Shakib Arsalan’s Why Muslims Lagged Behind and Others Progressed: A New English Translation

By Nadeem M. Qureshi

In the fall of 1928, the Imam of Java, a certain Mohammad Basyuni Imran, had a letter delivered to the Lebanese author and scholar, Shakib Arsalan. In his letter, Basyuni Imran requested Arsalan to explain the reasons for the backwardness of Muslims of the time compared to other nations. Furthermore, Basyuni asked Arsalan to suggest what they need to do to join the ranks of nations that have overtaken them and, in many cases, rule over them.

Arsalan published his response in a series of articles written for the Cairo-based Islamic journal, Al-Manar. Subsequently, these articles were combined and published in a book in 1930 with the title: Why did Muslims lag behind? And why did others progress?

In his response, Arsalan begins with an analysis of what has gone wrong. He addresses the belief of some that Islam is to blame for the backwardness of Muslims. He goes on to give examples of how advanced nations progressed while holding firmly onto their religious beliefs.

In simple, elegant prose, Arsalan takes the reader on a fascinating walk through history. There are references to pre-Islamic times and the early Islamic period, French colonialists in North Africa and their efforts to convert Muslim populations to Christianity, goings on in the British Houses of Parliament on the issue of transubstantiation, and much more.

The latter part of the book has examples of recent (1930s and earlier) achievements of Muslims when they set their minds on doing something.

It is a measure of the merit and excellence of Arsalan’s words that his book has never been out of publication. It remains among Arabic speakers as popular and relevant today as at the time it was first published almost a century ago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Sep 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781786293596

Nadeem M. Qureshi

Nadeem M. Qureshi is a scholar of Arabic and a translator. His previous education includes degrees in engineering and business administration.

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Dedication

This work of translation is dedicated to Dr Abdullah Khalaf Al-Assaf professor of Arabic at King Fahad University of Petroleum and Minerals.

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Nadeem M. Qureshi 2022

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Acknowledgement

To the many publishers in the Arab world who, generation after generation, collected and preserved Shakib Arsalan’s words for those of us who are alive today. Were it not for them, for their love of the Arabic language and of the written word, for their selfless dedication to their craft and for their commitment to keep this exquisite work always in print, this translation would not have been possible.

Preface

Were Shakib Arsalan to return today, nearly a century after he wrote Why Muslims Lagged Behind and Others Progressed, he would notice two striking realities: One, everything has changed. And two, nothing has changed. What has happened in the world and specifically the Islamic world during the last century gives credence to the adage: The more things change the more they stay the same.

Prince Shakib Arsalan was an eminent Islamic thinker and reformer. He was born on Christmas day in 1896 into a Druze family in the Lebanese village of Choueifat near Beirut. The Druze have their own religion. They do not accept outsiders, and no one is allowed to leave. But Shakib Arsalan followed the ways of Sunni Muslims in terms of prayer, fasting, the Hajj and all other rituals associated with Sunni Islam.

He studied the Quran from an early age and memorised parts of it. In addition to Arabic, he was fluent in Turkish, German and French. During his life, he travelled widely and met many religious, literary and political leaders of his time. He was particularly influenced by Jamaluddeen Al-Afghani, who he mentions in his book. He lavished high praise on his friend and teacher, the American scholar, Arabist and orientalist, Cornelius van Dyck, one of the founders of the American University of Beirut.

Arsalan came of age at a time when many Arab and Islamic lands were occupied by colonialists. He viewed this as being primarily a result of the weakness of Arabs, their own internecine differences and a failure to uphold the principles and values of their religion. The colonialists were not to blame. It was the Muslims who needed to change.

He came to believe that Muslims had lost not just the ability but also the will to toil and to sacrifice that which was precious to them. The way for them to regain these qualities was to resurrect the principles of their religion. Their Quran made it clear that success here, and in the Hereafter, was only possible through hard work and a willingness to forfeit all that one held valuable. The valuables of this world are in any case ephemeral. So why cling to them?

His political views and activities did not endear him to the foreign occupiers of his land. The French expelled him from Lebanon and exiled him to Europe. There, he continued to write and struggle. He was to spend a good part of his later life away from home. When he finally did return, it was because Lebanon gained independence after the Second World War. The French who had prevented him from returning had gone. But his return to his beloved Lebanon was to be short lived. He died some three months after returning on 9th December 1946.

Arsalan was a prolific writer and poet. He wrote 20 books and hundreds of articles for journals and magazines. His poems sought to energise Muslims and rouse them from centuries of somnolence. His eloquence earned him the title of Ameer Al-Bayan or Prince of Eloquence. For a language that has been in existence for 1400 hundred years and has seen some of the greatest poets and writers that have ever lived, this is indeed an exceptional accolade.

Those who read his prose, understand immediately that this was a gifted writer. His words flow like poetry. They are eloquent and moving. Sentences glide into each other. Words have a music all their own. Meaning is expertly married to form.

Translating Arabic to English is always challenging. The two languages have very different structures. The aesthetics of style vary widely. Arabic is characterised by long sentences. A single sentence can fill a whole paragraph. Several qualifying adjectives of similar meaning are used where one would suffice. In Arabic, these are attributes of eloquence. In English, almost the exact opposite is true: Short sentences and using fewer rather than more words to express meaning is what George Orwell considered to be good style.

