Dr. Farrukh Saleem presents his findings. Link via Rajeev Srinivasan’s blog.

Omar al-Khayyam’s philosophy on religion was very different from the officially held tenets of Islam. He vociferously “objected to the notion that every particular event and phenomenon was the result of divine intervention; nor did he believe in any Judgment Day or rewards and punishments after life. Instead he supported the view that laws of nature explained all phenomena of observed life.” In 1970, a lunar crater was named after him. In 1980, an asteroid was named after him.

Al-Farghani died in 833; Al-Khwarizmi in 850, Ibn Sina in 1,037 and Omar al-Khayyam in 1,123. Question: What have Muslims contributed to the human civilisation over the past 833 years? Answer: Next to zilch.

Twenty-two per cent of humanity is Muslim, at least 1.4 billion followers of Islam. Omar al-Khayyam has been dead for 833 years, and since then Muslims have contributed next to nothing to physics, chemistry, medicine, literature or economics. The Nobel Foundation has been awarding Nobel Prizes for more than a hundred years, and out of the 1.4 billion Muslims we have produced three: Nejib Mahfooz (Literature), Ahmed Zewail (Chemistry) and Abdus Salam (Physics).

Look closer: Ahmed Zewail pursued his scientific work in America; Abdus Salam in Italy and the UK. In 1997, Nejib Mahfooz was stabbed in the back by an Egyptian Muslim fundamentalist and Abdus Salam is not considered a Muslim in Pakistan. Two out of every ten human beings are Muslim but what really has been the intellectual output of Muslim lands over the past 833 years? Consider this: The population of Rawalpindi is 1.4 million, and that’s the exact number of Jews the world over. As a matter of fact, Jews are 0.2 percent of the world population but have so far won at least 166 Nobel Prizes — three Nobel Laureates among 1.4 billion Muslims (Peace Prizes not included) and 166 among 14 million Jews.

Read the whole piece. Among other things, it underscores the urgent need for reforming Islam, something which has to begin within. On the personal front, I applaud Saleem’s courage for writing it in Pakistan given the current political dispensation.