Muslim Woman

What is the good of sudden revolutionary changes? What does mankind
gain by accelerating the working of eternal laws for a time and
securing their extraordinary results if after a while human mind and
those results are to revert to their old level? In a concrete form the
question might be, what contribution did early Islam make to the
betterment of mankind?  The answer is "immense" Firstly, Islam gave
the world God's eternal laws in the form of a book (Quran) so that
who so wishes might give them practical shape and obtain their happy
results. Secondly, Islam showed the world that the laws are workable,
that they are not mere utopia but a practicable code of life which was
given a trial in a particular period of history and produced positive
results. Emergent evaluations help mankind go ahead. As already
explained human intellect works by experimentation. 1t evolves a plan,
executes it and then finds after centuries that the plan was defective
and hence a failure. Then it begins experimenting with some other plan.
If, however, it can have the benefit of seeing the results achieved by
a revolution, the precedent will help it assess much better the results
of its own planning. A comparative study of pre and post Islamic
history will show at once that the progress man has made during post
Islamic period is unparalleled. The progress would appear much more
marked had the history of early Islam been available in its unalloyed
form. A revolution gives the ever-moving vehicle of time a push which
accelerates its speed and enables it to cover a lot of distance with
the momentum gained. It was the momentum generated by the short lived
Islamic Social Order, which helped Muslims maintain for centuries their
leadership of the world in science and art. Western thinkers and
historians admit the truth of the statement. In his book The Making of
Humanity, Briffault has devoted a whole chapter to the theme under the
caption Dar Al-Hikmat and says,

It was under the influence of the Arabian and Moorish revival of
culture, and not in the fifteenth century, that the real Renaissance
took place. Spain, not Italy, was the cradle of the rebirth of Europe.
After steadily sinking lower and lower into barbarism, it had reached
the darkest depths of ignorance and degradation when the cities of the
Saracenic world, Baghdad, Cairo, Cordoba, Toledo, were growing centres
of civilization and intellectual activity. It was there that the new
life arose which was to grow into a new phase of human evolution. From
the time when the influence of their culture made itself felt, began
the stirring of a new life. (page 188-189)

It is highly probable that but for the Arabs modern European
civilization would never have arisen at all; it is absolutely certain
that but for them, it would not have assumed that character which has
enabled it to transcend all previous phases of evolution. (page- 190)

The extract sums up nicely the benefits which accrued to humanity from
the push given by the Islamic revolution