Decline of Science in the Muslim World

Re: # 163

Here is the reference

http://www.dawn.com/2005/09/06/nat2.htm

Let me repeat what Nur Khan has to say about the lies regarding the so called `1965 aggression by India and how Indians almost lost the war because they ran out of ammo` before the sponsorers of official Paki lies churn out some more lies in order to support their myths:-

``...
“The performance of the Army did not match that of the PAF mainly because the leadership was not as professional. They had planned the ‘Operation Gibraltar’ for self-glory rather than in the national interest. It was a wrong war. And they misled the nation with a big lie that India rather than Pakistan had provoked the war and that we were the victims of Indian aggression”, Air Marshal Khan said.

When on the second day of war President Gen Ayub wanted to know how we were faring, Musa informed him that the Army had run out of even ammunition. That was the extent of preparation in the Army. And the information had shocked Gen Ayub so much that it could have triggered his heart ailment, which overtook him a couple of years later.

This in short is Nur Khan’s version of 1965 war, which he calls an unnecessary war and says that President Ayub for whom he has the greatest regard should have held his senior generals accountable for the debacle and himself resigned.

This would have held the hands of the adventurers who followed Gen Ayub. Since the 1965 war was based on a big lie and was presented to the nation a great victory, the Army came to believe its own fiction and has used since, Ayub as its role model and therefore has continued to fight unwanted wars — the 1971 war and the Kargil fiasco in 1999, he said.

In each of the subsequent wars we have committed the same mistakes that we committed in 1965.

Air Marshal Khan demanded that a truth commission formed to find out why we failed in all our military adventures. It is not punishment of the failed leadership that should be the aim of the commission but sifting of facts from fiction and laying bare the follies and foibles of the irresponsible leaders in matters with grave implications for the nation. It should also point out the irregularities committed in training and promotions in the defence forces in the past so that it is not repeated in future.
....``

Re: # 160

The official Paki position on partition is that Nehru`s stubbornness caused the ``inevitable`` partition on communal lines.....................the other official position is that the 1965 war was started by India and they almost lost it because they ran out o the ammo...........

I am sure our Indian version of Romair is listening because there is an expose from his old guard which spills the beans out of this myth making:

Nur Khan reminisces ’65 war


By Our Special Correspondent

ISLAMABAD, Sept 5: Air Marshal (retired) Nur Khan, the man who led the airforce achieve complete superiority over the three times bigger Indian airforce on the very first day of the 1965 war, had all but resigned the post the very day that he took command of Pakistan Air Force on July 23, 1965.

“Rumours about an impending operation were rife but the army had not shared the plans with other forces,” Air Marshal Nur Khan said. Sharing his memoirs with Dawn on the 40th anniversary of 1965 war, Air Marshal Khan said that he was the most disturbed man on the day, instead of feeling proud.

Air Marshal (retired) Asghar Khan while handing over the command to Nur Khan had not briefed him about any impending war because he was not aware of it himself. So, in order to double check, Nur Khan called on the then Commander-in-Chief, General Musa Khan.

Under his searching questions Gen Musa wilted and with a sheepish smile admitted that something was afoot. Nur Khan’s immediate reaction was that this would mean war. But, Gen Musa said you need not to worry as according to him Indians would not retaliate. Then he directed a still highly skeptical Nur Khan to Lt-Gen Akhtar Hasan Malik, GOC Kashmir, the man in-charge of “Operation Gibraltar” for further details. The long and short of his discussion with Gen Malik was, “don’t worry, because the plan to send in some 800,000 infiltrators inside the occupied territory to throw out the Indian troops with the help of the local population”, was so designed that the Indians would not be able retaliate and therefore the airforce need not get into war-time mode.

A still incredulous Nur Khan was shocked when on further inquiry he found that except for a small coterie of top generals, very few in the armed forces knew about “Operation Gibraltar”. He asked himself how good, intelligent and professional people like Musa and Malik could be so naive, so irresponsible.

For the air marshal, it was unbelievable. Even the then Lahore garrison commander had not been taken into confidence. And Governor of West Pakistan, Malik Amir Mohammad Khan of Kalabagh did not know what was afoot and had gone to Murree for vacations.

It was at this point that he felt like resigning and going home. But then he thought such a rash move would further undermine the country’s interests and, therefore, kept his cool and went about counting his chickens — the entire airforce was too young and too inexperienced to be called anything else then — and gearing up his service for the D-day.

