.... For editor Jeremy Henzell-Thomas, research associate at the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge, Muslims need to steer a path between two opposing dangers when it comes to higher education and science.
One is the “lame duck” mentality, which frames answers to questions “only in terms of ‘catching up’ with Western models of knowledge production, professionalism, quality assurance, critical thinking, research, liberal arts” and so on.
The opposite trap is “the ‘cosy corner’ mentality, which prefers to occupy a parochial corner in which everything which is not explicitly ‘Islamicised’ is seen as threatening or deviant”.
In his essay, Dr Zou’bi writes that in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf are many “multi-billion dollar educational and scientific projects”. All, however, are “totally dependent on expatriates” and “exist in a culture that is indifferent to science at best, or aggressively anti-science at worst”, as exemplified by a YouTube video of a Saudi theologian in Sharjah telling a large audience that the Sun revolves around a stationary Earth. [Times Higher Education] Read more
