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| The Hindu Phenomenon |
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RETREAT AND RAGE |
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other major cause of the Muslim failure to move ahead is the ummah
is. This is particularly so because most non-Muslim, especially
Hindus, have no idea what this community of believers means to
Muslims and how it has managed to survive the rise and fall of
dynasties in the past,endless intra-Muslim wars, the presence of
around 50 independent Muslim states, the failure of pan-Islamism and
other efforts to establish a coordinating centre.
To being with, we should note,as
Professor Francis Robinson has pointed out in his essay Islam
and Muslim Separatism 6 that
the Muslim era does not being with the birth of Mohammed, as the
Christian era does with the birth of Christ, or with the first
revelation of the Koran in Mecca, but with the hijra (migration) of
the Prophet and Muslims to Yathrib (Medina) whereby the Muslim
community was first constituted. This was to be no ordinary
community. It was to be a charismatic community. That is why
Mohammed could declare: "My community will never agree or
error." That is why it was to function on the basis of
ijma (consensus of the Muslim community or scholars as a basic for a
legal decision) and suppress dissent. That is why this ijma was to
play a critical role in the development and enforcement of the
Shariat. |
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