Why Muslims are retrogressive?

It may be iniquitous to compartmentalise monotheistic religions into separate blocks in order to evaluate individual religion's successes and failures. But this is exactly what this article aims to do, notwithstanding the sentimental or emotional attachments of ardent religious adherents. In this pursuit, Islam is going to be taken for the special attention (as the author is a Muslim) to decipher its achievements vis-à-vis other monotheistic religions. The purpose is definitely not to denigrate any religion but to seek out the causes for difference in achievements.

Among the three monotheistic (Abrahamic) religions, Christianity with all its sects and denominations is the largest religious group. Nearly 30 per cent of world population of 7 billion people is Christian (nearly 2 billion). They are also most successful in science and technology, art and literature and in almost all other human intellectual pursuits. But this success does not derive from their numerical advantage but by their willingness to adopt, adapt and assimilate views and ideas of the day. Christianity did go through the internecine religious conflicts over the centuries but those were in the middle ages. Those conflicts were not only between the various factions (or denominations) of the Christian religion but also between the religion and the State. The dawn of 'Age of Enlightenment' led to some sort of tacit understanding between the State and the religion whereby State had become responsible for political, social, economic, military, etc. matters and the religion became the standard bearer of moral codes and numinous attitude of the populace. In other words, religion was not the gate keeper of all things human nor was it the 'be all and end all' of human conscience. In other words, some sort of secularity was instilled in Christian countries.

This separation of duties between State and the religion had released human energy from destructive conflicts to constructive pursuits. Scientific research and development, astronomical advancement, industrial revolution, modern art and literature, are all due to human endeavour devoted to improvement of human knowledge and conditions without the distraction of religious in-fight.

Leaving Christianity aside, one can say that Islam and Judaism are more or less on the same platform – adherents of both of these religions are extremely devotional and many of them are emotionally attached. So a valid comparison between these two religions may lead to some meaningful conclusions.

Both of these religions originated roughly in the same geographical area — Makkah and Canaan in the Middle East. Needless to say, Judaism is the precursor to Islam and many of the rituals from Judaism had been assimilated in Islam, either verbatim or with some modifications. The Jewish prophets – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and so forth are also prophets in Islam. The commonality between Islam and Judaism is remarkable.

Despite these ancestral links, these two religions have mutual antipathy and divergent outlook. In political, social, economic and technical fields as well as in arts and literature or any other field of human endeavour, Jews have been far more successful than the Muslims. How did this wide disparity between these two religious adherents come about in the present-day world? This disparity in achievement becomes even acute when the numbers of Muslims and Jews of the present day world are taken into account.

There are 1,400 million Muslims in the world as against only 15 million Jews. Thus for every single Jew in the world, there are nearly 100 Muslims. Whereas in 49 sovereign States in the world, Muslims are in majority and run those States, there is only one State — Israel — where Jews are in majority and run that State. There are countries such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran and so forth where more than 99 per cent of the population are Muslims. Even in some non-Muslim countries there are large Muslim population. There are about 6 million Jews in Israel and over 8 million in north and south Americas. There are some 1,000,000 or so Jews scattered around European countries and in other countries such as Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.

One measure of achievement by these two religious groups can be judged by the number of Nobel prizes received by them. The Nobel prizes, the most prestigious awards in the world, are awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Peace Studies since 1901 and in Economics since 1969. The Jews received more than 22 per cent of all Nobel prizes, although they constitute just over 0.2 per cent of world population. Last year, Jews received Nobel prizes in both physics (shared) and chemistry (shared). Altogether Jews received 173 Nobel prizes until today, while carrying out research works in various countries, sometimes under hostile conditions. On the other hand, Muslims received only 10 Nobel prizes, (1 in Physics, 1 in Chemistry, 2 in literature and 6 in peace studies), while making up 20 per cent of the world population. It may be noted that the peace prizes are awarded primarily on socio-political grounds which have impacts on the society, not so much on intellectual prowess. If peace studies are excluded from the tally of prizes, Jews had hauled 164 prizes whereas Muslims had only 4 prizes. Thus the Jews are more than 40 times more successful in winning Nobel prizes (excluding peace prizes) than the Muslims, although constituting only one hundredth of Muslim population!

But this shear number of Nobel prizes does not do full justice to the contributions the Jews had made to the world of science. Albert Einstein, the most celebrated and influential scientist, was a Jew. Other most renowned Jewish physicists were Wolfgang Pauli (Pauli Exclusion Principle), Niels Bohr (Bohr Atomic Model), Max Born (Quantum Theorist), Richard Feynman (Quantum Mechanics) – all of them made monumental contributions to modern physics. Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Milton Friedman were also Jews. The contributions the Jews made in the fields of science and literature are truly astounding.

The reason why Jews are highly successful may be that they have high respect for knowledge and they have single minded approach to success. Jews during the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th centuries were dispersed throughout the whole of Europe as they had no homeland of their own and their survival in the society depended on their success. During the early part of 20^th century, the Jews excelled in science and literature in Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Italy, the UK and so forth. Almost all the reputable German academic institutions were headed by Jews in the 1920s and 1930s, all major medical establishments were under Jewish control, art and literature were dominated by Jews. Their domination was so complete that Hitler realised that German supremacy and Aryan culture could not be revived without getting rid of Jews. He used to view Jews as leeches, which suck out life blood from the host body. The Nazi regime started deporting and exterminating Jews. The Gottingen University, the cradle of quantum mechanics, was completely dominated by Jewish physicists and mathematicians. The Nazi minister of education asked David Hilbert, a prominent non-Jew mathematician in charge of the Institution, that whether it was true that the Institution suffered from the departure of Jews and their friends. "Suffered? No, Herr Minister, it did not suffer. It just does not exist anymore", replied Prof Hilbert.

As against such excellence among the Jews in the 19^th and 20^th centuries (as well as in the 21^st century), the Muslims throughout the world had moved in the opposite direction. Instead of striving for excellence in human endeavour, they shunned the western science, education, literature and culture. In the Indian Subcontinent in the 19^th century, Muslims, as a show of defiance to British Raj, took the conscious decision to boycott British education and adopted religious education instead. Only during the beginning of 20^th century, Muslims realised that without education they could not rid themselves of the colonial yoke and they accepted education reluctantly.

Many of the Muslim theologians of today, taking cue from the past when Islam was at the forefront of science and civilization, advocate going back to the roots and adopt religion whole heartedly. Hardly do they realise that when Islam was at the forefront during the 9^th to 13^th centuries, they adopted science and technology, art and literature of the day whole heartedly and pursued them vigorously; they did not seek out scientific knowledge from the holy book of Quran and Hadith. Due to lapse of attention during the fading years of Islamic glory, the mantle of science and civilization had slipped away from the Muslims to the western world.

The other two religions (Christianity and Judaism) tacitly accepted the reality of the modern world and positioned them accordingly. The Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth had said recently in London that science has a religious dignity. The Archbishop of Canterbury circumvented the conflict by saying that Darwin's theory of evolution is the most enthralling of ideas worthy of embracing. But Islam steadfastly refuses to accept scientific knowledge and values.

There seems to be a need to either revise Islamic doctrines to accommodate modern scientific ideas or relegate religion to the background such that it never comes in contact with scientific values and ideas.

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A. Rahman is a Nuclear Safety Specialist.