Nothing troubles a historian’s spirit more than the wounds of the past. This seems to be especially true when studying those countries and peoples whom time has mistreated. Once rich, they have become poor. Once mighty, they have fallen. Such losers and victims carry with them the memory of better days and resentments that feed on bitter experience. And the historian, who seeks to understand them and to translate  them for others, who wants to know and love them, finds himself caught up in the campaign to justify their past, to assert their dignity, to salve their wounds

David Landes
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations       

In Pakistan there is a general belief that our society is in a state of decline. This sense of decline comes as a result of insecurity, collapse of law and order, absence of state authority, plight and helplessness of the people, and lack of intellectual and creative activities. However, the situation that we are facing to-day is not unique. History shows that nations pass through a process of rise and fall and some of them disappear totally while some of them survive insignificantly.

The phenomenon of rise and fall of nations and civilizations has become a fascinating subject for  historians who are interested to discover the process behind this drama and to find out if  there are some definite laws which  determine  destinies of nations? Or  is it an incomprehensible process which is not bound by any law , and so cannot be understood by theories formulated by thinkers and historians? Therefore,  to unfold the mysteries of the rise and fall of a nation and civilization, and to discover how a civilization reaches its zenith and then ignominiously falls,  leaving behind a glorious and dazzling past, remains an insoluble problem.

Compared to the past historians, modern historians are in a better position to study this problem, because they have enormous historical material at their disposal. Furthermore, research in other social sciences greatly enriches history and provides tool to analyse the origin and development of societies. Ibn Khaldun (d.1406) in his Muqadimmah ,Oswald Spengler (d.1936 ) in his Decline of the West ,and Arnold Toyanbee( d.1976 ) in his Study of History made attempts to discover laws which are operating behind the rise and fall of nations and civilizations. However, there is a strong criticism on the interpretations of these three historians. The main objection is that first they make a framework of their theories and then select the events which suit them and simply ignore those facts which are not in their favour. Therefore, their interpretations fail to comprehensively deal with history.                 

Besides these three historians, there are others who  point out different factors for decline of nations. For example, when a society spends more than its income this subsequently leads it towards decline. It happened in the case of the Roman Empire where the ruling class consumed more than the income of the state, resultantly, the Roman society exhausted financially and collapsed. Another factor which leads to decline is expansion of an empire which eventually saps the energy of an imperial power and makes it averse to any structural change . Moreover, as a result of expansion, the imperial power relies more and more on the resources of occupied  territories and becomes more dependent on others than its own  power and wealth  with the result that at any time , when these economic and political relations are disturbed, the imperial power suffers a set back and falls asunder.

Furthermore,  an imperial power, in order to strengthen its rule, curbs national sentiments of the vanquished  nations, but when colonised people resist against colonial power, their struggle is crushed as long as the colonial power has resources and energy, but at a certain stage ,it fails to check the growing opposition which subsequently forces the colonial power to vacate occupied territories and return to its own borders. This is evident from the examples of  the Ottoman empire and Britain. After the First World War, the Ottoman Empire collapsed and Mustafa Kamal, instead of reviving the old empire, decided to keep Turkey in its borders and created a new sense of Turkish nationalism. The same policy was adopted by Britain after the Second World war. Realising that  it was difficult for her to control nationalist movements in her colonies, she withdrew to her natural borders. It is also evident from history that when the imperial power refused to withdraw voluntarily, she was forced to leave the occupied territory after bloody conflicts.

Some historians attribute the rise  of a nation or civilization to its political expansion. When a nation conquers other countries and rules over alien nations this period is regarded  as a period of  greatness, power, and strength. When its  political power collapses, it is termed as decline. However, with the passage of time, there is a change in this concept.  In the modern era, the rise and stability of nations is judged not by political expansion and conquests but  by their economic development and financial stability.

Historians have also probed questions such as who benefited more during the period of rise: upper classes or common people? It has been proved that as a result of rise and expansion only the upper classes got privileges and benefits , while common people suffered and remained oppressed and exploited. Only those professional classes who worked for the ruling classes such as physicians, engineers, and artisans enjoyed relative benefited. However, with the process of decline, when the ruling classes lost their  economic resources and could not afford luxury, these professional classes also  received set back, became unemployed , and after loosing their professional identity ,  integrated with the masses.