The miracle that the PAF achieved on September 6, to a large extent, is attributed to Nur Khan’s leadership. He led his force from up front and set personal example by going on some highly risky sorties himself. But then no commander, no matter how daring and how professional, can win a battle if his troops are not fully geared to face such challenges and that too within 43 days of change in command.

The full credit for turning the PAF into a highly professional and dedicated fighting machine goes to Air Marshal Asghar Khan who was given charge of the service in 1957. Thank God, unlike the other service no darbari or sifarishi was given the job. And by the time he left on July 23, 1965, Asghar Khan had turned the PAF into a well-oiled, highly professional and dedicated fighting machine and had trained them on the then best US made fighters, bombers and transport planes. Those who flew those machines and those who maintained them on ground worked like a team, and each one of the PAF member performed beyond the call of duty to make a miracle.

The PAF performance had crucially allowed the Army to operate without interference from the Indian airforce.

“The performance of the Army did not match that of the PAF mainly because the leadership was not as professional. They had planned the ‘Operation Gibraltar’ for self-glory rather than in the national interest. It was a wrong war. And they misled the nation with a big lie that India rather than Pakistan had provoked the war and that we were the victims of Indian aggression”, Air Marshal Khan said.

When on the second day of war President Gen Ayub wanted to know how we were faring, Musa informed him that the Army had run out of even ammunition. That was the extent of preparation in the Army. And the information had shocked Gen Ayub so much that it could have triggered his heart ailment, which overtook him a couple of years later.

This in short is Nur Khan’s version of 1965 war, which he calls an unnecessary war and says that President Ayub for whom he has the greatest regard should have held his senior generals accountable for the debacle and himself resigned.

This would have held the hands of the adventurers who followed Gen Ayub. Since the 1965 war was based on a big lie and was presented to the nation a great victory, the Army came to believe its own fiction and has used since, Ayub as its role model and therefore has continued to fight unwanted wars — the 1971 war and the Kargil fiasco in 1999, he said.

In each of the subsequent wars we have committed the same mistakes that we committed in 1965.

Air Marshal Khan demanded that a truth commission formed to find out why we failed in all our military adventures. It is not punishment of the failed leadership that should be the aim of the commission but sifting of facts from fiction and laying bare the follies and foibles of the irresponsible leaders in matters with grave implications for the nation. It should also point out the irregularities committed in training and promotions in the defence forces in the past so that it is not repeated in future.

Mr Khan believes that our soldiers when called upon have fought with their lives but because of bad leadership their supreme sacrifices went waste. And after every war that we began we ended up taking dictation from the enemy — at Tashkant, at Simla and lastly at Washington.

He said at present Pakistan is engaged in another war, this time in Waziristan. This war can also end up in a fiasco and politically disastrous for the federation if it is fought with the same nonchalance and unprofessionally as we did the last three wars.

He, therefore, called for an immediate change of command at the GHQ insisting that President Gen Pervez Musharraf should appoint a full-time Chief of Army Staff and restore full democracy in the country. He suggested appointment of an independent chief election commissioner in consultation with all the political parties.

“Look at India. There a religious party comes in power and nobody cries foul and it goes out of power and nobody alleges rigging. We can also do this,” he added.

And we must make unified efforts to restore the country in the vision of the Quaid-i-Azam. Turn it into a non-theocratic and truly democratic state. And all the three forces should model themselves on the lines set by Asghar Khan when he was commanding the PAF, he suggested

beejay please dont give me rabies.

Re#157 by hindvi

[But apart from the gruesome horrors of partition what further and artificially sealed the borders was kashmir and for this Nehru shares the blame both for the initial cause and for the inability to strike a compromise, for of the sage leaders of Pre-Partition India he alone survived long enough to have settled the issue and he alone had enough political capital on both sides of the border to have done so.]
Absolutely! It was all due to Nehru’s fault! All he had to do was to have turned Kashmir over to India’s most benevolent neighbor and – presto – all the problems that the Muslim societies the world over of not producing scientific thought over the last millennium or so would have DEFINITELY got solved! Not a shred of doubt about it! You see, India is the ONLY non-muslim country that Pakistanis would have ever interacted with – and not getting Kashmir (or at least all of Kashmir) broke Pakistani hearts so much they took wholesale sanyas from scientific thought and things have never been the same since, ever! Alas! Khair! At least something is new here – we at long last have in our very own hands the “smoking gun” – that (so far) missing link in this debate – that forever-unavoidable connection to Kashmir – that “root cause” to this and ALL the other problems of the world!

