A Lasting Solution
On September 8, 2023, I wrote the following in my notebook: “Jihad and terrorism is hardly the way. Golf, soccer and tennis stars won’t cut it either(“sportswashing”). The Muslim world came close (700-1350AD) but lost out. Understand why and prosper again!“
This was one month before the vicious Hamas attack on Israeli kibbutzim on October 7 of that year. I wasn’t thinking about Hamas. I was actually thinking about ISIS but Hamas is no different from Isis. Both are terrorist organizations which have lost their way and are going in the wrong direction. They’re looking to the future with anger in their hearts when they should be looking back – studying their own history, so to speak.
There was a time(700 to 1350 A.D. roughly) when Islamic civilization was one of the great civilizations of the world. Present day words like alcohol, alkali, algebra (al jabr), alchemy (forerunner of modern chemistry) and even algorithm (corruption of the name of 8th century philosopher/mathematician Al Khawarismi) attest to this.
Fighting has taken place in and around the hospitals in Gaza but few people realize that the very concept of a hospital was an Arabic one. The first hospitals were in Baghdad in 786 and 809AD. They were called “Bimaristan” (bimari meaning illness) and were open to all regardless of nationality, gender, religion, or ability to pay. Muslim civilization lost out because when they came to the crossroads, they took the wrong turning. Instead of sticking with natural history and various other subjects where they were doing well, they chose to go with the scriptures. American scholar Giorgio de Santillana wrote with foreboding in November 1966:
“ The decline of science inside a great culture is in itself a fascinating study, and a terrible object lesson“.
A month or so after October 7, I heard on the radio that one of the victims of the Gaza massacre was the Archaeology Dept. of Gaza University. It said on the radio that they had been studying Roman civilization. We have to say to the Palestinians: there is no need to go so far back. Study why Islamic civilization lost out and learn from the lessons of modern science (not merely physics and chemistry involved in missiles from the Lebanon but also biology, botany, zoology, geology, anatomy, physiology etc). The Israelis opened up to science and that is the reason why the whole country, including its kibbutzim are prospering. You can do likewise and you can prosper also. This is the only lasting solution, there is no other. In one generation.(which is much less than the 75 years you have already spent), it will transform Gaza and the Muslims so that you don’t ever have to fight the Israelis again or they you!
