Islam - Its Meaning for Modern Man — Page 12
12 The two great empires of Iran and Byzantium were interlocked in a struggle which ultimately resulted in the death of both. The sudden end of one and the slow expiration of the other followed in due course, though the final blows in each case proceeded from a quarter entirely unexpected. Religion, philosophy, and learning were at a low ebb. The spirit, the mind, and the intellect languished. Mankind had entered upon a decline. The earth seemed to be dying. It was the darkest period of the Dark Ages. There was only an occasional glimmer of light here and there. As the Quran says: “Corruption had overtaken both land and water, in consequence of that which the hands of men had wrought” (30:42). * In Arabia the gloom was almost unrelieved. The peninsula was an outlying and neglected region, its inhabitants innocent of learning, philosophy, and science. Although indifferent toward both the arts of peace and the regulations of war, the Arabs were good fighters. The hard and unrelenting struggle for existence in a waste and arid region left little margin for any other pursuit. * “Land” here signifies peoples who did not profess belief in any Divine revelation, while “water” refers to peoples who professed belief in such revelation.