Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c5.s1.60

c5.s1.60

We come now to the next phase of our enquiry, how and to what extent the religious ideals of Islam were affected by the purely secular nature of the Muslim State. We have noted in the beginning how the practical politics of Islam were divorced from the theory of the Qur'an with the transfer of governmental machinery from Madina to Damascus. This transfer of power to Syria also synchronised with a deeper change of outlook among the rulers of Islam, hardly contemplated by the Prophet. Muhammad had lived in want and poverty all his life. He was proud of being poor, and is even credited with insisting that his genuine followers should follow him in this respect and should not amass wealth and property.² His ‘Companions’ and immediate successors observed these traditions of simple and poor living. With the fall of the rich cities of the neighbouring empires and especially of Mada’in, when wealth began to pour into the capital of Islam and the followers of Muhammad began to grow fond of the good things of this world, pious and far-seeing Muslims began to feel disturbed at the prospect of material advancement and spiritual impoverishment. However, nothing could stem the tide and the consequent change in the spiritual outlook for the worse. As early as the reign of the third Caliph, ‘Usman, Abu Zar Ghifari, a pious and well-known ‘Companion’ of the Prophet, was exiled to the desert for no greater crime against Islam than that of condemning the growing wealth and the materialistic outlook of the Muslim community in uncompromising terms.³ When the Muslim power moved to Baghdad, these decaying relics of early Islam were left far behind, and, as has been pointed out, the Mulsim Caliphs and the Sultans came out as the exact copy