CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM RESPONSE
TO THE CHALLENGE OF KNOWLEDGE:
SEPARATING THE GRAIN FROM THE CHAFF - 8
|
[Background ]
[ The Problem I ]
[ The Problem II ]
3. The Role of
Attitude Muslims today have, perhaps, one of the lowest
literacy rates. Those who are literate among them have the poorest reading
culture. Very little publishing activity takes place in the world of Islam
today, but the quality, or lack of it as it were, of publications is certainly
more disturbing than the quantity. This is certainly ironical for a people
whose first word of revelation was the command to read! This negative attitude
to reading, an obvious symptom of intellectual decadence, is particularly
peculiar to this generation and contrasts sharply with the period when the
Ummah produced great minds. When al-Razi in defending himself of an accusation
of some intellectual deficiency reported that he wrote some two hundred works
or when Ibn Sina informed us that he read all the books available in his time
on a particular subject he wanted to master or that he had access to a library
and read all the books in the library,(46) Muslims may find all this as strange
as science fiction. It is thus easy to agree with Ziauddin Sardar when he says
that: “Being a Muslim intellectual is a lonely and tough business. Half of the
time, half of your audience do not know what you are talking about; the
reminder of the time they are busy undermining everything you stand for and
write about”.(47) Mernissi’s research experience was not any better as she
discovered that, “What is most striking about museums in Islamic countries,
whether in Lahore, Dakar, or Rabat, is the amount of dust on the meagre number
of works one finds, and the monastic silence surrounding the few custodians on
duty. You almost feel the need”, she continues, “to apologise for disturbing
them, and the incredible number of bureaucratic steps required to make a
photocopy or buy a reproduction makes you to want to leave empty-handed and go
home to fantasize quietly about the past”.(48) Unfortunately it is not only in
the museums that dust accumulates, even science and engineering laboratories in
many Muslim countries are full of dust. Someone shocked at the sight asked a
lecturer how they manage to teach science in the circumstances, and the
lecturer retorted that they no longer teach science, they only teach the
history of science. “Since June 1990 the Saudis have signed arms
contract with the Pentagon to the tune of $ 30 billion, “roughly equal to the
amount spent by the American military on major weapons systems this year”.(49)
And yet the country could not defend itself in the Gulf War and had to call in
the Americans. “Among the nine largest purchases of arms in the world in 1983,
four were Arab states: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Egypt. What the officials
of this states ignore is that the age of fetishism is over, and importing
military hardware increases dependence. Power comes from the cultivation of the
scientific spirit and participatory democracy”.(50) One would add an annual
defence budget is more than enough to finance several defence industries with
all the research and personnel
development that goes with it. It may be worth noting that after defence, the
highest budgetary allocation often goes to the ministry of sports and not
education. A country that executed a war for eight years without having to
borrow, has, barely five years after that war, amassed a foreign debt of $30
billion with nothing to show for it.(51) One could go on, the list of these
follies that underline contemporary Muslim, individual and collective
attitudes, seems endless. Suffice it to say that with attitudes like these the
Muslim world needs no enemies. But by far the most devastating of attitudes is the
Muslim phobia for ideas. It is perhaps not difficult to understand why
monarchs, life presidents or some military dictators would want to get books
and magazines censored or the movements in or out of certain people with
certain ideas blocked. But it is especially difficult to understand why
scholars should fear ideas. It is amazing how nearly a millennium after the
fall of Baghdad, people are still being suspected of being mu‘tazilis, perhaps
never in the history of humanity has a paranoia been so resilient. To this has
now been added the salafi and Sufi labels and the study of aqidah, whatever
that means, has been elevated to levels unprecedented in the history of Islam.
All manner of institutions have now sprouted to protect this imaginary pet,
books have been banned and students of some Islamic universities are literally
under constant surveillance lest they read or listen to something that may
affect their aqidah. The problem, to
be sure, is not so much the obsession with aqidah
as the morbid fear of anything new and the futility of it all in the days of
CD-ROM and the Internet. Fazlur Rahman, after his nearly exhaustive analysis,
concluded that the only way out of the vicious circle the Ummah appear to be
caught in is the creation of first class minds, which he quickly added, cannot
be produced at will, but could be generated by creating the necessary
conditions that could nurture these minds.(52) An atmosphere where minds are
insulated from ideas, intimidated to conformity, and denied opportunities to
allow their thoughts full rein, is certainly not the place to grow first class
minds. It rather provides a fertile soil for the growth of mediocrity, which
too often masks as piety, leaving sycophancy as the only means to curry the
favour of officials who are too content with their achievements to believe
otherwise.
|
