Angry Muslims-an eye opener by a muslim

This is an article published on 24th sep,2006 in a Pakistani newspaper

Angry
By Dr Farrukh Saleem

Muslims are angry with the Jews. We are angry with the Christians. Pakistani Muslims are angry with Jews, Christians and Hindus. People of the Book -- Jews, Christians and Muslims -- are all at war while China and India stride ahead.

We are angry so we turn their technology against them; use their planes to bring their high-rises down and use their cell phones to detonate bombs in their high speed trains (the first hand held mobile phone to become commercially available was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X).

Can we win by downing their high-rises or by murdering commuters?

We were angry with the Danes so we boycott their butter and their cheese. By the same logic, if we are angry with the Jews shouldn't we stop using vaccinating needles? Stop using polio drops; end all vaccinations for Hepatitis B, stop using kidney
dialysis machines, stop treating leukaemia and stop treating syphilis? Should we even stop using computers because the first micro-processing chip was invented by a Jew (Pentium-4 microprocessor and Centrino processor were entirely designed, developed, and produced in Israel)? If we are angry with the Jews shouldn't we return our nuclear chain reactors, all our optical fibre cables, traffic lights, videotape recorders and everything made of stainless steel? Stop wearing jeans, boycott Baskins & Robbins, Dunkin Donuts, Starbuck's and Dell Computers? Stop using Google as well as Oracle? We are angry with the Jews, Christians and Hindus. Angry, however, isn't taking us anywhere. Angry won't ever get us anything.

Shouldn't we be even angrier with ourselves? Look around, what has been the Muslim contribution to humanity over the past one thousand years? Look around, how many items of daily use in our lives are Muslim inventions?

After all, there are 57 Muslim-majority member-states of the OIC. Can anyone name just one Muslim country responsible for a major technological, scientific or a medical breakthrough? Can anyone name an Arab country -- just one -- who's intellectual output has enriched humanity?

True, Al-Khwarizmi, the 'father of Algebra', was a great mathematician, astrologer and astronomer. Al-Farghani had measured Earth's diameter.

Ibn Sina gave humanity 'The Canon of Medicine'. Omar al-Khayyam discovered binominal expansion, measured the length of the year to within six decimal points (as 365.242195), mapped the stars in the sky and showed the world how to solve cubic equations (in 1970, a lunar crater was named after him and in 1980 an asteroid was named after him).

Al-Farghani died in 833; Al-Khwarizmi in 850, Ibn Sina in 1,037 and Omar al-Khayyam in 1,123. Question: What have Muslims contributed to the human civilisation over the past 833 years?

We are angry at America. But why is America the richest and the most powerful? Of America 's 298 million citizens 1.1 million qualify as 'scientists'. Of the 1.3 billion Muslims less than 300,000 qualify as 'scientists'. Among them, fifty-seven OIC countries have an average of ten universities each for a total of less than 600 universities for 1.3 billion Muslims.

America has 5,758 universities. Of the 1.3 billion Muslims more than 800 million are absolutely illiterate.

Once again, angry won't get us anything. Every Muslim wants the followers of Islam to become the dominant force. What then should be the winning strategy?

History stands witness that when Muslims owned the largest library we overpowered Constantinople, Nimes (in France), North Africa, Cyprus, Sardinia, Sicily, Egypt, Jerusalem, Syria, Walachia (Romania), Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Persia, Venice and Hungary.

Back then, Muslims weren't angry they were busy building libraries, producing knowledge and consuming knowledge produced by others (and not boycotting). The Caliphs of Cordoba ruled Spain for 275 years. Arab occupation of Sicily lasted 264 years. Are we now angry at America because America has been occupying Iraq since 11:30 a.m. the 19th of March 2003?

The Library of Congress is now the largest library; one hundred and twenty-eight million items on 530 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 29 million books, 2.7 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps, 5 million music items and 57 million manuscripts. The Library of Congress receives some 22,000 items each working day and adds approximately 10,000 items to the collections daily.

Angry won't do it. 9/11 won't do it. 7/7 won't do it. Library is the way.


The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist.
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