Having the perspective of growing up in North America, I believe the main reason there is a disparity in Nobel awards between Muslims and other people of different nations has to do with the freedom that each nation is governed under. In the Muslim nations religion and state are one, so that anyone outside of the beliefs of Islam are shunned by the government and it’s majority population. I am not an expert on Muslim nations and their policies; however, knowing the freedoms allowed for people in the “western world”, in contrast to the conservatism of the Muslim nations, it is plain to see the relation between the freedom of an individual, and his or her ability to achieve new ideas in science, literature, and human relations.

So instead of being defensive and insulted by these exchanges of thoughts and opinions, try to consider rational reasons for this Nobel disparity issue. The notion that the “western world” is plotting against the “Muslim World” in a conspiracy to belittle them is just stupid. My personal belief is that when the Muslim nations begin to be run by progressive people who see the importance of running democracies that promote freedom to it’s people on all fronts ( science, religion, free speech, woman’s rights etc.), its people’s intellectual freedoms will flourish and probably outnumber other nations in Nobel recognized achievements. I believe this is at the core of Gordon Fraser’s book. The fact that Abdus Salam’s great achievement was “scorned as a deliberate insult to Islam” ,simply because he had slightly different religious beliefs, shows how intolerant the populace is promoted to grow in nations that still can’t separate religion and state. I believe religion in all it’s hundreds of varied forms and interpretations is each human beings attempt to understand our creator. I don’t, however, believe that to be a part of the new global world, full of different religious beliefs, it is possible to take your biblical beliefs so literally that it makes liars and enemies out of others. If i could say one thing to an Islamic extremist I’d say, “Stop defending a religion that has no need for defense, and allow your people to think radical thoughts and reach for ideas outside of the norm, and you will find that not only will the Islamic religion stand on it’s own, and forever as one of humankind’s most fallowed interpretations of God, but the Muslim people will be able to contribute to more modern advancements”.

The book seeks to explain such seemingly unaccountable misfortune, not to highlight any dearth of prizes or perceived ability to win them. I am sorry if some people misinterpreted this objective and seized the wrong end of the stick. They should read again the final paragraph of my original piece.

Salam himself was ashamed of the decline of science in the heritage of Islam, and struggled hard to restore it to its former glory, which had opened the door to the European Renaissance. These valiant efforts to revive Islamic science were undermined by excommunication and contempt.

a. I see no problem in many Jews receiving Nobel prize; I admit that the Jews have done significant achievements in all fields of knowledge (Einstein, Feynman, Weinberg, etc.. are all great scientists), but this has nothing to with their religion but rather with them being citizens of countries that promote this kind of achievement, and by the way Israel only achieved 7 Nobel laureates (including 2 shared prizes in chemistry and peace).
b. The century of the Muslim nations history has been unfortunately a period of weakness, with occupation or dictator rulers who do not promote education or science, for fear of losing their power.
c. Why are you quoting Farid Ghadry? Is that because he’s a member of the AIPAC? I suggest that you read this article instead http://www.zewail.caltech.edu/independent1.pdf

d. To take the refugees in other Arab countries means to destroy the Palestinian cause completely. We should never forget the true facts: Gaza, Golan and the West bank are occupied lands, occupied by brutal force and war crimes in 1967. This land should be returned in return for peace. This is even the official position of most Arab states (Arab initiative for peace since 2002). However, Israel’s response has always been terrorism against the poor Palestinians who have nothing to do with the suicide bombs of any Palestinian factions.

You see JP, there’s an Arabic proverb which says “Continuing the same state is impossible”. If the Muslims are weak, ignorant, and useless today, and other non-Muslim countries are strong, some changes will happen, even if takes the Muslims another centuries to become powerful (again). I have strong faith this will happen.

“While Israel builds its future with Nobel laureates, the Arab world fills its future with suicide bombers. Ever since the inception of the State of Israel, Arabs have had this romantic notion that through wars and revenge we can return to our past glory…The Oslo Accords produced a willing Israel and exposed fraudulent Palestinians. Again, we watched as Arab leaders mounted a campaign of deceit to divert our attention away from our own oppression. We, the obedient Arab sheep, followed. We carried banners, objected, revolted and in the end, we created a new cadre of school children with strong arms to throw stones but without the education and discipline — no brains to produce Nobel prizes…Arab children that throw stones seem to feel an invisible power that is not available to the children of the State of Israel. That power to revolt consequently pre-disposes to a low self-esteem, which inevitably helps to build the mentality of a suicide bomber.

Suicide bombers feel nothing, understand little, and cannot see the future. They go on automatic pilot with the brain functioning as a guiding tool to self-destruct literally, as a person and against the society that developed them. Suicide bombers represent the lowest of our self-esteem as people of Arab descent….Every time the Syrian Ba’athists call for armed resistance, secretly support groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, and propagandize Arab unity, we fall further and further into oblivion. The funny thing is that very few Arabs care to understand why we do not have Nobel laureates.

They blame it on Imperialism and Zionism. In their minds, absent these two forces, we could be raking in those Nobel prizes. So while Israel survives Intifadas, wars, hate, and oppressive Arab rulers, we, the Arab people, must wake-up…”

These are excerpts from an article written by Farid Ghadry.

I know some of you aren’t going to agree with me, but I don’t think the leaders of the Arab nations care at all about their fellow Arab refugees. The more the refugees suffer, the more it helps their (the leader’s) cause to wipe Israel off the map. If they really cared about the refugees, they would let them into their countries,like Israel welcomed the Jews coming out of Arab countries. If a tiny state like Israel could take in the more than 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab nations, one would certainly think that the many Arab nations could take in the Arab refugees. There is no logical explanation for why refugees from an area less than 1/600 of the Arab nations’ land mass cannot be absorbed by those nations.

I still think that assessing the contributions of Islam to mankind by Nobel prize is not scientific. If the last 110 years of the contributions of certain races, religions, or nationalities are assessed this way, we might equally come up with many fallacies on the contribution of the Hindus, atheists, Africans, Chinese, or Indian to mankind. This article reminds me of the racist studies used to be performed during the previous century, which claimed that the white people had IQs higher than the black people. I expect that the author of this article shares a similar opinion regarding the IQs of the Muslims.