Since i joined the TF I’ve heard Mr. Salik ask this question “why are Muslims so backwards”. Before we answer the question let’s examine if we really are backwards. Some may say it’s just the way “the media” and “the West” portrays us.Please go to this link and scroll down a little: http://www.123muslim.com/islamic-articles/10277-muslim-jewish-comparison.html. I’d also ask the readers to go to the UN & UNICEF sites and compare counties with same per capita income in western world and the muslim world and see the big differences in education levels, especially girls, big differences in neonatal, infant and maternal mortality. After seeing these statistics most rational people will conclude we are backward.
One of the reasons frequently quoted for this sorry state of affairs of Muslims is “colonialism”. Of course it is easy to put the blame on someone else but if colonial suppression was a reason for a race/religion being backwards, then the Jews should be the most backward religion of all; they have been persecuted for centuries but they still excel. Singapore, Hong Kong, Iceland, Sweden all were under colonial rule at some time or another and these countries are nowhere near backwards. And there are many other explanations offered by Muslims to explain their backwardness, most of them blaming external sources.
But what really are the reasons? It is a very complex question to answer. I’ll offer mine; and i want to emphasize they are mine alone. I expect very few people to agree with my reasons; most will disagree. I will list the reasons under the following headings i) genetic/racial/ethnic reasons ii) reasons relating to our religion and its followers, the Muslims.
Genetic/Racial/Ethnic: This may be a controversial reason but i strongly suspect it plays a role. This may sound racist to some, self-loathing to others but the truth has to be faced, even if it is bitter. I am not saying that there are individual Muslims who are not much smarter than most Jews or Christians; my reason more relates to the races as a whole unit – comparing the races and ethnicities that comprise the majority of the Muslim population and the races that comprise the Jewish and Christian populations..
Reasons related to Islam and Muslims: I have lumped the two categories together because sometimes it is hard to distinguish whether the reason pertains to the religion itself or Muslims’ interpretation of the religious edicts and i am not scholarly enough myself to parse the differences. Even scholars disagree as to whether certain observances, beliefs and actions are derived from the Quran and reliable hadith or are cultural in origin or even misinterpretations of the Quran/hadith.
i) I think that the Muslim belief that this life is just a blip and is not as important as the afterlife results in fatalism about your station in this life; so if you are poor & uneducated, so what, as long as you get to heaven with all its promised goodies. There is nothing wrong in the belief to keep this life in perspective as compared to the afterlife but both extremes are harmful.
ii) Our inability to separate usury from interest: We just mentioned the disparity in the # of inst. of higher learning. How are we to build institutions of higher learning or hospitals, costing millions of dollars, without borrowing? The richest people in Islam who could possibly donate the whole amount for such institutions are busy building fancy mosques and spreading their brand of islam. also how is a person of poor means to start a business if he cannot apply for a loan at the bank. Thus the poor remain poor, entrepreneurship is killed.
iii) Our greater focus on religious education versus secular education.
iv) Our belief that Islam is not just a religion but a way of life. I will not debate here if this is right or wrong but will touch on only one result of this belief – the political system. I think having religion as the final authority in running a modern country is the reason we have so many failed islamic states. there is a famous quote: politics is inherently a dirty game; religion does not make it cleaner, politics ends up defiling religion. there is a video by Zakir Naik. I admire his wealth of knowledge but don’t necessarily agree with all he says. At the end he says the West has advanced because they have moved away from religion but for Islam to advance we have to move closer to religion. How does that make sense? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-12lOG1r_V0&feature=related.
I’d like others to contribute to this discussion or offer counter arguments.
In order to keep this presentation short, i’ve not gotten into details about each individual reason at length but would elaborate if someone asked for it.
First of all, it is important to understand what was the reason that Muslims, during the Golden Period of their history, were at the top of the world in philosophy, literature, and sciences. People were very religious, and the rulers governed within the dictates of Qur’an, Sunnah and the Shari’ah law.
As Muslim warriors rose from the Arabian Peninsula, they were mostly illiterate. Once they conquered Egypt, Syria, Persia and Sind, three great ancient civilizations came under their sway–the civilizations of the Nile valley, Tigris-Euphrates and the Indus valleys. Muslims encouraged by the Qur’anic appeal, “My Lord! Increase me in my knowledge” (20:114) and guided by the Prophet’s sayings, “The learned are the heritage of the Prophet,” the rejoinder as the “search for knowledge is compulsory upon every Muslim male and Muslim female” and “Search or seek knowledge though it be in China,” the Arabs viewed seeking knowledge greater than any other form of jihad. They translated books into Arabic from Greek, Persian, Sanskrit in the fields of philosophy, medicine, science and mathematics. They found neo-Platonism compatible with Islamic beliefs and thus, guided by the Qur’anic call to reason, attempted to untangle the problems besetting the Muslim Ummah. Great centers of learning at Cordova, Damascus, and Baghdad, contributed to Islamic Adab, comprising philosophy, sciences and mathematics within the teaching of Islam and its concept of “Islam deen-wa-Daula” (Islam the way of life and the government).
