The Western Civilization is not of recent origin; its roots go back to thousands of years, to ancient Greece and Rome. Whatever is real today in the Western outlook on life and ethics can be traced directly to the old Greek and Roman Civilizations.

The Western nations kept cultivating the spirit, philosophy, sciences, literature and ideas of the Greek and the Roman Cultures till the 19th century when they put on a new garb. It is possible to be deceived by the splendor of the new attire, but the fact remains that its warp and woof was made up of the Greek and the Roman materials.

In a Chapter entitled `The Rise of The West And Its Consequences', A.A. Nadwi gave an excellent review to the history of the Western Civilization and its links to the Greek and Roman Civilizations. He also included many quotations from the writings of prominent Western historians and writers. The bulk of the review given below is extracted from that Chapter [Nadwi, 1983, pp. 113-157].

An in-depth look into the nature of old civilizations reveal to us that the Greek Civilization was the first clear manifestation of the Western mind. It was the first civilization to be built exclusively on the Western intellectual and ethical ideals and aspirations. The real intellectual fundamentals of the Greek civilization may be summed up as follows:

i-Disregard of transcendental truths;

ii-Want of religious feeling and spirituality;

iii- Worship of material comfort; and

iv-Exaggerated patriotism.

In a word, the Greek Civilization was purely materialistic. The Greek could not even conceive God without giving Him physical forms and shapes, and making images for His Attributes and installing them in their temples so as to lend a visible aspect to their devotions. They have a god of sustenance, a god of benevolence, a god of fury, and so on. All the attributes of physical existence were ascribed to these gods. Even abstract concepts like beauty and love were symbolized as separate deities.

Many Western writers have drawn attention to the spiritual ineffectiveness of the religion and the lack of moral enthusiasm and dignity in the religion practices and festivals of the Greeks. Lecky, for instance, in his book `History of European Morals', says the following [Lecky, 1869, pp 344-5]:

"The Greek spirit was essentially rationalistic and eclectic; the Egyptian spirit was essentially mystical and devotional... The Egyptian deities, it was observed by Apuleius, `were chiefly honored by lamentations and the Greek divinities by dances'... The truth of that last part of this very significant remark appears in every page of Greek history. No nation has a richer collection of games and festivals growing out of its religious system; in none did a light, sportive and often licentious fancy play more fearlessly around the popular creed, in none was religious terrorism more rare. The Divinity was seldom looked upon as holier than man, and a due observance of certain rites and ceremonies was deemed and ample tribute to pay to him."

There is nothing incomprehensible in this sorry state of affairs, to be sure. For, apart from the general Western conception of life as a purely utilitarian proposition, the basic structure of the theological metaphysics of the Greeks was such that it left very little room for the development of the spirit of religious reverence and awe. The repudiation of the Attributes of God and His personal control over the universe and the replacement of Him as the Creator and the Sustainer of the worlds by a self-supposed Active Intellect could only lead to the destruction of spiritual enthusiasm. Why would one adore God with his body and spirit and address one's prayers and petitions to Him, if one did not have faith in His Beneficent Care and Dispensation?

The Greek civilization, thus, was utterly agnostics-not admittedly, of course, but in fact. The Greek did not strictly deny God, but they had no place for Him in their practical scheme of things. They supposed that He had, after having brought forth the Active Intellect retreated into seclusion. Naturally enough, they did not look upon Divinity "as holier than man". We read about so many inventors in history, but do they inspire a feeling of reverence in us?

The worship of idols, the exaggeration of emphasis on material comfort, the devotion to idols and pictures, music and other fine arts, the extravagant notion of individual liberty, and the excessive indulgence in games, sports and festivals had a most pernicious effect on the Greek mind and morals. Hideous excesses of unnatural lust and unending protests and revolts against all forms of authority gradually became the order of the day with them; vulgarity received a charter and greed became rampant.

