Qur’an (Koran)

Impact

In the century after Muhammad’s death, the Islamic caliphate established the only true world empire of antiquity, linking the whole of the Mediterranean with the Plateau of Iran to a center in the Middle East that was, for the first time since the original Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great (ca. 585–529 BCE), master of all its surrounding hinterlands and not constantly subject to threat of invasion from one direction or another. Islam and the Qur'an were central to this achievement, since the new monotheistic faith provided the empire with unity in a way that Christianity never did in the Roman Empire. Christianity was continuously a source of conflict in the Roman world, first in its contest with the traditional Roman religion and then in the subsequent states of near civil war between rival sects. One explanation the Muslims found for their own success was that God was punishing the Romans for wasting their strength in sectarian rivalry. The Qur'an is undoubtedly the foundation of the imperial Arab achievement. Accordingly, the Qur'an is also indirectly responsible for the exceptional achievements in science, philosophy, and poetry that characterized the medieval Arab world.

After the European Renaissance—which contact with the culturally superior Islamic civilization did much to spark—the Muslim world, its center then held by the Ottoman Empire, began to fall behind the West in the creation of new wealth, cultural initiative, and science and technology, and the empire was eventually colonized by the West, beginning in the sixteenth century. Though it is not entirely clear why Islamic civilization fell behind the West through this epoch, the influential scholar Ignác Goldziher has suggested that part of the answer lies in the Qur'an itself. In the face of geopolitical setbacks, beginning with the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258 and continuing through the loss of competitiveness with the West throughout the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras, the Islamic response was often to reinforce traditional identity as defined by the Qur'an rather than to adapt to change. In particular, the status of the Qur'an as the final authority in every area of life is at odds with acceptance of Western paradigms, such as of science and capitalism, that might have led to more practical geopolitical success. As the Islamic world was put under more and more stress, the reliance on religious authority made progress ever more difficult.

Today, many forces in Islam, such as the widespread Wahhabite movement based in Saudi Arabia, which is driving the radicalization of political discourse in Islamic states throughout the world, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, wish to use the Qur'an as a shield against what they view as Western intrusion into Islamic culture and even into traditional village culture, which forces like the Taliban, in Afghanistan, cannot separate from Islam. Muhammad’s views expressed in the Qur'an envision Islam as an imperial power reigning over the whole world and followers of the “religions of the book” as subject peoples. Any liberal spirit in Islam calling for pluralism and religious liberty cannot rest easily with the Qur'anic view, any more than liberalism can rest easily on supports derived from Judeo-Christian scripture. The virtues of pluralism and freedom originated in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and have had to make their way in the Western and Islamic worlds without much impulse from any deep spring of tolerance welling up from scripture. An insoluble difficulty in the conflict between Israel and the Arab world concerns the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which Israel claims as in insuperable part of its national heritage but which many Muslims consider as part of their own heritage because of their belief that the al-Aqsa Mosque (the second-holiest site in Islam, after Mecca) marks the spot from which Muhammad ascended to heaven on his night journey.