Islamicity Index
Badrya Darwish
It was an interesting to hear a debate on the radio on my way to work today about research done by two Muslim scholars in the US, Scheherazde S Rehman and Hossein Askari, both professors with PhDs at George Washington University School of Business. These two doctors have built their research upon the criteria of the fundamental tenets of Islam in the social, economic and political spheres.
They created something called the Islamicity Index, which ranks countries around the world based on how closely they adhere to basic Islamic principles, laws and rules with regards to social, economic, political and human rights. The shocking results, guys… none of our Arab countries were even ranked within the top 50. After that, I gave up looking because it sounded ridiculous to me. Actually in fact, none of the Islamic countries met the criteria based on the Quran and Islam.
In fact, I did not need these two professors to tell me that. But it also reaffirmed my thoughts and the thoughts of millions of other Muslims. We all believe that Islam exists in the West more than the Arab or Islamic world. Since I was young, many famous writers have said that Islam exists in the West. One of them, the famous Islamic scholar Mohammad Abduh, said: "I visited Western Europe and saw Islam there but I didn't see Muslims."
What he meant was that he saw justice, democracy, rule of law, human rights, equality, etc. Which actually are the basic pillars of Islam. Not only Mohammed Abduh said this, but many other Islamic scholars and writers who went to the West to study and were surprised to find the principles of Islam, their religion, applied and implemented – be it in economics, society, security, equality, democracy, rule of law, environment, welfare, sharing, fairness, justice, judicial integrity, sanctity of contracts, natural resource management, good governance, control of corruption, alms to the poor and human and civil rights for both men and women.
Beautiful. But if you come and visit the Islamic world, you will be shocked to find the contra of what Islam calls for. That's why it was easy for the enemies of Islam to brand it as a terrorist religion, of course for their political gains. It was a shame to see none of the Arab or Islamic countries ranked well in this report. But at least the two professors were honest in their report. I salute them.
Imagine if these two professors were professors at any university in the Arab world. Let's see how they would write it then and what integrity it would have.
By Badrya Darwish
badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net
Posted by: "Sunny" <ambon@tele2.se>
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