No Islam, No Tomorrow: The Crisis of Muslim Identity

Shortly after the establishment in 1919 of the League of Nations, which served as a precursor to the United Nations, Albert Einstein wrote a poignant comment, the summary of which reads as follows:

"In the seventeenth century, scholars and artists across Europe shared a common ideal, largely unaffected by political events, and united by the Latin language. Today, this unity is seen as a lost paradise, as nationalism has fragmented the intellectual community and Latin is no longer in use. Scholars now represent extreme national traditions, losing their sense of a global intellectual community. Currently, it is politicians, the practical men of affairs, who promote international ideas, exemplified by the creation of the League of Nations" (Albert Einstein, Paradise Lost).

Einstein viewed nationalism, which was spreading rapidly across the European continent, as an incurable tumor. He believed it stemmed from the deviation of modern Western civilization from the principles of unifying enlightenment and humanism, which had originally shaped its identity. As a result, this increasingly divisive and discriminatory civilization had the potential to lead the Western world, and humanity as a whole, to a tragic end, possibly involving atomic warfare of apocalyptic proportions.

The vanished Muslim paradise

Unfortunately, repeated failures brought about the loss of the divinely inspired concepts of Muslim brotherhood, unity, and caliphate. The Arabic language, the language of the Qur'an, which performed the role of the ummah's religious, cultural, and civilizational lingua franca, was also lost as such. So thoroughly have those been abandoned that more than a century later, they are yet to be rediscovered.

Like the rest of the world, in consequence, Muslims have lost their ideological and civilizational compass, and their futile endeavors seem to consign them to a perpetual labyrinth of cul-de-sacs. Driven by their predominantly Arab, Turkish, and Persian nationalistic leanings, Muslims were busier fighting each other than addressing the threats from external enemies. A scant measure of what was revered could be deemed quintessentially Islamic. Sadly, Allah's commandments to the contrary fell on deaf ears.

As if there was no way out. Not only was paradise forfeited, but "hell" was additionally masterminded and imposed as a paradigm. One might yet infer that Einstein's remarks extended to indirectly include Muslims as well.

Regardless, several questions remain: what perspective did Muslims have when they observed and judged the world? How did they find the decline of Western civilization an attractive proposition worthy of acceptance and blind following? What was appealing about the escalating negative aspects of the West, such as fragmentation, nationalism, alienation, conflict, godlessness, and laicism, to the extent that they seemed more valuable than the heavenly Islamic moral values and civilizational standards?

To make things worse, the irreversible degeneration of the West proves that its paradise was, in fact, an illusion. Now, after a period of reckoning and epochal challenges, people have come to realize the fundamental truth of their circumstances and, as a corollary, have been abandoned.

In contrast, the glories and golden ages of Islamic civilization were based on substance, with their worth proven time and again through the ups and downs of Muslim peoples. However, now, after the same period of reckoning and its challenges, people have been misled into forgetting and losing their way. Ultimately, fueled by ignorance and subtle westernization, they have been induced to abandon Islam and its civilizational legacy.

Human capital and empowerment for differentiating right from wrong

There is, however, something else that can be addressed and which can be a breath of fresh air.

Muslims have significantly neglected their Islam, Prophet, Qur'an, Shari'ah, Jihad, Arabic, brotherhood, and unity, replacing them with foreign and inadequate alternatives because their genuine Islamic knowledge and ethical empowerment have largely disappeared. For that, to be fair, nobody is to be blamed but Muslims themselves and their increasingly lax relationship with Islam and Islamic civilization as the sources of their ontological existence.

Once this came to pass, the West, which mastered the skills of deceptive and aggressive marketing along with sly coercion, was quick to step in with its seemingly reassuring enlightened progress and fill the glaring vacuum. Muslims, nonetheless, having lost their means to critically assess the developments and lacking the spiritual benchmarks to see through the superficial allure of Western civilization, quickly became disoriented and desperately followed the bait.