I have tried in this translation to stay as close to Arsalan’s text as possible. And to convey, near impossible as it may be, a flavour for the eloquence of the original in Arabic. This has meant retaining the Arabic stylistic aesthetic in English.

Arsalan sprinkles his book with verses from the Quran. Translated verses appear in italics.¹ In each case, the original Arabic verse is reproduced in the footnotes. This is for the benefit of many Muslims who, while they may not understand Arabic, have all learnt to read and recite the Quran. All Arabic verses are prefixed with the chapter and verse numbers separated by a period.

The book was originally published as a series of articles in Al-Manar. This was a reformist Islamic magazine published by Mohammad Rashid Rida from 1898 to 1935. Footnotes to the articles included comments by both Arsalan and Rashid Rida. I have marked footnotes by Arsalan with (S) and footnotes by Rashid Rida with (R). Dates in the Islamic Hijri calendar are suffixed by (H).

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Translations are my own. In some cases, I have used language from Marmaduke Pickthall’s excellent 1930 translation, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran.↩︎

Introduction

On 26th September 1929, Mohammad Basyuni Imran, the Imam of Java, wrote a letter to his erstwhile teacher, Mohammad Rashid Rida in Cairo. Rida, a reformist Islamic scholar, was also the publisher of the influential Islamic journal, Al-Manar, which he founded in 1898. Among the luminaries who wrote for Al-Manar, was a certain Prince Shakib Arsalan, who was a leader of the Druze people of Lebanon. Arsalan was also a prolific writer known for his eloquence for which he earned the sobriquet Ameer Al-Bayan, The Prince of Eloquence.

Rida and Arsalan were reformists seeking to develop a political philosophy for Islam. Arsalan had written several articles for Al-Manar about the reasons for the backwardness of Muslims in respect to the western world. Many at the time laid the blame for this on Islam, claiming that the religion’s rigidity was responsible. Arsalan did not agree. He argued forcefully in his writings that the problem was not Islam.

So, when Basyuni Imran wrote to Rashid Rida in 1929, he included in his letter two questions and one request. The questions were:

What are the reasons that Muslims today have fallen into weakness and backwardness in regard to both religion and worldly matters, especially us Muslims in Java and Malaya? We have become servile and subservient with no influence or power. Yet Allah says in his book: Power and glory belong to Allah, His Prophet, and the believers.² So where is the power and glory of the believers today? Is it then right for a believer to claim that he is powerful even when he is servile and subservient and has no claim to power and glory other than that Allah has said: Power and glory belong to Allah, His Prophet, and the believers?

What are the policies that have allowed the Europeans, Americans and Japanese to develop into powerful nations? And is it possible for the Muslims to become like them if they adopt their policies while at the same time holding fast to their religion, Islam?

Basyuni’s request was that Rashid Rida ask the Prince of Eloquence to respond to these two specific questions in his articles for Al-Manar.

Shakib Arslan complied and what follows is his response as published in Al-Manar.

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² 63.2 وَلِلَّهِ الْعِزَّةُ وَلِرَسُولِهِ وَلِلْمُؤْمِنِينَ↩︎

Chapter One

Prince Shakib Arsalan Responds

The weakness and backwardness of Muslims is a general phenomenon both in the West and the East. It is not limited to Java and Malaya or to any other place. Indeed, it varies in extent. In places, it is extreme and in others, moderate. In places it is very dangerous and in others, less so.

In general, the condition of Muslims in the 20th century is disappointing for even those most enamoured of Islam, not to mention those who are less so.

Uniformity of Weakness in Islamic Peoples

Their condition today is not satisfactory, not in regard to religion, nor in regard to worldly matters, nor in regard to what is essential and significant. You will find that in the lands where Muslims live with people of other religions, they (the Muslims) are rarely at par with the others. And I do not know of Muslims in this age who are better materially than those of other religions except for some rare exceptions.

The Muslims of Bosnia, for example, are in general materially better off than the Catholics and Orthodox Christians with whom they share this land. In fact, they are in a much better position.³ Similarly, the Christians of Russia do not enjoy a higher status than Muslims. Also, it is not disputed that the Muslims of China, despite their backwardness, are in a better position than the majority of Buddhists among whom they live.

Other than these lands we see the Muslims to be relatively backward compared to their neighbours with slight variations depending on geography.

It is said that the Muslims of Singapore Island are richer in terms of wealth than all the other people who live there including the English in relation to their numbers. I am not aware of the truth of this assertion but even if it is correct, it does not in any way impact the general global position of Muslims around the world.

There is no doubt that the Islamic world today is going through a period of intense transformation at all levels – material and spiritual. There is an impressive awakening that has caught the attention of the Europeans. Some of whom are wary of its consequences. This wariness is not hidden from their public writings. However, this awakening has not taken the Muslims to a level where they are equal to the Europeans or the Americans or the Japanese.

This being established, we need now to look at the reasons behind the retreat of the Islamic world from its position of leadership which it retained for the best part of a thousand years. This was a period during which it ruled the world and was respected and feared by all nations. But before we look at the reasons for its retreat, we need to understand the factors that lifted it, in the first place, to a position of

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[Rawiya ahmed Dahir · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I never fed up of reading the book again and again and again……..!