by Mustafa Akyol
I am not the greatest fan of Richard Dawkins, the famous Oxford professor, whose passionate atheism looks to me as a dogma in itself rather than freedom from dogmas. Yet I must I admit that he had point recently when he wrote the following on Twitter:
“All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.”
In return, some blamed Dawkins for “racism” or Islamophobia, which I found as unfair. The man had only pointed out a fact: Muslims of the modern world have won very few Nobel Prizes, which is an indication of another and more burning fact: Muslims of the modern world have done very poorly with regards to science. And it is not just fair but also necessary to question why.
Of course, it is not just the Muslim world but in fact much of the non-Western world that has done poorly in the past five centuries in the material achievements of human civilization. The all-Christian Latin America as well, for example, has not been a beacon of scientific progress, or democracy and liberalism. “Singling out Muslims,” in that sense, would be wrong.
However, there is a particular fact about the Muslim civilization that calls for a specific focus: As Dawkins noted, “They did great things in the Middle Ages.” Between the seventh and 13th centuries Muslim scientists and philosophers were the most erudite and productive ones in the world. That is why they invented so many things, some of which were exported to the West, and can easily be traced today in English words with Arabic roots. A short list would include algebra, alchemy, alkali, almanac, amalgam, alembic, admiral, alcove, mask, muslin, nadir, zenith, tariff, sugar, syrup, checkmate, lute and guitar. (And, of course, there are also the Arabic numerals.)
That is why Martin Kramer, an American historian, argues, “Had there been Nobel Prizes in 1000, they would have gone almost exclusively to Moslems.”
In short, it is really worth asking why Muslims were doing so well a thousand years ago, whereas they are doing so poorly today. This, of course, is a famous and complicated question with no simple answer. If there were any simple answer, I would root it in the decline of the Middle Eastern economy because of the tectonic shifts in world trade. But there is also something to do with the common Muslim mind as well. Muslims were quite successful a millennium ago, because they had formed a cosmopolitan civilization that did not shy away from being open to foreign cultures, such as Ancient Greece, Eastern Christianity, Judaism, Persia, India or China. Muslim intellectuals were confident about their faith and hence did not see a problem in learning from non-Muslim sources of knowledge and synthesizing them with Islam.
However, today’s common Muslim mind, including the intellectual Muslim mind, is quite insular, and is focused on protecting an “Islamic” (and quite closed) mental sphere from influences from the outside world. The result is a defensive culture that refuses to engage with the ideas of “the unbelievers,” and therefore only repeats what it has learned from its own forebears. If we Muslims want more Nobel Prizes – and all the knowledge, sophistication and success that they imply – we must begin with challenging this closed-mindedness, and strive to have more open minds.
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Categories: Asia, Religion & Science, Religion and Science, Research, Science and Technology, Turkey
The fact that – ok, a long time ago – Muslims were dominating scientific achievements is already the proof that Islam as such as not opposed to scientific achievements. Something went wrong with Muslims and we have to return to the time when Muslims were scientifically successful. Anyway, do not waste the time to blame Islam!
I agreed with Dawkins’ tweet. He accepted that Muslims did great things in the Middle Ages and then stated the fact that there are very few Nobel prize winners among them.
Eye opener in my opinion.
Once Muslims of the world accept the Imam Mahdi of this age accomplishments and glories above and beyond that of the Nobel prize will open to the people following true teachings of Islam. Also, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is performing very admirably promoting peace and interfaith dialouge, spearheaded by the present Khalifa (aba). It should be noted no other Muslim community has had the type of recognition for the promotion of peace that the Ahmadiyya community has received. How many Ahmadis are there in this world? Even with a conservative number, that should qualify for at least 10 mil Nobel peace prizes.
The real reason why Muslims were successful at the time was that they stayed true to their religion. As they drifted away from it, they lost their philosophical and scientific ascendancy. The Holy Quran states that the righteous (Muttaqi) will be granted intelligence (hikmat). Very few Muslims today are righteous and the effect is clear to see.
But why did he not mention and accept that when Muslims were spearheading wholly and solely………….his ancestors were sleeping in abyss darkness.
@ Ahmad Qureshi: what do you mean?
Fowzia Shah!
I don’t understand why do you need any explanation of what I said?
Why is he so anxious about people who are out of breast of modern world?
Why he has been having sleepless nights for those who are so backward?
Why he always lashes and targets these people who are according to him socially and scientifically retard?
I don’t need to tell you why is he doing this. He and all alike are extremely afraid of gradual and unstoppable fall of their civilization which is made up by atheism, materialism, nudity, immorality and uncontrolled freedom of expression.
They thought their empire of faithlessness will never fall. Problem is that Islam is the only religion, faith and set of beliefs or system left over that will naturally replace in sure vacuum that would be created henceforth.
You can see the fear on these people’s discourses, words and faces.
Indeed really this is pioneering article, I am certainly agree with the author’s point of view to a varying or undetermined extent, however the narrative that says “However, today’s common Muslim mind, including the intellectual Muslim mind, is quite insular, and is focused on protecting an “Islamic” (and quite closed) mental sphere from influences from the outside world. The result is a defensive culture that refuses to engage with the ideas of “the unbelievers,” and therefore only repeats what it has learned from its own forebears” needs to be clarified, first if this argument is based on the thoughts of the compatibility of Islam with modern science and the best of western thoughts, and granting Islamic logic for accepting modern concepts and institutions would be fine, secondly I am little bit skeptical about the reasoning found on the idea for assimilation or converting the customs and practices of western civilization, the letter slumbers and succumbs or yield to an overwhelming desire, and we would have taken a very narrowing understanding about the so called of closed-mindedness, and defensive culture,