Muslims and Science
By Misbah U. Azam, PhD
Phoenix, Arizona
The anchor in a TV talk show recently posed the question: Why are Muslims indifferent to science and technology and not involved in Research and Development actively? He very rightly made the observation that in many Muslim countries there is hardly any university where serious research work was bring undertaken. He made the erroneous conclusion that somehow Muslims “hate” science and technology because they believe that science is in conflict with Islam!
This is not the only talk show where this issue was discussed and the misleading conclusion drawn. Let’s have a glance at contemporary history and review the achievements of Muslims in the realm of science in the last 50 years:
1) In the 1960s, a new structural system of framed tubes appeared in skyscraper design and construction. It was pioneered by Bangladeshi engineer Fazlur Khan.
2) Iranian scientist Samuel Rahbar discovered glycosylated hemoglobin, a form of hemoglobin used primarily to identify plasma glucose concentration over time. He was also the first to describe its increase in diabetes.
3) In 1970s, Supergeometry was discovered by Abdus Salam, which forms the geometric basis for supersymmetry.
4) Iranian scientist Ali Eftekhari is regarded as the founder of electrochemical nanotechnology, particularly for his development of carbon nano tubes in 2000s, and for developing a method for mass production.
5) Iranian physicist Mahan Kardar was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship prize for his development of the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation in theoretical physics in 2001.
6) Anouseh and Amir Ansari set up the Ansari X Prize to encourage private spaceflight research in 2004.
7) In 2005, Jawed Karim pioneers the idea of a video hosting service with a web browser-embedded video player and co-founded YouTube as a result.
8) The non-glaring headlamp, a headlamp with a continuous long-distance illumination without glaring effects, was invented by Prof. Dr. Turhan Alçelik in 2006 in Turkey.
9) Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, who is both an astronaut and an orthopedic surgeon, performs biomedical research in space in 2007. His medical experiments aboard the ISS were mainly related to the characteristics and growth of liver cancer and leukemia cells, and the crystallization of various proteins and microbes in space.
10) In Turkey, Murat Nural invented "Vertically rising ladder.”
Looking at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) website, one comes across thousands of patents written by engineers, doctors and scientists with Muslim names.
The generalization that Muslims hate science is rather unfair. However, no one can disagree that Muslim countries do not encourage Research and Development (R&D) undertakings. The reason is that most Muslim countries are governed by dictators. To ensure their grip on power they take the country in a direction that may be helpful to them and their personal rule but disastrous for the state and the people. If Muslim countries have independent institutions, democracy, and freedom, the same people who struggle for the very basic necessities of life, will come up with new ideas and innovations and enrich their own life as well as that of others just like the large number of Muslim Diasporas living in the West.
