Islamic civilization as an object of study

In a “history of mankind,” Islamic civilization should be studied not only in the several regions where it flourished, but also as a historical whole, as a major element in forming the destiny of all mankind. The vast Islamic society certainly has been this. Not only in the first centuries, but also in the later periods the fate of Islam is of world-wide import. This is true above all because its conscious hopes for a godly world order represent one of the most remarkable undertakings in history and because its less self-conscious general cultural heritage is laden with human values. But later Islamic history is important also for understanding how the current world situation came about. At the moment when the new life in the West was transforming the planet, the circumstances in which Islam as a whole found itself conditioned the affairs of half mankind and hence the possibilities open to them of response to the new West. Hence much of the significance of regional Islamic societies, such as those in the Near East or in India, lay in the part they played in determining the course of Islam as a whole. Islamic civilization in its later periods is enormously complex and diverse. But our problem is not just to find the common characteristics underlying the diversity, though this is important. It is to trace the ways in which elements either of unity or of diversity have been relevant to the fortunes of the civilization in its role in world history.