Then came the Roman Civilization. While the Greeks were busy with the development of a brilliant literature and philosophy, the Romans were occupied with their military conquests. In these circumstances, it was but natural for the Romans, when they conquered Greece, to get imbued with the intellect and manners of the Greek. On this subject, Lecky writes [Lecky, 1869, p. 243]:

"It is also evident that the Greeks having had for several centuries a splendid literature, at a time when the Romans had none, and when the Latin language was still too crude for literary purposes, the period in which the Romans first emerged from a purely military condition would bring with it an ascendancy of Greek ideas. Fabius Pictor and Cincius Alimentus, the earliest native historians, both wrote in Greek... After the conquest of Greece, the political ascendancy of the Romans and the Intellectual ascendancy of Greece were alike universal. The conquered people, whose patriotic feelings had been greatly enfeebled by the influences I have noticed, acquiesced readily in their new condition, and notwithstanding the vehement exertions of the conservative party, Greek manners, sentiments, and ideas soon penetrated all classes and molded all forms of Roman life."

The Roman religion had never been a source of moral enthusiasm. Being wholly paganish and superstitious, it was altogether incapable of checking the progress of skepticism and unbelief among its followers. Consequently, as the Romans advanced culturally, they grew openly contemptuous of their faith. This much they had decided already that their gods had nothing to do with the management of the practical affairs of this world. Cicero reports that when lines declaring that the gods took no care of the things of man were read in theaters, the audiences greeted them with loud applause. St. Augustine and others of the Fathers long after ridiculed the pagans who satirized in the theaters the very gods they worshipped in the temples. The spirit of religious reverence had, indeed, become so weak that when the fleet of Augustus was wrecked, he solemnly degraded the statue of Neptune, the sea-god.

Religion in Rome was, in truth, nothing more than a social tradition and a utilitarian formula. We quote Lecky again who writes [Lecky, 1869, p. 177]:

" ... The Roman Religion was purely selfish. It was simply a method of obtaining prosperity, averting calamity, and reading the future. Ancient Rome produced many heroes, but no saints. Its self-sacrifice was patriotic, not religious. Its religion was neither an independent teacher nor a source of inspiration..."

A natural corollary of the naked materialism of the Romans was imperialism and exploitation of the weaker nations for selfish motives. This, too, has been inherited in toto by modern Western civilization. On this point, another writer, M. Asad, writes the following [Asad, 1955, pp. 38-39]:

" ... the underlying idea of the Roman Empire was the conquest of power and the exploitation of other nations for the benefit of the mother country alone. To promote better living for a privileged group, no violence was for the Romans too bad, no justice was too base. The famous `Roman Justice' was justice for the Romans alone. It is clear that such an attitude was possible only on the basis of an entirely materialistic conception of life and civilization- a materialism certainly refined by an intellectual taste, but none the less foreign to all spiritual values. The Romans never in reality knew religion. Their traditional gods were a pale imitation of the Greek mythology, colorless ghosts silently accepted for the benefit of social convention. In no way were the gods allowed to interfere with real life. They had to give oracle through the medium of their priests if they were asked; but they were never supposed to confer moral laws upon men. "

During its closing years, the Roman Empire was transformed into a sea of corruption and evil. The original military discipline of the Romans and the simplicity of their ethical code were swept away by the avalanche of wealth and luxury. On this subject, J.W. Draper, in `History of the Conflict between Religion and Science', writes the following [Draper, 1927, pp. 31-32]:

"When the Empire in a military and political sense had reached its culmination, in a religious and social aspect it had attained its height of immortality. It had become thoroughly epicurean; its maxim was that life should be made a feast, that virtue is only the seasoning of pleasure, and temperance the means of prolonging it. Dining-rooms glittering with gold and encrusted with gems, slaves and superb apparel, the fascinations of feminine society where all the women were dissolute, magnificent baths, theaters, gladiators-such were the objects of Roman desire. The conquerors of the world had discovered that the only thing worth worshipping is Force. By it all things might be secured, all that toil and trade had laboriously obtained. The confiscation of goods and lands, the taxation of provinces, were the reward of successful warfare; and the emperor was a symbol of Force. There was a social splendor, but it was the phosphorescent corruption of the Ancient Mediterranean world."

The establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, which was made possible by the ascension of Constantine to the throne of the Caesars in 305 AD, was an event of revolutionary importance. Christianity came thereby to possess an empire which it would not have otherwise dared to dream. As Constantine's victory was the outcome of the heroic sacrifices of his Christian supporters, he duly rewarded them with a generous share in the affairs of the Empire.

 In reality, however, it was a most inauspicious moment for Christianity. It did gain an Empire, but lost its soul. The Christians had won in the field of battle, but they were completely routed in the realm of faith and morality. The pagans and-what was more-the Christians themselves wrenched the Christian creed out of shape. On this subject, Draper says [Draper, 1927, pp. 34-41]:

"Place, power, profit-these were in view of whoever now joined the conquering sect. Crowds of worldly persons, who cared nothing about its religious ideas, became its warmest supporters. Pagans at heart, their influence was soon manifested in the paganization of Christianity that forthwith ensued. The Emperor, no better than they, did nothing to check their proceedings. But he did not personally conform to the ceremonial requirements of the Church until the close of his evil life, ...."

"... Though the Christian party had proved itself sufficiently strong to give a master to the Empire, it was never sufficiently strong to destroy its antagonist, paganism. The issue of struggle between them was an amalgamation of the principles of both. In this, Christianity differed from Mohammedanism which absolutely annihilated its antagonist and spread its own doctrines without adulteration..."

"... To the Emperor-a mere worldling-a man without any religious conviction, doubtless it appeared best for himself, best for the Empire, and best for the contending parties, Christian and pagan, to promote their union or amalgamation as much as possible. Even sincere Christians do not seem to have been averse to this; perhaps they believed that the new doctrine would diffuse most thoroughly by incorporating in themselves ideas borrowed from the old, that Truth would assert herself in the end and the impurity be cast off."

The amalgamation of Paganism with Christianity, from which its soul and beauty had departed, could not bring about an amelioration of the moral conditions of the Romans. On the other hand, it produced a great outburst of monasticism, which was perhaps of a more painful interest in the moral history of mankind than the former extravagance of sensuality. This atrocious and sordid routine of self-torture had a large hand in the spread of materialism and irreligiousness in Europe.

The landmark of the monastic movement among the Christians in Europe had been the maceration of the body, which was considered to be the highest proof of moral excellence. St. Macarius of Alexandria is said to have slept for six months in a marsh exposing his body to the stings of venomous flies. He was accustomed to carry about with him eighty pounds of iron. His disciple, Eusebius, carried one hundred and fifty pounds of iron, and lived for three years in a dried-up well. Of another famous saint, named John, it is said that for three whole years he stood in prayer, leaning occasionally upon a rock to rest his weary limbs. Some of the hermits discarded clothes and crawled on all fours like beasts covered only by their matted hair. Some of them lived in the deserted dens of wild beasts; others preferred dried-up wells; still others dwelt among the tombs.

The cleanliness of the body was regarded as a pollution of the soul, and the saints who were most admired had become hideous mass of filth. St. Anthanasius related with enthusiasm how St. Antony had never, to extreme old age, been guilty of washing his feet. St. Abraham, who lived for fifty years after his conversion to Christianity, scrupulously avoided washing either his hands or feet from that date. Abbot Alexander used to say, looking mourn- fully back at the past, "Our fathers never washed their faces, but we frequent the public baths."

Hermits, masquerading as religious teachers, roamed about from place to place seducing children for their order. The control of parents over their children was broken. The children who forsook their parents and became monks were held high in public esteem. What was lost in obedience by the father was gained in prestige by the priest. The eloquence of St. Ambrose is reported to have been so seductive that mothers used to lock up their children to guard them against his fascinations.

