Not long ago, a technician named Agha Waqar took hype among Pakistani media. His claims of driving a water-fueled car were new to the ears and gained everyone’s attention immediately. Due the inferiority complex for lagging behind from the rest of the world in realms of knowledge and innovation, and poor analytic skills because of an education system which promotes memorizing the textbooks and not understanding them, the general public failed miserably to understand the out of touch reality of this scourge. The media began to portray him as a scientist.
When Professor Hoodbhoy, a courageous physicist and a real scientist, opened the floodgates of this fraud, he faced accusations of abuse and treason from the spectators who had been watching the water car stunt on the media for several days. However, some people learned from this spectacle that one can easily become famous in this society by performing tricks in the name of science.
Nowadays, students of a madrassa are gaining popularity on social media with their “exceptional” robotic tricks. Even though this act is giving the impression of high quality education of these madrassas and finally giving Pakistan an edge on its “deen vs dunia” debate, is no more than a hoax.
This fraud is built up to grab the attention of rich overseas Pakistanis and the donors at home who want a modern cleric for their children to keep them safe from religious fanaticism and bigotry, yet teach them obedience to parents, and are ready to become a regular donor.
This drama of preteding to be different from rest madrassas is being played to prove that the children in this madrassa are getting the education they need to prepare themselves for the 21st century. If a madrassa teaches science in reality, their students will not have to put on robotic spectacles to amuse the spectators, instead the knowledge imparted to the children will be manifested in the form of their role and character in the society.
By implanting conservative religious ideology in the easily adaptable minds of these students and then making them sit in front of robots or computers does not mean that a scientific mindset is being developed in them. Scientific education is not buying and playing with technology. Similar frauds took place when computers came to Pakistan and the teachers in Madrassas began to teach these students about how to operate computers in the name of modernization.
These computer training programs have only produced social media troll armies. Those children are now adults, they operate different websites and social media accounts where they hurl abuses to intellectuals, politicians and human rights activists, and promote logical fallacies. They also use internet to visit porn websites and this creates misconceptions in their minds about modern Western societes. Some have used internet to gain access to pseudo science and other propaganda material produced by priests to target real science, and use them to write Urdu blogs against the theory of evolution or the motion of earth.
The technology purchased from Europe in the Gulf is another example of borrowed technological spectacle. The United Arab Emirates has launched a space program in which scientists, engineers, rockets, etc. shall all come from the West to send some Arabs into space. Does that mean these Arabs are getting familiar with modern scientific worldview? Do they possess any kind of scientific thinking? Is it any different from purchasing a Mercedes manufactured in West and demonstrating diverse tricks in the desert?
ISIS was also at the forefront of demonstrating the use of technology. They flew drones and used modern weapons. The Taliban were driving tanks and firing Stinger missiles thirty or forty years ago. But in spite of all this, due to lack of scientific thinking, they remained a bloodthirsty enemy of civilized society and infertile in creating technology.
Allama Hisham Illahi Zaheer, a post-graduate from University of Engineering and Technology of Lahore has an abundant knowledge of technology than the hafiz kids who performed robot. Few months ago his video prayer went viral on social media, in which he cried while saying “O Allah, this Corona Virus has put Islam in danger.” Did Zakir Naik, Dr. Israr Ahmed and Maulana Tariq Jameel’s understanding of medical technology bring them closer to modern science and scientific thinking? Science and modernity means modern knowledge and scientific method, not the use of modern technology. Learning to use Kalashnikovs instead of swords and robots instead of Kalashnikovs does not mean that the mindset of the madrassas is changing.
Deception in the name of knowledge is not a thing of today. The practice of philosophy in the form of theology in madrassas has been continuing for a thousand years, with no outcome, because this philosophy isn’t based on liberty of thought. Similarly, display of modern technology will not bring anything constructive.
The legacy of Imam Ghazali will continue. Ideas will still be apostasized and sensored. Technology without science will only produce new Ghazalis that, equipped with pseudo science, will launch a holy war on science.
In a society where the curriculum is not up-to-date, the questions being posed during exams do not hustle the minds of students, further limits are being put on their freedom of thoughts, even if the literacy rate rises from 60 percent to 100 percent, at the end of the day, the business of deception will continue to boom.
The only future for a madrassa student learning the use of robots is getting employed as a robot-jihadi in next generation robotic warfare. It isn’t going to bring about a revolution of scientific thought and innovation. Whoever tries to expose this fraud would face abusive backlash by the Facebook Mujahideens produced by the computerization of the madrassas 10-15 years ago.
Note:(The post was first published on Facebook Page “The Hoodbhoyist” in Urdu)
