Two events in history which put flourishing Islamic world into reverse gear

Giving up on reasoning and logic centuries ago triggered the decay of Muslim civilisation and it continues till today

Here’s an interesting comparison. Despite making up 23% of the world’s population, there are only 12 Muslim noble laureates while Jews make up less than 0.2% of the global population, they have 185 noble laureates.

The figures are in addition to the wide perception that Muslims are resistant to science. Is this all a Western propaganda or is there some truth behind it? To answer this, there’s a need for introspection to understand what went wrong and where.



The right place to begin is by looking at the history of Muslim scholarship and intellectual thought. The golden era between 8th and 13th centuries stands out in this regard as the period under which Islamic civilisation flourished through science and reason. But soon after, there were two main ‘assaults’ on the Muslim mind which began the stagnation of Islamic scholarship and the civilisation.

The first assault was on the concept of Ijtihad - Islamic legal term for independent reasoning. It allowed for the use of logic and reason in matters which were not clear in the Quran. However, during the 10th century, most Sunni schools of thought concluded that all major religious legal matters have been settled hence there was no need for Ijtihad anymore. The decision effectively closed the ‘door of Ijtihad’, confining Muslim intellect to that time and space.

The second assault came during the 12th century when Islamic civilisation underwent a moral and intellectual crisis. As highlighted by Muhammad Abdul Qadeer in his book Pakistan: Social and cultural transformation in a Muslim nation, two groups of Muslim thought - Mut’ azalites (supporters of reason and logic) and Ash’arites (antagonists of logic and rational thinking) – had an intense debate about their ideals. Due to numerous historical factors, the Ash’arites doctrine was accepted by the Muslim world and hence started the decay of reason in Islamic world.

It’s amusing to see the western scholarship claim sole monopoly of reason while in reality, West’s “enlightenment project” might have never happened had it not been for earlier Muslim thought. The very fact that Thomas Aquinas - influential medieval thinker remembered for reconciling faith with reason - used Muslim scholar Ibn Rushd‘s defence of Aristotelian philosophy in his work shows the impact that early Islamic thought had. It is pertinent to mention that Ibn Rushd - often Latinised as Averroes - was a Mut’azalite and has been described as the founding father of modern thought in Western Europe because he reintroduced the continent to the writings of Aristotle.



If reason was ever in contradiction with Islam, why would Hazrat Umar (RA) use it and suspend the punishment for theft – sanctioned by Quran - during droughts? He certainly chose to think about the exceptional circumstances that people were facing and deduced that it would be inhumane to cut off hands of individuals who stole during the time of famine and drought. This, simply put, is called reasoning which seems to have disappeared or at least declined within Muslim scholarship and our society as a whole.

Muslims should think about the two major events mentioned above which separated reason and rationale from religion when they heard or read about slow or no growth of Islamic thought. Having suffered for years because of this stagnation, it is time Muslim scholars and the Islamic society make the conscious decision to address irrationality that has crept into our minds. They must take steps which will make science and reason the cornerstones of new Muslim thought.

Saad Ahmed Dogar is a lawyer based in Lahore.