Recently, two articles in Pakistani newspapers examined the state of education in Muslim countries, explaining causes of Muslim backwardness and lack of development in Muslim societies worldwide. In an article titled "The Wretched Condition of Education among Muslims," Pakistani writer S. Anjum Asif drew attention to the near-dismal state of education in 57 Muslim countries. The article appeared in the Urdu-language newspaper Roznama Ummat, which is published from Karachi.
Asif cited statistics, noting that there are only 500 universities across 57 Muslim countries, compared to 5,758 in the U.S. and 8,407 in India. He further observed that only nine of the 500 universities in the Muslim countries are among the world's top 200 universities[1].
In the second article, titled "From Muslim to Islamic Schools" and published in The News daily, well-known columnist Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal attributed the educational backwardness among Muslims in contemporary times to the Western victories in the World Wars I and II, and argued for a fundamental cleansing of the educational systems in Muslim countries in order to restore the supremacy of Muslims in the modern world.
However, he wrote that not even a single Muslim country "shows any willingness to even start thinking" about the need for educational change, adding that the Muslim elite "which makes all the important decisions is quickly turning the Muslim world into an educational colony of the Western educational system."
Following are some excerpts from the articles:
"In 57 Muslim Countries, There are Only 500 universities; There are 8,407 Universities in India Alone"
S. Anjum Asif wrote in Roznama Ummat:[2]
"[Referring to an email from a friend] I want to share this email with my readers so that they could know where the Muslim Ummah stands in the important field of education. According to the content of the email:
"● In 57 Muslim countries, there are only 500 universities currently, while in the U.S. alone there are 5,758 universities.
"● There are more universities in India than the U.S.; there are 8,407 universities in India alone.
"● Among the 57 Muslim nations, the average number of universities comes to only nine per country.
"● Only nine of those 500 universities figure in the world's top 200 universities; eight of the nine universities belong to Turkey, while one is in Indonesia.
"● Literacy in the Christian world is 90% while literacy in the Muslim world is only about 40%....
"● There are 15 Christian-majority countries where the literacy rate is 100%, while there is no Muslim country which has a 100% literacy rate.
"● 98% of children in Christian countries complete primary education while only 45% of children in Muslim countries complete primary education.
"● 40% in Christian countries attended university while in Muslim countries a dismal 2% get university level education.
"● Muslim-majority countries have 230 scientists per million while the U.S. has 5,000 per million; and there are 3,900 scientists per million in European countries.
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"● There are 4,000 engineers per million people in Christian countries while there are only 150 engineers per million population in the Muslim countries.
"● Christian countries spend 5% of their GDP on Research and Development programs while Muslim countries spend only 0.2% of their GDP on it.
"● There are 3,950 doctors per one million people in Christian countries while there are only 100 doctors per million in Muslim countries.
"● Christian countries have 1,000 technicians per million while Muslim countries have only 50 technicians per million.
"● Five Indian universities come in the top 200 universities of the world while there is no Pakistani university in the list.
"● 72 universities from the U.S., 7 from Britain, and 8 from China make their way in the top 200 universities of the world.
"● There are four times more PhD degree holders in India than in Pakistan, and every year India is adding to its number while in Pakistan there is no progress in this field."
"The Main Reason Behind the Educational Backwardness in Muslim Countries is Poverty and Lack of Democracy"
"Perhaps our religion lays more emphasis on education in comparison to other religions. In our religion, education has been made obligatory on every man and woman, and there are many sayings of the prophet in this regard. The glorious history of Muslims is witness to the fact that the Muslim supremacy on the world lasted until Muslims remained ahead in the field of arts and learning. Discoveries and research by Muslims in the field of learning, especially in science, made Muslims a powerful and invincible nation, and there was none around who could stand before them, and their rule was spread up to Spain in Europe. As long as Muslims gave preference to education they remained at the top.
"Unfortunately, Muslims' attention deviated and their grip over arts and learning got weakened, and they fell behind those nations who gave preference to education. Today, there is a huge gap between the Muslims and the Christians and the Jews in the field of education. Muslims lagged behind in education, Muslims did not progress. It is a painful reality that no single Muslim country is in the list of developed countries.
"The main reason behind the educational backwardness in Muslim countries is poverty and lack of democracy. Poor Muslim countries don't have the required capital and resources to pay considerable attention toward education. But unfortunately the countries which are full of natural resources lack in real democracy. There is monarchy and autocracy in these countries, and their preference is toward stability of their rule rather than education. Moreover, the countries with talent have very few resources to spend in the field of education. In a recent UN report, serious concern has been expressed on the disinterest of the Pakistani government in the field of education and its falling standards. The report has warned the Pakistani government that millions of children will be left illiterate in the coming years if proper planning and expenditure were not done in the field of education."
"With a Heavy Heart, I have to Confess that There is Not a Single Muslim Educational Institute Which could be Compared with Harvard, Cambridge, or Oxford"
"‘The Arab countries in the Middle East are full of oil resources; they have the capital and there is no dearth of resources, but their pathetic educational condition cannot be termed as satisfactory. Arab countries spend billions of dollars on their defense, but their expenditure on education is relatively very low. There is no comparison of their educational institutions with the educational institutions of the developed countries. However, the educational standard in Turkey, Indonesia, and Malaysia is far better among the Muslim countries.
