THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE 21st CENTURY
THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE 21st CENTURY
The 20th century was one of the most
important in the
history of mankind. As it drew to an end, advances in the
scientific
and technological fields inevitably gave rise to questions as
to the
shape of the century to follow.
At the end of the 1980s, the disappearance of a bi-polar world
led to
attitudes to the likely course of history. That position was
known as
"the new world order." In a short time, it was placed on a
number of theoretical foundations.
One of the new period's most important theoreticians, Francis
Fukuyama,
claimed that liberal capitalist values were the highest which
mankind
could attain. In his article "The End of History" that sparked
off a whole debate, he suggested that political systems and
concepts
of living were coming to resemble one another in all parts of
the world.
In his view, the defining characteristic of ideologies had
disappeared,
and the world was falling into a competition based on
economics. That
was not the first time such a claim had been made, of course.
Even before
Fukuyama, the thesis that history developed by means of
competition
and conflict had been suggested in the framework of a
deterministic
and Darwinist concept of history.
Fukuyama's Claim of the End of History
According to the new thesis, mankind was about to reach the
happiest
point in its history. In an article in the Wall Street Journal
after
the Sept. 11 attacks, Francis Fukuyama adopted a Darwinist
model of
the social sciences, and described the future of humanity in
these words:
But the way in which I used the word history was different: it referred to the progress over the centuries toward modernity, characterised by institutions like democracy and capitalism. My observation, made in 1989 on the eve of the collapse of communism, was that this evolutionary process did seem to be bringing ever larger parts of the world toward modernity. And if we looked beyond liberal democracy and markets, there was nothing else towards which we could expect to evolve; hence the end of history.1
Those who adopted a deterministic belief
and claimed
that mankind had finally come to the end of its road were
taken by
surprise by the instability and wars in Europe, the Middle
East and
elsewhere in the world. The Middle East, the Balkans, the
Caucasus
and parts of Africa, regions that had lived by Qur'anic
morality up
to the 20th century and hosted very different cultures and
ethnic
structures, were submerged in chaos.
Following
these developments, a number of theoreticians, led by
Professor Samuel
P. Huntington from Princeton University, generally put forward
an opposing
view and claimed that the next years would see a clash of
civilisations.
According to these theoreticians, cultural differences between
civilizations
would give rise to ideological conflict, and that these would
polarize
and accelerate, becoming actual conflicts.
Samuel Huntington had put forward his thesis in a 23-page
article
in 1993, called "The Clash of Civilizations." It received
a mixed reception when first proposed. Recent developments
and statements
by some Western statesmen have again livened up the debate
on the
thesis.
As the world entered a new age, ideologues such as
Huntington, like
Fukuyama, suggested that ideologies had lost their defining
characteristics
and that there had been a return to the times when
civilizations sought
their inspiration from religion. According to Huntington's
ideas,
the conflict between civilizations would grow. In the next
century,
the world would turn into a place of conflict. Huntington
expected
the greatest conflict to be between the Western and Islamic
civilizations.
The Solution
Revealed in the
Qur'an to the Conflict Between Civilizations View
In the Qur'an, mankind is promised peace and well-being, not
conflict.
Allah says that even people of different religions need to
come together
and display tolerance:
Say, "O People of the Book! Let us rally to a common formula to be binding on both us and you: That we worship none but Allah; that we associate no partners with Him; that we erect not, from among ourselves, Lords and patrons other than Allah." (Qur'an, 3:64)
The reasons for the tragedies experienced in the 20th century are mainly the ideas put forward in the 19th. Ever since the earliest times, ideologies which denied creation and claimed that matter was all there was then drew strength from Darwin's theory of evolution and began to spread ever wider. These twisted ideologies suddenly became a philosophy of life for whole societies.
The implementation of materialist ideologies in society led to the prevailing of a view in which only material things were seen as of any importance, by raising generations that oppressed the weak, despised family values, knew nothing of brotherhood or peace, were far removed from such spiritual values as love, sacrifice and respect, had no ethical values and took no pleasure in art or science. As a result of the ideas imposed on society in the light of the materialist mentality, it was intended to create communities that denied the existence of Allah and believed they had no responsibilities to anyone. The way the 20th century has gone down in history as a time of wars, disasters and strife is the result of that materialist mentality.
We
have left the 20th century behind us. We are now in the 21st
century,
a new age. People have now seen that in the 20th century
materialist
philosophy, by whatever name it may have been known, brought
nothing
but destruction with it, and they are now turning to Allah.
This turning
to religion and spiritual values, particularly in the later
part of
the century, has rapidly embraced the whole world. These developments are all signs that the time of the promise that the morality of Islam, that Allah has chosen for His servants, will soon come to prevail on the Earth. As can be seen from many verses in the Qur'an, Allah has given the glad tidings that the morality of the Qur'an will come to prevail, by means of the people He has chosen. Allah makes the following promise in the Qur'an:
Allah has promised those of you who believe and do right actions that He will make them successors in the land as He made those before them successors, and will firmly establish for them their religion with which He is pleased and give them, in place of their fear, security. They worship Me, not associating anything with Me. Any who disbelieve after that, such people are deviators. (Qur'an, 24:55)
No matter how much those who come up with theories about the future of the world might appear to differ from one another, they all have one point in common: that is pessimism. The events they evaluate from a materialist perspective prevent them from being optimistic. Even more important, they neglect to take into account that Allah always wants good and pleasant things for those who believe in Him.
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1 The Wall Street Journal,
October 12, 2001
