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Apr 19, 2021
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Kuwaiti Journalist And Author Najm Abd Al-Karim: The Backwardness, Ignorance In The Arab World Are A Result Of Extremism, Political Islam

#8841 | 02:38
Source: Rotana Khalijiya TV (Saudi Arabia)

Kuwaiti journalist and author Najm Abd Al-Karim said that ignorance has become a commodity in the Arab world, "peddled by fools and idiots." He spoke in an interview that aired on Rotana Khalijiya TV (Saudi Arabia) on April 19, 2021. Abd Al-Karim continued to say: "Most of our backwardness is a result of the extremism, which adopted political Islam as a mode of operation." He asked what Arabs have invented and what have they contributed to humanity. Abd Al-Karim continued to say that Muslims claim to have "educated the world," while Muslims persecuted the great Muslim philosophers such as Averroes, Ibn Khaldun, Al-Farabi, Al-Kindi, and others.

Najm Abd Al-Karim: "Do you believe that in our region in general, in the Arab world, we are of the lowest quality of in the world?"

Interviewer: "I am not certain about it."

Najm Abd Al-Karim: "When you compare us to other developed countries... The reason for this lies in the crisis of freedom. A man without freedom becomes what we have become. We do not have freedom. Writers, creators, inventors, and intellectuals cannot freely express what they believe with clear conscience. Unfortunately, this cannot be done in our countries. This is why we are in a state of backwardness. You have reservations to saying that we are at the tail end of nations but the data shows that the tail end is exactly where we are. [Ibrahim] Al-Bulaihi from Saudi Arabia asked: Over the past 200 years – what have we contributed to humanity? An airplane? Some medicine? Any invention? What have we contributed? At the same time, we claim to have educated the world. How exactly? The great intellectuals in our country, who have contributed to mankind – Averroes, Ibn Khaldun, Al-Farabi, Al-Kindi, and others... We persecuted them and placed them on trial. Thus, we have been dragging our backwardness from those days to this time.

[...]

"Ignorance has become a commodity, peddled by fools and idiots, who claim to be knowledgeable people because they send text messages on WhatsApp, Twitter, and so on. Ignorance has become a prevalent commodity. The people you call a new generation... I hope they are. If only they would appear. They are out there, I'm not saying they are not. I wish they would appear. However, out of the top 100 universities in the world – headed by Stanford, followed by Oxford, and so on – name a single Arab University.

[...]

"Conjoining religions with politics led to disasters. We do not wish to talk about it since most of our backwardness is a result if the extremism, which adopted political Islam as a mode of operation. This has led to our backwardness."

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