For the last two hundred years the West has almost monopolized technological and scientific development. Their influence is so powerful the developing world imitates the industries, infrastructure, and institutions of the West. The developing world even holds themselves in high esteem for directly importing from the West. Examples of imitation include the development of a Motorway in Pakistan in imitation of Britain. In Indonesia skyscrapers were developed out of imitation of New York even though land is sitting abandoned. The UAE has created artificial islands in imitation of Western beaches even thought most of its terrain remains uninhabited.
The recent rise of China has left many startled as it has managed to achieve phenomenal economic growth and industrialization by not adopting the rules of the liberal West but by remaining deeply authoritarian and centrally driven. Economically China has utilised and retained its centrally driven and interventionist approach and has extensive levels of government involvement across all market sectors. This shows that imitation will never lead to progress as many of the developments in the world are solutions to problems being faced.
An example of this was the development of the railway in the 19th century. The British Empire discovered it had large deposits of Iron and coal spread across the isles. Such minerals required mining and then required shifting to factories for conversion to suitable material. Steam had already been used to pump water from mines and with the problem of how exactly should coal and Iron be transported to factories, inventors began to use steam to drive pistons up and down, and then eventually to generate the rotary (motion). The iron factories produced high-grade material suitable for constructing train engines and tracks. Skilled ironworkers provided machine parts of exact sizes. This led to the first System of rails and carriages which began to move coal from the mines to the barges on which it was shipped. The first important railway was carrying coal and bulk goods between Manchester and Liverpool. The British Empire then went on to develop the railways for the rest of the world. Hence the development of railways was a solution to the transportation problems the empire faced.
Historically all civilisations have been characterised with some form of technological and scientific development, if one was to chart the development of the Islamic Khilafah it becomes clear that if the society is unified, with a stable central government then progress can occur.
The Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم ruled over both Muslims and non-Muslims and he managed their affairs from the first day he set foot in Madinah. Once the Islamic State was founded he set about forming a society in which the welfare of the people would be catered for. Acting in his capacity as a statesman he signed treaties, as a leader and chief administrator of the Islamic State he appointed governors, as commander of the armed forces he planned and executed many military campaigns. He appointed registrars who were like the heads of departments of State, the Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم would appoint for every department a secretary or director regardless of the number of departments. The Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم used to also receive the full financial accounts of the governors and would enquire about their revenues and expenses.
Early development was directly linked to the spread of Islam, the conquering of Parts of Iraq and the whole of Syria brought a whole host of administrative and economic challenges. Umar Ibn Khatab (ra) required a Fiscal system where by sufficient revenue was raised and ensure all people were catered for. He developed a register for pensions, which was the first of its kind. Areas were split into provinces (Wilayat) and he would appoint governors with general deputation and is some cases specific governors who would have jurisdiction over the Finance, judiciary or army. He dealt with the vast lands under his authority by fixing the rates of land revenue according to the type of land. He charged four dirhams on one jarib of sown wheat, while he charged 2 dirhams for a similar plot of barley. Nothing was charged for pastures and uncultivated land, in this way he systematised revenues
The Umayyad’s
The ummayad family took over the reigns of power in 661 when Mu’awiyah bin Sufyaan (661-680) became the Khaleefah. He enacted a policy of the continuous expansion of the Islam, which brought Northwest Africa (Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia), Spain, western India (711), and portions of Central Asia (712) under Islamic authority which added greatly to the Khilafah’s wealth. Mu’awiyah is famous for enacted the policy for the development of the military of the Islamic state, this would include a powerful navy and the creation of military bases. Mu’awiya had realised that the decisive battle against the then superpower the Byzantines would be at sea – so right he was the Byzantines were fought within 22 years of the start of this project and Muhammed al Fathi finally conquered the capital of the Byzantines – Constantinople via a decisive sea battle in 1456 after numerous attempts.
Mu’awiyah’s policies resulted in the creation of dockyards in Acre in Syria and also in Eastern Egypt which was in Muslim control by 641. By 649 the construction of a fleet of 1000 ships was complete. This policy also resulted in ship building factories being constructed at important ports such as Abla and Sirafin in the Persian Gulf, Tunis on the North African Coast, Sus in Morocco then after further victories facilities developed in Palermo and Messina in Sicily and Bari in Italy. Within a hundred years these ports also served as commercial centres for Trade which facilitated the Khilafah’s riches. The Berber turned Muslim Tariq ibn Ziyad in 711, from around Tangier (modern day Morocco), with an army of around seven thousand three hundred crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and began the conquest of Spain.
