The standard history that is taught in the West is designed to support the idea that Western civilisation is the most advanced form of civilisation known to man. According to this view, mankind has been continuously evolving and improving over thousands of years. Western civilisation is the end result of many millennia of progress and development. In order to support this notion, Western historians undermine the intellectual, moral, scientific and artistic achievements of all preceding ages and civilisations, in particular the civilisation that immediately preceded them, which is the Islamic civilisation.
The achievements of preceding civilisations are instead attributed to the West itself. The West is thus seen to be a unique phenomenon, rising far above all of history intellectually, morally and scientifically. This manipulation of the historical narrative is quite feasible for the Western elite as they dominate the institutions of higher education thereby enabling them to determine the direction of historical scholarship; through this, and other means, they can easily direct the general education syllabus and educational texts and references such as school books and encyclopaedias. Western control of history is similar to Western control of the media; truth is not eliminated but only obscured under layers of falsehood and distraction.
Rediscovering historical truth requires first defining the process for analysing history; in particular, this requires determining the criteria for historical evidence: i.e. that which is to be accepted as valid historical evidence for the purposes of constructing sound historical narrative.
Traditionally, three sources of historical material have been used: previous narratives, artefacts, and reported narration.
The first of these must be discarded. Previous narratives whether by contemporaries of historical events, or latter day chroniclers, are second-hand accounts of events as perceived by their authors.
The second traditional source of history is acceptable. Physical artefacts that remain with us from earlier generations are reliable indicators of the history of that period, whether in the form of monuments and archaeological remains, or in the form of original documents and manuscripts.
The third source of history is also sound. Documented historical narration can reliably convey the speech or actions of past events, depending on the quality of the chain(s) of narration. In modern times, for example, archived newspaper accounts can be accepted as historical evidence of the events that they are reporting on, depending on the authenticity of the newspaper, the journalist if his name is mentioned, and the multiplicity of reporting if other accounts can also be found.
Prior to modern times, this was the primary historical approach used by the muhaditheen to collect the evidences for the Prophetic Sunnah. If one re-examines the historical evidences from this basis, then it is possible to place the present West in its true historical context. The intellectual, moral, scientific and artistic achievements of the West can then be more reliably contrasted with those of earlier civilisations, in particular, the Islamic civilisation that immediately preceded it and from whose shadow it emerged. When the West is re-examined afresh, then the achievements of the West are seen to be little more than the opportunistic appropriation of the civilisational wealth of Islam during the decline of the Islamic Khilafah that was terminated in 1924 CE.
Intellectual achievements
The West is most proud of its intellectual achievements, whereas it is in this domain that the West owes the most to the Islamic civilisation that preceded it. The empiricist secularist orientation of the West is a direct development of the discussions and debates between Muslims thinkers and scholars.
Western historians attempt to root Western thinking in Greek and Roman culture, viewing these two civilisations geographically as part of the West. But it was the intellectual discussions of Muslims that became the subject of debates in the West, and not the intellectual discussions of the Romans and the Greeks. For example, in philosophy the West’s harsh empiricist approach is a direct development of the emphasis on sense-perception in Islam and is markedly different from Greek rationalism.
Similarly, in economics, the Western emphasis on the free market is a direct development of the elucidation of market dynamics by Muslim jurisprudents. More generally, Western law, in particular English common law, has lifted many elements directly from the Islamic fiqh: the English Magna Carta is obviously influenced by Islamic fiqh and does not resemble anything that preceded it in Western jurisprudence. Most significantly of all, Western political thought is a direct continuation of the great intellectual debate within Muslims in earlier centuries regarding the place of rationalism in political life. Muslim scholars such as Imam Ghazzali rejected the rationalist approach of thinkers such as ibn Sina and ibn Rushd, who had been influenced by Greek thinking. Christian Europe became exposed to this debate and was shaken by it, with Christian scholars also dividing into rationalist and anti-rationalist factions. However, whereas the rationalists were defeated in the Islamic world, their approach won victory within Europe.
As a consequence, Europe abandoned its Christianity and adopted a secular approach to life’s affairs.
Moral achievements
The West views itself as morally far superior to earlier civilisations, which are generally all portrayed as barbaric and darkly oppressive. In order to achieve this, the West either takes individual instances of crimes from earlier times generalising these as descriptive of the entire era, or the West de-legitimises normal human behaviour, such as normal family life. Meanwhile, widespread atrocities that occur today are either treated as isolated and individual cases, or have been ‘systematised’ so that they are viewed as the norm.
The greatest oppression in all of human history, which the entire world has suffered equally, has occurred at the hands of the evil Western imperialism, with its savage genocidal wars and its life-depriving exploitation of the world’s peoples and their vital resources. This continues until today and should be in itself a sufficient indictment of high Western moralising. Regarding previous civilisations, leaving aside the noble Islamic civilisation, even Christian Europe had far stronger ethical and humanitarian values than the present West. Today’s Western society is a materialistic swamp of hedonistic self-aggrandisement at the expense of the poor and weak even in their very own societies.
Scientific and Artistic achievements
It is a natural phenomenon for science and technology to develop over the ages. However, even here, the West distorts the historical record, underrating scientific and technological achievements of previous ages. The West has attributed most of the scientific and technological achievements of Islam to the centuries of the so-called ‘Western renaissance,’ a time when in fact the West was only developing in imitation of Islamic civilisation and not because of genuine indigenous efforts. Muslims today are rediscovering Islam’s scientific and technological heritage and realising that early Western scientists were in effect simply translators and plagiarists of Muslim works.
Regarding the arts, Islamic architectural, design, and calligraphic uniqueness is now well-known. Lesser known is the Muslim literary endeavours and their deep impact on Western literature: the originators of Western literary genres such as the novel (Defoe) and the short story (Kipling) were effectively copying Muslim fictional styles. Similarly, modern Western dress style is a direct continuation of Turkish 16th century fashion and has little relation to prior European styles. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the ‘Orient’ was the epitome of artistic style and splendour, of which centres such as Paris were very poor copies, within a crude, illiterate, backward West.
Rediscovering history
When they lost their civilisation, Muslims lost their history also. This needs to be recovered in order for us to gain true perspective of our central role in world history. The Islamic Khilafah was the foremost world power for more than a millennium, until the 18th Century CE. Western civilisation is actually a relatively new phenomenon. As with the victories of the Crusaders, we expect modern Western supremacy to be only a temporary aberration in our history, shortly to be displaced by the re-established Islamic State.