Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ISBN 983-41324-3-3
THE LEADERSHIP
ROLE OF
MUSLIM
SCIENTISTS
SIGN OF
SCIENTIFIC
REEMERGENCE
Dr Wan Hazmy Che Hon
©IMAM-NS
ISBN 983-41324-1-7
©IMAM-NS
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THE LEADERSHIP ROLE
OF MUSLIM SCIENTISTS:
SIGN OF SCIENTIFIC
REEMERGENCE
RESEARCHER:
SUPERVISOR:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
CONTENTS
0. Preface
1.3.1. Astronomy
1.3.2. Mathematics
1.3.3. Optics
1.3.4. Physics and Mechanics
1.3.5. Geography
1.3.6. Medicine
1.3.7. Chemistry and Pharmacology
1.3.8. Establishment of Libraries
1.3.9. Establishment of Hospitals
1.3.10. Establishment of Observatories
5. Conclusions
6. References
Preface 0
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BACKGROUND:
For almost seven centuries the Muslim scientists were not at the
forefront of scientific achievement. Despite the facts that many of the
Muslim scientists have been accepted to work in the world class
established laboratory or institution throughout the world, none except
a few has make it to win the Noble prize. On the other hand, there is an
increasing numbers of Muslim scientists elected to leadership role in
their respective countries or abroad either in established scientific
institutions or whether as the ruling political leaders, the opposition
leaders or as leaders of the non-governmental organizations. This might
be an important sign of scientific re-emergence already present in the
Muslim world but yet to be recognized by the Western communities.
OBJECTIVES:
1. To identify the reasons why the Muslim scientists are not making
a significant impact in the current scientific achievement. What is
the limitation, restriction or hindrance towards this achievement?
Is there possible bias in selection of Nobel Prize winner for science
as far as the Muslim scientists is concern?
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METHODOLOGY:
SIGNIFICANCE:
The concept of 'ilm ("science") has been an important one in the history
of Islamic civilization and has gone a long way to giving this
civilization, and all those who participated in it regardless of their
ethnic or religious application, a distinctive shape. Again the concept of
science in Islam is a vast subject. Historically Arabs and Persians who
were interested in exploring the natural world around them first
introduced Greek scientific treatises to the Arab-speaking world during
the eight century.
From the ninth century on, scholars travelled from one end of the
empire to the other, carrying books and ideas, thereby ensuring what
some have called the cultural and intellectual unity of the Islamic
world. Since this time, countless Muslims from all over the world
throughout the course of many centuries have been involved in
scientific development.
impressive official library that included many of the most scientific and
philosophical works produced in the ancient world. These works would
form the foundation for medieval science, not only in the Islamic world
but also subsequently in the Christian world.
The earliest Greek works translated into Arabic were often made for
purely pragmatic reasons. This is why treatises devoted to astrology,
mathematics and alchemy represent some of the earliest scientific works
in Arabic. A useful list of the treatises translated into Arabic and when
and by whom can be found in the account given by the biographer of
Islamic writings, Ibn al-Nadim (d 995).
Hence, the vision of Islam as stated in the Qur'an demands that the
Muslims to take the history, as it were and to direct it so as to produce
culture and civilization. Its association with the Muslim history is hence
crucial, for Islamic culture and civilization were indeed its offspring,
nourished and perpetually sustained by it in every realm of human
endeavour.
It would have been surprising if this taste of knowledge had not been
extended to the 'profane sciences' when the Muslims came into contact
with these peoples who had inherited them. Even if there were, here
and there and at certain periods, theologians of a narrow and defensive
orthodoxy who forbade them, it must be said that Muslims in general,
led by their Caliphs and princes, showed great thirst for instruction and
were eager to assimilate the treasures of ancient science when it came
within their reach.
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The original religious flavour still remained, for the Muslim scientists,
whether astronomers, mathematicians or physicians, were not seeking
any less to work for than the Glory of God and the service of religion
when they devoted themselves to the sciences derived from Greece,
Persian or India.
Islam takes nature seriously. A large portion of the Qur'an deals with
nature, whether directly or indirectly. The nature is determined by five
principles: profanity, createdness, orderliness, purposiveness and
subservience
Profanity
Createdness
Orderliness
Purposiveness
Each of the objects that constitute nature has been assigned a purpose
which it must, and will, fulfil.
"God created everything and assigned to it, its qadar or measure, destiny,
role and purpose" (25:2, 87:3)
Such purpose is built into the object as its nature, towards which it
moves with exorable necessity. It may be obvious and well known or
hidden and almost unknowable. But it is certainly there, a "qadaran
maqdura" specific and precise (33:38). As object in nature, man is, in the
Islamic view, equally purposive for he is an integral part of the finalistic
system, the creation. Indeed, Islam declares him to be the purpose of all
the finalistic chains of nature. This constitutes his ecological
interdependence with all that is in nature.
Subservience
Islam further affirms that the purposiveness is not only an attribute of
every object in nature but it also a predicate of the totality of nature. The
subservience of nature to man means that the purpose that God
assigned to each object is ultimately to lead to man's good, that man can
use it to achieve felicity. It also means that God has made nature
malleable, capable of receiving the causal efficacy of man, of keeping its
causal threads open to further determination by him, and to make his
input successful in bringing about the desired objective of human
action. This is what the Qur'an has expressed by the idea of Taskhir.
Sun, stars and moon, heaven and earth, animals, plants and things,
clouds, air and all the elements are all subservient to man (13:2, 31:20).
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Furthermore taskhir of nature is not only for survival but also for the
pleasure (zinah) as well (37:6)
All the foregoing qualities of nature, therefore, are necessary for science.
On the one hand, the necessity of profanity and regularity are obvious.
Without them, there may be myth, but no science. On the other,
purposiveness and subservience are necessitated by morality. The
processes of nature were so interrelated as to provide for nature's
continuity and regularity.
With this, Islam strongly affirms that a continuing and regular nature
such as we find creation to be, is indeed possible as object of human
knowledge. Nature, since it functions according to the laws or patterns,
is observable and measurable. This was repeatedly affirms in the Qur'an
that the patterns of God are immutable (30:30,33:62). Human knowledge
of these external patterns may be immediate through revelation, or
painstakingly slow, tentative, and always incomplete, through rational
examination.
Islam also maintains that the will of God is legible in either of the two
books: First, the Qur'an revealed by God to His Prophet in clear Arabic,
and second, the book called 'nature' for anyone to 'read' through
observation, measurement, nazar or intellection and consideration, and
testing in experience.
Nature will not fail to yield its secrets - the eternal divine patterns - to
anyone seriously applying himself to the task and allowing nature to
speak for itself through experience. The law of nature are hypothesis
reached through observation and experimentation. This involves
isolation of factors or causes and effects operating in a phenomenon,
their observation and measurement, and the amendment or
confirmation of the hypotheses in experience.
1.2.4 The expansion of the Islamic empire and the Arabic conquest
The Muslim welcomed the great work of Greece, Persian and some
from India, with avidity, with love and with infinite respect, and,
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1.3.1 ASTRONOMY
1.3.2 MATHEMATICS
More important was the Muslims' invention of a symbol for zero (the
Indians used to leave the place blank!), and gave it name sifr (cipher,
zero). They then organized the number into decimals system where
digital location acquired a numerical value inside the intrinsic value of
its own. This development was crucial importance to the progress of all
sciences of nature. Before it, numbers were expressed in words with
recourse to the fingers to complete an operation. Muhammad ibn Musa
al Khawarizmi (died 850) was the mathematician who introduced the
system of symbols representing the nine numbers and the inventor of
sifr or zero to represent the absence of any. He was also the first to
express numerical value by digital position. The two systems, the one
expressing number by symbol rather than a word and the other
expressing value by digital position, wee continued in the work of
Ibrahim al Uqlidisi, and were popularized by Ghiyath al Din Jamshid al
Kashi. It then spread to Europe.
A further advance was made with Abu'l-Wafa, and he was probably the
first to demonstrate the sine theorem for the general spherical triangle.
Indeed, Carra de Vaux has demonstrated, following Moritz Cantor, that
it was Abu'l-Wafa and not Copernicus who invented the secant: he
called it the 'diameter of the shadow' and set out explicitly the ratio (in
modern form)
1.3.3 OPTICS
The first textbook of mechanics dates from 860 and is the Book of
Artifices of the Banu Musa, the mathematicians Muhammad, Ahmad
and Hasan, sons of Musa b. Shakir, who were all scientists and
enlightened patrons of learning. It contains about a hundred technical
constructions, some twenty of which are of practical value such as the
apparatus for hot and cold water, wells of a fixed depth, the lifting of
weights by machinery, a whole series of the scientific and automatic
toys so much beloved by the courts of princes in the Middle Ages.
1.3.5 GEOGRAPHY
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One of the most outstanding work was of al Sharif al Idrisi (died 1166)
who was invited by Roger II, the Norman king in Sicily, to produce an
up-to-date world map. Al Idrisi asked for a ball of silver 400 rotols in
weight (approximately 400 kilograms) and drew on it the seven
continents, their lakes and rivers, cities, routes, mountain and plains,
and trade routes, and noted in each the distance, height, or length as
measured. Al Idrisi wrote a book, Nuzhat al Mushtaq fi Ikhtiraq al Afaq, to
accompany the first globe ever built.
The same period witnessed a surge of great travellers who left a rich
legacy of geographical contributions. Among them were Ibn Jubayr
(died 1217), Yaqut al Hamawi (died 1229),'Abdul Latif al Baghdadi
(died 1283), al Qazwini (died 1283), Abu al Fida (died 1331) and Ibn
Bathutah (died 1377).
1.3.6 MEDICINE
were the great torchbearers of this art for centuries, even after the
cessation of the Islamic territorial dominancy. Some of the best and most
eloquent praises of science ever written came from the pens of Muslim
scientists who considered their work to be acts of worship. They hit the
source ball of knowledge over the fence to Europe. In the words of
Campbell "The European medical system is Arabian not only in origin
but also in its structure. The Arabs are the intellectual fore-bearers of
the Europeans. "
In 638 the city was taken by the Arabs. In view of its nearness to the
Arab city of Hira it is probable that Arabic was spoken there even before
the conquest. At all events doctors must have been speaking the
language very soon afterwards, since Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, the famous
historian of Arab medicine, recounts that on occasion of the visit of the
physician Jurjis b. Jibril of Gondeshapur to the caliph al Mansur, Jurjis
addressed the caliph in Arabic. In this city there were actual dynasties
of medical families, who handed down their scientific knowledge,
enriched by personal experience, from father to son. And it was the
physicians of Gondeshapur who became the teachers of the soon to
emerge Muslim medical geniuses.
One of the most eminent physicians, perhaps the greatest clinical doctor
of Islam, was without question Abu Bakr Muhammad al Razi (died
932), the Rhazes of the medieval Latins. He began his career as a
musician (a lutanist), then switch to study philosophy under Abu Zayd
al Balkhi and finally to medicine at the Baghdad hospital. There, he
wrote his book Al Mujarrabat. In 902, at the call of Mansur ibn Ishaq, he
moved to Al Rayy to head its hospital. There, he wrote most of his
medical books and dedicated them to his patroon, entitling one of them
Al Tibb al Mansuri in his honor. He also wrote a book on psychiatry,
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which he entitled Al Tibb al Ruhani. He was the first to insist that his
students to continue with postgraduate studies in medicine in order to
enrich the discipline. His crowning work was Al Hawi fi al Tibb, an
encyclopedia of all the medical knowledge of his age. It was translated
into Latin by Faraj ibn Salim and known as the Continens. It was printed
in 1486, the first medical book ever printed in Europe. He was the first
to make use of music to heal his patients. He arranged his students in
concentric circles around patients so all could participate and to enable
the newer students (outer circle) to learn from the older (inner circle).
The Muslim medicine reached its peak of achievement with Abu 'Ali
Husayn Ibn Sina (died 1037), who was famed both as a physician and
as philosopher. He left behind him a lively autobiography, from which
it emerged that he had been a precocious genius, who at the age of
sixteen had already mastered the medical science of his time. His great
philosophical work, al-Shifa', has had a resounding effect on Christian
thinkers of the Middle age. As for medicine, his great medical works, al-
Qanun fi'l-tibb (The Canon of Medicine), was the Arabic replica in the
Middle Ages of the great works of Hippocrates and Galen. It consisted
of five books which represented complete medical knowledge of his
time covering from the basic anatomy and description of diseases to
general treatment and pharmacotherapy. Wherever he travelled, Ibn
Sina conducted experiments and examined medical records and live
cases to confirm his older finding. He diagnosed cancer and urged an
early treatment through surgical removal. He discovered that stomach
ulcers may be formed by either of two causes: a physic cause such as
worry or depression, and a material or organic cause acting on the
stomach itself.
The Canon of Ibn Sina remained the ultimate reference in medicine for
centuries and did not cede its place of superiority until the nineteenth
century, being the standard textbook of medicine the world over for
over 700 years. It was also studied enthusiastically and lavishly
annotated over the centuries by Muslim physicians, who also made
summaries of it. One of the most celebrated, al-Mujaz, as that of the
thirteenth-century physician Ibn al-Nafis, a native of Damascus who
practised in Cairo. He was appointed as leading physician in Egypt and
died there in 1288. In 1924, Dr Tatawi, a young Egyptian doctor at the
University of Freiburg, who was working on the unpublished text of the
commentary of Ibn al-Nafis on the anatomy of Ibn Sina, demonstrated
in his medical thesis that Ibn al-Nafis took the opposite standpoint to
that of Galen and Ibn Sina, and that he had given an almost exact
description of the small or pulmonary circulation nearly three centuries
before its discovery by Michael Servetus (1556) and Rinaldo Colombo
(1559).
