'Muslims should acquire knowledge of science and technology'

Presiding over a lecture at the Islamic Ideology Council the Senate's Chair on Foreign Relations Mushahid Hussain Sayed reaffirmed that Islam insisted on quest of knowledge and learning, and at the same time, it gave scholars the right to differ.
The Senator was presiding the lecture meeting of Ebrahim Musa, a South African scholar who spoke on the subject on Reason and Rationality in Islam here on Thursday. We Muslims are blamed for closing our minds, which was not true, adding that the freedom of expression rationality in contemporary times should also have linkages with faith, which was central to us.
He informed the audience that he was asked by the BBC as to the reason for all this hullabaloo over Rushdie in Pakistan and the Muslim world, and he replied that it was neither rational not fair that Britain should honour a person who has been guilty of blasphemy of the Prophet of Islam.
He asked BBC whether Britain was prepared to confer honour on a person who questioned the Holocaust. Instead of accusing the Muslim world, the west should like to remember that profane prophecies causing divisions among Islam and the West emerged from American universities and not from Islamic seminaries, Mushahid Hussain said.
Earlier, the research scholar at the Duke Islamic University in the USA said some of our difficulties emerged in wrongfully acting to condition knowledge according to its place of origin.
Knowledge was knowledge irrespective of its place of origin, adding that this had been the beauty of Islamic philosophical traditions since the ages. In this way some of the great philosophers like Ghazali and Ibn Rushd, or even Sir Sayed Ahmad worked.
They did not agree with what they had given to learn but made use of the knowledge in rationalising their own thought process.
For this reason, contemporary Islam must make use of technology and science.
He suggested, Muslims should shun Rushdie and not give him publicity and promote sale of his books to increase his income by several million dollars, but it should promote such outstanding scholars as Noam Chomsky.
Introducing the scholar Islamic Ideology Council Chairman Dr Muhammad Khalid said it had become increasing difficult to sift rational from irrational but Islam stood for presenting rational explanations and to challenge the tyranny both priests and rulers if what they said had its roots in irrationality. Dr Moosa had profound interest in Islamic thoughts with a special focus on Islamic Law, Dr Khalid Masud said.