| Like a Bee We Be! | October 19th, 2006 |
Assalamu Alaikum wa Rahmatu Allahi wa Barakatoh,
May the peace and blessings of All Mighty Allah be on all of you.
Dear Brother and Sister,
In bees we see persistence, patience, strength, trust and effecienty. In bees we see a minimized version of how a productive Muslim society should be.
It is no new news to you that most of the Islamic world has become a consuming society. I don’t know if you agree with me or not and you might even point out that we have many factories that produce various products made within an Islamic country. However, what I meant here by us being a consuming society is that we are not producing knowledge like we used to. The factories and industries we have are the result of the catch-up effect and not an innovative scientific breakthrough.
The catch-up effect, also called the theory of convergence, states that poorer economies tend to grow faster than richer economies. Therefore, all economies will eventually converge in terms of per capita income. This means that a poorer country’s income will eventually catch up to a richer country’s.
(Source)
What I mean to say is that we are usually consuming other people’s knowledge, yet we’re not producing much.
I really hate comparing the Islamic world to the west and the so-called “developed” countries, but it is of justice to say that they too have brought good. After all, Allah told us in the Holy Quraan:
“O ye who believe! stand out firmly for Allah, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to Piety: and fear Allah. For Allah is well-acquainted with all that ye do.” (5:8)
You would find in the prestigious high ranking organizations and companies in the developed countries, a Research and Development (R&D) department. Of course as the name suggests, this department’s function is to come up with new things or improve the current processes for efficiency and lower costs.
The R&D department’s expenses may cost huge amounts of money and it may be months or even years before the people in that department can bring out something worthwhile, but when they do come up with something it might enroll the company or organization in history, not to mention the fact that it’ll excel the organization’s sales and image.
What other ways do you recommend that may aide us into becoming a producing organization? and are you aiming to be a consuming or producing individual in society?
For ex. though I wanted to give a better & islamic example… U see, when this channel was handled by muslims (emiratians), sama dubai, u’d see more creativity and more attention was given unlike dubai channel!!! That it over-rated the latter one!! What would the results be if those talents were DIRECTED, that is, to be used in good…?!
wa alaikoum al sallam wa rahmat Allah wa barakatuh..
good thing you brought up such topic..
we have been talking about such issue in on of my courses.. and unfortunately we came to a conclusion that in order for us to catch up with the “developed country” we need more than 50 years..
tsk tsk tsk..
we have alot of innovative people here, smart people and talented. Yet i believe that the muslim countries don’t motivate them to share their knowledge.. that is why most knowledgeable people travel to the non-muslim countries where they are appreciated more.. You would notice that most of the technology are developed by ARAB scientists.. meaning we can be a productive society but we are lacking support..
This is my point of view..
Jazak Allah khair brother..
and my apology for the long comment ..