Roman civilization before Islam

Written by Dr. Ragheb Elsergany

Introduction

The Roman civilization was one of the greatest civilizations of Europe after the Greek civilization. The Romans introduced unprecedented management and civilian systems, including the Roman Law, which revealed the extent of knowledge and experience their thinkers and philosophers had reached. The Roman Personal Status Law reflected their perception of the nature of the individual-society relationship, rights and duties.
Despite the Romans' civilization, civility and power, to the extent that it shared the civilized world with the Persians, it reached the precipice and the lowest levels of corruption in all aspects of civilization ahead of the emergence of Islam.

Summary of the Roman civilization

Professor Ahmad Shalaby summarizes the development of the Roman civilization: "The Romans marched toward Europe and seized it in the second and first centuries BC, and then took over Syria (65 BC) and Egypt (30 BC). Thus, the most important civilizations in Europe and in the Orient were subject to Rome. All these areas experienced forms of pressure and humiliation that undermined the power of innovation and thought, and the torch of evolution was put off under the yoke of the Roman oppression. Rome could not bear the torch of civilization to the areas that had been subjected to it, because Rome had never been a center of thought at any time in history, unlike ancient Egypt's Heliopolis and Alexandria in the thrive of the Greek civilization. Thus the activity civilizations came to a stop.[1]

The faith of the Romans and the domination of the Church

Despite the emergence of Christ (peace be upon him) the pagan system of Roman rule continued for a long time until the reign of Constantine[2] (272-337 AD; ruled 306-337 AD). Constantine carried out a series of works that strengthened Christianity and then he embraced it at the end of his days and was baptized on his deathbed. The clergymen of the church did not content themselves with what Constantine had made to Christianity, and even put on his behalf the so-called Donation of Constantine, a document declaring that the emperor donated the Pope large worldly authorities in the countries that were under the Pope's authority. Historians scrutinized the document and proved it was fabricated.  Constantine's position toward Christianity made the clergy covetous for more power going beyond religious to worldly affairs. The church succeeded in this in the late 4th century AD, when the bishop of Milan dared to oppose the decisions of Emperor Theodosius (died 395 AD) until the former forced the latter to withdraw them.[3]

Domination of the church over intellectual attitudes

Since the beginning of the 5th century AD the church dominated many affairs, particularly the intellectual attitudes in the Roman Empire. These attitudes have had Egyptian or Phoenician origins. The church's position toward these intellectual and scientific trends was based on following considerations:
First: the Bible included all that might be necessary to man in this world and in the Hereafter. Therefore it should be the sole basis of the theories and ideologies, and that only the clergy had the right to interpret its texts and people should accept this interpretation without thinking or resistance.
Second: accordingly a belief prevailed that all that was other than the Bible was false and that should not be read or studied.
Third: the clergymen were considered representatives of God on earth, and then they had the right to torture whoever resisted their ideas and to reward whoever obeyed them; typically as God does with the people.
Fourth: Christianity is built on miracles and extraordinary things made by Jesus Christ, which are actually supernatural violating the laws of nature and scientific bases. And since the clergymen were devotedly loyal to the miracles and supernatural events, they had stuck to them and fought incompatible science.
Fifth: Christian texts tended to abandon this world and wait for heaven without concern for body and property. And since most experimental sciences in the Orient at the time were dedicated to the worldly life, the ideas of the clergymen were opposed to these sciences.[4]
Hence, the church fought various fields of science and scientists and monopolized some intellectual areas after it had subjected them to the Bible texts and resisted many ideas stiffly. Medicine, mathematics and astronomy were resisted fiercely: the church burnt some of their books and threw some others in caves, in order to deny access to them until they go into oblivion.[5]
The Church has followed this policy for long periods. When the time of freedom came and the church was unable to burn or seize books, it issued decisions forbidding the Christians to read the books which it considered contrary to the church-defined faith or the books that uncovered the church's negatives. It also issued a decree that deemed as apostate whoever claimed the earth was rotating. Thus the Christian church undermined the huge civilization revolution that had been made by the world over several centuries. Such people also took advantage of religions and deviated. Instead of the function of religions as illuminating torches, the clergymen turned them into a means of ignorance and darkness.[6]

