The Third Phase : Slavery and its Aftermath
Let us now pass on to the third phase and sec
the condition that we passed through during that period. We need not discuss
things in detail because that phase ended barely a score of years ago and it
still well remembered.
In this sub-continent as well as in other
Muslim countries the alien rulers subjected the people to all kinds of
oppression and inequity. They destroyed the old Muslim empires, deprived the
Muslims of their rich lands, took over their religious trusts and trifled with
their lives, honor and property. But far more deadly for the Muslims than any of
these inequities was the destruction of the old educational system and its
replacement by a new system of education based upon entirely different moral
values and cultural norms. Through this new intellectual instrument they sought
to alienate the future generations of Muslims from their past and ensure that
they would treat themselves with contempt, feel ashamed of their own history and
traditions, disdain their own culture as out of date and retrogressive, and
reject their own distinctive system of life as impracticable. On the positive
side, the new education sought to inculcate in the future generations of Muslims
the belief that all knowledge, culture and morality belonged to the West and
that the ideal conception of humanity was that of the West.
This was indeed the worst of the countless
crimes that the alien masters perpetrated upon the Muslims of this land. The old
system of education had enabled us to maintain our links with our past and keep
ourselves acquainted with our religion; it had served to keep the community
anchored to its traditions and culture. The new system of education supplanted
the old and made it practically worthless from the economic point of view. All
Muslims who aspired for progress and success in life abandoned the old system of
education and adopted its alien substitute. This great change in the educational
system had deep and far-reaching effects on the life of the community : under
the force of circumstances nearly all the effective elements in society-those
that were relatively well off and were also intelligent and educated, ambitious
and active, and endowed with the qualities of leadership-turned to the new
system of education, which tended to alienate them from, and make them
disdainful of, their own religion, culture and history.
With the introduction of the new system of
education, the alien rulers restricted the avenues of progress to those educated
under that system. This was a deliberate policy aimed at forcing the Muslims to
abandon their children to the new system of education and allow it to alienate
them from their religion and culture. All the Western powers pursued this policy
on a large scale in all the Muslim countries that passed under their sway. A
natural corollary of this policy was that the more a Muslim could alienate
himself from his past and detach himself from his cultural moorings, the easier
would he find it to rise to the higher positions in the administration. This
policy was, of course, never reduced to a regular rule nor, indeed, was it
necessary to make it a part of the administrative formulary. It was just
followed as a unwritten rule calculated to bring into the highest positions in
society and administration, Muslims who only owed a formal allegiance to Islam
and were practically non-Muslims in their character, conduct and everyday life.
Consequently, within a short period, such Muslims captured all the effective
positions in the administration and in social and economic life that were open
to members of the Muslim community.
The study of Western literature and history
stimulated the urge for political freedom in a large section of the young men
educated under the new system, and sooner or later the urge Sowed into organized
movements for liberation in all the Muslim Countries. Naturally enough the
leadership of this movement passed into the hands of those who had been educated
under the new system, who could understand, and make themselves understand, in
the language of the rulers, and knew how to deal with the ruling nation. The
logic of the situation demanded this kind of leadership and left no .alternative
for the community. The products of the old religious schools were not fit to
lead the Muslims at that juncture; the community therefore had to accept the
leadership of the new educated class.
The new leaders of the community were by no
means genuinely devoted to Islam, but nearly all of them appealed to the
religious sentiments and susceptibilities of the Muslims, for that was the only
way to secure their allegiance and support. In every country, the new leaders
appealed to the Muslims in the Faith. They proclaimed that they were fighting a
war between Islam and unbelief and called upon the Muslims to join them, to
devote all their energies to the: struggle and, if necessary, lay down their
lives to ensure the supremacy of Islam.
This trick was played upon the Muslims in
every Muslim country. The latest instance in point is Algeria. I have, studied
the Algerian situation at close quarters and discussed it personally with
Algerian leaders in Egypt, and I am in no. doubt that, in Algeria as elsewhere
in the Muslim world,. Islam was exploited to the full in the struggle for
liberation.. Algerian leaders have confessed to me that unless they told their
people that they were engaged in a war between Islam and Kufr (unbelief ), not a
single soul would come forward to join the struggle. In short, it was in the
name of Islam that the people were called, it was in the name of Islam that they
responded to the call and rallied to the banner and it was from Islam that they
derived the super-human courage to go through the ordeals to which they were
daily subjected during the struggle for freedom.
Similarly, when the Greeks invaded Asia Minor
after the First World War, Mustafa Kemal exploited Islam to the full. He would
go into the rank and file of the armed forces with the Holy Book in his hand and
warn them if they did not join him in the war against the Greeks, the Qur'an.
would soon be eliminated from Turkey. It was this appeal in the name of Islam
that aroused the Turks and induced them to measure swords with the Greeks in
spite of the shortage of arms on the Turkish side and the overwhelming support
and aid of the Western Allies on the Greek side. Fighting under the banner of
Islam, the Turks eventually triumphed over the much more powerful aggressors and
booted them out of Turkey.
It was practically the same story in every
Muslim country struggling for freedom. The leaders were, on the whole, virtually
ignorant of Islam and indifferent to it. They had no will to enforce the writ of
Islam in the land, or even to mould their own lives in accordance with its
principles. They had grown under a new civilization and culture and their
values, tastes and inclinations had changed radically. But the common Muslim
people were compelled to entrust their leadership to such elements, who in turn
appealed to the religious sentiments of the Muslims and exploited then as best
as they could. Where ever the Muslims have won a battle of national liberation,
the appeal to Islam has played a decisive role in the outcome.
