Re: why are muslims os behind
How Islam Failed Muslims
By: Ohmyrus
Why is it that the People of the Book (Christians and Jews) and some
idolater nations have overtaken the Muslim world?
President Perves Musharaf of Pakistan recently said that Muslims are
the most illiterate, unhealthy, poorest of peoples in the world today.
He is right and I might add, very few Muslim countries are democracies
including his own.
Muslims at one time were the most powerful, richest and advanced people
of the world. From them arose four great empires - the Ummayad
Empire, the Abassid Empire the Mogul Empire and the Ottoman Turkish
Empire.
Their decline can be traced to about 1700 when the west caught up with
the Ottoman Empire, the last great Muslim empire.
A number of reasons were advanced for this decline and more recent
failures by the Muslims themselves, including the invasion of the
Mongols, the crusades, western imperialism and Israel, the perpetual
whipping boy. An idea gaining ground in the Muslim world is that their
low estate is due to Muslims turning away from God. The remedy is
therefore to become more Islamic.
In my opinion, the most important reason for Muslim failure is Islam
itself.
Islam is a complete way of life as Muslims are fond of saying. Islam
tells you how to punish criminals, how many wives you can have and even
which hand is assigned for toilet duty. No other religion is so
detailed as to what you can or cannot do.
But the rules governing this complete way of life were developed for a
7th century medieval desert society. Some of these rules are no longer
applicable for the 21st century.
Let me give you four reasons why Islam impedes progress. But first, let
me say that I am not interested in making a value judgement on what is
right or wrong. I believe that religious ideas can have an impact on
economic growth and am only concerned in assessing the impact of Islam
on the economy and society.
Imbedded in the Koran is the shariah law. This makes it difficult to
separate mosque from state. A good Muslim desires to follow
Mohammed's teachings to the full and this means that he must desire
to live in an Islamic state where the shariah law is enforced.
Thus in every Muslim country, there exists a group of people who
desires to live in an Islamic state. Pakistan tried it when Zia Ul Haq
was president. The economy was ruined in the attempt.
So far, there have been four other attempts at an Islamic state -
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan and lately Afghanistan under the Taliban.
None of them successfully led their people to sustainable
industrialization though oil money in Saudi Arabia and Iran hid their
failures.
To make matters worse, out of the Muslims who desire an Islamic state,
a minority is prepared to use violence to achieve it. Their reasoning
goes something like this.
God's law is higher than man's law. Sounds reasonable, right?
Democracy is man made. Therefore an Islamic state, which is ruled in
accordance to God's law, is superior to democracy. In fact, democracy
is a form of idolatry where you put man above Allah.
This rejection of democracy not only hinders its establishment in many
(fortunately not all) Muslim countries but some Muslims feel perfectly
justified in using violence to create an Islamic state. They don't
see the need to let the ballot box decide since God is above any man
made democracy.
This is due to the nature of Islam itself where its founder, Prophet
Mohammed was also a military commander. Thus to a militant Muslim,
Al-Qaeda's attempt to violently create an Islamic state in SE Asia is
only doing exactly what Prophet Mohammed did in his lifetime. His words
of violence, perhaps uttered in the heat of war, are now forever
recorded in the Koran and Hadiths as Holy Scripture. Let me give you a
few examples.
Surah 8:39 (or thereabouts) says, "Make war on them until idolatry
shall cease and God's religion shall reign supreme."
Surah 8:12 says, "God revealed his will to the angels, saying: "I
shall be with you. Give courage to the believers. I shall cast terror
into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the
very tips of their fingers!"
Surah 9:39 (or thereabouts) says, "If you do not go to war, He will
punish you sternly, and will replace you by other men."
If I am not mistaken, Osama bin Laden said this or something very
similar in that famous training video that CNN and BBC kept playing
many times after September 11.
While most Muslims are peaceful people who interpret the Koran in a
non-violent manner, such verses create the potential for a minority to
justify the use of violence for the establishment of an Islamic state.
For centuries, Muslims have declared jihad (holy war) against the
enemies of Islam.
