Do not be surprised if I tell you that our golden Islamic civilization rose with that thing... and the West snatched it from us with that thing.
Some might think that this is a case of geographical discoveries or devastating wars under the name of “Islamic conquests” or “Crusades.” But if we go back and ask: How was each side able to make geographical discoveries and manufacture the most advanced weapons, benefiting from the expertise of the other side?
I leave the answer to the Prophet’s (peace and blessings be upon him) interest in missions to other countries that were months away from them. The first mission was to Jerash in Yemen, where he (peace and blessings be upon him) sent Urwah ibn Masoud and Ghailan ibn Salamah (may Allah be pleased with them) to learn how to make a tank (a wooden machine fortified with men, whose job was to pierce forts). This mission returned successfully, as the first tank was made during the siege of the people of Taif in the year 8 AH.
This situation shows us that missions, or what is currently known as (scholarships), are the basis of development for a primitive society like the Islamic society, which began to advance and develop until it gained fame and became known as the (Islamic Golden Age), which benefited from the civilizations of the Greeks, Persians, Byzantines, Sindh, China, and many others. The Arabs used to say: Seek knowledge, even if it is in China.
In contrast, there was the European Dark Age, which was dominated by ignorance and the Church’s fight against science under the pretext that science contradicted the Bible. With the religious and intellectual revolution, of which scientific missions were the most important phenomena, Europeans emerged from the swamp of darkness into the sun of the Renaissance, where they benefited from the scientific heritage of Muslims and its famous center at that time in Cordoba, “the capital of Andalusia.” In this regard, the English orientalist Henry George Farmer says: “An increasing number of scholars realized that the influence of Islamic civilization as a whole in Europe and in the Middle Ages was enormous in fields such as: Islamic sciences, Islamic philosophy, theology, Arabic literature, and aesthetics, and this has been recognized by historians.”
We must not forget that both parties dealt with the scholarships honestly, in terms of truthful academic transmission and attribution to their sources, as well as the return of the scholarship recipients to their countries immediately upon completion of their studies in order to strengthen the community that supported them with these scholarships.
During the scholarship period, we may find that the scholarship recipient imitates the lifestyle and livelihood of the people of that country. However, this should not reach the point of bragging about that country at the expense of your own country. This is what has led some Muslims astray today. I wish they would take a lesson from the Europeans’ treatment of our Islamic civilization, as the Church used to complain about Christian youth being influenced by Muslims, and would call on them to be proud of their values. Sometimes, it would issue threats to deprive them of the afterlife, as they claimed!
For our part, it is our duty to be proud of our values and our religion wherever we go. We should not present ourselves as devoid of a glorious past, and our present as a miserable one. Rather, we should draw inspiration from those who preceded us in the fields of knowledge.
