The heyday of Islamic civilization was reflected by a high level of spiritual and material life, and most of all by the tolerance for the diversity of cultures. The close interweaving of various racial, ethnic, and cultural elements contributed to the development of Islam, ensuring the viability of the ideological side of the religion. Inquiring minds may wonder how durable a unique monolith made from heterogeneous components is, and how can its durability be explained?
The spiritual and intellectual achievements and traditions of paganism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and other cultures and religions influenced to the formation of a new doctrine. The content of Islam was enriched as a result of the interweaving of the Muslim component with the traditions and values of both - the Arabs themselves and with the spiritual matter of other nations, which appeared in the orbit of Islamic civilization. At the same time, the involved cultures were able to avoid the tendencies, which were characteristic to the pristine Islam as the religion of the Arabs.
Arab Islam from the time of the Prophet ﷺ and the righteous caliphs, as the Caliphate grew, actively interacted with the alien and original cultures of local nations. So in different regions of the empire, became established the specific variations of Islam, sometimes very far from the beginnings of the time of Revelation. But they all were based on the same principles, which united the Muslim world into a single integrity and made it possible to clearly distinguish Islamic teachings from other religious or philosophical systems.
A prime example of the penetration into a new creed from the pagan religious elements of nomadic Arab tribes is the formation of the ritual of the great pilgrimage. Mecca has long been the site of traditional worship of pagan idols collected in the Kaaba. While attempting to destroy pagan idols, Muhammad ﷺ didn't destroy the structure itself, which was covered with the Abrahamic legend. Depriving Muslims, who were still very recent polytheists, of a sacred place was fraught from the point of view of the specific historical situation.
By overthrowing idols that were not tolerated in Islam, the Prophet ﷺ set an example of borrowing and adapting everything that didn't contradict with the new religion, but could enhance its attractiveness. Very early Islam assimilated the values of the Arabian nomads, representing virtues that were simple and understandable to contemporaries: self-control, generosity, courage, pride and others. An algorithm for the further spread of Islam outside the Arabian Peninsula was derived exactly this way.
The innovative approach of Muhammad ﷺ was in ability to give a new quality to the most significant traditions and values of the Arabs, while decisively rejecting many others that were incompatible with the worship of Allah Almighty. Adaptation of the new religion to local cultural traditions, sustainable due to the local economic system, was one of the directions in the evolution of Islam. But at the same time, all borrowings and modifications occurred in full accordance with the fundamental Islamic principles.
Isn’t the example of the Prophet ﷺ a setting for the entire ummah, which, as it grew, inevitably had to come into contact with many other cultures and traditions, customs and rituals? Whatever the answer, it is clear that Revelation was not intended to establish a uniform religious culture, therefore Muhammad ﷺ didn't seek to unify all possible options for the development of Islam in history. Historical experience has shown how the influence of other cultures allowed the young religion to adapt to the features of surrounding of its spreading.
Islam was spiritually had been enriching by the cultures of settlers from the African deserts and nomadic nations from the Asian steppes. The life of the Arab-Muslim community itself had been transforming by the contact with the customs and lifestyle of the converts. For example, the Turks, who changed the face of not only the political, but also the religious culture of the Arabs. Transformations took place even under the influence of slaves, as evidenced by the indisputable fact that most of the future Abbasid caliphs were born by the slaves.
The tribes conquered by the Arabs accepted the new religion while maintaining their traditional customs. This became the reason for the strange combination of Muslim components and pagan rituals in regional variants of Islam. With the deeper assimilation of Islamic values, previous beliefs were gradually forgotten. Some converts even became defenders of religion, as evidenced by the pro-Islamic activities of the Turkic and Mongolian tribes and their leaders.
The religions of other nations also influenced on the Muslim intellectual thought. The awakening of interest to theological problems, which led to the development of an integral system of Islamic dogma, was largely provoked by the influence of Christian theological thought. From Zoroastrianism, Islam borrowed the idea of the struggle between the forces of good and evil throughout earthly life. A number of religious ideas were adopted from Judaism, including, for example, dietary rules - a ban on pork and some other products.
Islam was the first in the history of mankind to overcome the isolation of nations from the outside world, based on the asceticism of pagan religions. There are many sources that speak about strongly marked spirit of tolerance in Islam in the early years of its spreading. The young religion’s overcoming of enmity and hatred between nations, which characterized the ancient world, their replacement with multiculturalism and tolerant relations became nothing less than a real breakthrough for the entire human civilization.
The multiculturalism of the classical period of Islam and the mutual penetration of heterogeneous cultural elements in it are the clearest evidence of the religious tolerance of the Islamic religion. Because of its universal social and cultural concept, Islam has managed to become a cosmopolitan religion that doesn’t recognize any differences. Islam is saving particularly respectful attitude towards the Arabic language as the language of Revelation and Arab culture as the womb from which the chosen one of Allah emerged.
Islam of the classical period was so tolerant that a Khorasanian could become the ruler of Egypt, and a Turk the ruler of India. The heyday of the phenomenon of Islamic civilization occurred during the period when Muslims, due to their tolerance, could enjoy the fruits of cooperation not only between co-religionists, but also with everyone else. The influence of political factors that established unanimity and religious fanaticism led to the beginning of the decline of a magnificent phenomenon that had lost contact with the outside world.
Every Muslim, despite objective differences, is a free member of a united Muslim ummah. A sense of community gradually became a hallmark of the new religious spirituality. As their sense of superiority asserted itself, Muslims began to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. As a result, Islam began to lose its dynamism and enter a state of stagnation, while other cultures, which received impulse for development from Islamic achievements, continued to develop dynamically.
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