Islamic civilization, an extremely complex, vibrant culturally rich entity has been understood in static and pejorative terms and the media squarely have to be partly blamed for it. It is charged (and not wrongly) that Western depictions of Islam have been of burkha clad women, bearded mullahs or camels in deserts. An unchanging picture of the Muslim has been a legacy to all of us, coloured by memories of Arabian Nights, of Sultans, verses from the Omar Khayyam and eroticized pictures supposedly illustrating the verses of the famed astronomer and tent-maker!

It is not widely known that Islam is geographically and demographically diverse with variations that are bewilderingly complex. A culture and civilization spread from the farthest corners of Indonesia to parts of China and from the three countries of South Asia (including sections of Sri Lanka) to the countries of Africa is generally characterized in simple stark terms of black and white, igrnoring the shades in between. Also it is generally not realized that its spread has been gradual, continuous.
While it is believed that it was a religion that spread by the sword, it is not sufficiently known that peaceful trade and commercial influences have been more pervasive and far more influential as happened in Africa, Indonesia, Kerala. Islam in Bangladesh has been due to mass scale voluntary conversion and those who converted to the religion were from the depressed castes mainly to escape the social inequities of organized Hinduism.

Islam in Africa has had a glorious record. The kingdoms of Songhay and Mali were prosperous to a degree unknown elsewhere. The city of Timbuktu (in today's Mali) was an unbelievably important center of Islamic learning and once was larger and more prosperous than London. People flocked to it for studies from different parts of the Islamic world. Its libraries were world renowned. In West Africa, the
Islamic religious leadership was entirely black in contrast to Eastern Africa where Arab leadership dominated the scene. It is worth one's while to remember that the 28 million Muslims in Africa (South of the Sahara) form one of the largest of constituents of the Islamic world; the concentration of almost everyone is only on West Asia and its Muslim population.

Even within the heartland of Islam, there never was one dominant culture. There were three major languages each summing up three different civilisational experiences _ Arabic, Persian and Turkish. Each interpenetrated into the other and brought in elements lacking in the other two. In its long history, the Ottoman Empire not only was geographically very wide spread but had people of different nationalities living within and its famous Millet system ensured autonomy and qualified self government to the resident minorities.

What unites this varied population are the few cardinal principles of religion, its extremely simplified rituals and its egalitarian philosophy. Otherwise what divides the different sections of the community of believers is more salient. The notion that it is a semitic religion, that it is prone to violent outbursts, that it tends to inspire its utopian vision are statements that have to be largely modified. The differences between the Shia and the Sunni have persisted for centuries and not likely to be bridged over immediately.

Its philosophic heritage needs to be remembered and reiterated. When Europe was sunk in its dogmatic slumber of the Middle Ages, it was the Islamic intellectuals who carefully preserved the learning and philosophy of the ancient Western World. Aristotle and Plato were forgotten in the West but were preserved in Arabic and their writings pondered over, redefined for contemporary needs and reconciled with the rarities of the religion. When Thomas Aquinas, the greatest philosopher of Roman Catholicism wrote his monumental Summa (still the basis for Catholic philosophy) he totally depended upon Latin versions of Aristotle made from the Arabic versions of the philosopher, for Aquinas could read no Greek. The names of Al Farabi, Al Ghazali and Ibn Sina belong as much to medieval Europe as to Islam.
It should be remembered that once the Islamic political world spread from Spain to the Levant including parts of Southern Italy. The Mediterranean was almost an Islamic lake. In the well established Islamic Spanish Kingdom, Jews found themselves tolerated and encouraged to practise their trades and professions and many of them occupied positions of responsibility and respect. In fact, when the Catholic hegemony was re-established, the Jews till then free, were now prosecuted and had to flee to more hospitable regions.

The educated Muslim cannot easily forget the high positions that Islam once had in "the civilized world", for more than a thousand years. Till about the end of the 18th century, the Islamic countries were not inferior to those of the West and the looming presence of the Ottoman Empire was a matter of some anxiety to the neighbouring smaller European nations. The rapid decline was to be from the 19th century which was common to China, India and the nations of the South East Asia.

From the First World War, the Imperial powers used the Muslim leadership for their own war designs and advancement and they became pawns for Western political well-being and politics. With total cynical disregard the trust of whole peoples was betrayed and the career of T. E. Lawrence was devoted to the furthering of this camouflaged by an apparent love for the Arabs. The continuous initiation of the people as a whole, the propping up of illegitimate rulers, the safeguarding of their geopolitical interests have all been at the cost of the people in the region. For instance, during colonial mid-summer, Afghanistan was seen in the context of the safeguarding of British interests in the Indian subcontinent and three wars were fought there with India paying for its expenses.

It is an allegation widely made and accepted that Muslims cannot forget the Koran and their religion. It is true that both these are central to the Muslim people. It is said that they ought to grow out of both these. But have we grown out of our involvement in the Vedas? From Ram Mohun Roy to Sri Aurobindo many of us are still fascinated by the Vedas. In the West, the beginning of the 16th century saw an assault on the principles of Catholicism and later on Christianity. Yet for three hundred years the centrality of the Bible still continued and institutions including universities were to be dominated by the dominance of the Bible. We are caught in the grip of controversies around Vedic Mathematics and battling with the issue of introducing astrology in University courses. Can we then with any legitimacy talk to the Muslims of the perils of Islamic persistence with the Koran. And let us not forget that modernization in Islam is barely fifty years old.

Mr. R. Srinivasan is retired Professor of Political Science and Associate Editor of Freedom First.