Technological Advances & Islam
English Essay on "Technological Advances & Islam"
President General Pervez Musharraf once again stressed on jihad-e-akbar against illiteracy, poverty and backwardness at the 10th meeting of the OIC’s COMSTECH ministerial standing committee.
He urged the leaders of the Muslim world to set up multi-billion dollar projects for the development of science and technology. He also advised the Muslim scholars, religious leaders and social scientists to accept the challenge of projection of Islamic teachings in right perspective to dispel the erroneous impressions about the Muslims.
Indeed, Musharraf’s speech was very impressive and directed at the right target. However, as a matter of fact, General Musharraf’s advice, particularly to the people of Pakistan, is not a new one. Our Lop politicians, bureaucrats, military rulers, intellectuals have been giving the same kind of sermonS for the last 50 years.4essays.blogspot.com In addition, every government comes out with new dreams. The presents government is now strongly promoting IT and advocating the benefits of modern technology. Being an IT professional aid having spent much of the time in the West, I fully understand the need of modern technology to be compatible with the rest of the world so that all and sundry can benefit from the modern inventions.
Undoubtedly, science and technology is the engine of modern development but to utihise the engine one needs a perfect and secure vehicle to fit-in, a proper road to drive and-then traffic laws to drive an reach to the density after a safe and secure journey.
Except a few exceptions, the Muslims as a global community and Pakistanis as an independent nation find themselves as the people with un-set priorities and confused goals. The pace of development in the Muslim world needs not only in technology but every field of life is essential to be competitive with the rest of the world.
Before I go further on discussing what and how should Muslim ummah proceed in general, and Pakistanis in particular, I would like to highlight where the Muslim world stands at the moment. The Central Asian Muslims States, which got independence as a result of the collapse of former Soviet Union, advanced under the communist Russia. Although these states are equipped with modern technology but they are passing through painful economic and soci1 crises. The Arabs are the world’s richest oil producing nations. Wealth is not a problem for them. They are economically better off but morally downgraded, divided, unable to get-away their fellow Arabs from the clutches of Israel, and serving Western interests simply to safeguard their kingdoms, sheikhdoms and quasi-democracies.
Pakistan has highly qualified scholars, ulema, intellectuals, scientists, professionals, diverse talent, all sorts of natural resources, nuclear capabilities, yet more than 40 million of the population lives under grinding poverty.
This figure was just 23 million in 1965. Literacy rate is under 30 per cent and the foreign debt is mounting every hour. Pakistan is ranked 139th on the Human Development Index (HDI) of 175 countries - well behind states like Cuba, Congo and Vietnam. And according to the Transparency International 1996 report, the most corrupt country was judged to be Nigeria, followed by Pakistan. We pay as much as 43.6 per cent our annual revenues to service the ever-increasing debt. There is no end in sight to the increasing levels of unemployment, reduced government services, higher prices of food and intensified poverty caused by allocating a major chunk of our budget to defence spending. Indonesia and Bangladesh are the largest Muslim nations but never progressed to get out from poverty and corruption. One can find that Malaysia, probably the only Muslim country these days, which despite not having many natural resources like the others can be considered as economically stable, technologically advanced, highly literate, socially secured and moving forward nation with well defined priorities.
Looking into the reasons of Malaysian success, one can see that Malaysians brought reform in a much-prioritised maneer. The pattern they followed moved from social reform, to economic, industrial and then technological development. Today, Malaysia is a corruption-free country with hard-working people engaged in development with self-esteem. Together, they form a peaceful, patriotic and prosperous society. On the other hand, Arabs states are financially strong.
The Central Asian states are piling-up technological contrivances, and Pakistan is having educated ruling class, powerful bureaucracy and erudite leaders, who should not make these countries in the category of developed nations with socially secured and economically steady future.
With this background in mind when we go back to the initial issue of development in the science and technology areas, we see that industrial and technological developments are related to financial and economic stability and growth. The economical stability depends on social and political environments. Social and political stability in any society depends on the degree of social values, justice and supremacy of law and order.
