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| The
Hindu Phenomenon |
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RETREAT
AND RAGE
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This
is a long and complicated story. The details, however significant
and fascinating, like the retreat of the Turks from the gate of
Vienna following defeat at the hands of the Hapsburfs in 1688, or
Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, exactly three centuries after
Vasco da Gama's voyage to India, need not detain us. What is
material for our purpose is the steady erosion in Muslim control of
the Mediterranean-Indian Ocean trade, the decline of the Ottoman
empire and with that the replacement of the Islamic by the European
civilization as the dominating reality on the world scene. The
dismemberment of the Ottoman empire at the end of the First World
War and the subsequent Turkish decision to abolish the caliphate in
1924 can be said to have completed the process. The two developments
marked, in a fundamental sense, the closure of the era that opened
with the establishment by the Prophet of the first Muslim state in
Medina. However biter and devastating the struggles within it and
however painful the setbacks such as the sack of Baghdad in 1258 by
the Mongols, the ummah had been in control of its fortunes from
Mohammed's Medina period till then.
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