If they die in a jihad, the reward is paradise filled with fruit trees
and the loving company of numerous houris (heavenly virgins) with their
"high bosoms". It is somewhat similar to the ancient Viking belief
in Valhalla where the brave warriors go to when they die in battle.
None of the other major religions in practice today have this concept.
Even if such people are a small minority, their presence destabilizes
countries and frightens away western or Japanese investors. Between
India and Pakistan, which country do you think is more attractive to an
American investor? I think there is no comparison. Why go to Pakistan
where there are people wanting to kill you? Some of these militants
think that the killing of an infidel American or Jew will win them
passage to paradise.
The presence of violent men not only deters foreign investors but also
make it impossible to have a functioning democracy.
The second way Islam failed Muslims is by suppressing its women. Women
are considered inferior to man and in a hadith are described as
mentally deficient. That is why one male witness is equal to two female
witnesses in an Islamic court. Take a look at Surah 4:34 from the Holy
Koran which approves of wife beating:
"Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior
to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them.
Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has
guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish
them, forsake them in beds apart and beat them."
What is the economic implication of this attitude towards women? Since
they are thought of as inferior, there is discrimination in the
workplace. Since there is discrimination against women in the work
place, parents give a lower priority for their daughter's education.
If you go the Middle East, you will find that men dominate the work
place. Women are expected to be homemakers.
Averroes (1126 - 1198) believed that much of the poverty and distress
of his time was due to the fact that women were "kept like domestic
animals or house plants for purposes of gratification, instead of being
allowed to take part in the production of material and intellectual
wealth, and in the preservation of the same."
Women who stay at home tend to have more children. They tend to see
their children as their security in old age. That is why there is a
high birth rate in most of the Islamic world. A high birth rate means
poverty perpetuating itself, as there are fewer resources to educate
everybody. That is why poor third world countries are advised to
promote family planning.
Saudi Arabia's per capita GDP has declined compared to 20 years ago
mainly because its population has grown and its oil revenue has not. It
has not succeeded in developing manufacturing export industries like
the East Asians have.
As a result, Saudi Arabia is actually getting poorer-though still rich.
Thus, suppressing women not only deprive a nation of half its work
force but also increase its birth rate and hence make them poor.
On the other hand, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey,
emancipated Turkish women. He banned polygamy, the veil and insisted
that women be as well educated as the men. He gave them the vote and
allowed them to be elected into parliament. Today, the most advanced
Muslims are the Turks as a result of Ataturk's reforms of which
women's emancipation was one.
The third teaching of Islam that impeded progress was the prohibition
of usury - the lending of money for interest. This helped the west to
overtake the Ottoman Turks because the west (initially also prohibited
from lending for interest) developed banks earlier.
Banks encourages savings which are then pooled together to lend to
businessmen. Savings can later be tapped to invest in joint stock
companies and business ventures. Companies can be larger and more
efficient with greater economies of scale. Savings and investments
together with a debt market promote economic growth. London, Geneva,
Amsterdam, Milan, Venice were great financial centers from the days of
the Renaissance.
I believe the Muslims were late to develop the banking/finance industry
because of the prohibitions against usury. Fortunately, today most
Muslims ignore these ancient prohibitions. They borrow money from and
deposit money into banks and use credit cards. For the pious, there are
the Islamic banks. So this is no longer a problem. But the west had a
head start in economic development.
Islamic banks are not supposed to charge interest, which is forbidden.
But they are allowed to make profits. I am told that for the most part,
there is nothing essentially different between Islamic banking and the
conventional banking.
Very often, the "profits" they make is fixed and guaranteed. This
means that profits are really "interest". Theoretically, Islamic
banks are supposed to share in the profits of the projects they lend
to. If it is truly profits, they should earn more in good times and
lose money in bad times.
This is difficult to arrange. If the project is promising, the customer
does not want to share in the profits. They prefer to pay a fixed sum
for the money advanced to them by the bank. If the project looks dicey,
the bank wants to be safe and would ask for a fixed guaranteed return
for its money.