These are all sequentially inter-related and interdependent factors. Hence, the bottom line is: you cann6t succeed in any sector without achieving the prerequisites and without setting your priorities for the rest of the sectors. You cannot construct a 10-storey building starting from the 10th floor to the ground level. Science and technology, no doubt, is a great need of the time but how can you successfully run thousands of industries, millions of computers and millions of offices with modern equipment when you cannot afford to provide 24 hours electricity to the people.
How can researchers and professional do their job then they are subjected to the unbearable suffering of almost daily load shedding? How can you produce a constructive skilled labour force when the people don’t have security of jobs? How can you have healthy people when the environment and health conditions are crossing the thresholds of safety? How can you have a fair and honest society when the justice, law and order system is corrupt from top to bottom? How can you develop human resources when you take out the infinite source of moral guidance— the Quran - from school curriculum?
How can you have social harmony and people following ethics of relationship when you make teachings of Islam, the ultimate source of social and moral teachings, optional in school curriculum and then expect that the kids visiting Internet café or playing at the Internet at homes would not visit nude sites and wasting time on disgraceful chatting? If the West has gained the power of supremacy on others, it did not come through just by orders, political announcements and sermons studded with good words but no deeds to follow them.
These nations have gone through various phases. The social justice, equality honesty, supremacy of law, respect of civil rights, nationalism, etc., are the basic principles of a civilized society. One can also find that these basic principles in the West have been learnt from the teachings by Islam, which we instruct our educationists to delete -from school curriculum at the peril of lost future generations, having no moral, financial or spiritual direction.
Any ism, ideology or system cannot provide better principles of life than Islam has provided to the Muslims. Islam is the only religion, which emphasises more on knowledge, literacy, social security and justice, than any other religion of ism in the world. If we throw Islam out of the window and consider that we would bring an end to intolerance, extremism and back backwardness, it would amount to daydreaming and would soon end up in more wretchedness and misery at all levels. It ‘is very unfortunate that the followers of ‘Islam could not implement the golden basics principles of Islam to their individual life or in the affairs of the Sate. History is witness to the Muslims ruling much of this world with pride and dignity until they followed the golden rules of Islam and didn’t feel ashamed of following Islam. Today, we are facing all sorts of problems socially, morally and economically as an individual or as a nation despite the fact that Allah has rewarded us with — all sorts of natural resources, talent and above all a complete code of life, the Holy Quran. The rulers of few Muslim countries did implement Islam but “a selective” arid “moulded version” of Islam, which suited to them for sustaining their rule.
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Middle East, Iran, Turkey are the examples of “selective” application of Islam. In fact, Islam gives us complete way of life and it must be implemented in its true and. complete shape. The selective Islam according to our preferences and choices cannot get us out from the ever- mounting problems we have to face. Instead, it creates more confusion and we would keep searching the lost destiny until we follow the straight path.
In Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf wants to make Pakistan a role model for the Muslim World. I believe, this must be the dream of the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan but unfortunately new policies, rules, committees, councils, long and impressive speeches could make us successful in gratifying our dreams. As I said earlier, Islam is complete system for our day-to-day business, to the State affairs. How can one run a system within the systems? In Pakistan, we are running various systems within a system. Feudalism, bureaucracy, military dictatorship, quota system, English laws, Islamic laws, jirga system and on the back of these there is a corruption in the form of bribes, parchi system and so on in each and every’ walk of life and every government and private sector.
No one wants to talk about cleaning our society from these diseases but everyone does want to talk about making Pakistan an Asian tiger, the fort of Islam, a role model for the Muslim world and so on. If General Pervez Musharraf is really serious about Pakistan’s future than he has to undertake the mission against these snags. As long as these grimy cultures exist in our society no reforms can be successful. Being a Muslim, our only way out from all sorts of problems and also to achieve all sorts of benefits are to revive our true faith in Islam, to reduce our dependence on the West or the US. Instead we should worry about implementing the complete codes of Islam in every walk of life, from bottom to the top, from individuals to nation, from home to State affairs in order to become a happy, secured and amongst the beneficiaries of Allah and then work hard with sincerity and honesty for ourselves and for our country.
