ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Beseeching For Help (istighathah) Foreward For almost twelve uninterrupted centuries the Muslims ruled the world in glory and splendour. Their rule was embedded in a rare sense of egalitarianism the world had never witnessed before.

The driving force behind the just dispensation was their oven-warm, unalloyed faith in divine unity and the inspiration they had drawn from the life and the teachings of the holy Prophet*(Peace Be Upon Him and His Household)* . There was absolutely no chasm between their words and deeds. What they professed, they implemented. The people they subjugated and ruled were impressed even overawed, by the impregnable consistency of their behaviour.

The Muslim rulers were not autocratic because they strongly believed that their power did not flow from the barrel of the gun, but it emanated as a blessing of the omnipotent Lord. And it was on account of the sincerity of the rulers in particular and the Muslim masses in general, that the infidels and people belonging to other creeds, flocked to the fold of Islam. In their heyday, the Muslims amply proved that Islam had not spread at the point of the sword.

What really gave it wildfire popularity were its concept of justice and its absolute lack of discrimination between human beings. During the Muslim centuries, the notion of justice was stripped out of its conceptual garbs and was presented to mankind as a fleshed-out reality. The people at large had never experienced it before and so they were immediately attracted to it.

But when the Muslim world fell prey to decadence by disowning the intellectual tradition and the ceaseless struggle that had ensured its success in the past, its inviolate unity broke into innumerable splinters and the Muslims were humiliated in almost every field of human activity. The Muslim community that had aspired to outdazzle the stars and outsmart the universe turned into a rolling stone, unanchored and unprotected.

Its identity crumbled into the dust of uncertainty, the violent winds of change upset its apple-cart and, unlike the progressive nations of the world, well set on the road to growth and prosperity, it skidded off the track and immersed itself in peripheral issues --- the proverbial fate of all decadent communities. As a result, we have embroiled ourselves in marginal disputes, allowing plenty of opportunity to the world to pooh-pooh our drifting condition.