| Another
aspect of the miraculousness of the Qur'an which has had a great effect is the
revolutionary transformation it brought about in human civilization. A matter
calling for serious attention in the study of Islam is the fact that it received
no assistance from factors external to itself when it began to create the nucleus
of a universal society out of a scattered and disunited people that lacked all
science and free thought and did not even seek to unify its constituent tribes;
and when it began, moreover, to found a uniquely, vast and spiritual civilization. All
the factors for changing the world, for putting forward an international law with
the slogan of unity among races, peoples, and social classes, for creating a movement
for the liberation of thought and the ennobling of knowledge, were derived from
the very text of the Qur'an, from the culture that emerged from the Qur'an and
from the Islamic order.
Islam never relied on a government or a power
situated outside the society it had itself brought into being. Even the aggressors,
for example the Mongols, who attacked the Islamic lands and triumphed over the
Muslims, thanks to their military superiority, lost their dominance in the end
when they were confronted with the spiritual power of Islam, and they adopted
the religion of the people they had conquered. This history of nations does not
record any other example of a victorious aggressor adopting the religion of the
people it had defeated. |