*Distance from History and Our Decline*
 *By: Mufti Naseem Hussain Lakhimpuri* 





The decline of Muslims and their distance from history happened almost simultaneously. Thus, it proved true that a nation that forgets its history loses its identity. For some centuries, there have been major upheavals in the history of Muslims, and in these same centuries, the stories of the decline of Muslims were written. Whether it was the decline of the Mughal era or the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Muslim nation held on to the skirt of history firmly, and then let it go. Although the history of history is ancient, the people of the ancient era were not literate, so they were fond of listening to stories of their ancestors.
The mothers and elders of the tribes used to tell children stories of the old days, tales of famous and brave people. Similarly, the achievements of brave people were expressed in poems. In this way, all these events were passed down from generation to generation.
For this reason, there used to be some additions and subtractions in them. Gradually, so much change came in these events that they were no longer in their original state, but became completely fabricated. 
And when times progressed somewhat and the era of reading and writing came, the writers wrote the same fabricated events as historical facts. In this way, there are some religions in the world whose history and religion are based on fabricated events and stories. 
The books of this era, the Bible, Bhagavad Gita, Mahabharata, and Ramayana, are famous. Despite being based on distortions and fabricated events, these books are considered the basic sources of the conditions of the ancient era. Historiography took a step forward when the practice of reading and writing increased in various nations of the world.
But in the true sense, historiography created its historical identity during the Islamic era because before Islam, the history of every nation was full of exaggerated, self-made stories. There was no principle to examine history. In Islam, the foundation of historiography begins with biography writing. 
The way Muslims wrote biographies, no one else in the world has written history in that way. Gradually, this art reached its peak, to the point that Muslims gave such historians to the world that there is no example of them. Large books were written on history, and events were recorded after much scrutiny and investigation. When history was at its peak, the era of Muslims was also golden, but gradually the original guardians of history, the scholars, departed.
For nine centuries, the Muhaddithin, Mufassirin, and historians handed over this art to future generations with complete honesty. The Muhaddithin and historians entrusted this art to their later followers with great honesty. After the third century Hijri, a lot of work was done on Asma al-Rijal, due to which the original history and original events are still preserved, and it is the merit of the people of Islam that they worked on the art of Asma al-Rijal. Apart from them, this art does not exist in other nations and religions of the world. Therefore, many books were written in this art, and this art kept history in its original state. This era was the era of the rise of history. Gradually, the scholars who had a grip on history departed from the world, until an era came when the Muslim nation became empty of experts in technical history. There were neither historians nor history readers, until during the British rule in India, it became a crime to write on any book, magazine, or paper. As soon as the government found out, they would immediately confiscate the book or magazine. In those days, Muslims became even more distant from history. Further oppression was that our history was occupied by foreigners. The Orientalists made Islamic history a child's play, then their students came into the field. History was badly trampled at their hands. These people left no stone unturned in distorting and falsifying history. In this way, they did not leave any opportunity to b** Islam. They tried their best to b** the ancestors and elders and to declare the Muslim conquerors as robbers, and work is constantly being done on this. In this way, negligence of the correct history is becoming common, and wrong history is taking the place of the correct history. After Aurangzeb Alamgir, the Mughal government began to breathe its last. Gradually, in 1857, the Mughal era came to an end completely, and the reins of government came into the hands of the British. During this time, no regular work could be done on history because most of the scholars of that era were busy in Jihad. If they raised their voice or pen against the oppression and tyranny of the British, they would be tortured and their pens would be broken, newspapers would be closed, and scriptures would be set on fire. In the midst of this struggle, the sun of independence of India rose. The government that had been the crown on the head of Muslims for centuries was then plundered by the British. To get it back from the British again, the Muslims first

took a step forward, and it is natural that the government was snatched from the Muslims, so they should have felt the most pain. The Muslims liberated this country and, after dividing it, took a part for themselves and handed over the rest to their compatriots. Then history wrote a new history.

The country that the Mughals had adorned for centuries, trimmed its wings and feathers, made it a golden bird, made it a paradise on earth, the British trampled it badly, and the British left it so desolate that it was not even worthy of being called a golden bird.

Gradually, the government was occupied by those people who had a strong hatred for the history of Muslims. They erased everything from the textbooks to the names of buildings and the names of roads. This is a dark chapter in history. In this, those buildings which the Muslims had built as places of worship, which were centuries old, the ruling party occupied them by calling them their places of worship and writing history incorrectly. Therefore, their eyes are on many temples, and many places of worship have been locked, and many places of worship have been demolished. This is the worst period of history, which is still going on, and gradually, by mixing and matching things in history internally, new fabricated things are being included in history, and by defaming Muslims and Muslim rulers, it is being made to believe among the people that these are the traitors. 
On one hand, history is being presented in the wrong way, and it is being fully implemented to spread the lie so much that it starts to look like the truth. On the other hand, the distance of the Muslim nation from history has worked to pour petrol on it, that we neither read history nor encourage children to do so. In universities and colleges, the history department is an independent department, in which we can well imagine from the current situation how the history of Islam and Muslims would be taught. But the more regret is that in our madrassas, no independent department will be found in the name of history. Leave alone the department of history, even the book taught on the art of history will be found very rarely, which is included in the curriculum. The people of the present era have not done any special work on the art of history, neither have they established a department of history in the big madrassas, nor are these madrassas small for them. They could only prepare their own written curriculum, which could prepare the minds of young children for history. They have always run the curriculum written by foreigners in Islamic madrassas as well, many of whose things are contrary to our religion. Today, there is a need for us to establish an independent department of history in madrassas if we want to maintain our history and our existence.