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items 6,480 smaller than the ratl (which is approximately one kilogram).
He defined chemical combination as union of the elements together in
small particles too small for the naked eye to see without loss of their
character, as John Dalton was to discover ten centuries before. In
response to Ja'far al Sadiq's wishes, he invented a kind of paper that
resisted fire, and an ink that could be read at night. He invented an
additive which, when applied to an iron surface, inhibited rust and
when applied to a textile, would make it water repellent. He was
concerned with the production of steel and even counselled that
chemical laboratories should be located far away from populated places.
It was 'Izz al Din al Jaldaki (died 1360) who first noted the potential
dangerous gases arising out of chemical reactions and proposed the
application of protective masks. He also able to proof that silver can be
separated from gold by dissolving it in nitric acid without affecting the
gold. He emphasized the important role of puryfing suspected water
with means of evaporation and condensation, and not mere filtration.
Among his numerous books were two volumes of over 1,000 pages
each, entitled Nihayah al Talab and Al Taqrib fi Asrar al Tarkib.
During this era, the mosques were put at the disposal of scholars. They
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were able to teach not only religious sciences but also related discipline,
and even the profane sciences of the ancients. Gradually the libraries
bequeathed by scholars came to be housed in buildings specially
intended for the purpose, and soon the scholars themselves were
lodged in dwellings reserved for their use.
In Mosul there exited a Dar al-'ilm with a library, where students were
not only able to work without payment, but were even supplied with
paper. At Shiraz a great Khizanat al-kutub was administered by a
director and his assistant. Yaqut recounts in his Mu'jam al-udaba that at
Rayy a Bayt al-kutb contained more than four hundred camel-loads of
books, catalogued in a Fihrist of ten volumes.
However, it was in Cairo, under the Fatimids that the richest libraries
of Islam were established. Al-Maqrizi describes in his Khitat that a
Khizanat al-kutub was directed by the minister of Caliph al-Mu'izz. It
consisted of forty store-rooms containing books on all branches of
science, 18,000 of which dealt with the 'sciences of the ancients'. But the
library which surpassed all others was the Dar al-hikma founded by the
Caliph al-Hakim in 1005, which contained a reading room and halls of
courses of study. Efficient service was secured by means of paid
librarians, and scholars were given pensions to enable them to pursue
their studies. All the sciences were represented there. Other similar
institutions were founded at Fustat. In the year 1043 a traveller saw a
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The first hospital was built by Walid ibn 'Abdul Malik, the Umawi
Caliph, in 706, according to al Maqrizi. One of the famous hospitals was
built by Ahmad ibn Tulun in Cairo in 872. It opened its doors to all
patients whatever the ailments inflicting them. The patients were
divested of clothing, jewellery, and any other personal possessions
carried on the body, and these were kept for him in the hospital safe
until departure from the hospital. Dar al Shifa' Hospital, built in Cairo
in 1284 by Sultan Qalawun, remained in operation up to the Napoleon
invasion of Egypt in 1798, when it was turned into a psychiatric hospital
exclusively. It is still in existence today.
Each hospital contained one section for men and another for women.
Initially, each section contained several wards: one for internal diseases,
a second for surgery, a third for ophthalmology and finally a fourth for
orthopaedics. Later, Muslims hospital were divided into those dealing
with either mental or physical diseases, the latter being divided between
contagious and non contagious diseases. In every hospital there was a
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The physician had complete freedom for his experiments there, and
was able to advocate new treatments. He wrote up the results of his
experiment in special reports, which could be consulted by members of
the public. Physicians gave courses of instruction to their pupils, and,
on the completion of teaching and practical work confirmed by an
examination, granted them ijaza which allowed them to practise
medicine. Several hospitals had libraries, and students used to travel in
pursuit of instruction from celebrated teachers. Spanish sources
mention that a physician of Cadiz established a botanical garden in the
park of the governor, where he cultivated the rare medical plants which
he had brought back from his travels. Even Baghdad counted 869
physicians who presented themselves to the licensing examinations set
up by the government of Caliph al Muqtadir in 931.
had left obscure. The faith that every disease has its antidote, as
affirmed by the Prophet Mohammad: "Do take medicines for your ills, God
created no ailment but established for it an antidote except old age. When the
antidote is applied, the patient will recover with God's permission", urged the
Muslims to scan the world of minerals, plants and animals in search of
an antidote, which led to the development of a sophisticated science of
pharmacology.
up dominating the region. They absorbed not just land, but also
scientific knowledge from India and Greek learning, planted centuries
earlier by the armies of Alexander the Great. Muslims translated into
Arabic the treasures of Hippocrates, Aristotle, Archimedes and other
great physicians, philosophers and scientists.
By 711, the Muslims had reached Spain, and they ended up dominating
the region until Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella drove out
the last of them in 1492.
The impact of Islam's discoveries during this period went far beyond
individual innovations like algebra or the establishment of models for
modern hospitals and universities. The spread of Islamic knowledge to
Europe sparked, or at least helped to spark, the Renaissance and
scientific revolution of the 17th century as explicitly written by Sir
Thomas Arnold and Alfred Guillaume in their 1997 classic, 'The Legacy
of Islam.' mentioning "It is highly probable that, but for the Arabs,
modern European civilization would never have arisen at all,".
History has bear witnessed the truth of these events and it is very
important for the Muslims and non-Muslims to know and appreciate
those chronological achievements, not just as an academic references to
the future events to come but to understand the positive implications
the Muslim's scientific re-emergence would be to the humanity.
2 The Stagnation
Period of
Muslim
Scientific
Achievements
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Whatever its timing, the decline in science has been attributed to many
factors, including the erosion of large-scale agriculture and irrigation
systems, the Mongol and other Central Asian invasions, political
instability, and the rise of religious intolerance.
began to threaten the Islamic nations. They began to invade the most
powerful Islamic country at that time, Egypt. The Caliphate had their
first bitter taste of their negligent of their faith.
In the 13th century, The Tartars under Genghis Khan and his successors
start to establish the most extensive continuous land empire known to
history. They invaded the Khwarazm-Shah's empire in 1216-1223 and
sacked the great cities of Khurasan, Harat and Nishapur. The effect of
the Mongolian invasion on Persian agriculture which was heavily
dependent on irrigation by means of underground water was
disastrous. They proceeded forward like a violent flood and descended
on the Islamic state like lightning. They uprooted it and massacred the
Muslims and reached Baghdad in 1258, the Abbasid capital and overran
it.
In this way, the Islamic government was broken up and for the first time
the string of Caliphate was snapped and the nation got distributed in to
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Then with a very great courage, it waged war against Crusaders, in the
latter's home and conquered the Byzantine capital, Constantinople in
1453. Its authority further extends to Vienna city in the Central Europe.
Under Mehmed the Conqueror, the Ottomans rebuilt the devastated
city of Constantinople into the fabulously wealthy capital they renamed
Istanbul, with large warehouses, the Covered Bazaar, Topkapi Palace,
and several mosque complexes.
Unfortunately, again the Islamic state under the flag of the Usmanis got
contented with its authority. Such was the intoxication of tranquillity
and contentment that it did not care as to what happening around it.
The European, which in the west was connected to Spain and in the east
was contiguous to the Islamic realm by the means of the crusades, did
not allow the opportunity to slip. In the land of Gaule, it began to rally
under the English flag and gathered strength. It was successful in
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checking the flood of Western Islamic wars. It spread the net of its
conspiracies in the files of the Spanish Muslims and was successful in
mutually rousing them against one another, which in the end under the
Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella , in 1492 the last of them was
threw across the sea on the shores of Africa. A strong Spanish
government was established there. In this way, Europe continued to
unite and strengthened itself.
agreements with the Emperor of the Peninsular that they would help in
getting Arabia free and for the consolidation of Arabian Caliphate.
Finally, in 1924, Mustapha Kemal Ataturk abolished the Muslim
caliphate and founded the Republic of Turkey.
Islam had clearly prohibited such a tendency from the start. It had
forewarned that partisanship, desire of power and political agitation eat
up a nation, as termite eats up wood and shatters the chandelier of
nations and governments: "And do not quarrel amongst yourselves in order
that you may not become timid and forfeit your prestige. And be patient. No
doubt Allah is with those who are patient" (8: 46).
Islam had never put an end to the sentiments of racial, tribal or national
patriotism. The Prophet eyes were filled with tears, when he heard the
praise of Mecca from Aseel, due to eagerness and love and he said to
Aseel 'Let the hearts gain peace'.
Islam has always seen patriotism in its elevated and noble sense. As
long the objective of the respective patriotisms is to produce the
generation who are proud of the faithfulness and courage of their
ancestors and want to determine the continuity of this honoured and
blessed traits in their predecessor, and as long they understand that this
patriotism will not lead to the usurpation of the right of others,
oppression on them, burning desire to gulp down all others, it is
doubtlessly commendable and well encouraged in Islam.
living. The Muslims were asked to use the most precious faculty given,
the ability to think to optimize the resources and to solve approaching
problems in their life. However these discussions should be well
guided and in case of indifferences, they should go back to the ultimate
source of consultation, the Qur'an and the Sunnah of the Prophet.
Despite that, this was not the case during that era. The differences crept
up and there were a leaning toward dead and lifeless words and
spiritless term. The books of Allah and the Traditions of the Holy
Prophet were neglected. One's own views and opinions were insisted
on unduly leading to argumentations and debates. As the Prophet
Mohammad had said: "No nation went astray after following guidance,
unless it got entangled in the calamity of misguided argumentation"
It has been argued that the transition of the leaderships either at the
local administrative level or even at the governmental level to the non-
Arabic speaking Muslims contribute to the weakening of the Islamic
empire and subsequent downfall of science. This includes the political
ruling by the Iranians or the Turks. Even though this is debatable, some
authors strongly concern on their inability to master the Arabic
language, which obviously a disadvantage in understanding the Holy
Qur'an.
At the peak of the glorious era, the Muslims especially their rulers had
too high an esteem of their power and achievements. They became
unduly proud of their authority, and became negligent of the
resentment, heart-burning and grudge of the defeated nations, while
the Qur'an had insisted on their ever remaining wide-awake, and
always avoid carelessness.
The European nations which during the crusades in the East and in
Spain in the west were closed to the Muslims, due to their contacts with
Muslim neighbours, Muslim nations and Islam itself, did not only take
the lesson of political unity and national sense from the contact, but also
acquired the benefit of mental awakening and tremendous wisdom.
They learnt many arts and gained a very vast knowledge, and made
enormous literary progress, which is a natural reaction for any nations
who felt inferior or threatened of conquest over them.
The Church fought out this new tendency with its full might, and began
to trouble the standard bearers of progress that is the literates and the
learned ones. The investigation departments belaboured them severely
and instigated the governments and organizations against them. But all
these efforts proved abortive. The oppression by the church could not
subdue the realities of knowledge and discoveries and the progress of
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The Muslim nations were later deceived by the flattering and fawning
advancement and achievement of the Western counterpart. They
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Strolling back the historical lane of this era, one must come back to the
important question. What really happened to the Islamic or the Arabic
science during this period of political turmoil and socio-economic
depreciation? Is the grand heritage of scientific knowledge had totally
diminished from the hand of the Muslim nation or it is still hidden
somewhere in the cloud of ignorance and demoralised nature of the
Muslim nation?
It is quite unfair to totally agree with the connotation that the scientific
civilization in the Muslim world were at the downfall. The following
facts might justify this ambitious statement.
Furthermore, it had been proven that in some cases the integrity and
credibility of Muslim scientist either their inventions or their books, still
hold the test of time. They were still being used as major references
even after the scientific revolution in the Western world. Unfortunately,
they were not given the appropriate recognition in the modern
historical education for obvious reasons, in particular to undermine the
Muslim great ancestral reputation if not to wash it out from the mind of
the future generation. In order to do full justice to the importance of
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Lastly, but not the least important, the future of the current scientific
invention and civilization is still uncertain. As mentioned earlier,
science is only a tool in explaining, answering and improving the
phenomenal of life, and it is up to the carpenter to manoeuvre its
destiny. Here is where the issue of virtue and morality are of essential
in producing the beneficial outcome of science. Materialistic scientific
civilization neglecting the essence of humanity not only will tarnish the
image of science itself but disastrously will lead to the downfall of the
civilization itself. Industrial revolution has produce the capitalist
ideology which in the begin seems attractive enough for the developing
nations with its investment capitalism However, as time past and its
materialistic attitude become more obvious, the practice of plundering
capitalism became the name of the game.
The Current 3
State of
Muslim
Scientist
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into being in Egypt. The history of Egypt for the first half of the 19th
century is virtually the history of Pasha Muhammad Ali who was also
known as the founder of modern Egypt.
In Oman, Sultan Sa'id ibn Sultan (1806-1856) was notable for his interest
in acquiring European technology. He made numerous attempts to
have sugar refineries installed in Zanzibar, an Omani possession, as
well as unsuccessful attempts at shipbuilding. Similarly in Algeria,
Amir 'Abd al-Qadir, the ruler between1832-1847, engaged various
experts to build small ordnance factories and appears to have
understood the importance of technology for progress.
The modern scientific ideas and techniques came in the wake of the
English conquest. After the banishment of the last Mughal emperor,
Bahadur Shah Zafar, in 1857, the English consolidated their rule and
introduced modern education. A combination of shame, pride,
defiance, and conservatism led Muslims to resist Western learning.
Consequently, Muslims wre at a substantial disadvantage relative to
Hindus, for example between 1876-1877 and 1885-1886, 51 Muslims and
1,338 Hindus took the B.A degree at Calcutta.
