What are the characteristics of Islamic civilization?

Answer 1

Like the human being, every civilization has a body and a soul. The body of a civilization is its material achievements in terms of buildings, industrial facilities, machinery and anything which reflects welfare and earthly advancement. Its soul is the set of creeds and concepts which condition the behaviors of individuals and groups, their mutual relationships and their worldview. These are the elements which constitute the characteristics of the Islamic civilization.

Characteristics:

Five main characteristics do distinguish the Islamic civilization from other past and present successive human civilizations and place it at an outstanding position:

1) Islamic Faith: The first characteristic is the fact that it is a civilization based on Islamic faith, imbued with its values and principles. It is a monotheistic civilization based on the belief in the oneness of Allah Almighty, the Creator of men and all creatures. It is also partly a man-made civilization, built on sturdy religious background of faith. The holy, righteous religion was, indeed, a strong factor which contributed to the rise and prosperity of this civilization.

2) Universalist Aspirations: The second characteristic is its being a civilization with a human, universal dimension, and not associated with a particular geographic region, race or historical era. It rather concerns all peoples and nations and has echoes that reach different parts of the world. It is a civilization which shields all human beings and whose fruits are generously yielded at hand's grasp for any one, indifferently. The Islamic civilization is predicated on the idea that Man has precedence over the rest of Allah's creatures, that all human activities should lead to the happiness and welfare of Man and that any action intended to serve this goal is a God-blessed action, indeed a human action in the first place.

3) Constant Advancement of the Human Condition: The third characteristic is its being a generous civilization which drew on the human civilizations and cultures experienced by the peoples of the ancient world, but contributed copiously to the advancement of science, knowledge and the values of justice, equality, beauty and virtue. Its output benefited humanity at large, regardless of race, color or even religion. Muslims and non Muslims, be they Christians, Jewish or pagans, coexisted together within the Islamic civilization.

4) Balance between Material and Spiritual: The fourth characteristic is its being a well-balanced civilization which secures fair equilibrium between the materialistic and the spiritual sides with exemplary moderation that has always been a characteristic of Islamic thought and a distinctive feature of the Islamic civilization throughout its history. No excess, no neglect, no ill-founded extremism, no recklessness. It is a moderation built on justice and equity.

5) Eternality: The fifth characteristic is its being a perennial civilization which will last as long as Islam, because it is based on the very principles of Islam which Allah will preserve eternally. Thus, it is a civilization with unique characteristics, a civilization that never withers away since it is not a national or a racial civilization nor does it run counter to human nature. In all cases, Islam should not be identified with Muslims, these may become weak or less influential but Islam remains firm. The Islamic civilization is therefore permanently buoyant and has self renewing cycles and unrelenting dynamics.

The five characteristics outlined hereabove draw their sustainability from the principles of the Islamic religion, since they are founded on them and are intrinsically bound up to them. They are like a precious diamond that remains unaltered whatever are the historical circumstances or the upheavals shaking Islamic societies up and down.

The Islamic civilization had once headed the march of science and knowledge during the Middle Ages which are considered in Europe as the age of darkness while they are an age of enlightenment for our civilization.

In this respect, it is worth pointing out that George Sarton, in his book : "Introduction to the History of Science", classified scientific accomplishments throughout history into several periods, each lasting half a century, and identified with the name of a scientist at a world scale. From 750AD to 1100 AD, i.e. 350 years, all token scientists were from the Islamic world: Jaber Ibn Hayan, Al Khawarizmi, Al Razi, Al Massoudi, Abou Al Wafa, Al Bairouni and Omar Al Khayam who were all Arab, Turkish, Afghan or Persian Muslims who excelled in various domains such as Chemistry, Mathematics, Medicine, Geography, Natural Science and Astronomy. From 1100AD on, and over another 250 years, Europeans started to appear alongside Muslim scholars such as Averroes, Al Tossi and Ibn Annafis. At this juncture, and at the outset of the European renaissance, Europeans started to translate, study and develop sciences so far practiced by the Islamic world. This established historical fact was affirmed and emphasized by the Muslim scientist residing in Germany, Dr. Mohamed Mansour, who was chosen by the Cambridge University as a member of 2000 international personalities who marked human life throughout the last century.

Generally speaking, civilization is the yield of all efforts made by humans to improve their living conditions, regardless of whether such effort is intentional or not or whether its outcomes are material or moral. Therefore, the Islamic civilization is the blessed fruit of the efforts made by the Islamic Ummah throughout different ages to improve life and improve human conditions.

Civilization being a response to human needs, the Islamic civilization has met all these needs at different eras and had been, for many decades, the uncontested leading civilization of the world. The Islamic civilization has therefore the privilege of setting up the cornerstone of modern European civilization since it had contributed through its achievements in the areas of medical science, pharmacy, chemistry, mathematics and physics, to the acceleration of the advent of the renaissance and the ensuing revival of different sciences which continued, since then, to develop and yield.