[…when he once went to Pakistan in the 50s, such was the reception accorded to him, that on his return he told his friend that he felt he was the most popular politician in Pakistan.]
A feat so unique that it would not be repeated for the next fifty years or so – until a certain “not so run-of-the-mill” politician would pay a visit from the same country. (S3 smugly pipes in from his safely ensconced position among tree branches – “Yes, send that descendant of Lord Krishna to solve the problems of the descendants of Lord Rama – Allah-darn!”)

Re: # 154

Obviously you are talking about Deism.

Deism was a well founded theory to ``save the scriptural metaphysics`` which were in direct conflict eith the material sciences. This was supplamented by the Christian reform movements such as the Renaissance Humanism, Lutheranism, Calvinism etc which were all secularising forces within Christianity, purging faith and practice of immanentist conceptions of deity, progressively applying the canons of reason to doctrine, and reducing mystical, miraculous, sacramental and sacerdotal claims. This progression has never happened with Islam and we need to throw away the propoganda by the LITERALIST schools which have ensured that no DEIST concept of God can survive in Islam..........only when we have an Islamic Deism can we ensure that muslims reject the historical determinism (the essentialistic conspiracy theories about Americans, Jews and their collaborators) that gets propounded by every mullah on the street as a nice cover up of their own incompetences to explain the world rationally.................

In India hindus too had costs due to a lack of diversity, especially in the north but India due to its size has varieties of caste, religious beliefs and virtually of civilizations, since the East and the South have geater differneces in ways of life and attitudes than those between north west India and pakistan, suffered far less. Also hinduism never had a core set of permanent inviolable beliefs, (though the cast system came close). This combined with their previous history of adjustment to different sets of foreign rulers allowed them to be better placed than muslims.

Christianity, which had a core set of inviolable beliefs had a more institutionalised religous authority whose distinctiveness worked in many ways, not excluding revolt against repression, which islam never had.

An incepient modernised middle class and intelligentia had begun to develop among the muslims of south asia in the first half of the 20th century in areas such as Academia, the press, films, radio, the all india services, in the professions etc which might have formed the kernel of reform and enlightenment for their community but it was artificially cut along with the cultural, economic, social and political ties which made the subcontinent whole. And the cleavage Partition created, Kashmir sealed.

If one takes a look around at those countries which have a large muslim population, it becomes quickly apparent that it is the ones that have large non muslim populations or a high degree of interaction with non muslims (either due to colonialism or otherwise) that are the most developed be they in South East asia, the Ex Soviet Central Asia, Turkey etc.

One of the tragedies of the inability of our leaders to come to an acceptable compromise in the first half of the twentieth century was that Pakistan and bangladesh were cut of from the muslim periphery and became part of the core with this they lost contact with their non muslim bretheren.

Nehru understood this and told Jinnah, Jinnah infact implicitly understood it himself for most of his close friends were Parsi and hindu. But apart from the gruesome horrors of partition what further and artificially sealed the borders was kashmir and for this Nehru shares the blame both for the initial cause and for the inability to strike a compromise, for of the sage leaders of Pre-Partition India he alone survived long enough to have settled the issue and he alone had enough political capital on both sides of the border to have done so. when he once went to Pakistan in the 50s, such was the reception accorded to him, that on his return he told his friend that he felt he was the most popular politician in Pakistan.

(Enter the lion. The janitor appears incredulous.)