"With the above-mentioned facts it is not very hard to find the reason for educational backwardness of the Muslim countries, and that these facts also show where the Muslim countries stand in this developed and fast-paced world. With a heavy heart, I have to confess that there is not a single Muslim educational institute which could be compared with Harvard, Cambridge, or Oxford. If the Muslim world wants to regain its past glory it has to work untiringly with the best planning in the field of education. Heavy investment is needed on a large scale in the field of education, with sincere efforts to make headway. The result will come slowly and step by step. Muslims should keep it in mind that only those nationalities would be called distinct and developed who would have given preference to education and who have invested in the field of education; and only those countries would reap the profit of their investment..."
"Knowledge Production... became Handmaiden to the Worldwide Rise of the Western World Led by the United States of America after World War II"
Following are excerpts from Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal's article in The News:[3]
"It may not be an exaggeration that the greatest challenge faced by Muslims all over the world is that of education. This challenge arose from a failure of the Muslim educational system in the 16th and the 17th centuries, which resulted in a historic watershed. Muslims lagged behind Europe in production of knowledge, and this ultimately led to a shift in the global balance of power. This shift took place at a time when European educational institutions were becoming powerhouses of new knowledge based on modern science. This situation soon enabled Europeans to conquer most of the known world, including almost all lands where Muslims had then lived for centuries.
"The Muslim resistance to this conquest, heroic as it was in some cases, was simply doomed because there was no possibility for swords to come close to the hands which held rapid-firing weapons. The two World Wars after the conquest of the Muslim world condemned hundreds of thousands of Muslims to being slaughtered on battlefronts which were not of their own choosing. These Great Wars also produced successive generations of weapons, each being more deadly than the previous one. By the time Muslims woke up to the realities of the post-World War II situation, the entire map of the world had been redrawn.
"At the heart of this reconfiguration of the world was an educational system which successfully wedded modern science with the corporate world, on the one hand, and the state, on the other. Knowledge production thus became handmaiden to the worldwide rise of the Western world led by the United States of America after World War II. Universities, research laboratories, and institutions like MIT served as propellers of a new world order created through sheer force."
"Colonization and the Subsequent Implantation of the Western Educational System Further Uprooted the Muslim Mind from Its Spiritual, Intellectual, and Historical Ground"
"There is no escape from the basic realities of our times: we are now living in a world where ideas, products, social, economic, and political currents all flow in one direction: from West to East. This tidal wave originates in the educational system of the dominant civilization and spreads throughout the world. Compared to the powerhouses of knowledge, research, creativity, and vigour, the educational system in the Muslim world remains sluggish, drowsy, even dormant; certainly, derivative and subordinate to what comes from the West.
"The mushrooming of Western-style schools during the last quarter-century has made matters worse, as we now have millions of young men and women who have emerged from schools which ape the Western educational system without ever coming close to the excellence of the original.
"History cannot be denied. There is no doubt that the current situation arose because the Muslim educational system was at the lowest ebb of its vitality at the time of the conquest and colonization of the traditional lands of Islam. There is also very clear historical evidence that the resultant colonization and the subsequent implantation of the Western educational system further uprooted the Muslim mind from its spiritual, intellectual and historical ground.
"It is also clear from history that the political freedom regained in the middle of the 20th century did little to relocate the Muslim intellectual landscape; instead, the new institutions modelled on the European and American systems mushroomed at ever-higher rates and continue to thrive and multiply in all 57 Muslim states which now constitute the traditional lands of Islam. These institutions teach a curriculum based on a worldview other than that of Islam, they use pedagogy which is not rooted in Islam, their content has no resonance to what great thinkers of Islam have left behind."
"The Entire System of Education ... has to Be Redesigned on the Basis of... the Koran and the Sunnah"
"In order to reverse the global imbalance of production of knowledge – and consequently current military, political, economic, cultural, and social imbalance –Muslims need to revamp their educational system. This cannot be done by sprinkling Islam on thoroughly secular curricula. The entire system of education, including what is taught, how teaching takes place, and the environment in which learning takes place, has to be redesigned on the basis of a philosophy of education gleaned from the Koran and the Sunnah [sayings and deeds of the prophet], the two primary sources of Islam, and anchored in solid scholarship.
"This effort is not easy. It requires, first of all, a tremendous intellectual jihad which will furnish fundamental principles that can be applied to specific areas of education— from pedagogy to a curriculum design to outcomes. It also needs resources and, finally, it needs pilot institutions where the new model can be tested. Once proven to be better than the existing models, such a system of education will automatically receive warm welcome all over the world.
"Given the current political, economic, and social conditions of the traditional lands of Islam, this intellectual jihad is almost impossible anywhere in the Muslim world. There is not a single country in the world where the top leadership (in the political, social, and cultural economic strata) shows any willingness to even start thinking about this change. Rather, this stratum of the Muslim society, which makes all the important decisions, is quickly turning the Muslim world into an educational colony of the Western educational system, as scores of franchised educational institutions are popping up in these countries, which are aping American or British institutions.
"There is, however, a silver lining to this gloomy scenario. A new awareness is spreading amongst Muslims living in North America and Europe which has the possibility of furnishing a new model of education, if it is pursued with vigour and critical control. There are groups of men and women (parents, homeschoolers, educators, thinkers), who have realized the power of education and the deadly consequences of the secularization of the Muslim mind. They are keen to re-establish links with the spiritual, intellectual, social and cultural traditions of Islam and find ways to develop a new system of education which will be adequate for the challenges of our times, and train Muslim children to leadership positions in a world dominated by secularism."
[1] The number of universities as mentioned by the writer includes all higher educational institutions.
[2] Roznama Ummat (www.ummatpublication.com), Pakistan, May 5, 2010.
[3] The News, Pakistan, June 23, 2010. The text of the article has been lightly edited for clarity.
