Rise of Western Power & the World’s Future – From Renaissance to New Renaissance of Global Justice (Part 1)
By: Ahmad Hashim Francis
The world’s current tumultuous politico-military scenario has its roots in the developments resulting from conflicts of religions, nations, civilizations and cultures; either for economic, political, or military supremacy, or for expanding their influence over the common masses. This article provides a very brief point-wise overview and suggests possible perspectives about the future.
1. Western Europe was in the dark ages for nearly a thousand years (500 to 1500 AD), where dogmatic and repressive Christianity blocked all the intellectual progress. It was in total ignorance and deadlock from all aspects. The ultimate result was renaissance which emerged in Italy, the center of Christianity, towards the end of the 15th century. Renaissance was basically a secular, anti-religious, and so-called knowledge-based movement, and led to many vast changes in different parts of Europe.
2. Interestingly, while Western Europe was immersed in the dark age, in the Arabian Peninsula the long period of Jahiliyyah or the Age of Ignorance ended in the beginning of the 7th century AD with the advent of Islam that brought awakening for mankind not only in the religious sphere, but also as a cultural, political, economic, and social revolution. In a very short time, the Islamic civilization which brought new scientific discoveries and was at its peak during the 9th to 12th centuries, played a key role in contributing to European renascence, at a time when Russia was a small insignificant principality (to be soon taken over by the Mongols), and there was no USA, since the Americas were still a few centuries away from discovery, which means the only modern scientific civilization in the world in those days was the vast Islamic realm stretching from Spain in the West to the borders of India and China in the east. For their part, the Chinese had their own civilization that was relatively isolated from the rest of the world.
3. Islam brought many fundamental changes in the landscape as well as overall transformation in the fabric of human society with more rights for women. Muslim intellectuals in West Asia, North Africa, and West Europe, especially in al-Andalus (Spain), made great scientific developments, updating many of the dogmatic sciences of the ancient Greeks until the beginning of the 16th century, when European colonial powers, such as the fundamentalist Christian countries of Spain and Portugal, and later England, began to emerge and discover vast tracts of sparsely populated lands on the other side of the world (the Americas), whose riches enabled them to launch the industrial revolution, and consequently the gradual occupation of the Muslim world. In other words, reactionary Christianity, inspired by the renaissance movement in Europe took all the scientific achievements of Muslims in Spain and elsewhere, and translated into Latin the writings of Islamic scholars and scientists. These included the scientific works of Muslim intellectuals such Abul Qasim az Zahrawi (Abulcasis), as well as works of many Iranian polymaths, Mohammad bin Zakariya ar-Raazi (Rhazes), Mohammad bin Musa al-Khwarezmi (Algorithmi to whom the algorithm geometrical term is traced), Abu Ali ibn Sina (Avicenna), Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, and etc. This largely formed the basis of the modern Western Civilization and scientific superiority. To be more precise, West European intellectuals and scientists built their knowledge from the works of Muslims especially in the fields of medicine, surgery, mathematics, arts, architecture, astronomy, social sciences, physics and chemistry. This ultimately formed the basis of modern sciences and technology and industrial revolution and English as lingua franca of science in the world.
4. Based on the power of scientific superiority, the European colonialists then spread out all over the world. They kidnapped the black-skinned people of Africa to work as slaves in the Americas, where they almost exterminated the native Amerindians. They carved up the New World into the USA, Canada, and the Latin American states. They next discovered Australia and New Zealand, and added these lands to the British Empire. They imposed their rule on the countries of Africa and Asia, where they massacred millions of native people and destroyed the indigenous cultures. One such example is the East India Company, which gradually occupied the Subcontinent on the decline and disintegration of the once power Moghul Empire, by plundering the wealth of lands under their sway. The leading European colonial powers, such as Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and to some extent the Netherlands, weakened and ultimately destroyed Muslim states through their policy of divide-and-rule by provoking ethnic military conflicts. The British pitted Arabs and non-Arabs with each other, set up the dysfunctional secular democracies wherever it suited them, established spurious
said on Saturday that road travel during Nowruz experienced a 100 percent increase compared with last year.
Shortly before Nowruz, Minister of Roads and Urban Development Muhammad Eslami predicted that a whopping 33 million people will travel during the holidays, with at least 7.8 million people using public transport to move around the country.
According to the health ministry, at least 15,000 people who knew they were infected with COVID-19 after testing positive at registered labs, travelled during Nowruz.
Official figures also show 47 cities are now classified "red” while 126 have been bumped to "orange”.
A further 247 are "yellow” while only 14 are classified as "blue”, experiencing the lowest transmission rates.
The Iranian health minister issued an order Saturday, restricting travels to and from Turkey for a week in a bid to help contain a new coronavirus variant.
In a letter to the interior minister, Health Minister Saeed Namaki stressed the need for closing air and land borders with the neighboring country for a week.
Namaki said it was necessary to halt, by the next 48 hours, and land and air travels to and from Turkey for a week.
"Iranian citizens who are in Turkey and intend to turn back to the country, as well as Turkish citizens who are in Iran, can leave the country observing the relevant protocols and doing PCR test to make sure no infection spreads,” he said.
