Where Are the Best and the Brightest?
By Dr. Ghulam M. Haniff
St. Cloud, MN
Where are the best and the brightest of Islam in the contemporary world? They are certainly not in Pakistan, nor in Egypt, nor for that matter in Saudi Arabia. Are they anywhere in the Muslim world? This is a questing worth asking.
Implicit in this question is the issue of educating the next generation and the succeeding generations. This question is being asked with increasing frequency among Muslims. Nobody wants their children to be left illiterate yet again.
The best and brightest are those achievers with skills and talents for creative positions. A tiny handful of such people are to be found in some Muslim countries though far less than required for major decision-making positions.
Fortunately, the issue of brainpower is beginning to be discussed in the pages of newspapers, including the present publication. But whether the movers and shakers in the Muslim world would even discuss the solutions offered is another matter.
By now almost every attentive person knows that the way to advancement, to better quality life, to more humane society, to more satisfying existence, is through learning and schooling. This well articulated proposition is taken for granted in much of the world except among the Muslims.
Even at this late date, the 21st century, Muslims across the globe remain mired in ignorance, poverty and ill-health of the highest order and their life generally is “short, nasty and brutish.”
Such deprivation has affected everyone to the extent that Muslim countries are paralyzed by it. Development scholars call it the “culture of illiteracy.”
Most Muslims are said to be apathetic to intellectual pursuits, lacking in curiosity and indifferent to entrepreneurship, initiative, and enterprise. American researchers and Israeli academics have found evidence for this hypothesis. In this regard Palestinians and others have been extensively studied and found to fit the model.
Curiously, at the present time there are over 200,000 students from India studying in the United States but only 8,000 from Pakistan. Observers claim that Indians are much more enterprising than Pakistanis and are quick to ferret out relevant information to take advantage of the opportunities available. This is generally not the case with the Pakistanis. They have a stronger sense of dependency and want the government (or their fathers) to do everything for them. This may partly be responsible for the disparity between the two neighbors despite similarities in their cultural background.
It is to be acknowledged that India has a comprehensive system of primary and secondary schooling but not so Pakistan. In India almost 75% of the school age children, out of 330 million, are enrolled in educational institutions whereas only 50% of the 68.4 million in Pakistan.
Taking these facts into consideration one is compelled to conclude that the reasons for greater momentum towards development in India than in Pakistan is due to schooling and the motivation of those educated.
As for other Muslim countries, Afghanistan, Somalia or Yemen, they remain at the bottom. Muslims love internecine warfare, over alleged sectarian differences, and fail to support instructions in reading, writing and science.
Islam is the only religion which began with the commandment to its followers to “Read.” Unfortunately, most of its adherents are illiterate today, one thousand years later. They ignore the fundamental teachings of the Qur’an.
It is tragic and shameful that Muslim have failed to abide by one of the simplest messages of their faith. The Prophet of Islam exhorted his followers to seek knowledge “be it in China,” the farthest destination imaginable.
The message of Islam has been sidelined by generation of rulers. But they are quick to take credit for scholars and scientists of early Islam whenever mentioned in the international media as pioneers on the frontiers of knowledge.
Citizens too have remained indifferent and have not furthered the advancement of knowledge. The result is that today there is not a single world class university in any of the Muslim lands.
Most countries take pride in cultivating their best and the brightest for creative positions in most fields. They are automatically entrusted with the future of the nation. Not so among Muslims.
The smooth transition in intergenerational changeover is the norm in many places except in the Muslim world. There, it is either conspiracy or the bullets.
Meanwhile, the West has cultivated experts in every field. Whenever an expert appears it is almost certain he would be a Westerner. The world’s experts on Urdu, Arabic or Farsi, or other Islamic languages, cultures and of the history of the Muslim Empires, are all Westerners even to this day.
You can bet your bottom dollar that despite abundant petroleum in the Muslim world the world’s experts on that commodity are not Muslims, but Westerners. It is they who pump out the petroleum and market it to the world. The Westerners remain masters of the petroleum industry, despite Saudi Arabia.
The world’s foremost living expert on Islam is also not a Muslim but a Jew, Bernard Lewis, an authority acknowledged by the scholarly community. He was raised and educated in the West. The US Department of State and the British Foreign Office regularly consult him, rarely a Muslim, never a mullah.
Even in the theological issues of the Qur’an, the Shari’a and other aspects of Islam the expert consulted is a Westerner. They enlighten the Western audiences on television, radio or through periodicals.
So, where are the best and the brightest in the Muslim lands? No such identifiable category has yet emerged, though Abdus Salam exemplified it. Most Muslim governments remain indifferent to their emergence.
The tiny handful that became visible in the post-colonial period fled to the West owing to the lack of creative freedom. Even Hafez Al-Assad’s son, Bashar, sought refuge in Britain. He returned reluctantly only after his father’s death.
The key to development is in the hands of these achievers, the best and the brightest. It is their work which will move the countries, the Muslim world, forward. Their brainpower is what would make advancement possible.
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