by A. Faisal Marzuki
- In the future as a Muslims (and non Muslims) feel strange (how the teaching of) Islam is. [Al-Hadeeth]
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- “What Americans need to know is their own history and if they were to look to Jefferson, who was for his time persecuted because of his expansive ideas of inclusion and not just tolerance but political equality, if they were to look to Jefferson to see precedence for Muslim citizens today then we would really have something better in our discourse about inclusion and Islam than we have right now,” said Spellberg on Cii Radio’s Global Dynamics.
At the same time, however, the rising tide of
Islamophobia is making its presence felt. Politicians support the
characterization of Islamic life as incompatible with American society. Media
“pundits” decry the supposed influence Muslims are having on destroying the
basis of American political and social ideas.
You may know that “How Muslims Helped Cause the
American Revolution”1, It would come really really surprise everyone read this
subject as above. Wallahu ‘alam Bish-Shawab. ©AFM
How
Muslims Helped Cause
the American Revolution
Today’s American political landscape can be quite
a confusing and frightening place. The ideas of the Founding
Fathers are commonly cited as the foundation of the nation. The
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are seen as the infallible
documents on which American life are based. Freedom, democracy, and liberty are
the cornerstones of political and social ideas in the United
States.
At the same time, however, the rising tide of
Islamophobia is making its presence felt. Politicians support the
characterization of Islamic life as incompatible with American society. Media
“pundits” decry the supposed influence Muslims are having on destroying the
basis of American political and social ideas.
The truly ironic part of this is that Muslims in
fact helped formulate the ideas that the United States is based on. While this
article will not argue that Islam and
Muslims are the only cause of the American
Revolution, the impact that Muslims had on the establishment of
America is clear and should not be overlooked.
Islamic Philosophy and the Enlightenment
Islamic Philosophy and the Enlightenment
The political and social ideas that caused the
American colonists to revolt against the British Empire were formulated in a
movement known as the Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement that argued that science and
reason should be the basis of human society, not blind following of monarchs
and church authority. On July 4th, 1776, in Philadelphia, the American
revolutionaries signed the Declaration of Independence, a document written by
Thomas Jefferson and heavily influenced by the Enlightenment, which made
official their break from Great Britain and the establishment of the United
States of America.
The Enlightenment was driven by a group of
European philosophers and scientists who were going against the prevailing
ideas of governance in Europe at the time. Among these thinkers were people
such as John Locke, René
Descartes, Isaac Newton and Montesquieu.
John Locke, an Englishman who lived from 1632 to 1704, promoted some of the most influential ideas of the Enlightenment. He pioneered the idea that humans are naturally good, and are corrupted by society or government to becoming deviant. Locke described this idea in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding as the tabula rasa, a Latin phrase meaning blank slate. The idea was not original to him, however. In fact, Locke directly took the idea from a Muslim philosopher from the 1100s, Ibn Tufail. In Ibn Tufail’s book, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, he describes an identical idea about how humans act as a blank slate, absorbing experiences and information from their surroundings.The same idea manifests itself in the life of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him). He stated that “No child is born except on the fitra.” Fitra here can be defined as the natural, pure state of a person. According to Islamic thought, all humans are born in a natural state of purity, with belief in one God, and that as they grow older, they adopt the ideas and beliefs of the people around them, particularly their parents. This is the intellectual forerunner of the tabula rasa that Locke learned from Ibn Tufail.
Through Locke, this concept would influence the
political idea that humans should not be constrained by an oppressive and
intolerant government. His ideas, which he borrowed from Ibn Tufail, would Tend
up forming a cornerstone of America’s revolutionary ideas that the colonists in
America would be much better off if they were not under the oppressive British
government. Locke further expanded on the subject by describing something he called
the social contract. In this social contract theory, the people must consent to
be ruled by a government that in turn agrees to protect the natural
rights of its citizens.
This same concept is also seen in 1377 in
the Muqaddimah of the great Muslim historian and sociologist, Ibn
Khaldun. In it, he states, “The concomitants of good rulership are kindness to,
and protection of, one’s subjects. The true meaning of royal authority is
realized when a ruler defends his subjects.” Here Ibn Khaldun is explaining one
of the main political ideas of the Enlightenment, 300 years before Locke
proposes the same argument: that a government must defend, not infringe on, the
rights of its citizens. Later, in 1776, the preamble of the Declaration of
Independence stated a similar argument: “Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
John Locke also pioneered the concept of natural
rights: the idea that humans all have a set of God-given rights that should not
be taken away by any government. In the Declaration of Independence, this is
stated as “…they [men] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
While most American and European textbooks
promote this as a unique “Western” idea, the truth is that it is far older than
John Locke and Thomas Jefferson. Again, in the Muqaddimah, Ibn
Khaldun explains: “Those who infringe upon property commit an injustice. Those
who deny people their rights commit an injustice.” He goes on to explain that
this leads to the destruction of a state, and cites examples from the life of
the Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) where he forbade injustice. The concepts
that a Muslim government should not infringe upon rights was very clear in
Islamic law and was a well-accepted idea throughout Muslim empires.
