There was a time in the past when Muslims led the world in terms of medical and scientific development. There were so far advanced of Europe that anyone at the time would have laughed at the idea that something like the current state of affairs would develop: Islamic nations barely producing anything of medical or scientific merit while Europe and America have become the centers of progress. How did this happen?

Michael Woods writes in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Here's how the Nature article summed up the situation in the Middle East, for instance: "The region is, for the most part, a scientific desert. In some states, oil wealth has allowed the construction of fabulous cities, magnificent mosques and sumptuous shopping malls. But little scientific infrastructure has emerged. Collectively, the Arab nations spend only 0.15 per cent of their gross domestic product on research and development, well below the world average of 1.4 per cent." Muslims account for 20 percent of the world's population, but less than one percent of its scientists. Scientists in Islamic countries now make barely 0.1 percent of the world's original research discoveries each year.

Universities were an Islamic invention later adopted in Europe, but Muslim universities did not shelter and preserve scientific knowledge during wars and other upheavals. Christian warriors carved up the Islamic empire and cut off contact between great scientific centers. Here in Spain, the Catholic reconquest of Ferdinand and Isabella deprived Islamic science of the great libraries and schools in Cordoba, Seville and Toledo.

Several scholars said one problem is the lack of awareness among Arabs and Muslims about their own scientific heritage. "Muslims generally are unaware that their civilization had a high point of superiority in nearly every aspect," [Glen M. Cooper, a professor of the history of science and Islam at Brigham Young University] said. "Their current challenge is to face the fact that the Islamic edge has been completely lost. "It would be a hard thing, I think, to be part of a religion and culture with such a glorious history as that of Islam, when that glory is all in the distant past, and an essentially godless civilization -- from their perspective -- enjoys the lead in power and science."

This was a very good article, but for the life of me I can't figure out this last bit from Glen M. Cooper. Based upon everything I have read, he is 100% wrong. It's not that Muslims are "unaware that their civilization had a high point of superiority in nearly every aspect," but just the opposite: they are painfully aware that Islam was once the center of learning, education, and science.

This is, in fact, one of the problems that afflicts the Arab world. Their awareness of a glorious past is contrasted with the fact of a desperate and pitiful present. When taken together, this produces outrage, paranoia, and humiliation. Granted, Muslims today might not be aware of all the details of the ways in which they were superior in the past, but make no mistake about the fact that they do know and it does bother them.

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