Muslim World and the West

By Dr Raza Khan

Published: August 18, 2018
The writer is a political, economy and security analyst and a governance and public policy practitioner. He can be contacted
at razapkhan@yahoo.com

There has been a never-ending debate in the Muslim World, including

Pakistan, on why the faithful around the globe have been continuously
experiencing problem after problem and why there is no panacea in sight. The
general argument among the partially-educated or illiterate Muslims has since
long been that the West and its stratagems have been responsible for the
downfall of Muslims and their inability to restore their lost glory. This line of
argument is hard to believe and a plethora of arguments could be produced for
the West’s constant rise and the Muslims’ consistent inability to catch up.
However, this is not the appropriate place to produce voluminous arguments
and data but some recent events and incidents taking place simultaneously in
the Western and Muslim countries could be thrown light upon to make the
readers, including policymakers, understand the sea of difference between the
Western and the Muslim World.

On August 9, the international media reported that dozens of children, many

younger than 15, were killed in a Saudi-led coalition air strike that hit a school
bus in northern Yemen. Media showed loathsome footage of the victims. Saudi
and its coalition comprise Muslims, whereas Yemenis also belong to the
Muslim faith. In another part of the Muslim World that is Charsadda in
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) province of Pakistan on August 12, six people,
including two women, were killed and three others wounded in an exchange of
fire between two families of close relatives over a petty issue of fixing of an
electricity wire. Resultantly, three brothers and their sister-in-law were killed
from one side, while a man and his wife died from the other side. In both
incidents Western-made firearms may have been used but the intention and
trigger(s) were local.
When these gory and abominable incidents were unfolding among many others
in the Muslim World, NASA — the space authority of the United States, the
heart of the Western World — on August 12 was sending off its first-ever
spaceship to explore the Sun on a strategic mission to protect the Earth by
unveiling the mysteries of the dangerous solar storms. The project which is
worth $1.5 billion is named as Parker Solar Probe. The launch of the car-sized
probe aboard a massive Delta IV-Heavy rocket is based in an unmanned
spacecraft’s mission aiming to get closer than any human-made object ever to
the centre of our solar system, plunging into the Sun’s atmosphere, known as
the corona, during a seven-year mission. The unthinkable mission is guarded
by an ultra-powerful heat shield that can endure unprecedented levels of heat,
and radiation 500 times that is experienced on Earth. The probe will ultimately
travel at some 430,000 miles per hour (692,000 kilometers per hour) making it
the fastest-ever human-made object, speedy enough to travel from New York
to Tokyo in one minute.

The above-mentioned incidents and events is enough to open the eyes of all of
us Muslims and they provide much food for thought for our retrogression and
the West’s unending progression.

Western countries have been able to dedicate huge amounts of money, energies
and time to unabated scientific exploration and discoveries, mostly
contributing to the welfare of humanity because there has been at least 500
years of ever-evolving civilisation behind it. At the heart of this civilisation is
knowledge, and our Holy book, the Quran, repeatedly emphasises humans,
including Muslims, to seek knowledge, and that there can be no comparison at
all between a knowledgeable and an ignorant person. So why we Muslims
have not been able to act upon the very teachings of Islam is a million-dollar
question. The answer is not that simple but if one can understand it, it is not
that complex either.
The sordid condition of Muslims for the last many centuries has been because
of them turning their back on knowledge, and their over-indulgence and
reliance on heresy and superstitions. The West has had developed the
institution of nation-state, providing the very framework and environment for
all other institutions — whether of education or judiciary — to thrive. Because
in the West the establishment of the nation-state was mainly the result of at
least one century of continual sectarian strife and warfare between the
Catholics and the then newly-emerged Protestant sect within Christianity.
Western nation-states after the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 become self-
sustaining due to their provision of education to all their citizens and gradual
introduction of democratic system of governance enabling their citizens to
think about their future, welfare and development. Contrarily, the Muslims
could not develop viable, self-sustaining nation-states.

In the case of Muslims, most of the nation-states have been the outgrowth of
fiefdoms of a traditional ruling family, tribe or a confederation of tribes. These
states could not become self-sustainable because the rulers continuously
denied education and knowledge to their citizens and failed to introduce a
democratic system of governance lest people should become masters of their
own destinies, and the very importance and influence of the traditional
authority figures should vanish. Therefore, most of the rulers of Muslim
countries have been trying to reinforce their tribal and ultraconservative
system of rule, rather control. In such an environment, conflict, disputes and
disagreements cannot be institutionally and peaceably solved and an effective
system of governance cannot be put in place. While in such an atmosphere,
knowledge, including science and arts, cannot thrive, thereby making
contribution to the welfare of people a far cry and to humanity a pipedream.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 18 th, 2018.