The inroads made by monasticism on the domestic affections were exceedingly damaging. Social ties were rent apart and the foundations of family ties were shaken. Domestic virtues were cast into discredit.

The saints broke the hearts of their mothers with ingratitude and abandoned their wives and children. Their business was to save their own souls; they were not concerned with what befell their families. The anchorites ran away from the shadow of a woman. It was most sinful to converse even with one's mother, wife or sister. Their life-long penances were turned into dust if they chanced to meet a woman in the streets or let her shadow fall upon them.

This undoing of domestic affections had a disastrous effect on general character. Personal virtues like courage, generosity, frankness and cordiality were discouraged and sometimes, utterly destroyed.

It would be foolish to suppose that the excessive asceticism and life-denial had succeeded, in any measure, to counteract the grotesque licentiousness and materialism of the Romans. The moral and religious history of mankind does not warrant such optimism. It is opposed to human nature. Experience shows that only that ethical or spiritual system which is not opposed to inmate human aims and instincts, and which, instead of crushing them down, aspires to the noble, can tame arrogant materialism and convert it into a healthy social force.

The Roman Christianity took upon itself the utterly hopeless task of trying to alter human nature and tried to work out a system that was beyond human endurance. In the beginning people bore with it as a sort of recoil from the super-abundant materialistic inclinations of pre-Christian Rome, but they soon became sick of it with the consequence that there came to operate in the Christian world two parallel and diametrically-opposed movements of licentiousness and asceticism.

Gradually, the corruption reached classes and institutions which appeared the most holy. The agape, or love-feasts, which were regarded as symbols of Christian unity, became scenes of drunkenness and of riot till they were finally suppressed by the government in the seventh century. The commemoration of the martyrs degenerated into scandalous dissipation. High prelates were charged with flagrant breaches of morality. St. Jerome him- self complained that the banquets of many bishops eclipsed in splendor those of the provincial governors. Ecclesiastical offices were obtained by intrigue; benefices, dispensations, licenses, absolutions, indulgences, and privileges were bought and sold like merchandise.

In the 11th century there ensued a bitter and most uninspiring struggle between the Church and the State. The Pope had the better of the Emperor during the initial rounds of the encounter, and the power of the Church was so greatly increased that, in 1077, Pope Hilderbrand ordered Emperor Henry IV to come and submit to him. Thenceforth, fortunes fluctuated between the Church and the State- sometimes the Pope won and sometimes the Emperor-till, after hundreds of years of dreary confusion and bloodshed, the Church confessed defeat and capitulated. During the whole of this period of conflict, the people in the whole of Christendom were forced to endure the double tyranny of religion and politics, of the Church and the State.

The Church, during the Middle Ages, had enjoyed far more power than the Roman Emperors and had it wanted it could have done yeoman's service to the cause of European Civilization with the advantage it possessed. But the guardians of the Church failed in their duty. They misused their power and their opportunities and let things run from bad to worse.

The conditions of countries as to their well-being is generally portrayed in the variations of their populations. Judging from this angle we find that in five hundred years the population of England could scarcely double itself, while the population of Europe, as a whole, could not do so even at the end of a thousand years. This was, no doubt, due to some extent, to the practice of celibacy, but, in the main, it was the result of bad food, wretched clothing, inadequate shelter, personal uncleanliness, absence of physicians and the popularity of shrine-cures, in which society was encouraged by the clergy to put its trust. It was the decided policy of the Church to discourage the physician and his art, for he interfered with the gifts and the profits of the shrines. Consequently, pestilences were permitted to stalk unchecked over the Continent.

