As a scientist, academic and someone with a deep interest in history and philosophy, I have always been fascinated by our glorious past. But there was something I heard which sparked a paradigm shift within me. Dr Fazlur Rahman Ansari, an illustrious Pakistani scholar, said that Prophet Muhammad (saw) has two roles to play. He not only came to close the era of prophetic divine revelation but also inaugurated a new era – the modern scientific era. This was profound and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. This planted a seed.

What grew that seed was the understanding that the Quran stands as a judge over everything. That means the Quran stands in judgement over the hadith, seerah and all other disciplines of Islamic studies. Not only that, the Quran stands in judgement over history, economics, and politics and only then can we connect the dots.

The Quran insists the more you study the natural world, the closer you will get to Allah. But in today’s science community have turned this knowledge into a path of atheism when it was designed to harbour within us a fierce sense of yaqeen (conviction). In the same way the West has turned something as pure as food into poison, water into waste, governance into oppression, and economics into slavery. I began to realise this methodology and understanding was missing in all modern efforts of reconciliation of Islam and Science. But our scientific predecessors weren’t like this. History tells us that Ibn Haytham, Al Kindi, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sina and the like were also deeply connected to the Quran, and headed the world’s first intellectual revolution by using the Quran as a judging criterion over Greek Philosophy, which led to what we call the Golden Age of Islam.

Of course, it wasn’t all golden, at our very heights, we also suffered brutally at the hands of the Mongols, the Crusaders and later, the Europeans. The Muslims of that time would’ve thought themselves to be in the worst kind of fitan that the Prophet (saw) warned us about.

But there is something about seeking knowledge and living by the Quran that gives you hope, resilience and sparks a seed of revival in the heart, even in times of tribulation. Maulana Rumi wrote his greatest work, the Mathnawi – a treatise on love – during the Mongol Invasion!

This is what the Second Golden Age represents. We are living in tough, testing times. We need to have hope and resilience more than ever. With the ever-increasing materialism in our societies, life has lost its lustre. Many young people really feel life is meaningless. And that affects their mental health, personality, relationships and even their relationship with Allah and their ultimate fate in the Akhirah.

We need a vision to aspire to again. We need a direction, an objective, supported by the belief and foundation of the extremely rich legacy which has been gifted to us.

Once you truly understand the depth of our history, coupled with the power of the Quran, your mindset changes. How can you ever desire to play small again?

Just as the early Muslims had this great vision to establish justice, peace and virtue on earth, they also inspired others. They created great sciences, made discoveries, built communities and we are their heirs. They got this vision from the Nation Builder himself – the Prophet (saw) – and after all these centuries, the vision may have dwindled somewhat, along with our identity as the makers of the greatest civilisation in history.
So it’s high time we revive it.
We want to inspire people with this grand mission and invite them to join us.
For Muslims to become spiritually enlightened and intellectually empowered young Muslim achievers who will bring about change in the world.
This is our inheritance.

And now we must act on it.