Muslim Countries and the Underdevelopment: An Islamic Perspective

Abstract

The primary objective of this article is to identify, and highlight some socio-religious, and political factors for the backwardness of Muslims in education in the contemporary world. Much has been written on this topic in many languages and yet, I would like to highlight only some dimensions of this problem briefly in this paper. We see dramatical changes in the field of education in the digital world today and yet, not much progress has been made by Muslims in education. Why do not we find Muslim countries as innovative, progressive, and inventive as many developing countries? Why cannot Muslims revisit their golden ages in sciences and technology? I will try to explore and discover some of the historical, religious, and political factors for the stagnation of Muslim minds in this rapidly developing age of digital world. This is a broader topic, and the scope of this short paper does not allow me to examine this problem from different perspectives and yet, I will examine this problem an Islamic perspective briefly. A cursory examination of the pathetic conditions of Muslim countries would indicate the degree of backwardness of Muslims in all fields. Statistics and data on the stagnation and backwardness of Muslims in the fields of education are staggering. It is not my intention to collect all those statistics and data rather to examine this issue of Muslim backwardness from an Islamic and historical perspective. Why did Muslims fall behind in education? how do Muslims come out of this backwardness? This paper is an attempt to answer to these two questions. This paper has been divided into main five areas. The first part reviews a brief historical survey of the decline of civilization in Muslim world. The second a dichotomous attitude of Muslims to education. The third part analyses some historical, religious, and political reasons for the backwardness of Muslims. The part fourth highlights ethos of Muslim education and finally this paper makes some proposals and strategies to uplift Muslim education.