Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama

Muslim Intelligentsia in the 19th Century The Islamic East had maintained, over the centuries, a social, cultural, economic and moral equilibrium, based on eternal values drawn from the revealed truth. Political ascendancy of the West, which gradually enveloped the entire world of Islam, not only paved the way for internal conflict within social fabric of Islam but also encouraged disintegration of its intellectual and creative energies by its undue emphasis on the materialistic view of life and the world. The Western influences, often forcibly imposed upon the world of Islam, created a schism between the spiritual and material domains of the community's life. The religion began to be looked down as something of a private concern having nothing to do with the affairs of the world. Islam, like Christianity, was divided into the Church and the State. On the one side, there was the sovereignty of God; on the other, that of Caesar. As a result of it, and, quite naturally too, the scholars of religion were relegated to the background and the leadership of political and cultural movements Passed on into the hands of those who were shorn of all Islamic values. The State was deprived of honest and conscientious rulers, of dedicated workers and devoted administrators, and the religion of its watchmen and defenders.