313ghazi
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You can say in 20th century many muslims are not religious.But decline had begun clearly from 18th century,are you saying muslim people of that time were not religious?They suddenly became irreligious?What methods did people of that time change?Why ottomans suffered huge defeats and mughals collapsed then?Infact mughals were strongest under 'irreligious' akbar and collapsed from late aurangzeb era who was devout .
Everyone from iran,saudi arabia to taliban afghanistan used it.
Actually, it's the system of governance that strayed from Islamic principles to the whims of Kings and emperors which was the problem. The personal piety of individuals of society is neither here nor there. The core principles of an Islamic system are those of justice, education, build up of wealth, distribution of wealth, and military power. When our leadership strayed away from these it ruined our societies.
Justice - when our leaders became unjust and process of governance became unjust it sowed the seeds of political strife. Any Islamic society that has been successful has been one that provided Justice. Umar (RA) was the second Caliph of Islam and was taken to court by a jew. The judge ruled in favor of the jew. It's unimaginable in most societies today, apart from perhaps the Northern European ones.
Education - the first word revealed in the Quran was "read". Early islamic society focused purely on education (the entire Meccan period), the Muslim state was established in Madinah only after decades of education of Islamic education to the early followers. Along the trade routes of the silk road you found madaris (schools) and Islam was spread by teachers, not generals. The cataloging of Islamic knowledge and law was done in a very methodical and scientific manner, early scholarly works have citations and chains of narrations going back to primary sources. When leaders neglected educating the population, the quality of the intellectual discourse across society fell, innovation fell and ultimately we were overtaken.
Build up of wealth/redistribution of wealth - Islam has a long history of trade, the early Muslims were traders, Islam reached far flung places like Indonesia by trade and having wealth is a key part of Islamic society, because one of the main pillars is distribution of wealth via zakat, which can only be done by actually having wealth in the first place. Zakat is not a tax on income, it is a redistribution of wealth. When our societies started stopped fairly redistributing wealth, this caused poverty and strife within society, but also took away the opportunity to generate wider wealth, causing the economies to slow down. You see it in the west today, modern society is wealthy, yet the number of poor people in wealthy nations is on the rise. Continue this and long term, the wealth will be lost.
Military power - Much is made of the life of the Prophet Muhammad pbuh. Our faith is understood through the prism of his example. One thing that is overlooked is his worldly possessions. He lived a very simple life, but he had a shield, swords, spears, a bow and arrow, a horse for war. It is his saying that anyone who keeps a horse in preparation for war is blessed by God. He led from the heart of battle and the pulpit. He raised armies and sent them out to take on the enemies of Islam. Any successful Islamic society has been militarily strong. Today when we are not, we are treated like the punks we are.
Anyone reading this might think these things are not all that different from the basic model of success for all successful societies. You'd be right - Islam is not alien, the Islamic system of governance is not alien. It is only talked down by our enemies because they fear it's success.