Debate on Christianity

Scholastic debates and futile sophistries popped up about Christianity that involved the people, preoccupied their minds and disrupted their scientific abilities. These debates often led to bloody wars, killings, destruction, torture, raids, looting and assassinations and turned schools, churches and homes to rival religious camps. The countries were involved in civil war. The severest manifestation of this religious dispute took place between the Syrian Christians and the Roman state on the one hand and Egyptian Christians on the other hand, or more precisely between Melchitism and Monophysitism. The Melchites believed in the dual nature of Christ, while the Monophysitists held that Jesus Christ possessed one nature, i.e. divine. The dispute between the two parties intensified in the 6th and 7th centuries AD; until it became like a war between two competing religions, or between the Jews and the Christians, with each sect claiming the other to be nothing.[7]

Classes of Roman society

The Roman society consisted of two distinct classes; masters and slaves, with the masters having all rights and the slaves being deprived of civil rights. Actually, the Roman Law was reluctant to refer to a slave as 'person', then finally it came out of this mess by calling him 'non-personal human'. They used to consider the slave as personal property. Slaves did not have the right to own, inherit, be inherited, or marry legally and the slave's children were considered illegal. Children of a slave woman were all slaves even if their father was a freeman. A master could commit adultery with his slaves and bondwomen and without being able to claim legal compensation from him. A slave could not sue whoever hurt him, and only his master could sue whoever hurt his slave. A master has had the right to beat or imprison his slave or order him to fight beasts in the wild, starve him to death, or kill him for some reason or for no reason, without any control except the public opinion consisting of slave owners. If a slave escaped and then was arrested his master could brand him with fire or crucify him. Augustus[8] was proud that he arrested thirty thousand fleeing slaves and crucified those whose masters did not ask for them. If a salve was provoked and therefore killed his master, the law provided that all the master's slaves be killed. When consul Pedanius Secundus[9] was killed in 61 AD and his 400 slaves were condemned to death, a minority of members of the Senate objected to this ruling. Angry people in the street requested mercy, but the Senate insisted on the implementation of the law; believing that only through this cruelty a master could feel safe for himself from his slaves.[10]
The Roman Law granted the owner the right to kill or keep alive his slave. Slaves increased at the time so much so that some of their historians stated that the slaves throughout the Roman Empire were three times as many as freemen.[11]

Women in Roman society

Regarding the status of women in the Roman society, a synod decided that they were soulless creatures that would not inherit life in the Hereafter, impure, and should not eat meat or laugh. Women were sometimes prevented from speaking and sometimes iron locks were put on their mouths.[12]
As a result, the Roman civilization began to decline until the foundations of virtue and morals deteriorated. Edward Gibbon[13] illustrated this situation, noting that at the end of the sixth century the state reached in degradation to the last point.[14]

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[1]  Ahmad Shalaby: Mawsu`at al-Hadarah al-Islamiyah (Encyclopedia of Islamic Civilization), 1 / 56.

[2]  Constantine I: (272-337 AD) a Roman Emperor, his reign was revolution in the history of Christianity. He imposed Christianity on the Roman Empire, called for Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325 AD), and built Constantinople.

[3]  Ahmad Shalaby, op cit, 1 / 56, 57.

[4]  Ibid, 1 / 57-58.

[5]  Ibn Nabatah al-Masry: Sarh al-`Uyun, p. 36; Ibn al-Nadim: Al-Fihrist (The Index), p. 333.

[6]  Ahmad Shalaby: op cit, 1/57-60.

[7]  Abul Hasan Nadwi: Madha Khasira al-`Alam bi-Inhitat al-Muslimin? (What the World Lost by the Decline of Muslims?), p. 43.

[8]  Augustus Caesar: Known as August (62 BC - 14 AD), Gaius Julius Caesar or Octavios; he was the sole heir to the Roman dictator Julius Caesar.

[9]  Pedanius Secundus: governor of Rome in 61 AD.

[10] Will Durant: The Story of Civilization, 10/370-371.

[11] Ahmad Amin: Fajr al-Islam (The Dawn of Islam), p. 88.

[12] Ahmad Shalaby: Muqaranat al-Adyan (Comparative Religions) 2/188; Afif Tayyarah: Ruh al-Din al-Islamy (The Spirit of Islam), p. 271.

[13] Edward Gibbon (1737-1794): an Englishman historian, author of History of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

[14] E. Gibbon: History of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, V. Y. P. 13, quoted from Abul Hasan Nadwi, op cit, p. 46.