Mughal Administration c17.s10.12

c17.s10.12

Islam, as interpreted after the failure of the rationalistic (*mutazala*) movement in the Court of the early Abbasid Khalifs of Baghdad, became too rigid, too inelastic and incapable of adapting itself to changes of environment. It has all the strength and weakness of a strictly dogmatic creed like Calvinism. The rigidity of Islam has enabled its followers in all lands to succeed up to a certain point. But there they have stopped, while progress is the law of life of the living world. At the same time that Europe has been steadily advancing, the stationary Muhamadans have been relatively falling back, and every year has increased the distance between Europe and Asia in knowledge, organization, accumulated resources and acquired capacity, and made it increasingly difficult for the Asiatics to compete with the Europeans. The English conquest of the Mughal empire is only a part of the inevitable domination of all Africa and Asia by the European nations,—which is only another way of saying that the progressive races are replacing the conservative ones, just as enterprising families replace sleepy indolent ones in the leadership of our own society. Therefore, if we wish to profit by the study of our country's history