The principal reason for Muslims’
backwardness in the field of science can be summed up in one phrase – lack of
consciousness.
Just as the Indian landlord class was
pushed into the background because of a lack of awareness in the field of
business, so were Muslims left behind others because the scientific
consciousness which ought to have developed in them had for various reasons
been stultified. If they paid scant attention to science, it was partly because
their respective attitudes towards religion and scientific education stood so
at variance with each other. Aware of the importance of religious education,
they made elaborate arrangements for its propagation on a large scale. But,
since they did not grasp the importance of scientific education, they did
little or nothing set up an infrastructure for its dissemination. Without this
no nation can be adequately educated.
After a long period of intellectual
stagnation, our leaders eventually realized the importance of such education
and, rousing themselves from the state of inertia into which they had sunk they
set up universities and colleges. What they failed to do, however, was to
establish a network of primary and secondary schools which should provide a
solid grounding in elementary education and eventually ‘feed’ the institutions
of higher learning. Our predecessors had not neglected establishing religious
schools at the elementary level, but their successor completely forget to
perform this all important task.
In the past, when great religious
institutions were set up, they could hope to draw on a countrywide network of
schools for their student population.
There is no village or town where there is not one or more such schools. It should be obvious that in the absence of
such educational facilities our universities and colleges are bound to remain
deserted, but Muslim leader appear to have lost sight of this very basic
requirement. This is all the more
surprising since the example of the large-scale efforts of Hindus and
Christians was already there for everyone to see.
Fundamental
Negligence
Just as many of those who came under the
domination of the English, failed, in their hatred of the conquerors, to
differentiate between English and the English, coming to despise the language
along with the people, so Muslims did not make the distinction between the men
and their sciences. Hating the
conquerors, they rejected their learning.
Had they been able to separate the two, the history of their own
scientific achievement would have been very different. It is a mistake to think of science as being
the private preserve of any particular nation.
It is, after all the study of nature, universal in its scope and
applications, and a common asset of humanity.
Nor is it purely a matter of tradition, whether ethnic or
political.
The western nations were at the time of the
crusades in the same situation as latter-day Muslims. At that time, it was the Muslims who bore
aloft the torch of scientific learning while their adversaries had sunk into
the intellectual sloth of the Dark Ages.
It was, indeed, by virtue of this scientific learning that they
succeeded in emerging triumphant from two centuries of arduous warfare. But, although the western nations hated their
conquerors in the way that all vanquished peoples do, they did not commit the
folly of rejecting their sciences, for they saw
these sciences as being distinct from the individuals who purveyed
them. Furthermore, owing to their diligence
and perseverance, they were able to make such a significant contribution to
their development that, in the centuries to come, they became leaders in every
field of those sciences. A time came
when they succeeded in changing the whole course of human history.
The situation faced by Muslims in the
modern world was no different. But in a
situation where west was the oppressor and the Muslims the oppressed, the
latter allowed their aversion for the former to blind them to the virtues of
the learning that the west had to offer.
They failed to realize that this was not something national and
traditional, but universal, the acquisition of which brought power with it.
Had the Muslim, leaders of modern times understood this in time, the
destinies of their followers would have taken a vastly different course. Indeed, this was a fault of the moment, but
its consequences shall have to be suffered for centuries to come. It is one of the great ironies of history
that Muslims, because of their lack of consciousness, have become the losers
not only in defeat, but also in victory.
In the 17th century AD when the
whole world was worshiping nature, Islam taught Muslims the lessons of
conquering it. The Muslims of the
initial period were profoundly moved by this teaching. For the first time in
history they initiated the process of conquering nature. But later this process
was diverted towards the West and Muslims, for various political reasons,
receded into the background, till they had reached the point of scientific
backwardness in which they are floundering today.
If the situation is to be saved, and the
Muslims destiny is to be cast in the scientific mould, the most effective way
is to bring Muslims back to Qur’an. The day they rediscover the Qur’an, they
will recover all other things they have lost, including science.
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