J: Didn’t I ask you to keep a low profile?!
L: Did you really expect me to?
J: (Sighing) Do you have to keep risking your neck so? You keep at it like you are doing now, and rest assured, sooner or later, good old CC – the chowk censor – will have to come and chop it off.
L: CC will?
J: (In strident voice) You realize you are a different nick belonging to the same user – a nick which is being used for harassing this user - ME! Don’t you realize its SO much in violation of chowk guidelines?!
L: But I am not using my own nick to post this – just yours! Shouldn’t they really chop off YOUR neck!
J: A sad commentary on life – the victim always gets the blame!
L: You mean the Muslims?
J: That’s not the message of this article – Muslims are not just the victims here – many of them are also the victimizers!
L: WHO are the victimizers?
J: You want me to get a fatwa issued in my name? Didn’t you read the part about blasphemy laws?
L: It’s not blasphemous to criticize individual Muslims – no matter who they are!
J: You obviously don’t get it. The problem is not with the laws per se – their exact reason and reasoning and even merits are not the issue. The problem is with their implementation, and who decides to invoke them, and what their motives are, etc.
L: So, the problem is that the laws of God are being implemented by simple human beings – or perhaps not so simple human beings – even convoluted human beings!
J: I think you just alienated a big chunk of the chowk crowd! Say goodbye to your five stars!
L: You are SO jealous!
J: (After pause) Why don’t you read the article yourself?
L: Lions don’t read. (A scared S3, hiding among branches, pipes in – “they only breed!” Nobody pays him any attention.)
J: Let me try to explain it in a way even a lion can comprehend – have you ever seen a cage?
L: I am familiar with the concept – I meant to talk to you about it – you have been keeping me in one for quite a long time now!
J: (Ignoring) You see Lion, we the people also build our own cages – and those are sometimes much stronger than anything that’s ever used to cage lions and the like.
L: And you humans then walk in and lock yourselves – and don’t have a clue on how to get out. Why not just break out of it!
J: It’s not that simple, my feline friend!
L: (offended) Insulting me again! I’ll simply ignore that.
J: Sometimes we have thrown away the key – or never had one to begin with, because we thought that the cage was the destination and there was no reason to have an exit strategy!
L: Are we talking the Gill or Iraq?
J: Don’t be flippant with me – I still have you by the tail! The point is, people – all people – sometimes need help – somebody needs to help them get out of that cage.
L: A locksmith, perhaps, or just a muscular guy with a sledgehammer (Temporal explodes – “Just another desi mindset … women occupying the lowest rung of the totem pole”!) (Lion hastily corrects himself) …or a muscular woman with a sledgehammer!
J: And one person’s key could be another person’s hammer in this case. I got to think it over.
L: Not again, isn’t that how you ALWAYS end up in trouble?
J: (Cornered) Lion, haven’t you realized this ain’t your domain?
L: It’s not?
J: Just take a look around you – see all the smarties - not to mention the smartipants! Do you see a single animal? Not even a donkey in sight – and you a lion – for Pete’s sake!
L: I feel so sad – I thought it was an equal opportunity forum.
J: But conversations with a lion are just not intellectually stimulating – or fulfilling! Believe me, I know what I am talking about!
L: As if your conversations with Dr. Gill are! Have you even tried to look at the issues from HIS point of view?
J: I agree that the use of transplanting for ‘supplanting’ was an honest mistake.
L: You are being facile, as usual – making low quality janitorial wisecracks regarding his age and his impending retirement. Even Hamidm took the trouble to wish him a “happy retirement” – but you couldn’t do even that! Shame on you!
J: I personally think Hamidm is loosing it – becoming too narcissist (S3, hiding in the tree branches, pipes in –“narcissism is caused by unconscious deficits in self-esteem as a result of the beating we recieved at the hands of Bihari class mates in fifth grade”)
L: The bottom line is you didn’t!
J: Don’t be foolish – you think he’s the type that retires? Just look at this face.
He has a LOT of mileage left. He even has a full head of hair.
L: You are jealous again, aren’t you! What makes you so sure it’s his own?
J: (Ignoring) Did you get the part that AlephNull explained.
L: I got the second part.
J: You mean where one speculates whether a civilization with a different central paradigm might have been stimulated to discover the laws of physics in the form of ‘conservation laws’, rather than in the dynamical form that Newton chose as his primary representation?
L: No, I mean the “Null”!
J: You are hopeless!
L: Really? So was it ME who made all those non-constructive comments while rubbing Dr. Gill’s nose in the dust?
J: (Trying to hide embarrassment) Just scram.
L: (Sighs) So what’s new!
J: (after afterthought) Wishing you well!

(Exit the lion)

AlephNull:

The use of transplanting for `supplanting` is an honest mistake. I had framed that sentence around the word `supplanting` but somehow I typed transplanting by mistake and didn`t catch it in time. A similar mistake had occurred once before. I wanted to use `archetype` in a sentence but instead typed stereotype. I had submitted the article for posting but detected this error before the paper was posted. So I was able to correct it in time. Supplanting fell through the cracks. Thanks very much for pointing it out. It is too late for me to make this correction in the text now.