Others Philosopher
Other Enlightenment philosophers were heavily
influenced by earlier Muslims and Islamic ideas. Without going into great
detail, the following are some examples:
Isaac Newton was greatly influenced by Ibn al-Haytham the
Muslim scientist who pioneered the scientific method, optics, and the laws of
motion. In Europe, Ibn al-Haytham was well known, as were his ideas about
science and philosophy. Isaac Newton borrowed from Ibn al-Haytham the idea that
there are natural laws that run the universe (an idea first proposed by Caliph
al-Ma’mun as his rationale for establishing the House of Wisdom in Baghdad).
Later Enlightenment philosophers used the idea of natural laws to support
concepts of natural rights, the government’s role, and economic systems. All of
these ideas influenced the Founding Fathers of America who cited them as the
basis of the United States.
Montesquieu is usually cited as the first to
propose the ideas of separation of government into several branches. During his
time in Europe, monarchs held absolute power and shared control of the state
with no one. The Muslim world had historically never run in such a way. While
caliphs in the Umayyad and Abbasid Empires held most of the power, there also
existed the idea of shura, which was a council whose job it was to advise the caliph.
In those governments there also existed ministers who carried out tasks under
the supervision of the monarch. Perhaps the most important however, were the
qadis, or judges, who formed a legal system based on Islamic law and were
independent of the ruling caliph. A prime example of how Islamic governments
are designed to work through a bureaucracy is Imam al-Mawardi’s Al-Ahkam
Al-Sultaniyyah [On the Ordinances of the Government], written in the early
1000s. In it, al-Mawardi explains how the caliph and other government officials
are to carry out their roles within their individual spheres, all while staying
within the framework of Islamic law.
This system of government was well known in
Europe from the Muslim European states in Spain and Sicily, where many European
Christians traveled to study under Muslim scholars. Al-Mawardi’s work was
translated into Latin and disseminated throughout Europe, where he was known as
Alboacen, a Latin corruption of his name.
Coffee
All of the philosophical ideas already mentioned would not have had much effect if it were not for a curious black drink that came out of the Muslim world – coffee.
During the Middle Ages in Europe, the drink of
choice was alcohol. In France and other areas that grew grapes, wine was the
dominant drink, while beer and ale were popular further north. Drinking water
was actually rare, as it was believed that alcoholic beverages were cleaner
than water and more filling. The result of this belief was constant drunkenness
among the European population.
In Yemen in the middle of the 1400s, a new
drink that was made from coffee beans was beginning to become quite
popular. The Yemenis were roasting and then boiling coffee beans in water to
produce a drink that was rich in caffeine, a stimulant that causes the
body to have more energy and the brain to think more clearly. Through the 1400s
and 1500s, coffee spread throughout the Muslim world, and coffee shops began to
pop up in major cities. These coffee shops became a center of urban society, as
people met there to socialize and enjoy the company of others.
A British coffeehouse in the 1700s
By the 1600s, these coffee houses had spread to
Europe as well. Although there was initial resistance to drinking a “Muslim
drink” in Christian Europe, the beverage caught on. The coffeehouses became a
central aspect of the Enlightenment, particularly in France. Whereas previously
Europeans had been drinking alcohol regularly, they now met in coffee houses,
where they discussed philosophy, government, politics, and other ideas that
were the cornerstones of the Enlightenment. French Enlightenment philosophers
such as Diderot, Voltaire, and Rousseau were all regular customers at the
coffeehouses of Paris.
Were it not for this drink from the Muslim lands, Europe might never have had the Enlightenment, as the philosophers would never have met to discuss ideas, nor had the mental clarity (due to alcohol consumption) to think philosophically.
As previously stated, the American Revolution was a direct effect of the European Enlightenment. The theories of rights, government, and the human self that were the basis of Enlightenment took form in the 1700s at the hands of great minds such as Locke, Newton, and Montesquieu. They, however, borrowed their ideas from earlier Muslim philosophers such as Ibn Tufail, Ibn Sina, and Ibn Khaldun. Were it not for their ideas which were rooted in Islam, the Enlightenment may not have been as insightful, or may not have even happened. Added to this was the effect that coffee had on Europe in giving the philosophers a forum to expand their ideas and learn new ones.
Without the Enlightenment, the American colonists
never would have had the intellectual backing they needed to revolt. The ideas
of freedom, liberty, and human rights that America is founded on are originally
Muslim ideas formulated by Muslim philosophers working with the Quran and
Hadith as their basis. While it is not accurate to claim that Muslims
single-handedly caused the American Revolution, their contributions and
influences cannot be overlooked. Those who claim that Islamic ideas are not
compatible with American society must remember that it was those Islamic ideas
that helped form American society, freedom, and liberty in the first place.
Bibliography:
Khaldūn, I. (1969). The muqaddimah, an introduction to history. Bollingen.
Morgan, M. (2007). Lost history. Washington D.C. : National Geographic Society.
Russell, G. A. (1994). The ‘arabick’ interest of the natural philosophers in seventeenth-century england. Brill Publishers.
1Lost Islamic History
