SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN MUSLIM COUNTRIES

THE MUSLIM, 15th January 1988

No country can hope to achieve full independence and prosperity without scientific enterprise. The advancement of science and the prosperity of a country go side by side. Supporting science and technology in a country is not a luxury but a useful; cost effective way to improve technological development which allows the country to help itself.

            THE FACTORS

            Three main factors are important for the development of science and technology. First, an atmosphere of open intellectual exchange is conducive to rapid progress in the said areas. Scientists must have access to the latest literature and technology if they are to avoid unnecessary repetition of research and if they want to do worthwhile research. Scientists cannot work in isolation. It should be the responsibility of any government to provide a congenial atmosphere/environment to its scientists where they can have intellectual interaction. Scientists should feel challenged by their colleagues and teachers to achieve a standard of work which would be considered first-rate in any part of the world.

            Second, the patronage towards science by the government is vital to the development of science. When Muslim scientific civilization was at its zenith, the enlightened caliphs were the sponsors of institutions like the House of Wisdom. The Japanese Constitution after the Meiji Restoration in the 19^th century gave due place to the acquisition of knowledge and its dissemination, and the result is that now we see Japan as an economic super power. If scientific enterprise is ever to flourish in the Muslim world, it will be necessary to spend between US$4 to 8 billion a year on research and development with one fifth of that amount earmarked for the use of pure sciences.

            Internationalization is the third important factor for science and technology to flourish. However, the opportunities of international scientific concourse are fast shrinking; for example, greater and greater restrictions are being imposed in the United Kingdom and the United States on the acceptance of overseas scholars including those from the Muslim countries. The seventeen richest nations allocated 0.3% of their GNP to overseas development in 1980, compared with 0.52% in 1960. Their expenditure on overseas development through international organizations is diminishing year by year. It is therefore the demand of the time that Muslim countries rely more on each other.

            SCEINCE IN THE MUSLIM WORLD

            As a result of a scientific resurgence in the Muslim countries, mush work has been done in developing science and technology. In the Arab world for example, the number of Arabs pursuing scientific careers has mushroomed. Over the past thirty years, the number of Arab students who have earned degrees from colleges or universities in the Arab world has been leapfrogging at a geometric rate; nearly doubling every five years since the early 1950s. By 1975, there were about 760,000 graduates and by 1980, close to 1.5 million.

            Several scientific organizations/institutions have emerged. For example, in Saudi Arabia in 1977, SANCST (Saudi Arabian National Centre for Science and Technology) was founded. It is the central body responsible for promoting and coordinating scientific research in Saudi Arabia. It encourages both internal Saudi researches as well as initiates from outside scientific circles, and has already achieved a remarkable degree of international cooperation in its efforts to bridge the scientific and technological gap. As an example, SANCST has entered into a project agreement with the Canadian National Research Council to help design and test the critical components in a planned national observatory and has signed a technical agreement with Taiwan in the field of single cell protein manufacture.

            Saudi Arabia has been spending an adequate amount on research. It now boasts of several universities. In Riyad’s King Saud University, for example, scientists and engineers have received SANCST grants to investigate the biosynthesis of protein from hydrocarbons. At King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, scientists are developing a nuclear power plant simulator, conducting geo-chronological and paleomagnetic studies of potentially mineral-rich areas of the Hijaz. Scientists at the University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran – one of the Kingdom’s most active research centres – are, with SANCST grants, busy in studying straligraphic analysis of phosphate deposits in Northwest Arabia, viscosity behaviour of Saudi crude oils and the removal of nitrogenous compounds from activated sludge. Research at King Faisal University, with campuses in Daman and Al Hasa, focuses primarily on agriculture. In Riyadh, the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and the related Cancer Research Institute are equipped with the most sophisticated medical devices that Western technology can muster- everything from a computerized multiple blood sample analyzer to a cyclotron to produce radio-active isotopes used in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Saudi Arabia is a rich country. It can afford to spend a handsome portion of its annual budget on scientific research.

            Clearly, Saudi Arabia is ahead in its rapid acquisition of scientific and technological resources, but it is, by no means, the only Arab country backing scientific activity. Egypt for example, has been a middle East path finder for thirty years ever since the 1950s, when its technical manpower and four major new scientific institutions were founded; the Supreme Science Council, the Atomic Energy Agency, the Desert Institute and the National Research Centre. In Syria, the Scientific Studies and Research Unit has focused on applied and applied chemistry, applied physics, electronics, mathematics and computer science.