Use of Islamic occasionalism was loose in the text. It referred to the text more appropriately that I had used as the frontispiece. I am pleased that some readers like you read my articles more critically than many others, and make some constructive comments without rubbing my nose in the dust. Wishing you well,

Mohammad Gill

From the article:

{{Muslims … in as much as the creative and natural sciences were concerned and at times, they became irrational in minimizing the importance and relevance of these sciences to humanity. They regressed more and more into the religious shell and ascribed the cause of their decline in the world power (hence in science and the creative arts also) as due to deviation of the ummah from the straight religious path that Islam had prescribed. … they tried … to find reasons and rationale for every thing in religious terms. This mode of thinking which some like to call Islamic occasionalism is part of the collective psyche of the orthodox Muslim world and has existed from the very beginning of Islam.}}

I think Gill sahib is mistaken in his notions of what Islamic occasionalism entails. The term does not refer to the generic ‘attempt to explain everything in religious terms’; still less to the belief that the causes for Muslim defeat are to be found in having strayed from the straight path.

‘Occasionalism’ denotes something far more specific, namely the doctrine that Allah taala is the sole causative agent in the universe and that he ‘occasions’ each event in the natural world, i.e. causes it to occur by an exercise of divine will. It implies a rejection of causality in nature – regularities that we observe in natural phenomena can be ascribed to mere divine habit, and can be suspended whenever Allah in his divine omnipotence desires an anomalous (or ‘miraculous’) event to occur.

If taken seriously, this doctrine would discourage the search for laws governing natural phenomena, since these can be violated at divine whim. A different doctrine - that of a divine lawgiver who lays down the causal laws governing the mechanism universe, sets the clockwork of the universe in motion, and then retires beyond space and time - would encourage investigation into what exactly the laws are – for instance, ‘Laws of Motion’ a la Newton. This view seems to have animated many of those who laid the foundations for natural science in the West.

It is interesting to speculate whether a civilization with a different central paradigm – that of a universe in ‘balance’ – might have been stimulated to discover the laws of physics in the form of ‘conservation laws’, rather than in the dynamical form that Newton chose as his primary representation.

{{…. They believed Islam had transplanted them and the Bible and Torah were replaced by the Quran, which is the final word of God. …}}

Perhaps ‘supplanted’ is the word for which Gill sahib is groping.

Re: # 142
Hamidm: I too enjoy reading Bertrand Russell. Anil

Romair:

A tragedy is as likely to turn a believer into a non-believer than the other way around. Haven`t you seen those Bollywood films where the hero runs to the temple and shouts ``tu pathar hai bhagwan nahin``?

And what answers does religion provide anyways? ``Trust me because I am God`` or ``trust me because God whispered into my ears``. Let`s face it. Religion only pretends to answer the questions science does not. But those answers are based on very shaky foundations, indeed!

``“believeing in ``nothing`` is a lot less complicated than speculating about all kinds of weird things

True. The less complicated a person is, the happier he is. That’s why a philosopher is never happy.``

Actually, I think it is the other way around. The happier and (and luckier) more empowered - materially, socially etc. - a person is, the more of a luxury he/she has to not believe in anything. The only athiests I have met were quite well-off materially, and generally talented enough to get ahead in life, on their own, without anyone`s help - including God`s.

The poorer and more disenfranchised a person is, and the more tragic and thus unhappy a person happens to be, the more they have a tendency to believe in something. Otherwise, life becomes extremely unfair for them. And they really have no reason to keep on living.

As they say, you can take God (religion etc.) away from yourself or you can keep it, but never take it away from a poor man, because that is all he has...........

I would add a corollary to that..........Never take it away from an inquisitive man, looking for answer, also.........Because for certain questionns, that is all he has, as well...........

Re: # 149

Hamid

“don`t you think contemplating the question of ``life after death`` is an exercise in futility because we know that we cannot answer it untill we are dead?”

Some people are just very curious. They want to know, and they want to know NOW.

“wouldn`t it be a better use of time to work on reviving dead people so that they can answer that question ?”

That’s where the problem is. Once dead, they don’t come back and tell us what happened to them; hence, the speculation.

My solution: be indifferent either way. I’ve got more pressing worries in this life.

Re: # 147

godot,

...... but don`t you think contemplating the question of ``life after death`` is an exercise in futility because we know that we cannot answer it untill we are dead?........ wouldn`t it be a better use of time to work on reviving dead people so that they can answer that question ?