Whenever a  nation passes through the process of decline, it shows some signs of its decline. One of them is historical monuments. History shows that during the period of  rise, huge, beautiful and magnificent buildings were built to show the greatness , glory, and wealth of a nation. These buildings retained their beauty and  grandeur  as long as there were enough resources to look after them. But when a nation exhausted its economic resources,  these buildings were left unattended because the state as well as owners of these buildings could not afford to maintain and keep them in their original form. This happened in case of Portugal, where huge churches were built even in small towns during the hey days of the empire. Now these churches are in a state of decline as the state has no more resources to repair them. Same happened to the Mughal monuments which are scattered throughout the sub-continent. The repair of these buildings requires huge amount which is not available. Therefore, these old and dilapidated buildings remind us the past glory and the decline of the Mughals.

Concerning the issue of decline, there arises a question: does  decline affect the whole society or only a certain section of it? A detail study of history shows that privileged and ruling classes who got benefits as a result of rise of a nation suffered more when the power of the nation declined. Common people, who remained outside this circle, were not much affected by the phenomenon of rise and fall. That is why the sense of decline appeared strongly among the privileged classes as in case of the Mughal decline when the Muslim and Hindu aristocracy belonging to the Mughal state lamented on the bad affairs of the state. The main reason of their sorrow was the loss of their status, privileges, and insecurity of their position. Those historians, poets and writers who shed tears on the fall of the Great Mughals were actually representing the feelings and sentiments of the nobility and not of the common people. The signs of decline for these writers were the loss of king’s authority, poverty of nobility, and the end of patronisation of poets, artists, and ulema by the king and the nobility. Once the state and the ruler became resourceless, it became difficult  to sustain  government structure and defend territories from internal rebellions and external aggressions.These were clear signs of decline and  weakness of the state.

 Concerning the rise of the Mughals, conquests were regarded as a sign of power and strength. Once this process ceased, it was believed that bravery was taken over by cowardice and hardiness was replaced by softness. Therefore, the intellectuals of this periods regarded these characteristics as sign of weakness and  ultimate destruction of the empire. Luxurious life style was also attributed to downfall of any nation. Shah Walliullah in his book Hujjat al Baligha writes that luxury  was the cause of the decline of the Roman and the Persian Empires. Therefore, he warned the Mughal rulers and the Mughal aristocracy to abandon luxury and adopt a simple life to save the empire from disintegration. Further, he pointed out two  causes for the weakness of the Mughal state: first,  the state treasury was plundered by the nobility, bureaucrats, army generals and sycophant intellectuals; second, the government imposed heavy taxes on traders, farmers, and artisans. These taxes collected in such extremity that the affected people rebelled against the authority which subsequently disintegrated whole fabric of the society.

 From 1707 to 1857, the decline of the Mughals was widely mourned by the Muslim and the Hindu elite alike. Both suffered equally. However, after 1857 the concept of decline changed among the Muslim community of India. The Muslims, instead of India, made attempt to align themselves with the larger Muslim World. The result was that during this period, the lamentation over decline of the Mughals came to an end. On the contrary, they started to mourn the decline of the Muslims throughout the Muslim World. These sentiments are fully evident in Hali’s famous poem “Mussaddus” in which he portrays the period of ignorance (Jahilyyah ) when the Arab society was morally and socially corrupt and how with the advent of Islam changed it absolutely and produced great culture and civilization. Comparing the present to the past, Hali argues that the present condition of the Muslims was similar to that of Jahiliyyah and it could be changed only by reviving pure Islamic teachings.

 The result of this change outlook was that the Indian Muslims , instead of their Indian history, took interest in the history of the  Umayyids , Abbasids, and the Ottomons. The Muslim history of outside India became their model for glory and grandeur. This led them to the movement of Pan-Islamism and yearning to have united Ummah. The result was that Jamaluddin Afghani, Abduhu, Shaikh Rida, Shaikh Sannusi and Mahdi Sudani became their heroes who pledged to unite the Muslim Ummah and  revive the old glory of Islam. This tendency isolated the Muslim community from the political, social, and economic affairs which were taking place in India. They sacrificed their own national interest to the interest of the Muslim World. The Khilafat movement is an example of this attitude. Indian Muslim intellectuals concentrated more on the decline of the Muslim Ummah rather their own backwardness.

There is a very pertinent question for those societies which are in a state of decline: should they make attempts to get rid of it and change the course of history, or should they accept their fate and linger on and on in the same condition for an indefinite period?  History shows us that the period of rise is not permanent and remains short lived, while duration of decline has no limit. It goes on unchecked for a longer period  and subsequently wipes out the society from its existence.   Only those societies survive which accept change and adjust themselves accordingly. Those which uphold the forces of continuity are condemned  to death.