Muslim researchers and scholars towards scientific advancements

In terms of novel development

Muslim scholars and researchers have lagged behind in their contributions to science. This is particularly evident in the disciplines of study and academia, where Muslim scholars have lagged, particularly during the 20th century, in terms of learning and discovery as well as innovations and inventions. (Ziadat and Baba p.59).

Numerous academic studies and researchers

have noted that Muslim academics’ contributions to and advancements in science have decreased. The majority of contemporary Muslims adhere to Islam, a religion and society that has also lessened their scholarly output. Along with religion, there are political unrest and civil conflict. These have had a significant impact on the scholarly efforts made by Muslim scholars and researchers. Has excluded most Muslims from having a direct contact with the scientific world. This wasn’t the case during the times where some of the Muslims were free thinkers as well as philosophers.

The concept of falasifa

who were curious about the natural world and its workings often searched for answers outside the holy book and religion as well (Ahmad and Donald p.34). This is what fostered their early contribution to the world of science as they wanted more than acceptable truth. This falasifa or philosophers and natural thinkers rather formulated their own system of rational thought to explain the natural world. In modern ages, except for the time Muslims are exposed to science in class lessons, there is little not so much interest of science in modern Islamic culture especially the 20th century Muslims (Ahmad and Donald p.108). The principal focus of this research paper is to provide an in-depth analysis of how Muslim researchers and scholars from Iberia to Persia enormously contributed to the advancement of learning and science until the 12th century where all stopped. Additionally, the paper will provide there have been diminished contributions by Muslim scholars and researchers towards science and technological advances.

Lack of Goodwill Support

It is not common to find media full of news about scientific advances in the Muslim world as of the western world. This is not to say there are not scientist who are Muslims, quite the contrary them exists remarkable Muslim scientist. The renowned Abdus Salam, a Muslim and also a scientist, has for ages tried to sway the religious figures in Islamic religion for sermons on elements about science but often get unheard (Ahmad and Donald142). Lack of commitment by not availing funds for scientific research to enable a flourishing Muslim world that accepts scientific beliefs. This has much contributed to declining scientific research in the 20th century especially in the field of academia by the Muslims scholars and researchers. There are different factors that affect advances in science, especially in the Muslim culture. Islam is by far not the only issue contributing to this slow decline in scientific achievements. Numerous factors have contributed to this slow decline, and some of these factors include:

The Demographics of Muslim Nations

The demography of the consisting of scientists, research scientist as well as intellects in fields like engineering is on average below that of western nations, Europe as well as East Asia and the Americas. The students who take science disciplines such as engineering are often from the middle-income population within the urban area. This does not include few of the majority poor students who are not able to have a pursuit of careers that require core skills in science like a research scientist or an engineer (Segal 21). The Muslim woman does not often get allowed to participate in scientific scholarly programs. The women’s participation in science is quite low limiting the potential of women’s contributing to science advancement. Those who even want to consider a career in the scientific world are often the males from urban middle class who have enough science exposure to consider making a career as scientists (Ziadat and Baba 108).

In the science era of the 20th and 21st century

language has a key role in spreading of ideologies, academic advancements and the availability of scientific literature. While most of the world’s literature concerning science is published in English a universal language. This translates to about 80% of science related materials, research to discoveries. The available resources for instructions and teaching students in languages such as Urdu, Persian as well as Arabic are not adequate for use in research and scientific studies (Ahmad and Donald 175). This makes it difficult for the learners who have no instructional command and understanding of the English language to learn from this scientific literature

Thus, they require spending time learning

a foreign language both writing and comprehension, a valuable time that could have been used to instill scientific disciplines. Muslims are lagging so much behind Asians in Eat Asian countries as well as South Americans in terms of English comprehension. This even though happens in the instance that we are aware the scientific text at some point were Arabic translated from Latin to Arabic and later to English. It is often hard for students to learn in a foreign language that different than what they are not used to speaking (Segal p.36). This too could slow dissemination of knowledge hence slow achievements in scientific research by Muslim researchers as well as scholars.