He urged the leaders of the Muslim world to set up multi-billion dollar projects for the development of science and technology. He also advised the Muslim scholars, religious leaders and social scientists to accept the challenge of projection of Islamic teachings in right perspective to dispel the erroneous impressions about the Muslims.
Indeed, Musharraf’s speech was very impressive and directed at the right target. However, as a matter of fact, General Musharraf’s advice, particularly to the people of Pakistan, is not a new one. Our Lop politicians, bureaucrats, military rulers, intellectuals have been giving the same kind of sermonS for the last 50 years.4essays.blogspot.com In addition, every government comes out with new dreams. The presents government is now strongly promoting IT and advocating the benefits of modern technology. Being an IT professional aid having spent much of the time in the West, I fully understand the need of modern technology to be compatible with the rest of the world so that all and sundry can benefit from the modern inventions.
Undoubtedly, science and technology is the engine of modern development but to utihise the engine one needs a perfect and secure vehicle to fit-in, a proper road to drive and-then traffic laws to drive an reach to the density after a safe and secure journey.
Except a few exceptions, the Muslims as a global community and Pakistanis as an independent nation find themselves as the people with un-set priorities and confused goals. The pace of development in the Muslim world needs not only in technology but every field of life is essential to be competitive with the rest of the world.
Before I go further on discussing what and how should Muslim ummah proceed in general, and Pakistanis in particular, I would like to highlight where the Muslim world stands at the moment. The Central Asian Muslims States, which got independence as a result of the collapse of former Soviet Union, advanced under the communist Russia. Although these states are equipped with modern technology but they are passing through painful economic and soci1 crises. The Arabs are the world’s richest oil producing nations. Wealth is not a problem for them. They are economically better off but morally downgraded, divided, unable to get-away their fellow Arabs from the clutches of Israel, and serving Western interests simply to safeguard their kingdoms, sheikhdoms and quasi-democracies.
Pakistan has highly qualified scholars, ulema, intellectuals, scientists, professionals, diverse talent, all sorts of natural resources, nuclear capabilities, yet more than 40 million of the population lives under grinding poverty.
This figure was just 23 million in 1965. Literacy rate is under 30 per cent and the foreign debt is mounting every hour. Pakistan is ranked 139th on the Human Development Index (HDI) of 175 countries - well behind states like Cuba, Congo and Vietnam. And according to the Transparency International 1996 report, the most corrupt country was judged to be Nigeria, followed by Pakistan. We pay as much as 43.6 per cent our annual revenues to service the ever-increasing debt. There is no end in sight to the increasing levels of unemployment, reduced government services, higher prices of food and intensified poverty caused by allocating a major chunk of our budget to defence spending. Indonesia and Bangladesh are the largest Muslim nations but never progressed to get out from poverty and corruption. One can find that Malaysia, probably the only Muslim country these days, which despite not having many natural resources like the others can be considered as economically stable, technologically advanced, highly literate, socially secured and moving forward nation with well defined priorities.
Looking into the reasons of Malaysian success, one can see that Malaysians brought reform in a much-prioritised maneer. The pattern they followed moved from social reform, to economic, industrial and then technological development. Today, Malaysia is a corruption-free country with hard-working people engaged in development with self-esteem. Together, they form a peaceful, patriotic and prosperous society. On the other hand, Arabs states are financially strong.
The Central Asian states are piling-up technological contrivances, and Pakistan is having educated ruling class, powerful bureaucracy and erudite leaders, who should not make these countries in the category of developed nations with socially secured and economically steady future.
With this background in mind when we go back to the initial issue of development in the science and technology areas, we see that industrial and technological developments are related to financial and economic stability and growth. The economical stability depends on social and political environments. Social and political stability in any society depends on the degree of social values, justice and supremacy of law and order.
