ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Trends of History in Qur'an Foreword to Ayatullah's Last Lectures Following European renaissance there was a need of a basic change in the method of studying the Islamic sources in order to be able to face the modern trends in the fields of so-called science, philosophy, and Western Culture.

It became necessary to look at the social, economic, political and psychological questions in the light of the vast original Islamic literature with the spirit of inquiry which became prevalent in the world following its emancipation from the ignorance of middle ages and the ecclesiastical Inquisition.

It became a duty of our Islamic centres of learning and our erudite Muslim scholars to take appropriate steps to check the onslaught of the flood of misconceptions and exploitation of freedom and culture in the sacred name of science and religion.

It was indifference or rather opposition of the Church and ecclesiastical circle to the movement of Renaissance that made religion confined to the four walls of the churches and turned out the Pope and his divines from the field of public administration, economy, politics and cultural affairs.

The Europeans who were jealous of the Muslims whose broad-mindedness they had experienced in Andalus (Spain) and other centres of learning which they frequented for receiving their education and who were envious of the grandeur of the Muslims in Baghdad, Iran, Egypt and other countries of which they had heard, imagined that Islam was similar to their own religion.

Subsequently in order to subdue the countries of the Muslim East and to facilitate their exploitation by the greedy and corrupt white colonialists, they invented the theory of the separation of politics from religion and antagonism between the old and the new sciences. They tried to create a gulf between these two views and the two systems.

They not only separated the language of religion from the language of modern science, culture and philosophy, but also caused a big breach between the two with the result that conciliation between these two languages becomes difficult.

That is why whenever anyone of those religious-minded people who had been to Europe and were conversant with modern civilization and culture, tried to defend and propagate whatever of religion was left to him, he in most cases presented religion in a distorted and unpleasing form which appeared to be incompatible with modern civilization and modern sciences.