i) I think that the Muslim belief that this life is just a blip and is not as important as the afterlife results in fatalism about your station in this life; so if you are poor & uneducated, so what, as long as you get to heaven with all its promised goodies. This is not true. Islamic Art and Literature and sciences flourished to such a height that it helped Europe to come out of its dark-age and that also by the passionate believers of Islam–both subject and the rulers. First shock that broke the rhythm of Islamic superiority came when the Mongols burnt Baghdad to ashes. Libraries were burnt and the historians write that the river turned black because of the books (mostly hand written) thrown into it. Muslims’ connection with the knowledge of East and West was totally disconnected. The savage Mongols would kill all the learned scholars and men of knowledge, but would spare the mystics. They believed in spirits and viewed that the mystics were harmless. Interestingly the mystics became the source of the Mongol’s conversion to Islam. Within a century all the Mongols and their descendents became Muslim. Later on greater damage was done by Tamerlane who, according to some historians, was half Muslim.
ii) Our inability to separate usury from interest: We just mentioned the disparity in the # of inst. of higher learning. How are we to build institutions of higher learning or hospitals, costing millions of dollars, without borrowing? Yes, bank interest is a problem in the present era. But in the past interest or usury does not seem to have created a big problem. May be the Muslim rulers thrived on looted wealth, jaziya, and tax levied on business and agriculture. Salahuddin Ayubi borrowed money from the Jews during the Crusades and I do not know whether he paid them with interest or may be some other benefits or it was given by the Jews as a to help Salahuddin.
iii) Our greater focus on religious education versus secular education. Since, during the period of European colonization, the medium of education changed from Arabic and Persian to English and French, the madrasahs which in the past used to produce, scientists, accountants, officers, teachers of social scientists and religious scholars, were rendered unproductive and thus became centers of only learning and memorizing Qur’an and Hadith. Muslims were hesitant to learn English and French, fearing that they may not lose their own culture and language, specially Arabic which is revered as Divine Language.
iv) Our belief that Islam is not just a religion but a way of life. I will not debate here if this is right or wrong but will touch on only one result of this belief – the political system. Unfortunately today Muslims have very little knowledge of Political Islam. It is not as we see today in Saudi Arabia, which is focused on the system adopted and practiced by the first four Right-Guided Caliphs–a system suited to and practiced by the Badu of early Islam. The Qur’an does not specify any form of government or a political system. It gives basic rules of moral and political order. The Prophet (pbuh) ruled the city state of Medina according to the Charter of Medina which is not a revealed document, but a contract. This Charter of Medina was honored until the early Umayyad period. In fact Islamic Political system has been evolving even during the time of these great Caliphs. I have already viewed on this subject last year which has been debated. Islamic political thought is distinctive and remarkable in the intellectual history of the world. With a logic of its own, it comprises an intelligible system founded on the interplay of faith and reason. It is a concept significantly different from that of other political systems, one based on the harmony of revelation and reason. The main reason, why Muslims are confused and messed up between their own Islamic system of “Deen-wa-Daula” and the Western is that, European political science’s concept of a state is based on: First there is a tract of land, then there are people as a society or a nation and finally there is a constitution. In Islam, as we all know, first there came Qur’an as a basis of a constitution, then all those who accepted Islam became a Muslim Ummah or a society and lastly emerged a borderless state; first the city state of Medina and then the borderless concept of “Dar-ul-Islam.” During the prime period of the World of Islam, different regions ruled by different rulers, as Arab Spain, North Africa, India or Indonesia, were known as “Vilayat” under the umbrella of “Dar-ul-Islam.”
Arguing on the current situation, the famous Middle Eastern historian Bernard Lewis had divided the world in four civilizations, Western, Islamic, Chinese and Indians. After the fall of communism, Samuel Huntington wrote his famous book the Clash of Civilizations. But today, the Chinese and the Indian civilizations on account of their secular political systems are gradually merging into the Western system and thus the conflict we see, is between two civilizations–the Western and the Islamic. The West is doing its best to secularize the Islamic political thought. It is an attempt to form a single global secular civilization. What is being shown to the Muslims is in fact a scare tactic that this is Islamic political system if Muslim would like to adopt. It is same as Bhutto by nationalizing from schools, colleges and industries left a good lesson to the people who after the fall of Ayub Khan were attracted to socialism. And at the end of Bhutto’s rule, people were saying, “Tuba, tuba hum socialism se baaz aay.”
Mirza Ashraf