Intellectual decline: ‘Ducks quack, eagles soar’

Okikiola  Qasim

Prof. Tawfiq AbdulAzeez of the University of Abuja wrote a brilliant article about his experience with a cab driver in Dubai who discussed the secret behind efficiency and happiness in his Taxi business with this quote: “don’t be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd”. This actually touched me significantly and reshaped my understanding on why the Muslims must stop complaining and return back to our drawing board to see where we got it all wrong. Hence, my objective of this article.

Let me launch the direction of my thought with these quotes about how the early Muslims invented many things and were able to establish landmarks of high intelligence in all fields and history never forgot them, Muslims all over the world were confidently aligning to them as their great mentors and the world at large. But today, opposite is the situation.  I wondered where we got it all wrong that Muslims of this generation have disintegrated and bundled out of invention and mentorship to mentally and physically destruction of all the invented glories.
“Muslim inventions that shaped the modern world” was written by Olivia Sterns for CNN
January 29, 2010 and I got some of this references from the write up and I quote:
The crank: “Many of the basics of modern automatics were first put to use in the Muslim world, including the revolutionary crank-connecting rod system. By converting rotary motion to linear motion, the crank enables the lifting of heavy objects with relative ease. This technology, discovered by Al-Jazari in the 12th century, exploded across the globe, leading to everything from the bicycle to the internal combustion engine”.
Hospitals: “The first modern hospital with nurses and a training centre was in Cairo. In the Ahmed Ibn Tulun hospital (named for the founder of the Tulunid dynasty), which was established in the year 872, all patients received free health care – a Muslim tradition which was institutionalized with the advent of the hospital”.
Surgical Innovations: “Around the year 1,000, the celebrated doctor Al Zahrawi published a 1,500 page illustrated encyclopaedia of surgery that was used in Europe as a medical reference for the next 500 years. Among his many inventions, Zahrawi discovered the use of dissolving cat gut to stitch wounds — beforehand a second surgery had to be performed to remove sutures. He also reportedly performed the first caesarean operation and created the first pair of forceps”.

Algebra: The word algebra comes from the title of a Persian mathematician’s famous 9th century treatise “Kitab al-Jabr Wa l-Mugabala” which translates roughly as “The Book of Reasoning and Balancing.” Built on the roots of Greek and Hindu systems, the new algebraic order was a unifying system for rational numbers, irrational numbers and geometrical magnitudes. The same mathematician, Al-Khwarizmi, was also the first to introduce the concept of raising a number to a power.”
With this, I am aware that many of you understand better than I do some of these ingenious innovations by these Muslims, but I intentionally quoted some of them for our reflection viz-a-viz the situation we currently are, or better still, the situation at which we place our affairs in all ramification.
To further strengthen my points, for example let’s take a look at ourselves, I mean you reading this article now. Your clothes are made from where and by who? No doubt they are by the west and non-Muslim. Your eye glasses is made from where and from a company owned by who? Definitely, a non-Muslims. Your shoes and even the wrist watches you use on your outfit are made from where and by who? Surely, it was made by Non-Muslim. What about our mansions, cars, home appliances, office equipment, infrastructures and our accessories, there were all made by non-Muslims.

Your professional qualifications, works and experiences including your field of expertise was mostly obtained and acquired from the non-Muslims and despite the fact that all the inventions were from the early Muslims. So, what is going on? Have we reflected on these facts?
Moreover, narrowing the analyses down to Nigeria Muslims in Particular, let’s take a good look at the entire Islamic Organization we have in Nigeria, what is our net worth?  How many people are gainfully employed by the Islamic organization structure outside some of their investments? To be more practical here, how many people are under the pay roll of Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA)? How many staffs are under the pay roll of Abuja National Mosque Management Board? how about the Jamatu Nasir Islam of Nigeria (JNI), MUSWEN, FOMWAN, MSSN, Ansar ud-deen society of Nigeria, Nawarudeen, Jamatul Islamiyyah of Nigeria, Ansarul Islam society of Nigeria, Tijaniyah groups, Ahmadiyyah groups and the likes of the early main body of Islamic organizations in Nigeria?
Let’s now take a good look at the new age organizations, JIBWIS, MICA, ICICE, NASFAT, ISBON, YOUTH LEAGUE, 1-UMMAH, QAREEB and the rest of them, I must be objective here and without exaggerating,  we cannot have 5000 workers under the pay roll of all these organizations. When Jibril Ibrahim CEO I-MEDIA TV made this submission in one of our discussion, I was amazed and dazzled, the reason for this is obvious and that would be a story for another day.

If we list the private institution of learning in Nigeria, media houses, manufacturing companies, finance houses and service provider companies, how many are owned by Islamic organizations and how many are owned by Muslims individuals. Let’s graphically check the list of employment opportunities within these sectors and evaluate how many percentage is encircled by the Muslims.
This is a crystal fact that the Muslims produced highest numbers of Presidents of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, highest Governors, Ministers, Senators and heads of Parastatal and head of government agencies by some factors that could be considered within the population opportunities and the rest is history, above all, the richest man in Africa is a Muslim. What are the mainstream benefits we have converted these opportunities into for the next generational benefits, the percentage would be closed to almost nothing to write home about.

This is because we have surrendered all our power of knowledge to the non-Muslims due to the fact that we suddenly became enemy of what we are best at and started chasing religious tribalism and ethnic colourations, thus criticizing our minor differences and celebrating our disunity. This keep us so busy leading to hatred of one another  while the other people some of us referred to as Kaafir were busy studying our books, early inventions techniques and positioned themselves  globally dominating everything and waxing stronger to the extent that it becomes imperative to dance to their tune to even breath some air to survive.
Our celebrated Islamic knowledge, memorization of the Quran, ahadith, Arud, knowledge of Sarf, Mantiq, Balaagha and the rest have almost been regarded as invaluable and non-resourceful within the circle of meal tickets. Meanwhile, a comedian, Musician, dancers, porn actors and actresses, with non-educational bases are rated higher and smiling to bank after every ten minutes show, this is our current situation.

Moreover, I may not have turned deaf ears totally to some of the factors that may also be hindering the non-efficient and non-productiveness of the Muslims of today. I am aware that the non-Muslims have the opportunity of obtaining sponsorship from Haram sources like alcoholic companies, fashion industry, and conventional loan which many Muslims would not venture into because of the ethics of Islamic religion. And there are many ethics in business transactions that is normal to them but in Islamic value, it’s a no go areas for the Muslims, such as betting, interest in loans, hoarding and other related issues around could be another factor.
These are some of the factors that led to some of the Muslims lamenting and giving up to the situation as it present itself with difficulties more than solutions. To me, this is the turning points I am talking about, taking a lesson from the fall of Aleppo who failed to annex the necessary unity when it’s needed, we must capitalize on our strengths and the universal connects through our religion Islam to scale up in areas of our inefficiencies to global and acceptable proficiency.

We must at this point in time start to institutionalize our thoughts and ideas to address our immediate challenges, we must start recognizing organizational cure areas of efficiency with objectives of supporting growth by shunning duplication of efforts. Our organizations must invest in human developments to enhance growth of intellectuals and services.
Above all, we must see media as the main tool for Islamic calling, therefore budgeting and investing heavily in media with man power training on global trend media would go a long way to help develop our growth in achieving successes.
Lastly, let me quote my friend Muhammad Onotu who said “If the carriage that carries my life is belief and the engine that powers it is faith, then the journey of my existence is a safe one.”
I rest my case.