These are all sequentially inter-related and interdependent factors. Hence, the bottom line is: you cann6t succeed in any sector without achieving the prerequisites and without setting your priorities for the rest of the sectors. You cannot construct a 10-storey building starting from the 10th floor to the ground level. Science and technology, no doubt, is a great need of the time but how can you successfully run thousands of industries, millions of computers and millions of offices with modern equipment when you cannot afford to provide 24 hours electricity to the people.
How can researchers and professional do their job then they are subjected to the unbearable suffering of almost daily load shedding? How can you produce a constructive skilled labour force when the people don’t have security of jobs? How can you have healthy people when the environment and health conditions are crossing the thresholds of safety? How can you have a fair and honest society when the justice, law and order system is corrupt from top to bottom? How can you develop human resources when you take out the infinite source of moral guidance— the Quran - from school curriculum?
How can you have social harmony and people following ethics of relationship when you make teachings of Islam, the ultimate source of social and moral teachings, optional in school curriculum and then expect that the kids visiting Internet café or playing at the Internet at homes would not visit nude sites and wasting time on disgraceful chatting? If the West has gained the power of supremacy on others, it did not come through just by orders, political announcements and sermons studded with good words but no deeds to follow them.
These nations have gone through various phases. The social justice, equality honesty, supremacy of law, respect of civil rights, nationalism, etc., are the basic principles of a civilized society. One can also find that these basic principles in the West have been learnt from the teachings by Islam, which we instruct our educationists to delete -from school curriculum at the peril of lost future generations, having no moral, financial or spiritual direction.
Any ism, ideology or system cannot provide better principles of life than Islam has provided to the Muslims. Islam is the only religion, which emphasises more on knowledge, literacy, social security and justice, than any other religion of ism in the world. If we throw Islam out of the window and consider that we would bring an end to intolerance, extremism and back backwardness, it would amount to daydreaming and would soon end up in more wretchedness and misery at all levels. It ‘is very unfortunate that the followers of ‘Islam could not implement the golden basics principles of Islam to their individual life or in the affairs of the Sate. History is witness to the Muslims ruling much of this world with pride and dignity until they followed the golden rules of Islam and didn’t feel ashamed of following Islam. Today, we are facing all sorts of problems socially, morally and economically as an individual or as a nation despite the fact that Allah has rewarded us with — all sorts of natural resources, talent and above all a complete code of life, the Holy Quran. The rulers of few Muslim countries did implement Islam but “a selective” arid “moulded version” of Islam, which suited to them for sustaining their rule.
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Middle East, Iran, Turkey are the examples of “selective” application of Islam. In fact, Islam gives us complete way of life and it must be implemented in its true and. complete shape. The selective Islam according to our preferences and choices cannot get us out from the ever- mounting problems we have to face. Instead, it creates more confusion and we would keep searching the lost destiny until we follow the straight path.
In Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf wants to make Pakistan a role model for the Muslim World. I believe, this must be the dream of the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan but unfortunately new policies, rules, committees, councils, long and impressive speeches could make us successful in gratifying our dreams. As I said earlier, Islam is complete system for our day-to-day business, to the State affairs. How can one run a system within the systems? In Pakistan, we are running various systems within a system. Feudalism, bureaucracy, military dictatorship, quota system, English laws, Islamic laws, jirga system and on the back of these there is a corruption in the form of bribes, parchi system and so on in each and every’ walk of life and every government and private sector.
No one wants to talk about cleaning our society from these diseases but everyone does want to talk about making Pakistan an Asian tiger, the fort of Islam, a role model for the Muslim world and so on. If General Pervez Musharraf is really serious about Pakistan’s future than he has to undertake the mission against these snags. As long as these grimy cultures exist in our society no reforms can be successful. Being a Muslim, our only way out from all sorts of problems and also to achieve all sorts of benefits are to revive our true faith in Islam, to reduce our dependence on the West or the US. Instead we should worry about implementing the complete codes of Islam in every walk of life, from bottom to the top, from individuals to nation, from home to State affairs in order to become a happy, secured and amongst the beneficiaries of Allah and then work hard with sincerity and honesty for ourselves and for our country.
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