In the aftermath of World War II, for the first time, a perceived need for
indigenous science and technology spread in the Muslim world. Such
events as the creation of Pakistan and the 1948 Arab-Israeli war made
Muslims very acutely aware of their deficiencies in science and
technology. The attainment of independence fostered a technological
(but not a scientific) nationalism. States took responsibility for
managing technology as an instrument of national power and made
relatively ample resources available for technology (though, again, not
science).
More than sixty new universities and technical schools opened during
this period in the Arabic-speaking countries alone. Science and
engineering programs received the most resources and so attracted the
finest students; further, they have grown to the point that hundreds of
thousands of students now graduate annually in the Muslim world. In
addition, several hundred thousand Muslim students have since the
1950s studied science and engineering in the West, the former Soviet
Union, India, and elsewhere, and a majority have returned home.
Trouble is, these results have been more impressive quantitatively than
qualitatively.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates have poured vast
amounts of money into science and technology. But the research output
has not matched the state-of-the-art facilities. The prevailing mentality
continues to be that of buying science and technology rather than
producing it. Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia each operate its own
modest version of French-style centralized research policies but their
lack of linkages to the private sector or ability to diffuse results limits
their productivity. Iran and Iraq concentrate on petroleum and
weapons research to the detriment of other sectors. Other countries,
such as the Sudan, Yemen, or the newly independent Central Asian
republics, lack a critical mass of researchers or have experienced
extensive emigration, or both. Political repression has crippled science
in Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria.
Aaron Segal, in 1976 concluded that 'After nearly fifty years of would-be
institution-building, the Muslim world has failed to provide a satisfactory home
for science'. He attributed the low level of achievement was due to
cumulative effect of multiple factors, and not from a single dominant
cause.
Islam, according to him, even though not the key factor, contributes to
the Muslim world's lagging behind in science insofar as its tenets have
not satisfactorily been reconciled with those of science. Islam's most
deleterious effect may be to remove most Muslims from direct contact
with science. Except for a brief exposure in school, there is little science
in Islamic popular culture.
a. Education
b. Government
d. International collaboration
"The region is, for the most part, a scientific desert. In some states, oil
wealth has allowed the construction of fabulous cities, magnificent
mosques and sumptuous shopping malls. But little scientific
infrastructure has emerged. Collectively, the Arab nations spend only
0.15 per cent of their gross domestic product on research and
development, well below the world average of 1.4 per cent."
Muslims account for 20 percent of the world's population, but less than
one percent of its scientists. Scientists in Islamic countries now make
barely 0.1 percent of the world's original research discoveries each year.
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Much had been said of this prestigious award since its inception in 1901.
It is an international award given yearly since 1901 for achievements in
physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and for peace. In 1968, the Bank
of Sweden instituted the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of
Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize.
For the past 100 years there were only two Muslim scientists who had
the honoured to hold the 'flag' of the Muslim nation in this scientific
podium. This in one hand has again raised the questions on the
credibility of the Muslim nations in the scientific arena. On the other
hand it has raised the doubt in certain quarters of the reliability of the
selection process.
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Immanuel Nobel's sons did not attend school, but were instead
educated at home by outstanding teachers at the level of university
professor. The instruction they provided focused on both humanities
and natural sciences. Aside from Swedish, Alfred and his brothers were
taught Russian, French, English and Germany, as well as literature and
philosophy. In the natural sciences, they were guided by two professors
of chemistry who taught them mathematics, physics and chemistry.
Considering the specialty of his teachers, it was perhaps no coincidence
that Alfred took a liking to chemistry. He learned to conduct chemical
experiments, an activity that seemed to fascinate him from the very
beginning. Alfred spent his most important formative years in the
Russian capital. With his five languages, which he seemed to have
mastered well, he laid the foundation for the cosmopolitan nature that
would later become so prominent in his life.
friend of the Swedish chemist Berzellius, had also taught Nikolai Zinin,
one of Alfred Nobel's private teachers. During that year, Alfred
completed his training as a chemist. But somewhere around the same
time was the inception of what would become the greatest inventions of
his life. For it was then, if not earlier, that he must have heard about the
remarkable explosive called nitroglycerine. Strangely enough, this has
not been pointed out by many scholars, who have dated the crucial
moment 10 years later.
The end of the Crimean war (1856) spelled disaster for Immanuel
Nobel's factor, which had lived off the manufacture of war material. The
factory went bankrupt, and Alfred's parents and their youngest son
Emil moved back to Sweden. The three older sons stayed in St.
Petersburg to put the family affairs in order and restructure the
company. Faced with this situation, Alfred and his brothers discussed
various conceivable projects with their former teachers. That was when
Nikolai Zinin reminded them of the potential of nitroglycerine.
Professor Zinin is said to have demonstrated the power of
nitroglycerine by pouring a few drops of the fluid an anvil, and striking
it with a hammer, and producing a laoud bang. But only the liquid that
came into contact with the hammer exploded. The rest of the liquid was
not affected. The problem, as Sobrero had already realized, was two-
fold. First, it was difficult to manufacture the compound, because at
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With his first patent, Alfred had also reached his first milestone.
Although he was only 30 years old, this was the start of an exciting
adventure that would unfold with great speed. During the following
spring and summer, Alfred continued his experiments. He soon
obtained a new patent related to the manufacture of nitroglycerine
(using a simplified method) as well as the use of a detonator, or what
was called the 'initial igniter', in other words a hollow wooden plug
filled with black gunpowder (later called a 'blasting cap'). The
determination and self confidence that later would become more
pronounced features all Alfred's personality were already apparent. He
wrote "I am the first to have brought this subjects from the area of
science to that of industry' and he had successfully arranged a large
loan from a French bank.
Around the same time, another personality trait began to assert itself-
the inventor also became an entrepreneur. Alfred dealt with failures in
the same resolute manner as he did successes. In September 1864, a
major explosion at the Nobel factory in Stolkholm claimed the lives of
Alfred's brother Emil and four other people. Just month later, Alfred-
resolutely and without sentimentality- founded his first joint stack
company. Despite the accident or perhaps because of it, since no one
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could now doubt the explosive power of the new compound, orders
began rolling in. the Swedish State Railways ordered blasting oil for use
in building the Soder Tunnel in Stolkholm. A year later, in 1865, Alfred
improved his blasting cap (now made of metal rather than wood) which
in principle is still the same type used today. He then left for Germany.
Set up a company there and bought land outside Hamburg where he
built a factory. In the summer of 1866, Alfred travelled to America there
he struggled against political bureaucracy, popular fear of accidents
caused by explosives and, not least, dishonest business associates. In the
end, he received patents, form companies and built factories there.
In 1868, the year after the first patent for dynamite, Alfred Nobel and
his father were awarded the Letterstedt Prize by the Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences. This prize, which Alfred valued highly, was
awarded for "important discoveries of practical value to humanity." We
can hear an echo of this wording in Nobel's will, where he stated the
criteria for awarding his own prizes.
He had taken the decisive steps that led to honour and fame. Let us
pause a moment at the year 1873, when Alfred Nobel was 40 years old.
All these events had taken place during the preceding 10 years. At age
30, Alfred had received his first patent. Now, by age 40, he had already
made his greatest discoveries, he had built up a worldwide industrial
empire, he had become wealthy, and he had bought a large house in the
center of Paris. The foundation was in place. He later made new
discoveries - primarily blasting gelatin and ballistite - and his industrial
enterprises, as well as his fortune, grew. His distinguishing quality was
his versatility. He was an inventor, an industrialist and an
administrator. He had to safeguard his patent rights, develop products,
establish new companies, and conduct business in five languages with
the rest of the world - without the help of a secretary and before the
telephone and fax made people's lives easier. He frequently travelled by
train or boat, since this was before the advent of the airplane. His
factories exploded, he had to withstand negative publicity campaigns,
and he unmasked deceitful business partners. He had to deal with all of
this himself. In addition, he seldom felt well - he viewed himself as
sickly and frail, often complaining of migraines, rheumatism and an
unsettled stomach. His life was hectic and stressful. In letters he wrote
from Paris, he complained of being constantly hounded by people,
which he described in his own words as "pure torture." People are
crazy, he wrote - they rushed in and out of his office, everyone wanted
to see him, and his presence was required everywhere. But despite
everything, he managed to cope. In the role of the entrepreneur, he was
unbeatable.
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"A chemical analysis is of course nothing other than this, and even
mathematics has no other foundation. History is a picture of past
similarities and differences; geography shows the differences in the
earth's surface; geology, similarities and differences in the earth's
formation, from which we deduce the course of its transformations.
Astronomy is the study of similarities and differences between celestial
bodies; physics, a study of similarities and differences that arise from
the attraction and motive functions of matter. The only exception to this
rule is religious doctrine, but even this rests on the similar gullibility of
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For Alfred Nobel, the idea of giving away his fortune was no passing
fancy. He had thought about it for a long time and had even re-written
his will on various occasions in order to weigh different wordings
against each other. Efforts to promote peace were close to his heart,
largely inspired by his contacts Bertha von Suttner (herself a Nobel
Peace Prize winner in 1905). He derived intellectual pleasure from
literature, while science built the foundation for his own activities as a
technological researcher and inventor. On November 27, 1895, Nobel
signed his final will and testament at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in
Paris.
Alfred Nobel had many different homes during the final decades of his
life. In 1891, he had left Paris to live in San Remo, Italy, after
controversies with the French authorities. Four years later, he
purchased the Bofors ironworks and armaments factory in Sweden and
established his Swedish home at nearby Björkborn Manor. He equipped
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Nobel's will was hardly longer than one ordinary page. After listing
bequests to relatives and other people close to him, Nobel declared that
his entire remaining estate should be used to endow "prizes to those
who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest
benefit to mankind." His will attracted attention throughout the world.
It was unusual at that time to donate large sums of money for scientific
and charitable purposes. Many people also criticized the international
character of the prizes, saying they should be restricted to Swedes. This
would not have suited the cosmopolitan Alfred Nobel. Some of his
relatives contested the will. Complicated legal and administrative
matters also had to be sorted out. All this took time, but eventually it
was all settled.
In 1901, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded. The donor himself could
hardly have dreamed of the impact that his benevolence would have in
the future.
"The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following
way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a
fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes
to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest
benefit on mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts,
which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have
made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one
part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery
or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important
discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person
who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in
an ideal direction; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or
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the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of
standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. The
prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of
Sciences; that for physiology or medical works by the Karolinska Institute in
Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm, and that for
champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the
Norwegian Storting. It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no
consideration be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most
worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not."
3.2.2 Alfred Noble's life and philosophy from the Islamic perspective
First of all let us look at the milieu that brought up such a charismatic
person. This will help us to modify and rethink of our approach in
upbringing our future scientific generation.
Secondly, let us study the philosophy behind his success. He was a man
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Thirdly, his scientific invention was mainly within the scope of blasting
industry and the Letterstedt Prize won in 1868 was for the patented
dynamite. However, it was not clearly stated whether the success of the
industry were coming mainly from which part of the business
contribution- the destructive war or the building of infrastructure itself.
Nevertheless, we noted that during his life time, the family industry
went bankrupt following the end of the Crimean war which signified its
great contribution and dependent to the war.
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For the historical note, the Crimean war itself was another milestone in
the downfall of the Ottoman Caliphate. In July 1853 Russia occupied
territories in the Crimea that had previously been controlled by Turkey.
Britain and France was concerned about Russian expansion and
attempted to achieve a negotiation withdrawal. Turkey, unwilling to
grant concessions declared war on Russia.
After the Russians destroyed the Turkish fleet at Sinope in the Black Sea
in November 1853, Britain and France joined the war against Russia. On
the 20th September 1854 the Allies, under the joint commands of
General Lord Raglan, Marshal St. Arnaud and General Omar Pasha,
reached the Alma and met the Russians. The Allied army defeated the
Russian army at the battle of Alma River (September 1854) but the
battle of Balaklava (October 1854) was inconclusive. At the end,
Sevastopol fell to the Allied troops on 8th September 1855 and the new
Russian Emperor, Alexander II, agreed to sign a peace treaty at the
Congress of Paris in 1856.
It is not the scope of this discussion to determine which side Nobel was
in favour during the war, neglecting the fact that his factory was located
in St. Petersburg itself. What is more important is to understand his
philosophy of science itself. It seems a contradictory philosophy when
someone who willingly agreed to the usage of the scientific invention to
cause harm to the humanity, is the same person who awarded a prize
for peace. Perhaps, it might be the conscience of guilt that led him to
this decision.
To date, there were only two Muslim scientists who became the
recipient of this prestigious award. This section has been allocated to
them with the intention to motivate the reader and the future
generation. Their biography and banquet speech serve for the rest to
understand the struggle, philosophy and their wish in future scientific
undertaking.
Abdus Salam was born in Jhang, a small town in what is now Pakistan,
in 1926. His father was an official in the Department of Education in a
poor farming district. His family has a long tradition of piety and
learning.
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When he cycled home from Lahore, at the age of 14, after gaining the
highest marks ever recorded for the Matriculation Examination at the
University of the Punjab, the whole town turned out to welcome him.
He won a scholarship to Government College, University of the Punjab,
and took his MA in 1946. In the same year he was awarded a
scholarship to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he took a BA
(honours) with a double First in mathematics and physics in 1949. In
1950 he received the Smith's Prize from Cambridge University for the
most outstanding pre-doctoral contribution to physics. He also
obtained a PhD in theoretical physics at Cambridge; his thesis,
published in 1951, contained fundamental work in quantum
electrodynamics which had already gained him an international
reputation.
