The Muslim Empire and Education

By: Muhammad Drammeh

Muslims throughout the years have been dominant in almost everything, although the struggle for prophet Muhammad (Saw) and his believers was immensely challenging and our prophet preaching the word of Islam for 13 years as just the beginning of his task, but as they say and as it turned out the greater the struggle the better the outcome.

From the expansion of Islam throughout the world starting in Asia then Africa and Europe and America, building a stronger empire from each culture, dominating the world in most aspects including knowledge and religion, as proven in the inventions of algebra, the astrolabe and over 1001 things resources and government, from household items to technology, territory and military which includes land claimed and a powerful army and also innovation vastly expanding and the continuing aspiration of a developing Empire.

I shall take the Ottoman Empire as an example of the power of Islam. Because of the education and strategy it possessed, it took over the world conquering and destroying many other powerful Empires spreading all the way into Europe. Lasting generations ruled by many leaders until the twentieth century, when because of the secularization ofTurkey, led to the fall of this empire during World War 1.

As you can see, Islam had a great impact on the world also revolutionizing it at some point as we see proven in mathematics science and astronomy and much more. Even a lot of the most famous people in history were either Muslim or came from a Muslim background and got to that position because of education and the knowledge that came from it. As an example our president came from a Muslim background, spent some of his life in Indonesia and became our president through education.

Now we come to the critical point in history where we can ask ourselves this disturbing question: what’s wrong with the Muslims of this modern world  when Islam is now deemed as a violent terrorist religion, this is a really dark time for Islam caused upon us when America wanting to rid of us, viewed and looked upon as radicals and extremists? What happened from being on top of the world to being at a bottomless pit of hatred and controversy?

Islam used to promote science and reason while Europe was still in the Dark Ages, but now it is twisted and they continuing our progress of inventions and education stealing our credit, which is why they are now a powerful empire, succeeding in what we’ve left off.

And all these issues that we face now: wrongly mistreating women and denying their right to live peacefully without being either abused or killed. Our own leaders in other countries making corrupt policies with the IMF and World Bank, which keep our people in poverty; and the division between our own community because of  innovation in Islam; the fear of Islamaphobia because extremist leaders trying to turn all peaceful Muslims against people of other faiths–which led to the biggest of all–9/11.

The same Islam that means peace, was crushed by these Muslims, that we were let represent our nation, gave us a bad name. We let them control our empire, let them engage in violence and corruption and they did so while saying it in Allah’s name and believing it is the right thing to do.

An all these situations can be measured in either education or lack of education in which we find ourselves at the bottom. We need to be that nation of education and innovation that led us to the top of the world so that in order to proceed, we as Muslims need to take back what is ours and with knowledge and religion, to lead to the world’s understanding about us.

The Muslims of today are struggling to lift themselves out of the weak, divided and arguably, backward position which they occupy in the eyes of the world.

So now we can ask ourselves a controversial question: Are we ready as Muslims to free ourselves of the bad names and bad reputation given to us from people that think they represent us?  Are we ready do built our nation based on the ideal of education and religion?

Our prophet (Saw) as we all know was in a cave and was met by an angel, angel Gabriel and our prophet was asked to read, basically to understand; to seek knowledge and wisdom to gain education. He was told to let Islam lead through the light and guidance of Allah and the education he bestowed upon us would help us religiously and politically to pave the way for us to lead once more. Thank you and assalamulakum.