'' THE INK OF THE STUDENTS '' GLOBAL ESSAY

'' Ink of the Scholar '' : A famous ' hadith ' says that the ink of the scholar is superior to the blood of the martyr. Why then did Muslim societies lose their drive for knowledge?

THE ancient Greeks were the masters of philosophy and science for over 1,000 years. The Agora of Athens, which once resounded with the discussions of Socrates, Plato and Sophocles, is silent and empty today, with broken pillars covered with weeds.

Rome once ruled the Mediterranean and beyond, but today it is associated with Italian cuisine, fashion and art in the shadow of the ruins of the dreaded Colosseum, where Roman emperors were entertained by gladiators fighting to the death.

THAT is the trajectory of all civilizations that reached great heights and then tumbled into fragmentation, their past glory all but forgotten.

Islamic civilization was also once the most significant custodian of learning and, like the Greeks, many of its inventions, philosophies and laws are still an integral part of modern societies.

Unlike the Greek and Roman empires, the achievements of the Islamic empire began to be systematically erased.

The 15th century Renaissance  was presented solely as a European revival of Greek learning, bypassing the role of Islamic scholarship in preserving Greek texts and developing new ideas and inventions in science, medicine, astronomy, navigation, music and architecture.

Arab culture was propagated as nothing more than harems, flying carpets and bedouins galloping across the desert.

The discovery of oil in the Middle East in the first part of the 20th century created the need to balance dependency of Western countries on access to the oil, while retaining political and cultural dominance.

To understand how this became a relatively easy task, one has to travel back in time, to understand how Muslim societies lost their intellectual edge and political authority.

This Subject Essay Publishing continues. The World Students Society thanks Durriya Kazi.