For more than forty years he has been a prolific researcher in theoretical
elementary particle physics. He has either pioneered or been associated
with all the important developments in this field, maintaining a
constant and fertile flow of brilliant ideas. For the past thirty years he
has used his academic reputation to add weight to his active and
influential participation in international scientific affairs. He has served
on a number of United Nations committees concerned with the
advancement of science and technology in developing countries.
He has a way of keeping his administrative staff at the ICTP fully alive
to the real aim of the Centre - the fostering through training and
research of the advancement of theoretical physics, with special regard
to the needs of developing countries. Inspired by their personal regard
for him and encouraged by the fact that he works harder than any of
them, the staff cheerfully submit to working conditions that would be
unthinkable here at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna
(IAEA). The money he received from the Atoms for Peace Medal and
Award he spent on setting up a fund for young Pakistani physicists to
visit the ICTP. He uses his share of the Nobel Prize entirely for the
benefit of physicists from developing countries and does not spend a
penny of it on himself or his family.
The biography was written by Miriam Lewis, now at IAEA, Vienna, who was at one time on the
staff of ICTP (International Centre For Theoretical Physics, Trieste).From Les Prix Nobel 1979.
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the only son in a family of three sisters and two loving parents. My
father was liked and respected by the city community - he was helpful,
cheerful and very much enjoyed his life. He worked for the government
and also had his own business. My mother, a good-natured, contented
person, devoted all her life to her children and, in particular, to me. She
was central to my "walks of life" with her kindness, total devotion and
native intelligence. Although our immediate family is small, the
Zewails are well known in Damanhur.
The family's dream was to see me receive a high degree abroad and to
return to become a university professor - on the door to my study room,
a sign was placed reading, "Dr. Ahmed," even though I was still far
from becoming a doctor. My father did live to see that day, but a dear
uncle did not. Uncle Rizk was special in my boyhood years and I
learned much from him - an appreciation for critical analyses, an
enjoyment of music, and of intermingling with the masses and
intellectuals alike; he was respected for his wisdom, financially well-to-
do, and self-educated. Culturally, my interests were focused - reading,
music, some sports and playing backgammon. The great singer Um
Kulthum (actually named Kawkab Elsharq - a superstar of the East) had
a major influence on my appreciation of music. On the first Thursday of
each month we listened to Um Kulthum's concert - "waslats" (three
songs) - for more than three hours. During all of my study years in
Egypt, the music of this unique figure gave me a special happiness, and
her voice was often in the background while I was studying
mathematics, chemistry... etc. After three decades I still have the same
feeling and passion for her music. In America, the only music I have
been able to appreciate on this level is classical, and some jazz. Reading
was and still is my real joy.
downhill.
Arriving in the States, I had the feeling of being thrown into an ocean.
The ocean was full of knowledge, culture, and opportunities, and the
choice was clear: I could either learn to swim or sink. The culture was
foreign, the language was difficult, but my hopes were high. I did not
speak or write English fluently, and I did not know much about
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The research for my Ph.D. and the requirements for a degree were
essentially completed by 1973, when another war erupted in the Middle
East. I had strong feelings about returning to Egypt to be a University
Professor, even though at the beginning of my years in America my
memories of the frustrating bureaucracy encountered at the time of my
departure were still vivid. With time, things change, and I recollected all
the wonderful years of my childhood and the opportunities Egypt had
provided to me. Returning was important to me, but I also knew that
Egypt would not be able to provide the scientific atmosphere I had
enjoyed in the U.S. A few more years in America would give me and my
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I wrote two papers with Charles, one theoretical and the other
experimental. They were published in Physical Review. These papers
were followed by other work, and I extended the concept of coherence
to multidimensional systems, publishing my first independently
authored paper while at Berkeley. In collaboration with other graduate
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My science family came from all over the world, and members were of
varied backgrounds, cultures, and abilities. The diversity in this "small
world" I worked in daily provided the most stimulating environment,
with many challenges and much optimism. Over the years, my research
group has had close to 150 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and
visiting associates. Many of them are now in leading academic,
industrial and governmental positions. Working with such minds in a
village of science has been the most rewarding experience - Caltech was
the right place for me.
The inscription reads: Inventas vitam juvat excoluisse per artes, loosely
translated: "And they who bettered life on earth by new found mastery"
(literally stated, "inventions enhance life which is beautified through
art").
From: Les Prix Nobel 1999.
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The rarity of Muslims in the list of Nobel Prize winner had alarmed
certain quarters on the realibility of the Nobel Prize selection process. In
science, some has postulated the possibility of selection bias, in
particular to the Jewish scientific community in view of their
outstanding representative of the award. The other felt that even Noble
Prize award could not fully dissociates itself from considerable political
influences. Well quoted was the questionable absent of Mahatma
Gandhi in the list of Noble Price for peace. To draw a conclusion from
assumptions is very easy, yet the credibility and the benefit can be
better appreciated when a scientific evaluation was added, even though
the end result is pain-staking for certain quarters to shallow.
From the figure above, even though the Jews overceded the Muslims in
all categories of awards, in general they have not constituted more than
30% of the total winner except in economy. At least the Noble Prize for
science doesn't look like pro-Judaism compared to economy, which
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Up to the year 2000 there were 19 Jewish winners of the Nobel Prize in
Chemistry, 37 winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics and this was further
enhanced by the addition of no less that 44 Jewish winners of the Nobel
Prize in the Biomedical Sciences. To understand further the success
story of the Jewish scientific community, let us go back to their historical
background.
Nine winners of the biomedical Nobel Prize were among the escapees
from Hitler's horrors and the Jewish community even presumed more
would be if not because of the genocidal pyres of the Nazi regime.
England and the United States were the main beneficiaries of Central
Europe's "brain drain," the exodus of distinguished scientists from both
Nazi Germany and eastern Europe. As many as twelve prize winners
were born of parents who had fled the pogroms in Eastern Europe.
Three other Nobel Prize winners had emigrated to the USA directly
from the "Pale of Jewish Settlement."
Emigration to England and the USA did not begin nor end with the
Nazis. Agencies like the Rockefeller Institute and many universities
were eager to capture the products of Europe's most scientifically
fecund educational institutions. Six biomedical Nobel Prize winners
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The Jewish scientists had started from a stable broad based chain of
intellectual platform. The fact that they have the same 'vision'after
struggling through the same'experiences' if not 'tribulations' and
dominated credible scientific 'positions' had make them strong and
competent in dominating the scientific world. This should not detered
the Muslims nation.
The very fact that the ancestor of our scientific progeny during the
golden era used to sit at their feet and learn, and then conquered the
arts should became a catalyst for us to advance. So as the fact that
actually we are not lack of scientists and intellectuals which will be
revealed later in the chapter, should be a good motivating factor. So it
seems that the nagging problem now is that the Muslims themselves do
not have the same 'vision'and could not accept the fact that they have to
undergo the same 'experience' and 'tribulations' to achieve the 'ultimate
rewards'. This should be pondered by everyone, the Muslim scientist in
particular. Otherwise at the end of the day their efforts will be a
scattered effort, their success will be an individual success and their
'positioning' is of little or no benefit to the development of the Muslim
nation.
Historians and chroniclers of the Noble Peace Prize now admit that it
was a "curious omission" when men like Martin Luther King Jr. (the
1964 laureate who acknowledged Gandhi as his mentor) and 1960 Nobel
Prize winner Albert Luthuli (who applied Gandhi´s principles in South
Africa) and the 1989 winner, the Dalai Lama, were duly honored, but
Gandhi, the first to employ nonviolence in a political context, was never
awarded the Peace Prize.
Scholarly critics of the Nobel Peace Prize agree that the exclusion of
Gandhi has been a serious setback to the integrity of the prize. Prof.
Irwin Abrams makes the point that there has been a conspicuous and
unjustifiable absence of war-resisters and non-violent activists among
the laureates and concludes that ´even less defendable is the parochial
neglect for so long of the non-western and non-Christian world´. In
other words the Nobel Committee is open to the charge of religious and
racial bias
Nobody had ever been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously.
But according to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation in force at that
time, the Nobel Prizes could, under certain circumstances, be awarded
posthumously. Thus it was possible to give Gandhi the prize. However,
Gandhi did not belong to an organization and he left no will; who
should receive the Prize money? The Director of the Norwegian Nobel
Institute, August Schou, asked another of the Committee´s advisers,
lawyer Ole Torleif Røed, to consider the practical consequences if the
Committee were to award the Prize posthumously. Røed suggested a
number of possible solutions for general application. Subsequently, he
asked the Swedish prize-awarding institutions for their opinion. The
answers were negative; posthumous awards, they thought, should not
take place unless the laureate died after the Committee´s decision had
been made.
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Dr. Farouk El-Baz is Research Professor and Director of the Center for
Remote Sensing at Boston University, Boston MA, U.S.A. He is Adjunct
Professor of Geology at the Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University,
Cairo, Egypt. He is also a Member of the Board of Trustees of the
Geological Society of America Foundation, Boulder CO
During the Apollo years, Dr. El-Baz joined NASA officials in briefing
members of the press on the results of the lunar missions. His appeal
rested in a unique ability to simplify complex issues in clear, succinct
and easily understood words. His remarks on the scientific
accomplishments were regularly quoted by the media during the
Apollo missions. As the Apollo program progressed through its
projected series of human orbits of the moon and the landings, Dr. El-
Baz became mentor to the participants, instructing lunar-bound
astronauts on every aspect of the geology and geography of the moon.
Training sessions on orbital science and photography went on during
odd moments the astronauts could spare almost until the moment of
blast-off.
After the Apollo Program ended in 1972, Dr. El-Baz joined the
Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC to establish and direct the
Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the National Air and Space
Museum. At the same time, he was elected as a member of the Lunar
Nomenclature Task Group of the International Astronomical Union. In
this capacity, he continues to participate in naming features of the Moon
as revealed by lunar photographic missions.
El-Baz is certainly looking to the future. But he has made sure too that
some aspects of the past will not be forgotten: he's officially named one
area of the moon Arabia, because it "looks like sand dunes and
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In May 1974. Dr. El-Baz had an audience with His Majesty King Faisal
in Riyadh, during which the late monarch gave his enthusiastic support
for continued studies of the Arabian Desert from space. El-Baz returned
to the Saudi Arabian capital in March 1976 to attend the Islamic
Conference on Science - and Technology. The five-day parley, held
under the auspices of Riyadh University and opened by His Majesty
King Khalid, brought together 160 distinguished scientists, educators
and engineers from all over the Muslim world. While there Dr. El-Baz
met with Amir Fah'd, the Crown Prince, who spoke of his desire to
establish a scientific research institution in Saudi Arabia. In Dr. El-Baz's
opinion, the Arabian Peninsula is not only an ideal desert laboratory,
but also offers optimum conditions for a whole spectrum of solar
energy studies.
From 1982 to 1986, Dr. El-Baz was Vice President of Science and
Technology at Itek Optical Systems, Lexington MA. He oversaw the
application of data from the Space Shuttle's Large Format Camera. The
photography of this advanced system assisted greatly in El-Baz's
program of desert study from space. He was elected Fellow of the Third
World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in 1985, and became a member of
its Council in 1997. He represents the Academy at the Non-
Governmental Unit of the Economic and Social.
In 1986 Dr. El-Baz joined Boston University as Director of the Center for
Remote Sensing to promote the use of space technology in the fields of
archaeology, geography and geology. Under his leadership, the Center
has grown to become a leading force in the applications of remote
sensing technology to environments around the world. In 1997, NASA
selected it as a "Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing."
Dr. El-Baz travels often to the Middle East and North Africa in search of
knowledge about the desert. He and his wife, Patricia, have four
daughters: Monira (Mika), Soraya, Karima, and Fairouz. They also have
four grandchildren: Yasmeen Grace, Alia Nisreen, William Jr. and Ian
Shuler.
Farouk is the fourth in line of nine talented El-Baz brothers and sisters.
His father was a "relatively poor" teacher of religion and Arabic,
undogmatic but fiercely ambitious for his children, who gave each of the
older ones unstinting aid in their homework. It was not long before the
older children, as is the custom in Arab families, were tutoring the
younger ones and taking enormous pride in their scholastic
achievements. Farouk remembers well how his father, a graduate of al-
Azhar University and a very devout man, would often say, "I wish that
God will help me get at least one of my boys through high school."
Farouk's mother married in her early teens. With her husband's help she
taught herself the rudiments of reading and writing after her older
children were half grown. But what the senior Mrs. El-Baz still lacks in
formal education she more than compensates for, according to son
Farouk, with "fantastic common sense and native intelligence."
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In 1972, after repeated entreaties from those of her children living in the
West, and by then a widow with no travel experience-even on a bus-the
mother flew from Cairo to visit her U.S. daughter and two sons. Special
reason for her second trip to the United States, in 1975, was to witness
the Apollo-Soyuz launch at the Kennedy Space Center. At the launch
site this visitor from far-off Nile country was accorded well-deserved
treatment as a V.I.P.
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Fazlur Rahman Khan was "the father of modern-day tall buildings." His
creative yet realistic designs helped make high-rise construction
possible in the 1960s and 1970s and are a legacy to today's engineers.
When one looks at a text on tall-building design today, one finds these
recognizable structure types: the framed tube, the shear wall frame
interaction, the trussed tube, the bundled tube, and the composite
system (also developed by Fazlur Khan). Though Khan developed
structural systems for particular project needs, he based his innovations
on fundamental structural principles that allowed them wide
application. His developments are among today's "conventional"
systems for skyscraper design.
