Islam’s Role in History

Islam formed a unique bridge between the civilizations of the East and the West. Muslim scholars rescued knowledge that would have been lost for centuries, and brought something new to light each time. In these bursts of creativity, Muslims made their own contributions to the world over many centuries. Muslims saw the quest for knowledge as a religious duty. These contributions stemmed from the unique features of a religion that conferred dignity on human beings.

Islam made clear that people should enjoy earth’s bounties within moral and ethical boundaries, and also sought to delegitimize social distinctions between classes and races. Islamic civilization transcended geographical and temporal boundaries from Europe to Asia, and thus achieved unity among divergent peoples. The position of women improved in its communities. The Islamic way of life was responsible for the creation of Islamic civilization in all its achievements and influences.

Islam was one of the world’s leading civilizations for a thousand years. Its language, Arabic, was the international language of science.[1] Yet many history books attribute achievements of Islamic civilization to borrowing from other civilizations. These historians prefer to devote their attention to the West as the only civilization of the Middle Ages, with a primary focus on Europe.[2] Their descriptions and judgments derive from texts dating from the seventh century onward, attacking Islam, the Qur’an, and Prophet Muhammad (SallAllahu ‘alaihi was allam). The historians dwell at length on Greece and Rome and the early development of Christianity, summarize the Islamic period, and make an enormous leap to the Renaissance.

Muslims borrowed from preceding cultures, as did all non-Muslim civilizations, then made their own contributions and created a unique civilization. In turn, other civilizations, especially the nascent civilization of Europe, borrowed ideas and materials from the Islamic civilization.

Islam produced another historical continuation by supplementing the development of Judaism and Christianity, and provided the foundation of the next dominant civilization: the West.