Internal causes of Muslim decline

In a chapter titled "Why Islam rose by its own nature", Shakib Arslan gives his explanation of the lag of the Muslims, and traces it to internal causes. This is the author's view, not a neutral verdict on the history of the Muslims. ¹

He names the slackening of resolve, the corruption of morals, abandoning the acting upon the Qur'an's clear verses, and following desires. He holds that the worst of these was the rivalry among the tribes for command and leadership, such as the Qays and the Yemen. ¹

He compares this with the fall of the Romans and the Greeks, and holds that the Christianisation of the Romans was not alone the cause of their decline. The most important causes of decline, he says, were corruption of morals and division. ¹

He rejects the claim that Islam is the cause of the lag, and considers it the claim of Islam's opponents. ¹

A note for verification in the data: the source is a single one. The rivalry between the Qays and the Yemen is a phenomenon of the early Umayyad period and needs treatment by a historian. This entry does not assess the political history of the Abbasid period. It needs a further source.