How the Ottoman Empire Collapsed and Can We Revive Something Better Than It from Scratch?

 

ذٰلِكَ الْكِتٰبُ لَا رَيْبَ ۚ فِيهِ ۚ هُدًى لِّلْمُتَّقِينَ

"This is the Book about which there is no doubt, a guidance for those conscious of Allah."

Al-Kahf (18:1)

اَلْحَمْدُ لِلّٰهِ الَّذِي أَنْزَلَ عَلَىٰ عَبْدِهِ الْكِتَابَ وَلَمْ يَجْعَلْ لَّهُ عِوَجًا

"[All] praise is due to Allah, who has sent down upon His Servant the Book and has not made therein any deviance."

Allah is telling us that it is only His religion that is free from blame and error; every other religion is defective.

Even those religions that were revealed by Allah before Islam were not protected and are not valid after Islam in the sight of Allah.

Surah Āl 'Imrān (3:19) states:

"Indeed, the religion in the sight of Allah is Islam."

Furthermore, Surah Āl 'Imrān (3:85) adds that whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted from him.

Allah says:

"Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which there was guidance and light. The prophets who submitted to Allah judged by it for the Jews, as did the rabbis and scholars, who were entrusted with the Scripture of Allah and were witnesses to it."
(Qur'an 5:44)

Allah did not say that He Himself was its Guardian. Rather, the rabbis and scholars were entrusted with preserving it. However, as human beings, they were unable to protect it permanently because of their human weakness. Unlike Allah, they were not infallible.

But Allah says regarding the Qur'an:

Al-Hijr (15:9)

اِنَّا نَحْنُ نَزَّلْنَا الذِّكْرَ وَإِنَّا لَهُ لَحَافِظُونَ

"Indeed, it is We who sent down the Reminder (the Qur'an), and indeed, We will surely be its Guardian."

This is a special favor from Allah upon us. He Himself has promised to preserve the Qur'an until the Day of Resurrection, as there will be no prophet or messenger after our Prophet ﷺ.

If you open the Torah or the Injīl (Gospel) today, you will find passages that are similar to the tales of Hindus, Sikhs, and followers of other religions. For example, it says in the Book of Genesis. Read my article on this.

https://www.al-muslimeenjournal.blog/2026/01/pornography-and-incest-as-divine-message.htmlhttps://medium.com/the-muslims-inn/how-hinduism-is-far-from-truth-4e6ced5db0a0

After around the year 1800 in Europe, the Age of Enlightenment began, during which the veil of religion was lifted from the eyes of many people. They came to believe that their religion had been fabricated, leading many nations around the world to conclude that religion is an obstacle to the progress of a nation and that it should be separate from the state, or that the state should not support any particular religion.

Constitutions written by human beings became the primary source of law and authority instead of religious scriptures, which state that there should be discrimination on the basis of religion, or that all religions, whether true or false, should be treated equally at the sight of the law.

It led to the fall of many religious leaders, kings, and governments, as people started to question their authority. Decades of civil war were fought in the United States between a government that supported the slavery of Black people by White people, which was supported by certain interpretations of the Bible, and a government that was against it, until the secular government won.

All of these reforms might have helped non-Muslims in establishing their governments, but when Muslims stripped many of the laws of Sharia from the state, considering them to be an obstacle to the progress of a nation, they legalized interest.

Beginning in 1839, the Ottoman Caliphate implemented the Tanzimat reforms, during which interest-based loans were legalized. In an effort to modernize and industrialize the Ottoman Caliphate along the lines of Britain and France, the Caliphate took out massive interest-based loans from European powers, despite the fact that such loans were considered haram under Islamic law.

They even gave equal rights to the dhimmis(non muslims living under muslim state) which also led to the abolition of jihad and slavery for the existence of dhimmis is the result of jihad and slavery as Allah says

"Fight against those who do not believe in Allāh or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allāh and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth [i.e., Islām] from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled."

(Al-Quran 9:29)

These reforms ultimately led to the fall of the Caliphate, where the dhimmis prevented the Caliphate from collecting kharaj (half of the agricultural produce) and jizyah (a portion of their wealth), as the Prophet of Allah ﷺ informed or us of the future.

Abu Huraira reported that Allah's Messenger ﷺ said:

"Iraq would withhold its dirhams and qafiz; Syria would withhold its mudd and dinar; and Egypt would withhold its irdabb and dinar. Then you would return to the position from where you started, and you would return to the position from where you started, and you would return to the position from where you started."

The flesh and blood of Abu Huraira would bear testimony to it.

(Sahih Muslim 2896)

These nations withholding their wealth from the Muslim state never happened from the time of prophet except with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. After its collapse, the global political influence of the Muslims largely ceased, and there was no longer any major state governed by what many Muslims regarded as a fully Islamic system of governance.

We Muslims should learn from the mistakes of the past. A Muslim should never abandon implementing the Sharia in his personal life or separate it from governance in pursuit of success and prosperity. Our religion is not falsehood like other beliefs that people may consider to be abonadoned; rather, it is the truth. Abandoning it leads to regret, as has happened before, while adhering to it is righteousness, as Allah says:

˹They are˺ those who, if established in the land by Us, would perform prayer, pay alms-tax, encourage what is good, and forbid what is evil. And with Allah rests the outcome of all affairs.(Al-Quran 22:41)

A muslim should always remember that he and the kuffar are not equal by the command of Allah except that islam is the superior religion of Allah which doesn't allow oppression being widespread or the kuffar getting powerful in land more than muslims with jihad,slavery, jizyah never being ceased as the prophet said

Narrated Abu Huraira:

The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Allah wonders at those people who will enter Paradise in chains."

Sahih al-Bukhari 3010

The article will be updated inshallah that how prophet of Allah gave glad tidings of a new Caliphate soon emerging similar to Caliphate rashidoon and the covenant of the prophets

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