The mission of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) consisted in raising a community of the faithful who could be torch-bearers of the indispensable Divine guidance for all times to come. The Prophet (pbuh), therefore, focused his central attention on educating the believers and effecting a total moral and spiritual reform and rectitude in their individual and collective consciousness and conduct. This all inclusive reform realised under Divine guidance by the Prophet's relentless struggle for twenty-three years and sustained after him by his successors, unfolded in history a unique social and moral order and a singular godly civilisation.

This civilisation was meant to present itself as a model for the entire humanity and knew no bounds save those of the whole universe. It carried a moral message of abiding value and a socio-political programme commensurate with that message and relevant for all space-time conditions. Thus the fruits of the Prophet's reforms reached far beyond the realms of Islamic dispensation within a quarter of a century after his demise.

The change brought in the wake of the Prophet's mission was so momentous and evident that thenceforth history of man was to be divided between the period preceding the Prophet's era and the times that succeeded this era. Each of these periods is clearly distinguishable from the other. The dividing line between the two is humanity's august entry into the age of universal civilisation anchored on intellectual advance and rooted in moral commitment.

The teachings and reforms of the Prophet (pbuh) gave a radically new direction to the prevailing modes of learning and intellectual vision, patterns of culture and civilisation, attitudes of morality and ethics, scales and values of spirituality. The wholesome result of this all pervasive reformation, inter alia, was that new vistas of enquiry were opened to human intellect and it has led to unfrequented avenue of knowledge and understanding.

There are several facets and dimensions of the tremendous impact of the Prophet's teachings on the intellectual career of mankind in the post-prophetic era of history. The present discussion is, however, confined to a quick survey of the status of humanity's understanding of the natural phenomena so as to show what new orientation was given to it by the teachings of the Prophet (pbuh). For, while this candle of light and wisdom namely, the Prophet of Islam, wholly illuminated some parts of this universe, those parts that remained outside its radiation too did not remain as dark as they had been prior to his advent.

Before the mergence of Islam, the human intellectual enterprise had been mainly dominated by the deductive dialectics of the Aristotelian school. Human initiatives of enquiry were mostly absorbed in fruitless speculative hairsplitting. The sum-total of the Greco-Roman pursuit in the domain of philosophy was nothing more than ever-increasing bewilderment of the brain, because no integrated world-vision was available to streamline the ever inquisitive mind of man to know himself and his environment within the unity of a graspable and meaningful framework. This state of affairs held little promise for any significant progress of human intellect in coming to grips with the knowledge of this universe. Nor did the lengthy debates indulged by the philosophers of Aristotelian persuasion make any worthwhile contribution to guide humanity towards a better quality of life. Although these philosophers more or less monopolized the intellectual discourse in vast areas of the civilised world for a long time, yet their vocation proved of little avail to identify the problems of humanity and find any workable solutions thereof.

The tradition of philosophy, the scope of which was then much wider than today, instead of providing any viable answers to the actual problems of life, proliferated countless doubts and confusions in the minds of its students. The result was that the philosophers started living in their own imaginary world which they had created for themselves, and divorced their knowledge from the realities of life. They had set out in their intellectual journey with the loud claim of knowing the essence of things which was how philosophy was defined in those days. But instead of rendering things more comprehensible, they made them more and more difficult of comprehension by their excessive reliance on deductive speculation. They dragged all problems of knowledge, whether relating to theology or ethics, or pertaining to aesthetic or ontology into their favorite but profitless hermeneutics. They failed to appreciate that this vast and varied cosmic phenomena was not necessarily designed according to the theoretical constructions of the Aristotelian logics and hence it could not lend itself to comprehension in the constricted categories of this logic.

Apart from this methodological problem which characterised the pre-prophetic tradition of philosophy, the domain of knowledge had been monopolised by the religious elites in Christian as well other societies. This monopoly was not confined to the knowledge of religion. The powerful hierarchies established in different religious traditions during their periods of decay arrogated to themselves the exclusive privilege of possessing not only the knowledge of religion but also the right of knowing everything about the universe and all that it contained including man.

It was the Prophet (pbuh) who for the first time in known history dealt a blow to this age-old monopoly. The Book revealed to him invited man to ponder and deliberate over its message before accepting it. The religion preached and practiced by the Prophet (pbuh) laid great emphasis on the use of reason and intellect as means of knowing the Truth. Acquisition of useful knowledge was not only permitted by the Prophet (pbuh) to every male and female but prescribed as a solemn duty. Among the supplications frequently made by the Prophet (pbuh) and taught by him to the believers was: O God, grant us increase in useful knowledge. Those who were commended by the Quran as well as the Prophet (pbuh) were ones who employed their faculties of the mind to know the Truth and act accordingly. Those that were condemned by the Quran and the Prophet (pbuh) were ignorant people who did not employ their intellects in the useful pursuits of life. Little wonder then that the period preceeding the era of Islam was characterised as the age of ignorance. While Islam was synonymous with erudition and wisdom; ignorance became its very opposite and antithesis