Put differently, Muslims became detached from their history and identity; they were no longer themselves. This resulted in their inability to see, let alone properly evaluate events and phenomena. They were no longer in control of their narratives and destinies; these were determined and imposed upon them by others. They could not distinguish who was who and what was what exactly. They became blind and confused, and their state was akin to an object left in the open sea at the mercy of fluctuating currents.

Whatever arose afterwards is history and, if truth be told, nothing more than effects. The outcomes can yet be likened to the tip of an iceberg, which, no matter how formidable and scary it may be, hides beneath a much larger and more terrifying mass.

What does this metaphor mean? The answer can be found in the Qur'an-just like for everything else, if one seeks it and approaches it properly.

The Qur'anic concept of "furqan" (the criterion for distinguishing between right and wrong)

The third instance is relevant here. Accordingly, Allah is explicit that if Muslims obey and fear Him, keeping their duty to Him (taqwa), He will grant them a criterion to judge between right and wrong, remove from them all evil that may afflict them, and forgive them (al-Anfal 29). That is to say, they will be enlightened, energized, and enabled to see and discern. Charting their own life paths and determining their own fates will be in their hands. They will thus be put on a pedestal and, in the processes of civilization-making, will simply be in charge throughout.

While the mission of furqan in the contexts of Allah's revelations and the Battle of Badr is collective, in the third context it is individual. This means that when a Muslim embraces the Qur'an as furqan-and the life pattern (Sunnah) of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, exemplified by the events and aftermath of the Battle of Badr-he firmly sets out on the path towards developing taqwa as his spiritual identity and enhancing his capacity for character-building.

Once at that stage, Allah promises that the next spiritual, moral, and even intellectual state is that of a furqan, which represents the peak of empowerment, talent development, and professional growth in Islam. It performs as a set of criteria and qualitative indicators for understanding matters as they truly are, without adding to or subtracting from the truth. It is only then that a Muslim in the strictest sense sees, understands, decides, and acts.

Notably, it is only this furqan that Allah precedes with the indefinite article "a," while the others are preceded with the definite article "the." The message conveyed here is that every deserving Muslim will be granted a furqan suited to his needs and abilities, perfectly aligning with the demands of each person's self-fulfillment.

Indeed, historically, it was the dynamics of the relationship between Islam, the Qur'an, and taqwa that empowered Muslims, both individually and collectively, held together and sustained by the power of the fulcrum of furqan. Needless to say, it was the destruction of this dynamic and the breakdown of this relationship that incapacitated Muslims, changing their status from creative leaders to blind followers, and from a global productive force to inertia and stupor. They had no proper lens through which to observe and harness wisdom. Their vantage points for developing judgmental perspectives have been distorted.

Towards the same end are the words of a universally accepted pious supplication that dates back to the early generations of Islam: "O Allah, show me the truth as truth (enable me to see it as it is) and grant me the privilege to follow it, and show me the falsehood as falsehood (enable me to see it as it is) and grant me the privilege to avoid it." Clearly, following the truth and shunning falsehood depend on the ability to recognize their distinct characteristics and to apply that recognition in practice.

Muslim history is filled with Einstein-like giants in thought, spirituality, and science, acting as safeguards against decline. Their legacies remind us of a true paradise that once existed but has been lost to the relentless passage of time. Although Einstein's statement was made within the framework of Western civilization, it also serves as a stark reminder of what Muslims have lost and what the potential routes to redemption are.

The only way forward

Inasmuch as the hyped lost Western paradise was, in actual fact, a mere mirage, it is only Islam, Muslims, and Islamic civilization that can offer a glimpse of hope for the future of the world. However, to achieve this, Muslims must sincerely return to their faith and create a Muslim commonwealth (ummah) issued from the supreme ideals of Islam outlined earlier. Muslims should not be under the illusion that such noble objectives can be realized in any other way. It is high time that we start learning something from the embarrassing fiascos of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Without Islam, a religion ready to deliver all, Muslims have no prospect, and the vanished paradise is impossible to revive. The Paradise of the afterlife is exclusively secured through the "paradise" found in this earthly existence.