The Golden Period
When the Abbasids became the Khaleefah’s Baghdad was a small town in central Mesopotamia. European towns, cities and settlements built walls to prevent raids from outlaws and armies but were typically vulnerable at four points; the corners. If enough pressure was applied at any of these points the wall would collapse and troops could flood through the breach. The Abbasids solved this problem by building Baghdad as the first Circular City in the world. The Abbasid caliph, Al Mansur (754-75) built the new capital, surrounded by round walls and the streets of the newly constructed Baghdad are paved with tar. Within fifty years the population outgrew the city walls as people thronged to the capital, Baghdad became a vast emporium of trade linking Asia and the Mediterranean. By the reign of Mansur’s grandson, Harun ar Rashid (786-806), just 10 years later Baghdad was second in size only to Constantinople.
After the defences of the city were complete attention turned to how the Abbasids would feed not just Baghdad but the whole empire considering its enormous population.
The development of Agriculture under the Abbasids was a phenomenon; the scarcity of water had converted the barren Arab lands into a vast desert, which had never yielded any substantial agricultural produce. The scattered population always imported supply of food grains to supplement the dates and the little corn grown in their own lands. Agriculture in Arabia had been very primitive and was confined to those tracts where water was available in the form of springs. Medina, with its springs and wells was the only green spot in the vast desert. The Abbasids dealt with this by first controlling the flows of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. The Irrigation system in the land was greatly improved by digging a number of new canals, the largest flowed between the Tigris and Euphrates. This canal was called Nahr Isa (Isa canal) and was open to ships for transportation between Syria & Iraq. This led to navigation routes opening to India and Persian Gulf. The Abbasids reconstructed the existing canals, lakes, and reservoirs, which were first built under Hajjaj Bin Yusuf in 702. After this the swamps around Baghdad were drained, freeing the city of malaria. Muslim engineers perfected the waterwheel and constructed elaborate underground water channels called qanats. Requiring a high degree of engineering skill, qanats were built some fifty feet underground with a very slight inclination over long distances to tap underground water and were provided with manholes so that they could be cleaned and repaired. The engineer al-Jazari also invented the first crank-shaft, which is a device that allows rotary (movement) into linear motion and is central to much of the machinery in the modern world, not least car engines. Hence the Abbasids set in motion an agricultural revolution, which stimulated development in other areas.
Once the Abbasids had developed central government and ensured law and order was applied and with the population of the khilafah continually expanding it became necessary to deal with the weak, elderly and the sick. The ahadith of the Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم which mentions “for every disease Allah created its cure,” became a driving factor for numerous developments in the medical field.
The first organized hospital in the world was built in Baghdad in 864CE. The hospital treated and gave free medicine to all patients. It provided separate bath houses for men and women, a rich library and a section for the insane. This development resulted in the evolution of ophthalmology (eye care). Muslim ophthalmologists were performing operations, dissecting, discovering, and writing about their findings in textbooks and monographs. Voluminous handbooks were written, many of which were translated into Latin. One of these was the ‘Canon’ by Ibn Sina, which today, still remains a primary reference, he coined one million new Arabic terms in the field.
All these developments occurred because one hadith motivated thousands of people to find cures Allah سبحانه وتعالى explained exists.
Trade and Hajj and the need to carry Islam to the world led to developments in geography and maps. The Hajj lead to Muslims giving accounts by world of mouth of routes to the holy sites in Mecca and Medina. These came to be put eventually in written form, which were the first travel guides in the world. The expansion of the Muslims lands was another factor which lead to the pursuit of geographical knowledge.
These are a few examples of the developments that occurred in Islamic history. Central to all the developments was the role of Islam, it was the driving force which pushed Muslims to travel the earth and constantly find solutions to the problems that were encountered. Domestically the Khaleefah applied Islam; this created a stable government and an intellectual revolution which resulted in some of the greatest thinkers in history compiling legislative literature. This stability domestically resulted in the Ummah spreading Islam externally which required the use of a number of items and resources which led to inventions of all kinds.
The lesson for the ummah today and the Muslim rulers is Islam has a track record of raising people and developing them into superpowers and only a return to this deen will solve the Ummah’s current problems.