Islam Creator of the Modern Age
4. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
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THE MODERN AGE AND ISLAM
Freedom of thought is held to be the
summum
bonum
of the modern age, and is generally thought
to be the result of the western scientific revolution.
It is true that this is its immediate cause, but the
scientific revolution itself (as has been explained in
previous chapters) was the result of the Islamic
revolution based upon monotheism.
The French philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(1712-1778), was one of the founders of modern
democracy. His book,
The Social Contract,
begins
with these words: “Man was born free, but I find
him in chains.” The sentiment thus expressed-this
lamentation over human bondage—is not in actual
fact Rousseau’s gift to humanity. It is rather an echo
of a more splendid utterance of the Islamic Caliph,
‘Umar Ibn-Khattab (586-644), which he made to his
governor of Egypt: “O Amr, since when have you
enslaved people whose mothers gave birth to them
in freedom?” The occasion for this rebuke was the
flogging by ‘Amr’s son of a young Egyptian who
had beaten him in a horse race as recounted above.