            Some Muslim countries have made efforts to have joint ventures. For example, the University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran has acquired a computerized information Centre through mutual cooperation with the United States. They have foreign expertise on their faculty. At the same university they have been able to have computer’s on line access to the Lockheed Information System data. Kuwait, for example, established in 1967, the Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research with the cooperation of the Japanese government. The main of this Institute is to do research on how to increase the local food production.

            To consolidate these gains in agriculture, as well as in energy, medicine, pollution control, hydrology and many other fields and to coordinate research efforts, several regional organizations have been set up – another indication of how much science in Muslim countries have focused on development. Some examples are: the Arab Regional Centre for the Transfer and Development of Technology, the Arab Fund for Scientific and technological Development, and the Union of Arab National Research Councils. Another important group is the Conferences of Ministers of Arab States responsible for the application of science and technology to development (CASTARAB).

            Pakistan too has international collaboration in several projects. It has a grant from the Japanese for a modern hospital in Islamabad. Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad has acquired a modern computer frame in a venture with the Japanese government. The International Islamic University in Islamabad was established and currently run with support from Saudi Arabia. A postgraduate Research Cell run by Professor Salimuzzaman Siddiqui was established in Karachi with the help of the West German government. The Pakistan Institute of Science and Technology has some foreign collaboration too.

INADEQUATE EFFORTS

            All these examples of research and development suggest to some extent, the level of science and technology in the Muslim world and the extent of commitment of some Muslim countries. However, these efforts have been more or less sporadic and individualistic, and in general, are not enough to bring Muslim countries at par with the developed nations. They are still very far behind the developed nations. Most of their qualified personnel are educated and trained in the West, have to buy their modern technology from the West and at very high prices. Hardly any Muslim country has a research journal, which can compete with those in the West. Their universities and institutes, especially in Pakistan, are understaffed. For example, even in a small country like Singapore of 2.5 million people, its Department of Mathematics at the National University of Singapore boasts of 40 mathematicians, whereas the largest Mathematics Department in Pakistan is that in Quaid-i-Azam University, having 16 mathematicians.

            There is also the problem of brain drain because of the lack of a conducive intellectual environment for research and academic pursuits in many Muslim countries. As in the past, when far-sighted caliphs sponsored and supported the scholars who made the golden Age possible, enlightened leaders today can provide generous patronage to scientists. Together with the recent expansion in scientific and technological research, such a commitment could yet produce resurgence in Islamic science worthy of its historic antecedents.

            RECOMMENDATIONS

            Measures need to be taken in order to promote science in the Muslim countries and narrow the gap between the under developed countries and the developed nations. International centres on the line of ICTP (International Centre of Theoretical Physics) of various scientific disciplines should be established in the Muslim world. Muslim countries should assist each other to retain scientists who can further basic research and development and who can help the government utilize of scarce resources. They can set up joint organizations on the pattern of UNESCO to help scientists organize conferences regularly, invite scientists from developed countries, and purchase literature, books and equipment. These organizations should also provide facilities for fellows, associates and visitors to conduct research on collaboration with their counter-parts in any Muslim country.

            The basic condition necessary to stop the exodus of scientists from Muslim countries a conducive intellectual environment that enables young scientists to remain in their won country while making progress in their particular field of research. To secure a mobility of high-grade scientific personnel, there should be something like a United Nations laissez-passer for academic personnel to travel freely at least between the Muslim countries. Redtapism should be cut down if not eradicate so that scientists can obtain grants and NOCs easily for travel abroad.

            More conferences should be organized. Special funds should be allocated to the Universities for the annual organization of international conferences. Governments should  patronize journals and try to keep the standard. In order to keep the scientific community abreast with the latest research developments, the departments of universities should be encouraged to organize international seminars on a regular basis so that scientists from different organizations and universities can meet more frequently and regularly to exchange ideas and to work jointly.

            While scientific research is a useful activity for any country, it is itself a rewarding intellectual exercise. The pursuit of scientific research is a universal human activity that has fascinated and given pleasure to men for millennia.

            As the renowned mathematician, Graham Higman, has said: ‘We do fundamental research, not only to acquire results solely, but because the process is an ennobling one; it is something that if you cut yourself off, you are making yourself less human than you ought to be.