The most fatal error the ecclesiastics committed was that they incorporated with the holy Scriptures all the prevailing notions of geography and physics. Those notions were by no means the limits of human knowledge which is essentially progressive. Perhaps the ecclesiastics had done so in good faith-to raise the merit of the Scriptures in popular estimation, but its consequences were most certainly calamitous. It started a violent conflict between Christianity and science in which Christianity, that had already suffered in it purity through dogmatic corruptions, was overcome and the prestige of the ecclesiastics was undermined for ever. Christianity in Europe fell into disfavor, never to rise again in public estimation. Worst of all, Europe turned atheist.

The Church having set itself forth as the sole depository and arbiter of knowledge, was ever ready to resort to civil power to compel obedience to its decisions. It evolved, under the name of Christian Topography, a complete system of geography which had no divine sanction, and those who refused to accept it were declared heretics.

Meanwhile, owing to the influences of neighboring civilizations, the volcano of knowledge had burst in Europe. Its thinkers and scientists had broken the chains of intellectual slavery. They boldly refuted the ecclesiastical theories, which were based on preposterous evidence, and proclaimed the results of their own investigations. The Papal authority reacted ruthlessly. It established the Inquisition "to discover, and bring to book, the heretics lurking in towns, houses, cellars, caves and fields." This institution performed its duty with such savage alacrity that a Christian theologian exclaimed that it was hardly possible for a man to be a Christian, and die in his bed.

It is estimated that between 1481 and 1801 the Inquisition punished three hundred and forty thousand persons, nearly thirty two thousand of whom were burnt alive, including the great scientist, Bruno, whose only crime was that he taught the plurality of the worlds. Bruno was delivered to the secular authorities to be punished "as mercifully as possible, and without the shedding of blood", which in fact, was the horrible formula of burning a prisoner at stake. Galileo, another scientist of no less worth, was remorselessly punished till he died in prison for having held, contrary to the "Scriptures", that the earth moved around the sun!

At last the patience of the genius of Europe was exhausted and it openly rose in revolt against the representatives of Christianity and its traditions. Provoked by the intellectual stagnation of the clergy, and the heinous atrocities perpetrated by the Inquisition, the enlightened sections among the Europeans developed a strong aversion to all knowledge, morality and truth associated with the Church and religion in general. They could not help thinking of things religious without recalling to memory all the frightful misdeeds of the Papacy and the brutal sufferings of the secular scholars. A dismal disbelief crept over the Continent. Freed from their former serfdom under Christianity, the peoples of Europe began to exhibit a definite intolerance to every kind of spiritual control.

Thus, what had originally started as a tussle between Christianity and secular knowledge, flared up into an all-out contest between Religion and Progress. It was concluded arbitrarily by the intelligentsia of Europe that Religion and Science were altogether incompatible with each other and, consequently, for the advancement of Science it was necessary to discourage Religion. It was no doubt a mistaken notion to pitch Science against Religion in general instead of against Christianity alone, but there were attenuating circumstances for this mistake.

The intellectuals did not have patience and perspicacity enough to distinguish between true religion and its self-appointed leaders. They did not care to ponder, calmly and impartially, who really was responsible for the tragedy that had come to pass, the teachings of religion or the ignorance and bigotry of the priests; and if it were the latter, how far justifiable it was to condemn religion for the sins of its so-called officials.

In the spiritual vacuum thus created, Europe took a tragic turn. It descended by degrees into the depths of materialism. Its social thinkers and scientists proceeded to investigate the nature of the world and of life as if there were no absolute power which created them and ruled over them according to some plan and purpose without itself being subject to any laws. They interpreted the material universe and its manifestations along mechanical lines and called it objectives and scientific methods, rejecting scornfully as slavery to tradition whatever was based on belief in the existence of God. One by one, they repudiated everything that existed apart from matter and energy, everything that was not realizable in experience, or could not be weighed and measured.

References:

 Asad, M., Islam at the Crossroad, Lahore, Pakistan, 1955.

Draper, J.W., History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, London, 1927.

Lecky, W.E.H., History of European Morals, London, 1869.

Nadwi, A.A., Islam and the World, International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations, Kuwait, 1983.