The world of Islam and Muslims as a whole

have plenty of researchers, engineers, and scientist. The only shortage they have is often extreme acute shortfall of career oriented researchers. The lack of mentorship training of researchers especially lacks training on scientist and engineers. These engineers and scientists are the future researchers to take on leading roles as researchers have dwindled the rate of research among Muslim scholars. Inability to access adequate training equipment’s used by researchers and the data crucial for making research deductive reasoning is often missing in academic research done by training Muslim scholars (Hodgson and Edmund p.173). The lack of incentives in research either by lack of funding’s or rewards has left the research field not so satisfying to most Muslim scholars. This cumulative biased research training that is ill equipped makes for poor researchers and lowers the quality of input in scientific advancements.

State Ownership and the Economy

State ownership of crucial sectors of the economy such as industrialization has also contributed to the lagging behind of the Muslim scientist and scholars in terms of scientific advancements. The corporations that are under the ownership of the state often play a vital role in undertaking research in technology and science. In Muslim countries, the type of state-owned corporations does research that is done often in poor quality. The state has ignored the logic of science and conducts the research for crucial systems such as oil and gas explorations using the deplorable equipment (Hodgson and Edmund 121). These research for the critical infrastructures are often done under poor management, underfunding or less budgetary allocation to finance proper research and inconsistent research findings with unreliable data. All this coupled with political instability has pretty much left a gap in scientific development, advancement and reliable research by Muslim scholars to deter their speedy scientific growth (Hodgson and Edmund 142).

State Ownership of parastatals

The other key problem with state ownership of parastatals boils down to inability to join a partnership with reputable academic institutions. In order to build expertise exchange programs by integrating learning between the researchers and the well-established programs offered by these reputable universities. In order to improve on Muslim scholars and researcher’s ability to come up with best solutions, the state needs to invest more in research and academic developments (Segal 98). This will require competent personnel, as well as funding, be it scholarships or grants or monetary investment in form of equipment for learning.

Lastly, the other factor that contributes

to almost a stop in terms of dwindling contributions to science and research by Muslim scholars emanates from applied research from the government. These research units often touching on health, agriculture, construction and even mineral exploration. The head of this research units is political appointees by merit, not necessarily researchers or scientist (Ziadat and Baba 210). The unforeseen effect of putting political appointees with a little background on what they should be doing leads to poorly mismanaged research with inaccurate date and flawed findings. These political appointees are often made to push and please the political motives as opposed to following the science deduced and encouraging achievements aimed at improving research and science by Muslim scholars (Ziadat and Baba 213).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the reasons as to why contributions there are diminished contributions in both science and technology by Muslim scholar’s centers on Lack of institutions for conducting research and scientific advances. The existing institutions of higher learning are not heavily invested towards scientific research thus often allocated least funding from the government to train and equip research personnel with up to current advances in science. This often is not the priority of this Muslim nations especially on the onset of the 20th century, hence limiting chances of making their scholars make headways in scientific research. Then there are the religious laws that are used to outlaw all forms of western education as belonging to infidels, this makes it hard for Muslim scholars to freely access information. Often the government regulates internet access and also the content of both mass media and social media, making it hard for an even exchange of new ideas has also played a negative role in derailing the progress made by Muslim scholars.

Works Cited

Ahmad, Y. “Al-Hassan and Donald R. Hill (1986), Islamic technology: An illustrated history.” 12-282.

Hodgson, Marshall GS, and Edmund Burke. Rethinking world history: essays on Europe, Islam, and world history. Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Segal, Aaron. “Why does the Muslim world lag in science?” Middle East Quarterly (1996): 1-328.

Ziadat, Adel and Baba A., and Baba G. Jallow. Western science in the Arab world: The impact of Darwinism 1860–1930. Springer, 1986: 78-230.