His ideas for these sky-scraping towers offered more than economic
construction and iconic architectural images; they gave people the
opportunity to work and live "in the sky." Hancock Center residents
thrive on the wide expanse of sky and lake before them, the stunning
quiet in the heart of the city, and the intimacy with nature at such
heights: the rising sun, the moon and stars, the migrating flocks of
birds.
The cornerstone of Khan's approach; science and durability in fusion
with creativity, endures also in the less affluent parts of the world. Until
his death in 1981, Fazlur Rahman Khan was profoundly concerned with
the rapid urbanisation of developing countries and called for the
application of workable and appropriate forms of technology.
Fazlur Khan was always clear about the purpose of architecture. His
characteristic statement to an editor in 1971, having just been selected
Construction's Man of the Year by Engineering News-Record, is
commemorated in a plaque in Onterie Center (446 E. Ontario,
Chicago),the last buiding he designed: The technical man must not be
lost in his own technology. He must be able to appreciate life; and life
is art, drama, music, and most importantly, people.
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In 1973 he was honored with the top accolade for an engineer in the
United States, election to the National Academy of Engineering.
He was cited five times among "Men Who Served the Best Interests of
the Construction Industry" by Engineering News-Record (for 1965,
1968, 1970, 1971, and 1979); and in 1972 he was named "Construction's
Man of the Year." He was posthumously honored with the International
Award of Merit in Structural Engineering from the International
Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering and a Distinguished
Service Award from the AIA Chicago Chapter (both in 1982).
That same year he was honored with the Aga Khan Award for Architecture
"for the Structure of the Hajj Terminal, An Outstanding Contribution to
Architecture for Muslims," which was completed over the last years of
his life.
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That same year, he joined the staff of the Physical Dynamics Research
Laboratory, or FDO, in Amsterdam. FDO was a subcontractor for the
URENCO uranium enrichment plant at Almelo in the Netherlands,
which had been established in 1970 by the United Kingdom, West
Germany and the Netherlands to assure a supply of enriched uranium
for European nuclear reactors. The URENCO plant used highly
classified centrifuge technology to separate fissionable uranium-235
from U-238 by spinning a mixture of the two isotopes at up to 100,000
revolutions a minute. The technical complexity of this system is the
main obstacle to would-be nuclear powers developing their own
enrichment facilities.
In his literary pursuit four of Dr. Kalam's books - "Wings of Fire", "India
2020 - A Vision for the New Millennium", "My journey" and "Ignited
Minds - Unleashing the power within India" have become household
names in India and among the Indian nationals abroad. These books
have been translated in many Indian languages.
devoted his entire life to a mission - making India into a major military
power.
Dr. Kalam is one of the most distinguished scientists of India with the
unique honour of receiving honorary doctorates from 30 universities
and institutions. He has been awarded the coveted civilian awards -
Padma Bhushan (1981) and Padma Vibhushan (1990) and the highest
civilian award Bharat Ratna (1997). He is a recipient of several other
awards and Fellow of many professional institutions.
Dr. Kalam became the 11th President of India on 25th July 2002. His
focus is on transforming India into a developed nation by 2020.
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Kerim Kerimov identity has remained a secret for most of his career
until 1987- when he was first mentioned in Pravda during Mikhail
Gorbachev's era of glasnost and perestroika. Even Azerbaijanis did not
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know that the man holding the Number One position in aerospace was
an Azerbaijani. At televised space launchings, cameras always focused
on the cosmonauts and not the person to whom they reported their
readiness to carry out the mission. As Karimov was a "secreted
general", he was always hidden from the camera's view; only his voice
was broadcast.
The following are few excerpts from an exclusive interview with Betty
Blair, revealing this 'unknown' great contributor to the Soviet space
mission:
I haven't counted. But I was in that position 25 years and I launched all
of them during that period. I almost didn't have a personal life. I used
to work Saturdays and Sundays. I couldn't fall ill. I didn't have the right
to get sick. Despite all this, I'd have to admit I'm satisfied with my life
except for the fact that I lost my wife very early on. She was only 50
when she died and, afterwards, I never remarried. I had met her at
school; we had studied together.
First of all, I was a "secret" general. Previously, I had been in the sphere
of strategic rockets (hydrogen bombs). Later, after being transferred to
aeronautics (we had given that division the non-descript name of
"Ministry of General Machinery"), they continued the tradition of
keeping me secreted. My name was first mentioned publicly in the
newspaper, "Pravda", on August 7, 1987. After that, everybody started
interviewing me. That was during Gorbachev's "Glasnost" and
"Perestroika". Prior to that, I was known as the "nameless" or
"anonymous" Chairman of the Commission
It's called "The Way to Space: The Notes of the Chairman of the State
Commission." Frankly speaking, much of the information that was
made public was produced as propaganda. But after 1988, it became
possible to write about me as I had been in the position to have
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participated in all the space flights. It was then that I was asked to write
about what actually happened behind the scenes-many events had not
been made known. People were curious about space missions so I
offered to write about my activities and to document everything that I
had experienced.
The book is very technical. In fact, it's my first published work. I wanted
to write about each space flight with all its shortcomings as well as its
benefits. Not a single flight went smoothly. The descriptions in the book
are based on reports that I made to the State Commission. If anyone
wants to discover any information about the dates, time of flights, their
landings, it's all there. I tried not to hide anything. There had been
rumors that Gagarin was not the first cosmonaut to go into space, but
that wasn't true. I write about these kinds of things.
About life:
He was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labour and the Order of
Lenin. He died in March 2003 in Moscow after a brief illness at the age
of 85.
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Gulf ports
Founding the "teachers college" and teaching there from 1928
Construction of the first radio-set in Iran (1928)
Construction of the first weather-station in 1931
Installation and operation of the first radiology center in Iran in 1931
Calculation and setting of Iranian time (1932)
Founding the first private hospital in Iran (Goharshad Hospital) in
1933
Writing the University charter and founding Tehran University
(1934)
Founding the Engineering school in 1934 and acting as the dean of
that school until 1936 and teaching there from then on
Founding the faculty of science and acting as its dean from 1942 to
1948
Commissioned for the dispossession of British Petroleum Company
during government of Dr. Mossadegh and appointed as the first
general manager of the National Iranian Oil Company
Minister of Education in the cabinet of Dr. Mossadegh from 1951 to
1952
Opposing the contract with the consortium while in the senate
Opposing the membership of Iran in CENTO (Baghdad Pact)
Founding the Telecommunication Center of Assad-Abad in
Hamedan (1959)
Writing the standards charter for the standards Institute of Iran
(1954)
Founding the Geophysical Institute of Tehran University (1961)
Title of distinguished professor of Tehran University from 1971
Founding the atomic research center and atomic reactor at Tehran
University
Founding the atomic Energy center of Iran, member of the UN
scientific sub-committee of peaceful use of member of the
international space committee (1981)
Establishment of Iran's space research committee and member of the
international space committee (1981)
Establishment of the Iranian music society and founding the Persian
language Academy.
Dr. Zakaria, also known as Dr. Zak, was Britain's leading forensic
entomologist Britain's leading forensic entomologist (an expert in the
application of insect biology to criminal investigations) with three
decades' experience in solving all manner of grisly crimes.
Despite his evident relish for his subject, Erzinçlioglu was a soft-spoken
man of immense compassion and integrity who never forgot the human
tragedy behind the forensic evidence, believing that "the last aspects of
your life have to be dealt with as well".
Not all his forensic investigations were grisly. On one occasion he was
consulted by a firm of vintners accused of negligence by an aggrieved
customer in Scotland who had found a spider in one of their bottles of
wine. Erzinçlioglu identified the spider as Clubonia diversa, a species
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which does not occur indoors but is common in boggy areas of the
north. He concluded that it was difficult to see how the spider could
have entered the wine during bottling and since the complainant lived
in a marshy area of lowland Scotland, it was likely that it had entered
after the bottle had been opened, probably during an alfresco party.
arrive at the truth. Police officers and lawyers are interested but not,
with the best will in the world, disinterested, parties."
In the last years of his life, Erzinçlioglu spent much of his time working
from home writing books. Maggots, Murder and Men was the runner-
up in the Crime Writers' Association 2001 Silver Dagger Award for non-
fiction. He also wrote Every Contact Leaves a Trace (2001), as well as a
children's story, Ivo of the Black Mountain, and a thriller, Jackdraw
Crag, which have yet to be published.
Prof Dr Samira Ibrahim Islam of Saudi Arabia was she was the first
Saudi woman to complete a basic education; the first Saudi woman to
obtain a BA and PhD degree; also with respect to all specialties she was
the first Saudi woman to become a full professor. While in the field of
Pharmacology she was the first Saudi, man or woman, to become a full
professor. Her successful working career was not limited to pure science
research projects only; with considerable devotion to, and a sincere
interest in the field of girl's higher education which was in its infancy in
the early 70s - Professor Islam's contribution branched into many
separate areas.. She is also the first to introduce formal university
education for girls in the Kingdom and the first woman vice dean in a
Saudi university.
"Our country is an open market for imported drugs from East and West
and none of the producers have studied the ethnic influences on the
effects of these drugs. With regard to medication, we were vulnerable in
not having enough specific information about the normal biological and
physiological constitution of our population, with the consequence that
physicians would used the empirical values for calculating drug doses,
which may be extremely risky when prescribing certain drugs because
there are many hereditary factors which distinguish the different
populations of the world and consequently their needs for specific drug
doses, these differences are not critical for all drugs. In any event my
research is the first of its kind in the international literature which
defines the Saudi profile in drug metabolism and is an important
contribution to drug safety," she observes.
Professor Islam achieved recognition in her field and she became the
first Saudi full professor in Pharmacology in 1983. She focused her
research on the effect of drugs on the Saudi population through the
Drug Monitoring Unit at King Fahd Medical Research Canter of King
Abdulaziz University. She founded the Drug Monitoring Unit from the
research funds she was granted where the blood of patients undergoing
medication is analyzed, thus helping physicians to decide on accurate
doses. Professor Islam remarked that she publicized the need for every
organization and individual to support scientific research in this
country, especially concerning the drug safety which includes treatment
of illnesses and curing of diseases.
The award, first instituted in 1998, selects female scientists who have
made a major contribution to their area of expertise. Of the 100 women
scientists nominated globally, the UNESCO award committee in Paris
chose 32 in late 1999 as final nominees. Saudi Arabia was one of the six
Asian counties shortlisted along with China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea and
India.
Haroon Ahmed has lived in Cambridge for 42 years. His wife Anne,
also a graduate of the University of Cambridge, worked for many years
as a Research Assistant on the Addenbrooke's site.
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For his work on gas lasers, Professor Javan was awarded the 1964
Stewart Ballentine Medal of the Franklin Institute, the 1966 Fanny and
John Hertz Foundation Medal, the 1975 Fredrick Ives Medal of the
Optical Society, and the 1993 Albert Einstein World Medal of Science of
the World Cultural Council. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of
Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an Associate
Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences, and an Honorary
Member of the Trieste Foundation for the Advancement of Science. In
1966 he was named a Guggenheim Fellow, and in 1979 and 1995 a
Humbolt Foundation Fellow. He's been with the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) since 1962.
"In the scientific world, they always say that when the time comes for an
invention or a discovery to be made, if you don't do it, someone else
will. To a large extent, that's true. But it's not always the case. People can
miss a good idea."
"It's difficult to pinpoint the moment when a creative idea is born. Oh, I
suppose there's a beginning somewhere along the line. But who knows?
At some moment you know everything about your invention even
though you're not aware that you do. And then suddenly it all fits
together and the discovery is made"
As a child:
"I was studying under a great lady there (in UK).She had been a
housewife, and then later a mother and scientist. She taught me how to
balance the three roles, because she discovered that she was looking
after her children much better when she was working. When you work,
your time with your children is limited. So it becomes quality time. You
stop taking their day for granted and you want to know every detail.
You want them to fill you in on what you've missed.And in return, they
miss out on nothing either."
On research:
"Materials are like humans.Substances become ill too. And when they
are sick, their properties changed and they became deformed - their
character changes. And the substance as you knew it - with its particular
properties - transforms, changes, and dies. If you try to compress, or
heat, or put a material in unfriendly conditions, it transforms to another
material.Its fingerprint changes. If you were burnt, you would change
too."
"We must work together with men," El-Sayed says, dispelling any
suspicions that she is anti- male. "God created both to be integrated in
the world. We need to capitalise on the individual skills and talents and
God-given gifts to fully exploit this integration."
"The poet Ahmed Shawqi said 'A mother is like a school. If you know
how to let her do her job in that school, you will educate a nation', and
Prof El-Sayed added; "Its very much like the African proverb that when
you educate a man you educate an individual, but when you educate a
woman, you educate a family, a nation."
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At the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where she earned
her doctorate in 1976, Erzan became interested in critical phenomena in
phase transitions. "Phase transitions are very special," she explains.
"When water freezes, for example, this occurs at a very sharp
temperature point. On each side of that point, the compounds are
qualitatively different and their symmetry is different. In the liquid
form, the molecules are spaced randomly, whereas in the solid or
crystalline form they form a perfectly regular periodic structure. How
this change comes about as you lower the temperature is a very
beautiful question, and also a philosophical question. That fired my
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imagination."
After graduation she returned to Turkey and joined the Middle East
Technical University in Ankara, and a year later the Istanbul Technical
University. "At this time I was active in the women's and peace
movements," she says "Thus, after the military coup in 1980, I left the
country and worked at various universities and research institutions,
among which are the University of Geneva, University of Porto in
Portugal, University of Marburg in Germany (as an Alexander von
Humboldt fellow, with Siegfried Grossmann) and the University of
Groningen.
