“Student of history”
As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam — at places like Al-Azhar University — that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing.
Frank Tipler begs to differ. Can’t say we’re surprised at Tipler’s conclusions.
June 8th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
History is too sensitive to be treated arbitrarily when one is addressing a schism that dates back 1400 years and is at the heart of the modern day clash of ideologies. To my taste Obama should have done some more homework. He has left of lot of ammunition in the hands of those who thrive on logic of moral equivalence and demand political causes of what makes an individual a suicide bomber.
The American President may not know it, but his ‘Muslim world’ is split by a war of ideas, says Amir Taheri. According to him, Barack Obama has extended his hand to Islam’s despots. Obama generalizations were ‘music’ to create mass euphoria and may help build bridges with the Islamic disgruntled street, but scratch the surface a little and one finds that he could have addressed the real cause of the decline of Islamic nations in the past mainly due to victory of dogma over logic and rationalism, and overreliance on predestination and will of Allah.
Obama on Algebra: It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed.
The challenges that Islam faces today are exactly the same as it faced in the times when Algebra and Astrolabe was being developed in the Islamic communities. It was the integration of the world and interaction of ideas and open cross fertilization that led to discoveries that Obama referred to in his speech. The real demand should have been to change a syllabus that is medieval, and not condoning the ‘culture’ that actively supports moral equivalence of everything under the sun. His audience across the globe hardly believes that some one else did the dirty job on 911. They should change their syllabus if you want to change their minds. And this applies from ‘Madrassas’ of Pakistan to Shiite seats of knowledge at Qum and Najaf. Any mind that wants to set free from the chains of decadence has to free itself from demands of religious thought.
Obama’s overgeneralizations are a dangerous precedent: Algebras and magnetic compass plus paper came from cross fertilization of Islamic societies with the sub-continent and China. An American president has to be careful with reference to history. Giving credits of accomplishments without highlighting the cause will further add to moans and groans of a society that fails to understand the reason of its continual decline in the field of intellect for last 1000 years.
One needs to appreciate the influence of the Indian subcontinent on the course of sciences and intellect of renaissance. The Indian subcontinent export of the ‘mastery of mathematics’ through Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Mo’ayyeduddin Urdi, and Ibn al-Shatir helped like a catalyst to expedite the imminent dawn of reason-based enlightenment in Baghdad and Cordoba. That was cut short in its infancy by the intervention of dogmatic idea that any knowledge outside the book of God is irrelevant. Reason, logic, and rationalism were sacrificed at the altar of dogma and incoherence of philosophy. Dogma and clergy reigns supreme across the crescent of instability. The message of connectivity with the world and cohabitation with great cultures, due to which the Golden age of Islam flourished, was lost to winning hearts and minds by short term political overgeneralizations.
Decline of the Islamic golden age was due to supremacy and ascendancy of dogma over rationalism – for example, the lack of separation between faith and reason – that is why the Muslim Arab world fell into scientific slumber just as the Christian world woke up. Internecine wars, infighting and murder of rationalism were the main causes for the decline of Islam. It is often disputed why Muslims being 19.6% of the world’s population, i.e. 2 billion, only have three Nobel laureates in Science and literature, whereas Jews being only 0.2% of the world’s population, i.e. 14.1 million, have received 122 Nobel prizes in science, economics, medicine and literature. This is the exact challenge the Islamic world faces today, this was the point that needed to be made.
One Ummah that ‘Obama’ refers too only exists in minds of Hizb ul Thareer or the ultimate faithful; otherwise there are 1000 divides within the Islamic world. The mother of them all is Shiite-Sunni divide that extends onto date in shape of two camps the Iranian and Saudi, ( a 700 million 300 million divide on global Islamic populations basis) next the Sunni internal divide between Wahabbi hardliners and Wahabbi soft liners, this sits above the divide between Hanifites and Malikis that extends between sub-continent Muslims, the terror prone Asir region is cast solidly in first divide whereas Taliban are the product of desert Islam with connections to hardest of the ideological schools under Salifis.
Now to portray Darfur and Bosnia in one line is great argument yet a poor one. In Darfur Arab descended Sudan Al-Bashir is behind ruthless murder of his own black indigenous Muslims, in Bosnia it was strife between Serbs and Muslims, both Slavs but ideology divided them. The revenge of Ottoman rule was taken from the rich farmers and land owners who historically benefited from the Ottoman rule.
These colours that are important to learn, yet for Obama to try to sew a rainbow all under one tabernacle is far bigger and much more complex a challenge. The political demands at the seams of Islamic majorities are clear, in Palestine the Hamas wants no Israel, in Saudi Osama wants no Sauds, in Hijaz they want no Sauds, in Iran they want the promised one to conquer regions for which they have been promised by Allah and restore the Ahl-e- Bait that is house of Banu Hashim to its equitable place. The nuke option for Iran is no way acceptable to Saudis as well as Osama. Khomeini Islam is far away call from Islam that Abdul Wahab practiced. Iraq has its own sectarian problems alongside Kurdish issue.
Pakistan suffers with its own identity, five nations made into ‘one’ under name of Islam, but others 53 exist because Islam alone is not the healer. One speech that covers it all and depicts Muslims as victims of great conspiracies camouflaged the fact that Muslims as the rulers of this region of sub-continent and Mesopotamia are having difficult time adjusting as minority. Palestine issue, the Kashmir issue, Taliban rule of Afghanistan, Somalian warlords and combined dictatorships of Assad’s, Kaddafi’s and Mubarak’s all add up to a problems that speech never addressed. Yes a great work out to shove it all under a carpet.
The downside of all this is that the policies that are being followed are result of massive carnage amongst Islam, in Iraq Iran war a million vanquished, in present Taliban infestation collateral damage of any Muslim is a sacrifice that is acceptable. The policy is to eliminate them with drones but when Obama words will be corroborated to his action he will be considered as man who understands and apologises but cannot act a new conspiracy theory will be woven, new victims will emerge; new martyrs from those who listen to these half cooked facts will be far greatly hardened. OIC based polio elimination is great idea yet Taliban consider this immunisation as an act of faithlessness. Change of syllabus, reality check of the ‘enemy within’ is the right speech that was forlornly omitted.