Just as a living organism cannot be revived after its death...

Just as a living organism cannot be revived after its death, even so a culture or a society can see no revival once it is dead. Biological, geographical, and racial causes can to a limited extent in­fluence its life‑course but cannot change its inevitable cycle. To this group belong Danilevsky, Spengler, and Toynbee.

Our study of Muslim culture and thought supports their view that in certain respects the dynamism of society is like the dynamism of a wave; but are the two other doctrines ex­pounded by these philosophers equally true? First, is it true that a given society is a living organism? And, second, is it true that it has only one un­repeated life‑course? Let us first take the first. Is a society or a culture an organism? Long ago Plato took a State to be an individual writ large.

Not the same, but a similar mistake is being made now. All analogies are true only up to a point and not beyond that point. To view a society on the analogy of an individual organism is definitely wrong. As Sorokin has brilliantly shown, no society is so completely unified into an organic whole that it should be viewed as an organism. An individual organism is born, it grows and dies, and its species is perpetuated by reproduction, but a culture cannot repeat itself in species by reproduction.

Revival of individual organism is impos­sible, but the revival of a culture is possible. It is achieved by the activization of its dormant vitality, by responses aroused by fresh challenges, and by the infusion of new elements.

The first revival of Muslim culture‑its revival after the Mongol onslaughts which began when hardly half a century had passed and reached its full fruition in two centuries and a half‑was partly due to its inherent vitality which could not be sapped completely even by these unprece­dented events. They seemed to affect total devastation of Muslim lands, but in fact could produce only a depression. Soon rain‑bearing clouds gathered and these lands were again green and teeming with life.

Though the challenge itself was the strongest the world has ever seen, it was, nevertheless, not strong enough to destroy all response. This revival of the Muslim culture was partly due to the infusion into it earlier of the fresh blood of the Turkish slaves and mercenaries and later that of the Mongol conquerors, for they themselves came into the fold of Islam bringing with them the vigour and vitality of their nomadic ancestors.