After a brief stint at the ICTP in Trieste she went back to her home
institution, the Istanbul Technical University, in 1990. Since then she
have been teaching and doing research at the ITU as well as at the Feza
Gursey Institute for Fundamental Research, sponsored by TUBITAK,
the Turkish equivalent of the NSF.
Over the course of her career, Erzan has studied phase transitions and
scaling behavior in a slew of complex systems: spin glasses, fractal
growth models, sand piles, charge density waves, surface catalysis,
earthquakes, and, recently, biologically motivated problems such as
protein folding and the evolution of sexual reproduction.
"I am just a theoretical physicist who works in her corner and worries
about such things as how complexity arises spontaneously, from
interactions between simple building blocks. Contrary to the
reductionist approach, this means investigating certain global features
that display a great deal of universality: cracks work similarly to
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Recently Erzan and her colleagues have submitted a paper about their
research into the origin of the unique folding configurations of proteins.
Their calculations and modeling suggest that proteins with big energy
gaps between their folded and unfolded states could have acted as
refrigerants, enhancing the replication rates of those RNA which coded
them. Their work is in line with the increasingly popular view that
thermal and chemical gradients must have played an important role in
prebiotic evolution, and casts doubt on a widely held theory that
proteins' form followed biological function. Instead, Erzan concludes,
"Those proteins with a deeply folded native state would, in effect, have
been selected in an evolutionary sense before specific biological
functions came into being."
Erzan, who was among five female scientists honored with the 2003
L'Oreal-UNESCO Awards, delights in the challenges and rewards of
science. "It is like a race against time," she says. "You know other people
are pursuing similar types of problems, and you try to do better, to get
there first. That race is very much part of the fun."
Modernist and moderate Muslims the world over have never had any
problems with the concept of humans walking on the moon, since
Mohammed himself denounced pagan moon worshippers. And the
scientist in charge of teaching Apollo astronauts about lunar geology
was a devout Muslim named Farouk El-Baz, now at Boston University.
El-Baz sent the first chapter of the Koran to the moon aboard Apollo-15,
with an inscribed prayer to protect the mission and its crew. This
illustrates the friendship and mutual respect between him and the
Apollo astronauts.
potentially fatal flaw during the return to Earth, and thereby saved the
lives of the entire crew.
The Saudi was Sultan Salman al-Saud, a minor royal prince; the Afghan
was Abdul Ahad Mohmand, now in exile in Stuttgart, Germany, after
death threats from the Taliban government. Another guest-cosmonaut
aboard a Soviet space mission in 1987 was Syrian pilot Muhammed
Ahmed Faris.
These men were raised in Islamic cultures but have joined the select
cadre of the symbol of the future, space travelers. They should be called
upon to speak out widely about how Muslim people can enter the future
successfully, and how valuable such an activity can be. These 'space
aces' have been hidden away, unrecognized and unused, for too long.
The Challenger disaster in 1986 denied the Muslim world an even better
role model, a female space traveler. She was Dr. Pratiwi Sudarmono, a
physician with a doctorate in microbiology, who had been designated to
accompany an Indonesian communications satellite into orbit. She also
had developed plans for performing a classic Indonesian dance in zero
gravity. Dr. Sudarmono was also selected by the Fulbright Foundation
to take part in a global health issues project.
There is no lack of other highly-educated Muslim women, perhaps from
Egypt, Bangladesh, Turkey or elsewhere, who could perform worthy
space experiments and even more high-value public relations back on
Earth.
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Prince Sultan ibn Salman ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz Al Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia, is
the first Arab, the first Muslim and the first member of royalty in space.
Prince Sultan was born in Riyadh,Saudi Arabia on June 27, 1956. He
completed his elementary and secondary education in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia. He later went on to study communications and aviation in the
United States.
For Arab and Muslim scientists, with their proud memories of the
Golden Age and the House of Wisdom, the opportunity of working at
the leading edge of science is an exciting challenge.
"The Arab world," says Prince Sultan "is at a turning point. We have
gone through the phases of oil, money and early technological
development. The new generation is looking forward to joining the rest
of the world by obtaining the most important things in that turnaround:
opportunity and education. Together they are the keys that open the
door for our future. My space flight is just a crack in that door."
Whatever distance we travel away from earth, man always feels that
this is his home, not space or anywhere else."
Abdul Ahad Mohmand (b. January 1, 1959) was the first Afghan
cosmonaut and spent nine days in space aboard the Mir space station in
1988. He currently lives in Stuttgart, Germany.
Aubakirov graduated from Air Force Institute and was parachutist and
test pilot with the rank of Major General in the Kazakh Air Force before
he was selected as cosmonaut.
(he was commended for his courage and high level of his professional
skills). Later he graduated from the Aktyubinsk-based Civil Aviation
Advanced Flying School with an engineer-pilot's certificate in 1993.
Beween the 1st July - 4th November 1994 he achieved his first space
flight on the Soyuz-TM-19 spacecraft and MIR orbital space station as a
flight engineer of the EO-16 crew together with Y. Malenchenko and V.
Polyakov. He performed two spacewalks for the total duration of 11 hrs
7 min. The flight duration was 126 days.
From 28th April to 6th May 2001 he participated again in a space flight
as a commander on the Soyuz-TM32 spacecraft together with Y.
Baturin, a flight engineer, and the world's first space tourist Dennis
Tito.
The following are few excerpts of his personal view and experiences:
I am a normal person. All normal people feel and should feel fear. I
don't believe those, who say that they don't fear anything. It'sa bravado
or they are just insane... The other thing is to overcome fear, to
reasonably evaluate circumstances and potential danger and take an
immediate decision.
As our attitude regarding reliability of space technology, do we,
cosmonauts, resemble insane people? Only an insane person can fly to
work in space not being assured of equipment reliability...
About UFO:
I call upon everybody... to adhere more to the truth that our fathers and
grandfathers communicated to us. We live today in a totally different
time, in a totally different country, in a totally different w orld
community... Our next generation and, naturally, we all... have one
opinion: we must do everything to get united for the mankind as a
whole to pioneer cosmic space.
There was a special container on the ship where the Flag of Kazakhstan,
a book by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, his portrait, the
Constitution of Kazakhstan, a capsule with the soil from Astana and the
Koran were kept. All these things were in space with us and returned
to the Earth.
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Manarov made his first spaceflight in 1987, aboard Soyuz TM-4. The
spacecraft docked with the Mir space station where Manarov remained
for one year. He was the first person to spend a year in space.
In 1990, Manarov stayed on Mir for a second time. During his 176-day
stay, Manarov observed the Earth and worked in space manufacturing.
Saliszan graduated from the Air Force Pilot School in 1987. After
graduation, he worked as a pilot-instructor and taught 8 cadets. He has
logged over 950 hours flying time. He has experience flying on MIG-21,
L-39 aircraft.
Sharipov has flown one mission and has logged over 211 hours in
space. He served as a mission specialist on the crew of STS-89 (January
22-31, 1998), the eighth Shuttle-Mir docking mission during which the
crew transferred more than 8,000 pounds of scientific equipment,
logistical hardware and water from Space Shuttle Endeavour to Mir. In
the fifth and last exchange of a U.S. astronaut, STS-89 delivered Andy
Thomas to Mir and returned with David Wolf. Mission duration was 8
days, 19 hours and 47 seconds, traveling 3.6 million miles in 138 orbits
of the Earth.
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Muhammed Faris was born May 26 1951 in Aleppo, Syria. He was the
first Syrian cosmonaut. He was a pilot in the Syrian Airforce with the
rank of a colonel. He specialized in navigation when he was selected as
a cosmonaut on September 30 1985.
After his spaceflight he returned to the Syrian Air Force and lives now
again in Aleppo. He is married and has three children.
"I know how difficult is a space flight and admire the first woman who
successfully made it," stressed the Syrian cosmonaut.
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The beauty of Islam is that it never dissociates the world with the
hereafter, the material well-being with the inner spiritual need and the
knowledge of science and religion. They are all inter-related and act
harmoniously in the eyes of the believers.
Erbakan was one of the founders of the Welfare Party, which started to
grow tremendously in the recent few years. In 1980 Erbakan was the
leader of pro-Islamic protests which resulted in a military coup.
Erbakan's party was banned and he was excluded from politics for 7
years. It is believed that the Welfare Party's politics had less support
than the actual election results, which was 21% in the elections of
December 24, 1995. But people cast their ballots for it, as it has a high
reputation for honesty in municipal governments. Many have also
supported the Welfare Party because it has a polity that help the least
fortunate in the Turkish society. Erbakan raised the wages for civil
servants with 50% shortly after taking office.
The Welfare Party followed, and as its leader, Erbakan was elected
Turkey's first Islamist prime minister in 1995. Three years later,
however, the Constitutional Court banned the Welfare Party as well, on
the grounds that it was engaged in fundamentalist activity and was
violating the secular principles of the Turkish constitution. The verdict
barred Erbakan from politics for five years, but, as has happened to the
Virtue Party today, most of party's deputies kept their seats in
Parliament and simply formed a new party under a new name with a
new party program. This new incarnation, the Virtue Party,
immediately did very well, capturing nearly a fifth of the seats in
Parliament in the 1999 elections.
The D-8, first mooted on January 1,1997 in Istanbul, has far greater
potential. It has a market of 800 million people compared with the 300
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million in ECO, although the three major players - Turkey, Iran and
Pakistan - are common to both. The D-8 brings together Bangladesh,
Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey to
develop trade, industry and financial projects. Its strength is that it
brings in some of the leading economic movers of Southeast Asia. Its
weakness lies in geography. Bangladesh and the Southeast Asian tigers
are separated from the D-8 core countries by a hostile India while Egypt
and Nigeria lie on a different continent with no direct links to the rest.
Erbakan had been very optimistic with D-8 as elicited in his opening
address of the First Summit meeting 'The D-8 will take on an important
role in solving the problems of humanity in our globalizing world'. He
described D-8 as 'a turning point in human history' and 'an organization
of the new world. God willing, this group will play a big role in bringing
peace and security.' Erbakan visited all D-8 countries except Bangladesh
soon after coming to power last June. He fostered economic links with
projects such as a $23 billion gas deal with Iran. His opponents have
continued to run down the whole scheme.
Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie was the former and the third president of
Indonesia (1998-1999). He was born on June 25, 1936 in Pare-Pare,
Sulawesi,Indonesia.
In 1974, Suharto (who came to know the young man and his family
during a military posting to the South Sulawesi) asked Habibie to
return to Indonesia, and placed him in charge of the strategic state-
owned oil company. He worked under President Suharto for 20 years,
first as minister of state for research and technology in 1978 and later as
vice president.
His other projects included the costly purchase of the entire navy of the
former East Germany in the 1990s, and plans for a string of nuclear
reactors throughout Java.Critics point to the high cost of these industries
which rely heavily on huge tariff protection and guaranteed sales to the
armed forces and national airlines.
Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad (born December 20, 1925 in Alor Star,
Kedah) was the Prime Minister of Malaysia from July 16, 1981 to 2003.
He had his early and secondary education in his home town. In 1947 he
gained admission into the King Edward VII College of Medicine in
Singapore Upon graduation he joined the Malaysian Government
Service as a Medical Officer. He left government Service in 1957 to set
up his own practice in Alor Setar.
over ten percent and living standards rose twenty-fold, with poverty
almost eradicated and social indicators such as literacy levels and infant
mortality rates on a par with developed countries.
During the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Mahathir was strongly criticized
by the international financial community for contravening IMF policies
by keeping interest rates down and slowing the flow of foreign capital.
Mahathir blamed currency speculators for the crisis, foremost among
them George Soros. Critics said his accusations were "tinged with anti-
semitism." Banks were forced to merge and to write off bad debts,
consolidating the financial system. The Ringgit, which stood at RM2.50
to the US Dollar prior to the crisis but plunged to RM4.97 during the
worst part of the recession, was pegged at RM3.80. Initially this was
seen as a move to keep the currency from falling further, but is now seen
as keeping the currency artificially low in order to boost exports. As a
result of these policies, Malaysia's economy recovered much faster than
comparative countries which did follow IMF prescriptions, the
repercussions of which are still felt in those countries, and more prudent
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fiscal and monetary policies have ensured that the Malaysian economy,
while not growing yet as spectacularly as before, is well balanced and
not built on rotting foundations. As the Malaysian economy recovered,
the IMF and George Soros released statements saying that Mahathir's
policies had indeed been the right ones. However, long term structural
considerations, such as the uncompetitiveness of Malaysian firms, the
failure of Malaysian industry to move up the value chain in the face of
increasing costs and competition from other countries in the region
(most notably China) and a total lack of R&D, still cloud the horizon
and yet to be addressed accordingly.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr was born on April 7, 1933 (19 Farvadin 1312 A.H.
solar) in Tehran into a family of distinguished scholars and physicians.
His father, Seyyed Valiallah, a man of great learning and piety, was a
physician to the Iranian royal family, as was his father before him. The
name "Nasr" which means "victory" was conferred on Professor Nasr's
grandfather by the King of Persia. Nasr also comes from a family of
Sufis. One of his ancestors was Mulla Seyyed Muhammad Taqi
Poshtmashhad, who was a famous saint of Kashan, and his mausoleum
which is located next to the tomb of the Safavid king Shah Abbas, is still
visited by pilgrims to this day.
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As a young boy, Nasr attended one of the schools near his home. His
early formal education included the usual Persian curriculum at school
with an extra concentration in Islamic and Persian subjects at home, as
well as tutorial in French. However for Nasr, it was the long hours of
discussion with his father, mostly on philosophical and theological
issues, complemented by both reading and reaction to the discourses
carried on by those who came to his father's house, that constituted an
essential aspect of his early education and which in many ways set the
pattern and tone of his intellectual development. This was the situation
for the first twelve years of Nasr's life.
