According to Islamic tradition – which means according to Islamic belief and therefore NOT open to discussion – the End of History actually occurred in 622 AD, the date marking the beginning of the Islamic calendar in which the Prophet Mohammed fled from Mecca to Medina – the so-called Hijra, variously spelled and properly translated as the “Emigration” not the “Flight”.
NB: calling this date the “flight” is an example of “Orientalism”, whereby an Islamic event is given a derogatory slant, in this case, a derogatory definition.
NB: calling this date the “emigration” is an example of the Islamic tendency to laud and acclaim an event regardless of how prosaic or even contrary to fact it might really be.
In other words, according to the Islamic tradition, the End of History took place over 1300 years ago.
Moslems believe that the seminal event in the history of humankind was the coming and establishment of Islam. Everything after that was of no consequence, was derivative or was already foretold.
It is Hegel’s March of History brought to a screeching halt a thousand years before Hegel was born.
Thus, for example, you get Moslem PhDs from MIT in Quantum Mechanics, who in their heart of hearts, sincerely believe that the formula E=mc2 can really be found in the Koran——-if you just knew where to look and how to interpret what the text really says (the good ol’ “you just don’t understand” thesis).
That is to say, all scientific discoveries of the last 2 centuries, any progress of any kind in the physical world of ours and so on, has already been presented to the world if only in basic outline form within the context of Islam.
What’s difficult for Westerners to grasp is that Moslems REALLY believe this…..this is not just a flight of fancy which occurs during the fasting period of Ramadan or some such in which the mind goes into a spiritual and not-of-this-world mode.
Compared to all this, Fukuyama’s End of History is really small potatoes.
To me, what was interesting about Fukuyama’s thesis is that he was a State Department employee….that is to say, he was presumably up to date on international issues and so on.
That he could have been ignorant about what over a billion people in the world believe, in a historical sense, and to have the audacity to completely disregard this point of view, is a chilling reminder how inept Foggy Bottom (The US State Dept…i.e….the Foreign Service) has really become in the last 30 years or so.
One might even go so far as to say that the world-wide publicity Fukuyama’s theory garnered was a factor, however distant and tenuous, in laying the groundwork for the events that occurred on 9/11.
