ENHANCE KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT COMPROMISE, MUSLIMS TOLD

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 14 (Bernama) -- Muslims have to enhance their knowledge by
always promoting education without any compromise, said Muhammad Salleh
Majid, a principal fellow with the Faculty of Economics and Management of
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia) is a public
university located in Bangi, Selangor which is about 35 km south of Kuala
Lumpur.


"The success of Muslims depends on their knowledge, creativity and
literacy," he told Bernama.

He said the Islamic world had to expend more because currently it was only
spending 0.2 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on research and
development.

The Christian world, on the other hand, spent five per cent of GDP on the
same, said Muhammad Salleh, the former president of the then Kuala Lumpur Stock
Exchange (Malaysia Exchange).

"A simple method of disseminating knowledge is through newspapers and books,
which should be increased," he said.

Muhammad Salleh said that in Pakistan the ratio of publications to the
population was 23 for every 1,000, in Singapore 460 per 1,000, in the United
Kingdom 2,000 per one million but in Egypt only 17 per one million.

Without knowledge, Muslims would only be able to only watch the atrocities
committed by the Jews in Gaza where the weapons of the Hamas fighters are unable
to overpower their weapons and strong support from the United States.

Muhammad Salleh also referred to a speech by the director-general of the Al
Baraka Bank, Hafez A.B Mohamed, who had stated several facts in the hope that
they would get the attention of every Muslim.

According to that speech, he said, there were only 500 universities in all
of the 57 Islamic nations of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

"And, none of these universities are among the top 50 universities of the
world," he added.

The literacy rate in Islamic countries was only 40 per cent compared to 100
per cent in only 15 Christian countries, he said.

He also said that in 105 years, 14 million Jews had won 180 Nobel prizes
while 1.5 billion Muslims have won only three.

Several of the history makers from ancient times were all Jews such as
Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman.

Jews were those who made discoveries in various fields, such as Benjamin
Ruben (vaccinating needle); Jonas Salk (polio vaccine); Gertrude Elion (leukemia
drug); Baruch Blumberg (vaccine for Hepatitis B); Paul Ehrlich (syphilis drug);
Gregory Pincus (contraceptive pill); G. Wald (science of understanding of human
eye) and Willem Kloffcame (kidney dialysis).

They were also responsible for inventions that changed history: inventor of
micro-processing chip, Stanley Mezor; nuclear chain reactor, Sziland; optical
fibre cable, Peter Schultz; traffic lights, Charles Adler; stainless steel,
Benno Strauss; sound movies, Isador Kisee; telephone microphone, Emile Berliner
and video tape recorder, Charles Ginsburg.

Jews also ran influential global business: Polo (Ralph Lauren); Levi's Jeans
(Levi Strauss); Starbucks (Howard Schultz); Google (Sergey Brin); Dell Computers
(Michael Dell); Oracle (Larry Ellison); DKNY (Donna Karan); Baskin Robbins (Irv
Robbins) and Dunkin Donuts (Bill Rosenberg).

They were also influential intellectuals and politicians, such as Henry
Kissinger, US former Secretary of State; Alan Greenspan of US Federal Reserve;
Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State; David Marshal, Singapore Chief
Minister; Barry Goldwater, US politician and Robert Rubin, US Secretary of
Treasury.

They were also influential global media people, such as Wolf Blitzer of CNN,
Barbara Walters of ABC News, Joseph Lelyeld of New York Times, Eugene Meyer of
Washington Post and Henry Grunwald of Time Magazine.

"Why were/are they so powerful and Muslims so weak?" he posed a question.

-- BERNAMA