All this goes to show that it is difficult to operate in the modern
business world without usury. Islamic banking is thus an exercise in
self-delusion.
The fourth reason is that Islam stifles Science. For Science to
flourish, there must great tolerance for new ideas, which is sorely
lacking in the Islamic world. Ideas (both scientific and philosophical)
need to be freely debated so that good ideas are adopted and bad ones
discarded. Islam is not the only religion to stifle Science. Just look
at what happened to Galileo when he said that the earth revolves around
the sun. But eventually rationality prevailed in Christendom.
This could happen in the west because there is a clear separation
between Church and State. The separation was due to these famous words
from Christ:
"Render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar's. Render unto God the
things that are God's."
The separation was not always perfect. But the principle ran like a
golden thread since medieval times till the present. What it meant in
practice is that the neither the medieval popes not the kings were as
powerful as the Caliphs who possessed both temporal and spiritual
power. For the Caliph any challenge to a religious doctrine also meant
a challenge of the Caliph's right to rule. Any challenge to the
Caliph's right to rule is also a challenge to God since the Caliph
was by definition Prophet Mohammed's successor.
To be sure, the Muslim world did produce many noted poets, philosophers
and scientists - Al-Farabi, Al-Razi (a famous physician), Avicenna,
Averroes etc. After the 7th century conquests of major part of the
Byzantine empire and the Persian empire, the Arabs came into contact
with more advanced civilizations - Christian, Zoroastrian and Hindu.
They were eager to learn and acquire knowledge.
Books were translated into Arabic and the Caliphs were happy to employ
non-Muslims, especially Peoples of the Book, to serve them. Greek
science and philosophy were taught in schools and there was a fusion of
Islamic ideas and Greek rationality. This inevitably led to a clash
with the conservative religious scholars.
These scholars believed that all knowledge came from God's revelation
and philosophical and scientific inquiry will ultimately lead to
unbelief. Those scientists and philosophers, while not rejecting (at
least publicly) Islam believed that truth could also be derived from
human reason. Human reason can be reconciled with God's revelations.
The Mu'tazilites belonged to this rational school that had confidence
in human reasoning. They initially enjoyed the protection of the
caliphs and persecuted those who disagreed with them. But later they
fell out of favour. A theologian, Al Ashari, who subordinated reason to
revelation, dealt the rationalist Mu'tazilites a mortal wound.
About two centuries later, Al-Ghazali drove in the final nail thus
ending the influence of Greek rationality in Islamic thinking. He
wrote, "The source of their infidelity was their hearing terrible
names such as Socrates and Hippocrates, Plato and Aristotle."
He opposed the spirit of free inquiry saying that certain of the
natural sciences were opposed to religion. He led Muslims back to an
unquestioning literal interpretation of the Koran. The traditionalists
had finally won. Science lost.
It should be noted that most of the scientists, poets and philosophers
in Islam's golden age (the time of the Abassid Caliphate) were Jews,
Christians or Muslims who were suspected of apostasy or blasphemy. Many
suffered harassment and even death. Thus if science did flourish during
this golden age, it was in spite of Islam and not because of it.
In the Christian world, science managed to eventually triumph because
the Pope was not as powerful as the Caliph thanks to the separation of
Church and State. In Islam, where there is no separation of Mosque and
State, the progressive forces of Greek rationality could not prevail
and were ultimately stifled.
These are the many ways in which Islam impeded the progress of Muslims.
However, there appears to be an idea sweeping the Muslim world that the
path to greatness lies in greater Islamisation. By becoming more pious,
they hope to win the favour of God and be restored to their former
glories.
It is like a doctor prescribing smoking to cure lung cancer. To sum up,
Islam stifles science, women and to a lesser degree in present times
the banking industry. All these have a negative impact on economic
growth. In addition, its doctrine of jihad and its propensity for
violence makes it stony ground for democracy to flower. Let me leave
you with a quote from Ataturk:
"The evils which had sapped the nation's strength," he declared,
"had all been wrought in the name of religion."