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modern mind just cannot comprehend Islam precisely because it is a
totality. Islamic society is rooted in the religion of Islam; it is
not the other way about. The point needs to be heavily underscored
that Islamic society is wholly unlike Christian society in terms of
which it is judged. Unlike Mohammed, Christ did not give his people
the law; Christians inherited the Roman law; in plain terms,
Christianity did not represent a break from the Graeco-Roman past
except in the field of religion narrowly defined. Islamic law is not
rooted in pre-Islamic Arab traditions; it is rooted in the Koran and
the Sunnah of the Prophet. As such Islamic society was a new creation
even if old materials had gone into its making in the sense
Christian society was not a new creation. Sanatan Dharma,
which is now called Hinduism, is a similar totality. But that is
another issue which I cannot even touch upon here.
As Islam stepped out of the spartan
Arab setting in its formative period, its rulers were bound to
succumb to the ways of the Byzantinian and the Sassanid empires they
inherited, and they so succumbed. The glorious Muslim civilization
that we admire and the Muslims take great pride in was, however, in
no small measure the product of this development.
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