people and influenced them in all the above-mentioned evils. Under the impact of this anti-social creed, the Muslim society became impregnated with Greek philosophy, monastic morality and a general pessimistic attitude towards life… It (Sufism) perverted Islamic literature, arts and sciences and incapacitated the thinking elements of the society as if by an injection of morphia (and)…. it reinforced monarchy………….”[1]

These words do not come from the pen of some prejudiced western Orientalist or an over-zealous Christian missionary? No, Not at all! None, but the most famous Islamic revivalist of the 20^th century, whose prodigious writings and activities immensely influenced the contemporary Islamic movement all over the globe, is the writer of these remarks.

The book under review effectively refutes this extraordinarily negative view of our history and civilization. It is a very balanced account which defies all efforts by such modern zealots to paint our past black. In its full detailed and unbiased presentation of all the positive achievements of traditional Islamic civilization to the world in religion, spirituality, military and peaceful conquests, statecraft, commerce, jurisprudence, literature, philosophy, theology and all the arts and sciences, this book can be judged as fair and objective as possible for non-Muslim scholarship.

The Muslim reader can only wish that more space and attention had been given to the Holy Prophet himself and the Rightly-Guided Caliphate without which all this could never have taken place. There should also have been more reliance on Hadith literature and less on western sources. The reader of this book cannot but be astounded that despite all the political turmoil following the assassination of Hazrat Uthman, Islam continued to spread and flourish with undiminished vitality.

As the Holy Prophet and the Qur’an were the final culmination and re-affirmation of all the previous religious Traditions, so did the early Muslims regard themselves as the only rightful heirs to all the civilizations of antiquity. This inspired a tremendous love for knowledge and quest for learning wherever it could be found. The translation of the major Greek, Persian, Indian (and much later, Chinese) classics on science and philosophy into Arabic and their gradual Islamization, was one of the most important events in the history of human civilization. No external military or economic pressures were involved to explain this momentous development, but only love of knowledge for its own sake. This book clearly reveals that had not this intellectual activity taken place, God forbid, Islam might have remained an obscure Arab sect and never developed into a world religion.

The chapter on the immense achievements of “medieval” Muslim sciences, mathematics and technology unfortunately fails to reply to the key question as to why the scientific, technological and industrial revolution arose in the West and not Dar ul Islam?

More than any other single factor, Sufism inspired the forms of Islamic calligraphy, mosque architecture and crafts. The shockingly un-Islamic statue of the half-naked dancing girl which adorned the Umayyad palace in Jericho (p. 231) only illustrates the aesthetic infancy of Muslim art before it had opportunity to mature into its characteristic forms. From the Umayyads, the Abbasids to the Mamluks and Ottomans, these much-maligned monarchs lavishly patronized all the arts, sciences, hospitals, public works and charitable and educational institutions without which Islamic civilization would not have been possible as all these sciences and arts were dependent on patronage.

Illuminating chapters discuss the rich Islamic heritage in Africa, China and South-East Asia, replying to the often-asked question if culture can be separated from religion? The fact is, one is inseparable from the other as no culture can grow in a void. Hence the traditional Chinese, the African, the Indo-Pak and Malaysian expressions of Islamic culture are all equally valid. Islam was never intended to be a uniform monolith but the embodiment of unity in diversity. Never intended to achieve and earthly utopia, despite all imperfections and failings, traditional Islamic civilization provided maximum stability, equilibrium and collective support for the individual Muslim in his quest for eternal salvation.

All that was thoroughly devastated by the advent of colonialism and post-colonialism. In a brilliantly revealing chapter, Dr. Syed Vali Reza Nasr, Professor of Political Science at San Diego University, presents the colonial and post-colonial period as a colossal loss, both to Muslims themselves and to the world at large which may prove beyond repair and irreversible. He shows how the colonial heritage has decisively shaped the present post-colonial Muslim-majority, anti-Islamic national-states with their emphasis on western-style “Development” and top-down state-managed social and cultural transformation in the modern western image, - a direct successor to the colonial “white-man’s burden” and his “civilizing” mission to “improve” the “natives.”

The final chapter on Islam today by Esposito himself shows how Muslims did survive the colonial mayhem, though with terrible spiritual and cultural impoverishment, illustrated by the preceding chapter on Islam in the modern West. After suffering discontinuity from their heritage by two centuries of alien colonialism, it is hardly surprising when youth today attempt to re-connect, they easily lose their way (see illustration on p. 673)

This book is an eloquent presentation of the incredible richness and depth of traditional Islamic civilization throughout the world from its inception to the present-day.