Addressing the World Economic Forum on the Middle East (WEF) a few days back, Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, the vice president and prime minister of UAE, unveiled plans for the establishment this year of a foundation to build a knowledge-based society in the region. To be launched with a $10 billion endowment, this initiative is an important addition to efforts being made by diverse Muslim countries to close the knowledge gap.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, Muslim analysts have endlessly repeated a litany of causes that led to the decline of their great civilization that once pioneered modern learning. At the heart of this analysis was recognition that the spirit of inquiry ebbed away as their centers of intellectual excellence were destroyed by the vengeful Christian reconquest of Spain and the Mongol invasion of the Arab heartland. Elsewhere, as in the unrelated but similar rejection of modern printing technology by the Ottomans in the heart of the Caliphate and the Mogul emperors in India, dissemination of knowledge beyond the elite was considered suspect.
The causes of intellectual stagnation have been understood for decades but Muslim states have found themselves hamstrung by their own lack of resolve or foreign interventions to bring about the much-awaited renaissance. The immense creative ferment in the Arab world that got a fillip with Napoleon’s arrival was frequently stymied by the internal antagonisms of political ideologies inspired by the encounter with the West. More recently, Israel was often able to deal heavy blows to Arab regeneration. The destruction of Iraq has shattered the basic organization of knowledge in one of the best-educated Arab societies.
Several non-Arab Muslim countries have been battling with their own constraints in creating knowledge-based societies. Pakistan has successfully produced an intellectual elite but its ability to hold it has been compromised by the narrow band in which state patronage has been available so far. Since it was perceived as an existential compulsion, nuclear technology made astonishing progress and acquired a self-sustaining momentum. In many other fields, Pakistan continues to face brain drain as the state is not a universally modern entity providing equal opportunities for the development of sectors not immediately related to its overriding security concerns. It is only now that the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan is awakening to the need of upgrading scientific research across the board. For a heterogeneous society where religious, ethnic and linguistic diversity demands an exceptionally capable organization of research in social sciences, Pakistan has been relatively slow to invest resources in it.
Turkey is far ahead of Pakistan in mass literacy and while visiting Turkey, one is struck by individual brilliance in its intellectual class. But it is doubtful if the linear and rather inflexible Kemalist state is as yet keen to let this brilliance become the beacon of a renaissance in the Muslim world. Iran has a long tradition of respecting knowledge and its universities are crowded today with ardent students, half of them women. But again the internal and external insecurity of the regime impinges upon academic freedoms. As in Iraq, its scientific elite attracts hostility from outside powers.
Higher education and training in the Arab-Islamic world must aim at telescoping decades of progress into a relatively short period of time. The key areas are science and technology, social sciences, management and strategic studies. A generous provision of funds needs to be matched with a resolve to create a national and regional framework of objectives. The West is not likely to render much help in fostering a sovereignty of knowledge unless the regional states display an ability to grasp it. For several years now, the dominant world powers have been establishing institutions and forums that would enable them to appropriate resources of the Arab-Islamic countries to their purposes. This is particularly noticeable in the fields of economy, media and strategic thinking.
If it is a truly global village, the Muslim states should feel free to interact with whatever source invests their efforts with substance and value. It may not be fashionable to talk of pan-Arabism in a political sense but there is still a strong case for close networking by Arab centers of learning and research. The Organization of Islamic Conference does not make much impact on the political fortunes of member states but still provides forums for a second concentric ring of intellectual interaction. Pakistan, Turkey and Malaysia have the capacity to make a significant contribution to the planned renaissance. There are unprecedented opportunities to balance traditional ties with the West with links with new sources of knowledge and expertise. Dubai’s noble example to focus on human resource development has to be emulated by all Muslim states. They must also plan that development with full awareness of the great complexity of our times.
— Tanvir Ahmad Khan is a former foreign secretary and ambassador of Pakistan.
