Moreover...

Moreover, the rulers of those times were not indifferent to encouraging such an attitude for preventing open and free discussion of issues in the society. Their only concern was that people should be so busy with their work that they would not leave their cocoons. With the public submerged safely in their own personal errands, the administration of the community was the concern of the rulers and the self-named guardians of the society.

They were not alarmed at people’s interest in the comparatively simple religious material. They only wanted to keep them from free and inquisitive discussions. They considered themselves as the community’s active mind. They had well realized that the most powerful source of strength in social life is the will power of human individuals and this power was safely harnessed by the rulers by controlling their minds.

As a result all their effort was concentrated on the conquest of the public’s mind so that they may themselves become the active intellect of the community. These are the facts that anyone who turns to the historical chronicles of the past will uncover without much assiduous study. Of late, the Western deluge of “freedom”, after satiating the Europeans, has now turned towards Eastern lands.

Initially it sought admittance to our continent as a guest, then it became an authoritative master in our own house. At first, it gave a war cry against dogmatism and intellectual repression. The presence of this partisan of freedom seemed to provide a good opportunity for us to restore our lost dignity and to start a new life of intellectual brilliance and to undertake a belated synthesis of knowledge and action.

But sadly, the same European freedom that delivered us from the clutches of the oppressors took their place to become our “active mind”. We did not know what to do. When we came to our senses, we realized that times had silenced the lords of the olden days and dethroned from the seat of authority the commands of the autocratic sovereigns and aristocrats. We were asked to pay no more heed to what the broken idols spoke but instead to listen to and to imitate what the Europeans said and did.

One thousand years have passed since the soil of Iran embraced the last remains of Ibn Sina. His philosophic and medical books were presented in our libraries and his scientific views were on the tips of our tongues, though without any consequence.