It was also at Harvard that Nasr resumed his study of classical Arabic
which he had left since coming to America. He struggled with
philosophical Arabic while getting some assistance from Wolfson and
Gibb. However, the mastery of philosophical Arabic was only attained
after he studied Islamic philosophy from the traditional masters of Iran
after his return to his homeland in 1958.
Apart from the philosophy program, Nasr was also involved in the
university's doctoral program in Persian language and literature for
those whose mother tongue was not Persian. He strengthened the
philosophical component of this program and had many outstanding
students from outside of Iran to receive training, not only in Persian
language, but also the rich treasury of philosophical and Sufi literature
written in Persian. Many of the students trained in this program have
since become important scholars in this field such as the American
scholar, William Chittick and the Japanese woman scholar, Sachiko
Murata.
Furthermore, from 1968 to 1972, Nasr was made Dean of the Faculty and
for a while, Academic Vice-Chancellor of Tehran University. Through
these positions, he introduced many important changes which all aimed
at strengthening the university programs in the humanities generally
and in philosophy, specifically. In 1972, he was appointed President of
Aryamehr University by the Shah of Iran. Aryamehr University was
then the leading scientific and technical university in Iran and the Shah,
as the patron, wanted Professor Nasr to develop the university on the
model of M.I.T. but with firm roots in Iranian culture. Consequently, a
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had the best educational training both from the modern West and the
traditional East, a rare combination which put him in a very special
position to speak and write with authority on the numerous issues
involved in the encounter between East and West, and tradition and
modernity, as demonstrated very clearly by his writings and lectures.
During the years Professor Nasr was in Iran, he wrote extensively in
Persian and English and occasionally in French and Arabic. His doctoral
dissertation was rewritten by him in Persian and it won the royal book
award. Nasr also brought out the critical editions of several important
philosophical texts such as the complete Persian works of Suhrawardi
and of Mulla Sadra and the Arabic texts of lbn Sina and al-Biruni. Nasr's
great interest in the philosophy of one of the greatest later Islamic
philosophers, Mulla Sadra resulted in the publication of the Mulla Sadra
written by the traditional masters of Islamic philosophy. Nasr was also
the first person to introduce the figure of Mulla Sadra to the English
speaking world.
In 1979 at the time of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Nasr moved with
his family to the United States where he would rebuild his life again and
secure a university position to support himself and his family. By 1980,
Nasr began to write again. He started to work intensively on the
research and text of the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of
Edinburgh to which he received an invitation shortly before the Iranian
Revolution took place. Nasr had the honor of being the first non-
Westerner to be invited to deliver the most famous lecture series in the
fields of natural theology and philosophy of religion in the West. Thus,
Knowledge and the Sacred, one of Nasr's most important philosophical
works, one which had a great impact on scholars and students of
religious studies, came to be prepared amidst the strain of trying times
and the strenuous commute between Boston and Philadelphia.
However, Nasr discloses that the actual writing of the text of
Knowledge and the Sacred came as a gift from heaven. He was able to
write the texts of the lectures with great facility and speed and within a
period of less than three months, they were completed. Nasr says that it
was as though, he was writing from a text he had previously
memorized.
Within the recent years, Nasr together with the British scholar of
Islamic and Jewish philosophy, Oliver Leaman, edited a two volume
work, History of Islamic Philosophy which consists of articles written
by important scholars in this field, discussing the different aspects and
schools of Islamic philosophy and its development in the different parts
of the Islamic world. Nasr's continued interest in science is made
evident by his latest book on this subject, The Need for a Sacred Science.
Also, together with one of his former students, Mehdi Amin Razavi,
Nasr is brought out a major four volume work, An Anthology of
Philosophy in Persia. Razavi also edited earlier, The Islamic Intellectual
Tradition in Persia, which is a collection of Nasr's articles on Islamic
philosophy in Persia written during the last forty years.
The range of subjects and areas of study which Professor Nasr has
involved and engaged himself with in his academic career and
intellectual life are immense. As demonstrated by his numerous
writings, lectures and speeches, Professor Nasr speaks and writes with
great authority on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from philosophy
to religion to spirituality, to music and art and architecture, to science
and literature, to civilizational dialogues and the natural environment.
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Reality has shown us that what is true of weakness, energy, health and
disease, is also true with nations and civilization. We see a man who is
healthy, hale and hearty but all of a sudden he is attacked by diseases,
and illnesses overtake him from all sides to the extent that his strong
and sturdy building of his body is shaken up. He is constantly changing
sides restlessly and cries in anguish. At last Allah blesses him, and he
gets the services of an expert healer, who diagnoses the real malady,
precisely gets to the root-cause of the disease, and treats him sincerely
and painstakingly. After some days, you find that the energy and health
of the patients returns. Sometimes, it so happens that his health gets
better than before.
Similar is the case of the Muslim nation and its scientific civilization.
They face trials and tribulations. The edifice of the nation got
dilapidated, and all manifestations of power and glory come to an end.
Constant assaults of trouble and mishaps enervate them, and they get
absolutely weak, powerless and emaciated. Then they are neither in a
position to check the oppression of the tyrants, nor stop the mouth of the
avaricious. At that time, their power, well-being, existence and progress
depends on three things- diagnosis of the disease, treatment of the
sickness and an expert doctor, who should be their patron. The
treatment should continue till they get well, alright and full of health
and energy.
Abdus Salam, the only Muslim to have won the Noble Prize in physics,
once was asked the similar question 'what happened to Islamic Science?'
and he gave no suprising answer `Nothing. Instead what we cultivated
in Isfahan and Cordoba is now being cultivated in MIT, Caltech and at
Imperial College, London. It's just a geographical translation of place'.
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Nasr, further validated this statement by saying 'The Muslims has been
studying the history of science from the Western perspective, and the
Westerner have their right to decide the era which is important and
which is not for them. If we are going to utilise their reference, then we
are overlooking 700 years, not 70 years, 700 years of Islamic intellectual
history during which the Muslims were supposed to have done
nothing. They were supposed to have been decadent for 700 years. Now
how can you revive a patient that has been dead for that long a time?
The idea [which] is propagated in the West [is] that Muslims are very
brilliant, that they did science and things like that, [and then] suddenly
decided to turn the switch off and went to selling beads and playing
with their rosaries in the bazaar for the next 700 years till Mossadegh
nationalized the oil and they came back on the scene of human history
are now living happily again. This, of course, is total nonsense and it
brings about a sclerosis, intellectually, which is far from being
trivial.Over [the] twenty years I have taught at Tehran University, I
always felt, [our students] could never overcome this very long
historical loss of memory. Somehow it was very difficult for them. They
wanted to connect themselves to Al-Biruni and Khawarizmi and people
like that, but this hiatus was simply too long. This hiatus has not been
created by history itself. It has been created by the study of history from
the particular perspective of Western scholarship, which is as I said,
perfectly [within] its right in its claim that Islam is interesting only till
the moment that it influences the West. The great mistake is when that
objective divides the history of Islam [into a period of productivity and
one of degeneration]. In the field of history of science, that is a very
important element.'
In the earlier chapter we have proven the facts that the Muslim
scientific community had continuously contributed to the development
and advancement of science within their geographical or institutional
platforms. Despite their achievements, surprisingly, some of them who
even honoured by the Western world were not significantly
acknowledged to the Muslim worlds in the true sense. They were the
'hidden scientific torch-bearers' for the Muslim, the 'unknown heroes'.
They supposed to be the motivators and the catalysts for the success of
the Muslim generation. Yet, their forceful voice couldn't be heard but
only to be seen in their written biography, some even after they have
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Overlooking the abundant Muslim scientists over the world today, the
first question that should be asked is, how many of them really care of
their collective status and how many of them really interested to know
their role in the scientific re-emergence. This will somehow bring into
challenge the aim of their intellectual existence, the role of their
academic positioning and the future direction of their ambitious career.
It might be bittersome for some who never thought of the important of
this religion throughout their successful academic journey.It might be
hard for some to readjust the preset future glooming status and it might
be difficult for some to sacrifice their profit-adjusted time just to
rekindle the light of scientific interest in future generation. It will take
time and time is always the good healer. Yet this issue had to be clarified
individually and in the best possible approach.
This is vital before we go to the next question, how many of them are
willing to work hand-in-hand to achieve the same objective and who
will play the leading roles manoeuvring the whole process of re-
emergence. There is a big difference between thinking and saying,
saying and acting, acting and struggling, and true struggle and wrong
struggle. This brought all of us back to the important elements in any
process of change: the right attitude, the correct and blessed objective
and the courage to sacrifice for the benefit of the Muslim ummah.
It is without doubt that the Qur'an was the prime motivating factor in
the success of the Muslims ….for centuries. This has been well
supported not only by the sequence of events and achievements
following the earlier generations of Muslims, but also well agreed by
even the non Muslims researchers in the field of Islamic sciences and
history. So, it is obvious that when the Muslims started to interpret the
Qur'anic teaching in their own perspective, if not losing interest in it,
they are embracing unavoidable defeat, spiritual and materially.
The religious scholar (ulama') should come hand in hand with the
Muslim scientist in the real sense. They should be no gap between them
since there is nothing in the teachings of Islam that contends against
learning, against science, and against technology. The pursuit of
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The secret of the Islamic unity, as was proven historically was the
establishment of the Caliphate. Not only that it is a special symbol of
Islam with its distinction, many of the orders of the Islam are directly
connected with the Caliph and cannot be completed in his absence. This
was the reason that before the burial of the Holy Prophet, the honoured
Companions were anxious about the matter and till they settled this
important work satisfactorily, they did not consent to his burial. It was
also under the directive of the Caliph that the centre of Islamic scientific
civilization was moved to Baghdad.
Revival of the Caliphate is essential, although it will take great pains for
Muslim and many difficult problems will have to be settled before the
last steps for the resuscitation of the Caliphate is taken. It is really
encouraging to witness steps taken towards economic, social and
cultural cooperation and liaison among all the Muslim nations and
groups.
Six month after that historical meeting, the First Islamic Conference of
Ministers of Foreign Affairs held in Jeddah set up a permanent general
secretariat, to ensure a liaison among member states and charged it to
coordinate their action. The conference appointed its secretary general
and chose Jeddah as the headquarters of the organization, pending the
liberation of Jerusalem, which would be the permanent headquarters.
All or most of the Muslim countries are blindly following the western
science and technology without any modification or change. This will
again result in injury to the Islamic personality and culture at all levels
and also it will destroy the physical environment. Muslim scientists
and technologists who are in pursuit of building a new Islamic
civilization must understand and solve the Ummah's problems. They
must understand them correctly and analyze them critically. They
must assess with precision how their solutions will affect the life of the
Ummah.
modes of their Muslim scientific ancestor such as Ibn Sina, Ibn Khaldun
and many other as mentioned earlier, whom they regard as an example
worthy to be followed. In their heart should lay the foundation of
greatness, honour, elevation, dignity, courage and chivalry like them.
They should hug to their hearts the ancestral grandeur, regard it as a
heritage of honour, and feel in themselves an urge of valour and
boldness.It is obvious that if we do not revive the deeds of the
predecessors, do not talk of their greatness and honour, how valour
could be generated in the present and future generation.
History books have been ripped from the rich culture of Islam.
Professors have been reluctant to attribute any discovery or invention to
Muslims. As stated even by Prince Charles-
Some Muslim countries, and Malaysia was one of them, has even gone
a step forwards by sending their students to various part of the world
studying in different languages beside English. To quote Malaysia
itself, in the early 80's has started sending students to Belgium,
Germany, France, Japan, Korea and of late to Russia. The effort was to
be applauded but yet the follow up of such a 'daring' initiative was
miserable. The brilliant students, after their 'torturous' years learning in
foreign languages and successfully came out 'the burning oven' in one
piece, found themselves back home struggling as the rest to find a good
job and life. The language of technology that they learnt fade as time
goes. It is much beneficial if they were gathered in scientific or
academic institutions so that their different experiences and
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whole thing has been taken over and has now been made our own.'
Noble prize has little meaning for a farmer who is struggling to get
enough money to send his beloved children to school. For them a
financial award and a 'science scholarship' will not only lessened their
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financial constraint but will open their eyes, broaden their mind and
enhance their encouragement to motivate the learning of science in the
family circle.
Islam recognizes the family as the constitutive unit of social order, and
buttresses its extended form with legislation regarding inheritance and
dependence in order to enable the largest possible family membership
to eat from the same kitchen and hence mutually and economically to
support the social, emotional, and mental health and prosperity of its
members. Beyond the family, Islam recognizes multiple levels of
community in humanity, and finally the universal social order of the
largest community, mankind. Man's membership in this order generates
interest in the social sciences, or should do so. Human groupings
without a moral basis between the family and humankind, such as
country, region, the "people," or "nation-state," Islam regards purely as
administrative units absolutely irrelevant to the definition of good and
evil and to the interpretation and application of the shari'ah. The arts,
the humanities, and the social sciences of the modern West must
therefore be totally recast.
Muslim house should have its own library, irrespective of its size, and
each housing area should have its community library. The education
system must be orientated towards encouraging reading habits instead
of dumping children with endless 'copying'homeworks rather than
initiating self research and reading.
All this conditions led if not make worse with another disease in the
society, corruption.Corruption is another major problem in the Muslim
world. We fare extremely poorly in Transparency International's
corruption perception index. Of the 133 countries surveyed in 2003, the
Muslim country with the best record could only rank 26th. Four Muslim
countries occupied the last 10 rankings.
