When… the time approached for the effulgent beauty of Muhammad to dawn upon the world, the control of Christian affairs
passed into the hands of ignorant priests. Those heavenly breezes, soft-flowing
from the regions of Divine grace, died away, and the laws of the great Evangel,
the rock-foundation on which the civilization of the world was based, turned
barren of results, this out of misuse and because of the conduct of persons
who, seemingly fair, were yet inwardly foul.
The noted historians of Europe, in describing the
conditions, manners, politics, learning and culture, in all their aspects, of
early, medieval and modern times, unanimously record that during the ten
centuries constituting the Middle Ages, from the beginning of the sixth century
of the Christian era till the close of the fifteenth, Europe was in every
respect and to an extreme degree, barbaric and dark. The principal cause of
this was that the monks, referred to by European peoples as spiritual and
religious leaders, had given up the abiding glory that comes from obedience to
the sacred commandments and heavenly teachings of the Gospel, and had joined
forces with the presumptuous and tyrannical rulers of the temporal governments
of those times. They had turned their eyes away from everlasting glory, and
were devoting all their efforts to the furtherance of their mutual worldly
interests and passing and perishable advantages. Ultimately things reached a
point where the masses were hopeless prisoners in the hands of these two
groups, and all this brought down in ruins the whole
structure of the religion, culture, welfare and civilization of the peoples of
Europe.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (‘The Secret of Divine Civilization’)
