Islam Creator of the Modern Age
4. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
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could rule over them untrammeled by any fear of
an uprising.
In this way, the rulers of antiquity had become
staunch patrons of polytheism and superstition.
When the Prophet, with his authority as ruler,
announced that eclipses of the sun and the moon
were purely physical happenings, and were
certainly not expressions of the greatness of
particular human beings, this age-old reverence for
natural objects and superstitious beliefs very soon
disappeared. A new age commenced in which
attribution of divine qualities to mere things
existing in the world around us gave way to
realistic, or in modern parlance, scientific thinking.
But, this is not all that humanity had bestowed
upon it by the Prophet Muhammad, may peace be
upon him. In addition to this, there was the divine
book, which laid emphasis on the fact that all the
things of the earth and the heavens had been
subjugated, by God’s will, for the benefit of
mankind (Qur’an, 31:20). This was what induced
people to think that rather than bow before them,
