Desmond Stewart

Early Islam

Reiza H

Let me begin this with a story.


There was a man, considered the most prominent in the history of Islamic historical philosophy, that born in Tunisia and lived at the 14th century. A man so prominent, that he is claimed today as a forerunner to most modern social disciplines today that is known as sociology, economy, demographics and historiography. 

His name, is Ibn Khaldun. A thinker, diplomat, ambassador to the various courts in North Africa and Spain. 

What makes him so special? You may say. Well, he made a great classic known today as Muqaddima, in which he wrote - besides natural sciences and theology - about historical development of a society. A cycle of civilizations. In it, he wrote about how society was formed by loyalty for a cause, whether it was an idea or ideal. Those are what makes nations and civilizations great, strong and powerful to rise. 

An idea was supposed to stay, right? Well, no. After the powerful rising, the state usually calm itself, and this is where the path to its downfall began to emerge. As state grows calm and stable, so does its generations. He wrote, that nation usually began to eroded at second or third generation, weakened by selfishness and lust for wealth, luxury, and prestige. They forgot their forerunner's idea. They began to accept things as it was. They grow weak, and weaker.

Then, disaster struck. Usually involving another stronger states that was overwhelmed with an idea, or an ideal, and was determined to achieve it. The stronger overrun the weak and dominate it. End of the story? Oh no it wasn't. Because that stronger state might - and they would, likely - also falls to repeat the cycle! 

Thus, Ibn Khaldun wrote in his magnum opus, the Muqaddima.

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Now, back to the review of this book. 

This book, wrote by Desmond Stewart, a British writer, classical scholar at Oxford and Professor of Literature from the Iraqi Ministry of Education, is a fine example to see how the cycle of civilizations mentioned by Ibn Khaldun work its way. The book, filled not only with the stories of greatness, victories, triumph, but also of sorrow, tragedies, and also of daily human life and how societies work, clearly shows that idea of a greatness isn't enough. An idea is just an idea if there's no effort to fight for it, thus cultivate and preserving the spirit of it. 

Islam is an idea, consisting not only of religious aspects, but also on political and cultural as well, and since the Prophet began its first sermon at Mecca on 7th century, Islam has grow more and more to a broader aspects that intersects each other. On the moral values, Islam also teach about compassion and kindness, but sometimes, that values loses its way to a mere interests of political and economical benefits. History has shown how clear and disturbing it was. From the city of Kufa to the desert of Karbala and the court of the Umayyads at Damascus and the Abbasids at Baghdad, about how those who are supposed to uphold the moral values highly respected in Islam, violated by their own hands. 

There is also great days for tolerance, compassion, creativity, and great achievements. From the day when the Prophet peacefully enter the city of Mecca, the day Caliph Umar peacefully rode a donkey to Jerusalem to accept the surrender of the city, to the era when Baghdad and Cordoba - with its House of Wisdom and University - was bustling, diverse, and passionate to gain and nurture knowledge.

The story is filled not only about great caliphs, or sultans, thinkers and preachers, but also the stories of the ordinary lives of the Muslims at that time, about how beautiful the mosques are, how sophisticated the arts was, and so on. On the grander scale, it also teach, in the spirit of Ibn Khaldun's discourse, how cycle of civilizations work and - hopefully - to be a lessons for us. 

This book can be a window to know all those stories. 

(view spoiler)[
  p.s. The book only covers the 7th CE to the dawn of modern times at 19th CE (not really comprehensive on that early modern history time), and since it was written in the 1960's, don't expect to see contemporary events or facts.
 (hide spoiler)]

Early Islam

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