The world’s current tumultuous politico-military scenario has its roots in the developments resulting from conflicts of religions, nations, civilizations and cultures; either for economic, political, or military supremacy, or for expanding their influence over the common masses. This article provides a very brief point-wise overview and suggests possible perspectives about the future.
1. Western Europe was in the dark ages for nearly a thousand years (500 to 1500 AD), where dogmatic and repressive Christianity blocked all the intellectual progress. It was in total ignorance and deadlock from all aspects. The ultimate result was renaissance which emerged in Italy, the center of Christianity, towards the end of the 15th century. Renaissance was basically a secular, anti-religious, and so-called knowledge-based movement, and led to many vast changes in different parts of Europe.
2. Interestingly, while Western Europe was immersed in the dark age, in the Arabian Peninsula the long period of Jahiliyyah or the Age of Ignorance ended in the beginning of the 7th century AD with the advent of Islam that brought awakening for mankind not only in the religious sphere, but also as a cultural, political, economic, and social revolution. In a very short time, the Islamic civilization which brought new scientific discoveries and was at its peak during the 9th to 12th centuries, played a key role in contributing to European renascence, at a time when Russia was a small insignificant principality (to be soon taken over by the Mongols), and there was no USA, since the Americas were still a few centuries away from discovery, which means the only modern scientific civilization in the world in those days was the vast Islamic realm stretching from Spain in the West to the borders of India and China in the east. For their part, the Chinese had their own civilization that was relatively isolated from the rest of the world.
3. Islam brought many fundamental changes in the landscape as well as overall transformation in the fabric of human society with more rights for women. Muslim intellectuals in West Asia, North Africa, and West Europe, especially in al-Andalus (Spain), made great scientific developments, updating many of the dogmatic sciences of the ancient Greeks until the beginning of the 16th century, when European colonial powers, such as the fundamentalist Christian countries of Spain and Portugal, and later England, began to emerge and discover vast tracts of sparsely populated lands on the other side of the world (the Americas), whose riches enabled them to launch the industrial revolution, and consequently the gradual occupation of the Muslim world. In other words, reactionary Christianity, inspired by the renaissance movement in Europe took all the scientific achievements of Muslims in Spain and elsewhere, and translated into Latin the writings of Islamic scholars and scientists. These included the scientific works of Muslim intellectuals such Abul Qasim az Zahrawi (Abulcasis), as well as works of many Iranian polymaths, Mohammad bin Zakariya ar-Raazi (Rhazes), Mohammad bin Musa al-Khwarezmi (Algorithmi to whom the algorithm geometrical term is traced), Abu Ali ibn Sina (Avicenna), Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, and etc. This largely formed the basis of the modern Western Civilization and scientific superiority. To be more precise, West European intellectuals and scientists built their knowledge from the works of Muslims especially in the fields of medicine, surgery, mathematics, arts, architecture, astronomy, social sciences, physics and chemistry. This ultimately formed the basis of modern sciences and technology and industrial revolution and English as lingua franca of science in the world.
4. Based on the power of scientific superiority, the European colonialists then spread out all over the world. They kidnapped the black-skinned people of Africa to work as slaves in the Americas, where they almost exterminated the native Amerindians. They carved up the New World into the USA, Canada, and the Latin American states. They next discovered Australia and New Zealand, and added these lands to the British Empire. They imposed their rule on the countries of Africa and Asia, where they massacred millions of native people and destroyed the indigenous cultures. One such example is the East India Company, which gradually occupied the Subcontinent on the decline and disintegration of the once power Moghul Empire, by plundering the wealth of lands under their sway. The leading European colonial powers, such as Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and to some extent the Netherlands, weakened and ultimately destroyed Muslim states through their policy of divide-and-rule by provoking ethnic military conflicts. The British pitted Arabs and non-Arabs with each other, set up the dysfunctional secular democracies wherever it suited them, established spurious
said on Saturday that road travel during Nowruz experienced a 100 percent increase compared with last year.
Shortly before Nowruz, Minister of Roads and Urban Development Muhammad Eslami predicted that a whopping 33 million people will travel during the holidays, with at least 7.8 million people using public transport to move around the country.
According to the health ministry, at least 15,000 people who knew they were infected with COVID-19 after testing positive at registered labs, travelled during Nowruz.
Official figures also show 47 cities are now classified "red” while 126 have been bumped to "orange”.
A further 247 are "yellow” while only 14 are classified as "blue”, experiencing the lowest transmission rates.
The Iranian health minister issued an order Saturday, restricting travels to and from Turkey for a week in a bid to help contain a new coronavirus variant.
In a letter to the interior minister, Health Minister Saeed Namaki stressed the need for closing air and land borders with the neighboring country for a week.
Namaki said it was necessary to halt, by the next 48 hours, and land and air travels to and from Turkey for a week.
"Iranian citizens who are in Turkey and intend to turn back to the country, as well as Turkish citizens who are in Iran, can leave the country observing the relevant protocols and doing PCR test to make sure no infection spreads,” he said.