Pew Global Survey of Muslims: The Ummah is 1.56b Strong
A comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing 23 per cent of an estimated 6.8 billion people who inhabit this globe in 2009.
Taking pride in numbers is often the pet pastime of Muslims. For all such passionate believers in numbers, the Pew Forum's survey of Muslim population would make a great reading. The survey has pegged the number of Muslims around the globe at 1.56 billion or 23 per cent of the people inhabiting this planet.
Fancy for numbers even propels some of us to exaggerate the size of the community and even suspect under-enumeration or suppression of real figures by authorities. Some even feel flattered by catchphrases propagated even by the official American literature like 'fastest growing religion in the US'. These naïve believers lose sight of the fact that growth of Muslims in US has got more to do with procreative proclivities and immigrations rather than just conversions. All this talk about conversions to Islam in the West is much baloney and self-delusion rather than factual.
More enlightened guesses suggest that scores of youth with Muslim names in American universities say that their parents used to be Muslims on being asked if they are Muslims. American mathematician Dr. Jeffrey Lang in his latest book painfully admits that youths of Muslim parentage are being driven away from the faith because the Islam propagated by these so called dawah group is 'retrogressive, stagnant, patriarchal remnant of a lagging culture, mired in meaningless controversies and hollow and lifeless formalism'. (Ref. Losing my religion: A Call for help by Amana Publications).
He says that mass numbers of descendents of Muslims, converts, and spiritual seekers are forsaking the American Islamic community and fears that many of these will inevitably abandon the religion. Yet the popular refrain across the world is that 'Americans are turning to Islam en masse' and in their fondness for religious sensationalism some even forcibly drag Neil Armstrong and Michael Jackson into the fold of Islam. The fact is that some in the West are in quest of spiritual solace and definitely turn to Islam fascinated by the images of neat rows of namazis praying in solitude of mosques or the spirit of renunciation visible through Hajj pilgrimage. But for the majority of the enlightened citizens of the world, Muslim world holds no charm. We need to ask why?
The exodus of creative genius from the Muslim societies (from Muslim countries as well as from societies where Muslims are in a minority) towards the West provides a partial answer to such queries. Restrictive social and political environment drives away the learned, the intellectuals and the scholars to where they find a vent for their knowledge and skills. Ask a group of 100 post graduate students anywhere in the Muslim world as to which country they would choose to migrate if the option is between the USA and Saudi Arabia. Chances are that 85 per cent would opt for the US. Why? Because the deficits in knowledge, freedom and women's empowerment in the Arab world (and more or less all over the Muslim world) does not enthuse a pursuer of knowledge, lover of freedom and believer in gender equity. Education in the Islamic world suppresses questioning, independent thinking and self-confidence leading to passive attitudes. No wonder then why life in Muslim countries is morose.
Consequently, we have some of the most ignorant, illiterate and uncreative societies around us. No major invention has emerged from the Muslim world for the last five centuries. In numerical terms, 41 predominantly Muslim countries with about 20 per cent of the world's total population generate less than 5 per cent of its science output, going by the proportion of citations of articles published in international science journals. A study by academics at the International Islamic University Malaysia showed that OIC countries have 8.5 scientists, engineers, and technicians per 1,000 population, compared with a world average of 40.7, and 139.3 for countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (For more on the OECD, see http://www.oecd.org.) On average, the 57 OIC states spend an estimated 0.3 per cent of their gross national product on research and development, which is far below the global average of 2.4 per cent. Yet another determining factor for diffusion of knowledge is the number of available scientists, engineers, and technicians. Those numbers are low for OIC countries, averaging around 400/500 per million people, while developed countries typically lie in the range of 3500/5000 per million.
Forty-six Muslim countries contributed 1.17 per cent of the world's science literature, whereas 1.66 per cent came from India alone and 1.48 per cent from Spain. Twenty Arab countries contributed 0.55 per cent compared with 0.89 per cent by Israel alone. The US NSF records that of the 28 lowest producers of scientific articles in 2003, half belong to the OIC. According to the Pakistan Council for Science and Technology, Pakistani researchers have registered just eight international patents in the past 43 years. In 2004, high-tech exports mostly software amounted to just one per cent of total exports from our neighbouring country.
Talk about science, education and research, one perforce looks at the Arab, because it is they who have money and resources to spare on such pursuits. But Arabs have proved themselves the worst (or best) laggards, coming even behind Turks, Iranians, Pakistanis, Malaysians and Indonesian. The Arab world has less than 53 newspapers per 1,000 Arab citizens compared to 285 papers per 1,000 for developed countries. Arabs have 18 computers per 1,000 persons against global average 78 for 1,000. Translation is considered to be the most important channel of diffusion of knowledge. On average, only 4.4 translated books per million people were published in the between 1980-85 in the Arab world, while the corresponding rate in Hungary (not a very enlightened society by current standards) was 519 books and with regard to Spain it was 920 books. The number of scientists and engineers working in R&D in Arab countries is not more than 371 per million citizens while the global ratio is 979 per million. Arabs constitute 5 per cent of the world population but produce only 1.1 per cent of the books, most of which is religious literature. The production of literary and artistic books in Arab countries is lower than the general level. In 1996, it did not exceed 1,945 books, representing only 0.8 per cent of world production, i.e., less than the production of a country such as Turkey, with a population one quarter of that of Arab countries.
The 57 OIC countries together have 1,800 universities. But no university makes the top-500 ranking compiled by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. In most universities, film, drama and music are frowned upon. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a teacher of physics at the Quaid e Azam University in Islamabad, says, the campus has four mosques but no bookstore.
Quantitative growth of the ummah holds no key to its weight, esteem and prosperity. Minuscule communities/nations such as Jews, Parsis and Koreans have contributed to the humanity and gained respect than an impoverished, uncreative and weightless Muslim multitudes.
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