Remember what I said about Saudi Arabia, IT and creativity? I quote myself:
Setting up a knowledge city and throwing money at it does not solve the problem of creativity or having knowledge industries. For that, you need to have creativity at the school level. They have to inquire and challenge everything.
And you cannot do creativity and questioning and challenging when I am too busy worried about being thrown in jail. I quote from the Human Rights Watch site.
On May 19, Saudi secret police apprehended Dr. al-Faleh on the premises of King Saud University in Riyadh, where he teaches political science.
I am reminded of a conversation I had with somebody in Malaysia about Islamic scientific hero's. I remember telling him that all the Islamic scientific hero's that OIC talk about, mostly were hero's despite Islam and the Islamic superstructure of religion, politics, economics, history and education. But for universities to impinging on freedom of speech and investigation is horrific. The problem is global, not only in Saudi Arabia but also in the UK.
2 comments:
It is Ahmed from Saudi Arabia
I agree with the author that constructing a city and throwing money at it will not build creative minds and would not be able to solve deep-rooted problems in the society.
But the point where I disagree with the author is that "I remember telling him that all the Islamic scientific hero's that OIC talk about, mostly were hero's despite Islam and the Islamic superstructure of religion, politics, economics, history and education"
We cannot look at their successes and ability to conduct experiments without mentioning the encouragement that the had from Islam and Islamic society. When you have a religion the first word that had been inspirited to its prophet and to all Muslims is ((Read)). And when the holy Quraan says that "People who know and people who do not know are not equal!".
A religion like Islam that encourages people to look around themselves and think over the creations and discover the secrets of life cannot be ignored in the successes of those Muslims.
The fact that Islamic countries are in the rear of the world should not affect the relationship between Islam and success in life, since these countries are far away behind the real Islam. And when they speedup to Islam and make it - again - the leader of life, the world will see a plenty of those Muslim heroes those we have read about.
Nice to discuss about that ^_^
Ahmed,
Ahmed, thank you for the note. I would just say that science, technology and creativity is not due to religion. Religion looks to control and that never sits properly with creative minds. If that is indeed the case, then why did the golden age stop? Nobody stopped Islam from spreading, did they?
That's why I get very nervous whenever people start looking at God for science. Look to God for love and faith, my friend.
Think about Al Azhar, how many patents, prizes or economic developments has that oldest religious university spawned? Compare that to Bucconi university or to Tokyo university. See what I mean?
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