Gone should be the days of leaders who accommodated their time more
on the issue of their political survival, who accumulated their own
wealth at the expense of starvation of the'mind' and 'body' of the nation
and who had never thought of re-establishing the dominancy of Muslim
ummah in this world.
The Muslim countries has been so long 'isolated' in their 'mind' and
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These are the two important spiritual elements that lit up the hearts of
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These are the spiritual elements needed and should be instilled in the
heart of the current and future Muslim scientist, not only to motivate
them but more importantly to purify their ultimate aim of the scientific
innovations and achievements. And they are still in the hand of the
Muslims.
History has justified that the Muslims were at the forefront of human
and scientific civilization. History has witnessed that the expansion of
Islam was not dominantly spearheaded by oppression and swords but
by high moral upbringing and positive attitudes of the earlier
generations. History has also taught the human being, without fail that
given the appropriate time and processes, events will be repeated in the
same principle irrespective of the different geographical areas or time
frames. The fact is that if the Muslims willing to learn and stroll ahead
in the successful pathway of the earlier generations, the door of victory
will be widely opened for them.
Historically and till today the Muslim nation had never been exhausted
in producing scientific geniuses. This historical and 'to be historic'
figures is invaluable assets in shaping the minds of the Muslims and
motivating the younger generation, proving the intrinsic capability of
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"It is highly probable that, but for the Arabs, modern European
civilization would never have arisen at all," Sir Thomas Arnold and
Alfred Guillaume wrote in their 1997 classic, "The Legacy of Islam."
Islam is the faith of over 1.25 billion Muslims, centered historically and
symbolically on the cities of Mecca and Medina in the Arabian
Peninsula, where the word of God was revealed to Muhammad ibn
'Abdullah from 610 until the Prophet's death in 632. Demographically,
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the center of the Islamic world is well to the east of the Middle East.
Only one-fifth of Muslims are Arab, and the largest populations of
Muslims live in Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Out of 191 countries of the United Nations, 57 are Muslim countries
which also represent the OIC. With over one fifth of the world
population and also possession of roughly one fifth of the world's land
mass, Muslim countries also had been blessed with great wealth. They
own some of the most abundant energy and mineral resources in the
world. They possess 70% of world's energy resources. And they supply
40% of the global exports of raw materials.
Incomes within OIC are also skewed. Only 6 countries account for more
than half the OIC income. Rest of the 51 countries generate a meager
income of barely $ 600 billion. Out of the world's 48 least developed
countries, 22 are in OIC. 23 OIC countries are classified as severely
indebted by international institutions. In Trade and Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI), the OIC countries performance is again dismal. OIC
share in world trade is only 6 to 8 percent. Hardly $15 billion of FDI is
attracted by all the OIC countries. This figure is roughly that of Sweden
or Thailand alone. China atone has FDI of $50 billion. What is most
saddening is that lntra-OIC trade is a small fraction of its total trade
volume.
The Muslims world was granted abundant material assets and human
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resources. And it might be one of the important reasons why they still
lack behind economically. Self contented with the pouring profit from
their energy resources and raw material, they became less innovative
compared to those without their own resources. It is just the repetition
of the history of the 17th century.
The Muslim nations should start thinking seriously on steps to generate
economic growth in their countries. They should invent practical
manouvers to increase intra OIC trade and investment so that their
citizens can share in the prosperity and superior technology through
better governance.
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It is our hope that through NACIS the linkages between the scientists in
OIC countries can be strengthened, leading to exchange of scientists,
initiation of programmes in education and training in various fields of
science and technology, together with promotion of joint research in
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priority fields.
Amongst the major objectives of FIMA are to foster the unity and
welfare of Muslim medical professionals all over the world and to
promote Islamic medical activities including health services, education
and research, through cooperation and coordination among member
organization. It also strives to promote the understanding the
application of Islamic principal in the field of medicine, to mobilize
professional and economic resources in order to provide medical care
and relief to affected areas and people. It also has the role to promote
exchange of medical information and technical data among member
organization.
To fulfill the Aims and Objectives layed down in December 1982, FIMA
has embarked on major projects including medical relief work in
disaster areas, Islamic University Consortium, Islamic Hospital
Consortium, High Technology Center, Medical Professional Database,
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Through the declaration, the IAS re-iterated that science is a major asset
of humanity, an asset that in the 21st century offers new opportunities
and faces new challenges as well as old ones, challenges related to the
prevalence of sustainable development, justice, tolerance, dialogue
between civilisations and peace. It promulgated that the international
science/academic community must lead the way in bridging prevailing
civilisational, social, economic, even political divides between the
peoples of the world.
The Academy has been publishing the Journal of the Islamic Academy of
Sciences since August 1988.For the first ten years of its existence the
Journal was a broad-based scientific publication on average carrying
general scientific articles. However it has been re-launced in 1998 as a
specialised medical Journal thus becoming the Medical Journal of the
Islamic Academy of Sciences.
Despite the fact that there are bountiful of Muslim scientists in the
western countries, identification and bringing them together was not an
easy process. This can partly be attributed to the result of continuous
assault on Islam. The label given to Islam and Muslims, from 'poor,
underdeveloped countries', 'authoritarian religion and regimes' and
'terrorist' has been repetitively emphasized by the media and
popularity-gainer politicians. This has led to the inferior complex within
the Muslims themselves to their religion.
which gave full support to their career advancement and their gifted
intellectuality, and working under great western scientists or
institutions, some of the Muslim scientists prefer to keep Islam within
their inner self, afraid it will be a hindrance to their future career
development. Their active involvement in their professional societies
far superseded their own contributions to promote scientific generation
to the Muslim community, if any.
During the course of this research, the author himself felt the difficulties
in identifying the prominent modern time Muslim scientists.
Uncountable days passed in order to search, select and authenticitate for
the prominent one. The problems are numerous. Some had their Islamic
name modified for some particular reason. Some with Muslim's name
had not potrayed or even hint in their formal or informal presentation
or life that they are Muslim. Some had to be reconsidered and re-edit for
because of their openedly exposed routine habit that is not inline with
Islam itself. In general, the author had taken the 'face' value of Islam for
everyone, as the rest is between them and God.
Despite that one obvious thing that every one should know is that we
are not lack of credible scientists. What we are in dire need is their
ability to come forward and let themselves to be known at least to the
Muslim world. No matter how uncomfortable it may make the Western
world, Muslim scientists are now as much a part of the West as the East.
In the future, an American-born Muslim scientist might win the Nobel
Prize and Muslim children would have a new type of Western role
model, far removed from the standard movie stars and sports figures.
This was explicitly pointed by Dr. Iqbal Unus, in his article, "Muslim
Scientists & Engineers: From Then to Now," confirming what as been
said earlier by Abdus Salam:"Strange as it may sound, there are more
highly qualified Muslim science and engineering professionals in North
America than in any one single Muslim Country. This unique science
and engineering community has become a source of much expectation
and hope in the Muslim world. Distinguished by the quality of its
achievements, and its access to the best in research and development
facilities, it holds the promise of a better tomorrow for a world stuck
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There is a huge potential for leveraging the cultural affinities within the
Muslim countries to build robust brands. The success of Al-Jazeera and
Mecca Cola are examples of the penetrative effect of successful brands,
learnt probably from the speed with which Nike and Starbucks have
expanded their businesses around the world as a testimonial to effective
branding. Another area of cooperation is the global market for "halal"
food, potentially worth up to 500 billion dollars a year with some 1.8
billion consumers. Even Malaysia had openly offered contract farming
or contract manufacturing arrangements with other OIC members to
bring it into reality.
The OIC's collective gross domestic product is less than five percent of
the global total, and trade among its members is estimated at 800 billion
dollars annually which constitutes only six to seven percent of world
trade.These numbers are relatively small given the total population size
of the OIC. As such, the Muslim countries should work hard to realise
the huge growth potential for trade and investment in the OIC, quickly
and effectively.
The abovementioned steps are actually not new to OIC, yet past efforts
to enhance economic relations within OIC failed because of two
fundamental reasons: a lack of an institutional framework for
implementation and a lack of involvement of the business and private
sector. And as proposed by the President Musharraf during a recent
meeting in Kuala Lumpur, a Joint Economic and Business Team
consisting of top officials and top businessmen from OIC countries
seems to be an acceptable remedy for the future.
Given the increasing links between science and technology, state-
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The very fact that the Muslim nations can offer unlimited opportunities
in the oil, gas, mining and energy sectors, in tourism and infrastructure
development, in the IT and telecommunication sector, in privatization
of state enterprises and in small and medium enterprises confirmed that
physically they a fit for the future success. What left to be 'treated' or
'tuned' is their 'mind'and 'attitude'.The Muslim nation has to be
emancipated. They have to develop the capability to realise their
potential and purify their willingness to help each other in optimising
their strength.
The study also found that 45 per cent of Arab students who study
abroad do not go back to their countries after graduating. As a result, it
says that Western states are the greatest beneficiaries of 450,000 Arabs
with higher scientific qualifications.
The study says that a range of political, economic, social and personal
factors are to blame for the brain drain. These include the slow
development in Arab countries, a failure to make adequate use of new
technologies in the productive sector, low salaries, and the relative lack
of opportunities for scientific research.
It points out that at present only 0.2 per cent of the Arab region's Gross
Domestic Product is spent on scientific research, compared to between
two and 3.6 per cent in Denmark, France, Japan, Israel, Switzerland and
the United States.
"If the 10,000 Egyptian experts who are working abroad in the medical
and biotechnology sector came back, it would be enough to start a new
technological revolution in Egypt," says Venice Kamel Gouda, former
Egyptian minister of scientific research. She urges Arab states to
support the Network of Arab Scientists and Technologies Abroad
(ASTA) to act as 'an emigrant think-tank' that would serve as a bridge
with Arab countries through consultancies, sabbaticals and the
exchange of information.
Malaysian press suggest that other moves being explored by the science
ministry may include the encouragement of more research collaboration
between Malaysians abroad and those at home. Such projects are a good
way of tapping into the knowledge of the former while allowing them
to continue working overseas.
and literature, and art and crafts. Nowadays these manuscripts are not
the exclusive preserve of Arab and other Muslim countries, or even of
countries with large Muslim minorities. Manuscripts are found
extensively in Europe, the Americas, Japan, Australia and Africa. There
is hardly a country that does not possess some manuscripts produced
under the aegis of the Muslim civilisation.
This large and important resource is, tragically, in great danger of being
damaged or even lost forever. Political conflict, social upheaval or
merely natural causes - whenever and wherever there is a lack of
resources essential for its maintenance and preservation, this heritage is
in danger. Al-Furqan Foundation is committed to mobilising every
available expertise to preserve these manuscripts and to restore their
content to the cultural mainstream.
The prize rewards men and women who exceptionally contribute to the
preservation and promotion of Islamic heritage. It also recognizes
excellence in academic and scientific research. The cornerstones of the
KFIP are its prizes for service to Islam, Islamic studies and Arabic
literature, which were first awarded in 1979. Yet it was the prizes for
science, begun in 1982, and for medicine (1984) that brought the KFIP to
world attention by generous recognition of advances that benefit
humanity as a whole. These categories are assigned a theme each year:
The science prize rotates through the disciplines of chemistry, biology,
physics and mathematics in a four-year cycle; the medicine prize is
awarded for diverse, topical themes.
These are the 'hallmark' prizes for the prestigious group of scientists
and are much applauded without forgetting the other prizes and
awards that should be similarly initiated at different level of scientific
achievement and for different group of people.The Muslim
professionals, irrespective whether they belong or not to the scientific
fraternity should start giving such prizes or awards within their
capabilities. They can even individually sponsor an award at their
children's school or colleges or even in their community circle. The
award should be persistent on annually basis to build up the
momentum within their respective target group, and it should include
both the student and the teacher of science. The Muslims
organizations, besides giving prizes, can also award a sponsorship for
scientific books and material to the library in school, community centre
and mosques. The target group gets the useful material and
recognition, while the organization is able to build a scientific bridge
with them.
Conclusions
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217
CONCLUSIONS
'The great task facing Muslim intellectuals and leaders is to recast the
whole legacy of human knowledge from the standpoint of Islam. The
vision of Islam would not be a vision unless it is a vision of something,
namely, life, reality, and the world. That vision is the object of study of
various disciplines. To recast knowledge as Islam relates to it, is to
Islamize it, i.e., to redefine and reorder the parameters and the data, to
rethink the reasoning and interrelationships of the data, to reevaluate
the conclusions, to re-project the goals, and to do so in such a way as to
make the reconstituted disciplines enrich the vision and the serve the
cause of Islam.' Those were the words of Al-Faruqi almost 20 years ago
which still valid up to this day.
Lastly, we hope that Allah will keep the doors of knowledge and
intelligence open to us. The facts and recommendation laid throughout
this research are for everyone. This is a general invitation for all the
Muslims, which is neither connected to particular group and
community, nor it has a bias towards any such thinking or ideology as
may be known for a particular shade of opinion or for some special
attachments, but its attention and activities are always centred round
the spirit of the religion and its nerve centre.
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Science and Faith
Faith said:
"With your magic even the waves in the sea are set ablaze,
You can pollute the atmosphere with foul, poisonous gases.
When you associated with me, you were light,
When you broke off from me, your light became fire.
You were of Divine origin,
But you have been caught in the clutches of Shaytan.
Come, make this wasteland a garden once again.
Borrow from me a little of my ecstasy,
And in the world set up a paradise.
From the day of creation we have been associates,
We are the low and high tunes of the same melody."
(Allama Iqbal)