To believe something to be sacred when it is not so is the root of all evil. In religious terminology, this amounts to polytheism. Polytheism must be regarded as the greatest injustice, or zulm. Zulm in Arabic means, literally, the putting of something in the wrong place, in this case, the assigning of a value to something, which does not merit it. Shirk (another Arabic word similar in meaning to, Zulm) is the greatest wrong, for it implies a reverence for things which are not, in reality, sacred or worthy of worship. It accords to non-gods the place, which is the supreme prerogative of the one God.
The greatest harm in this iniquitous practice is that it changes man’s focus of worship. He begins to revere such beings as are unworthy of reverence. The result is that man is deprived of the only support that he has in the universe. He is unable to have the sustenance of divine blessings. And one who is denied divine blessings in this world is denied them likewise in the next. Because no other power save that of God can give these blessings to man.
The loss to mankind affects not only the eternal life, but also our temporary stay here on earth. In ancient times man held many non-sacred things to be sacred, with the result that he continued to suffer the deprivation of God’s succour for many centuries.
The concept of polytheism gave birth to many odd beliefs and spawned a whole series of superstitions. For instance, lightning was taken to be a god’s fiery wand. When the sun or moon went into eclipse, it was supposed that some malign force was at work, or that some deity had been beset by the powers of darkness, and so on.
This polytheistic concept of sanctity proved highly advantageous to religious leaders, who developed the accompanying superstitions into a whole set of ‘religious’ beliefs. Through these, they began to exploit people by making them believe that they (the religious leaders) were intermediaries between God and man. They inculcated the idea that to please them was, indirectly, to please God.
The greatest benefit of all was reaped by the kings. Exploiting this mentality, which had been conditioned in the people, they developed the concept of the god-king. In any society, the king is the richest and most powerful. He is distinguished, too, in many other respects from the common people. Taking advantage of this distinctive status, the kings instilled into the minds of the people that they were superior to common men, that they were, in fact, God’s representatives on earth. Some said that they were a link between God and man. Others went further and pretended to be incarnations of God on earth. As such, they were supposed to possess supernatural powers. They managed, in consequence, to wield absolute power over their subjects.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984) says in its article on sacred kingship:
At one time, when religion was totally connected with the whole existence of the individual as well as that of the community and when kingdoms were in varying degrees connected with religious powers or religious institutions; there could be no kingdom that was not in some sense sacred.
When the ancient concept of polytheism invested the rulers with a sacred status, not one, but two great evils found their way simultaneously into society. The evil that power brings had reached its zenith. As Lord Acton (1834-1902) put it, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” If the public could not change rulers in a secular context in order to be rid of their oppression, how could they ever think of deposing those who ostensibly ruled as the vicegerents of God on earth, or who posed as His incarnations?
This political evil, which the French historian, Henri Pirenne, has termed ‘imperial absolutism,’ became a permanent obstacle in the way of all progress. It was only when Islam broke the power of these ancient empires that it became possible to unlock the doors to human progress. Henri Pirenne’s book, History of Western Europe, provides an informative study on this subject.
The gist of Henri Pirenne’s thinking is that the ancient Roman Empire, which was spread over both sides of the Red Sea, had closed the doors to all human progress by imposing a strict curb on freedom of thought. Without this kind of absolute imperialism being brought to an end, freedom of thought could not have been achieved. When the human mind is shackled and cannot work in a free atmosphere, not even a beginning can be made to human progress.
The writer also includes Persia as being guilty of such imperial absolutism. And we must remember that these two empires held sway over a significantly large part of the inhabited world of the time. Under imperial rule, no one had the right to think independently if this ran counter to the official tenets of imperialism. This is why, after such a long period of intellectual suppression, no real beginning could be made on scientific enquiry. Scientific thought was simply not to be countenanced throughout the empires of Persia and Rome.
It was only when the Prophet and his companions broke these imperial powers—with as little bloodshed as possible—that free-thinking was legitimised, and the vast gates of progress were thrown open to humanity.
