The Muslim world’s contribution to world GDP is only about 5%, which goes down to 3% without the inclusion of oil and gas. With one quarter of the world’s population, our share of the total global amount spent on Research and Development is less than 2.5%; of the 597 Nobel Prizes awarded to date, 12 have been won by Muslims, and only 3 were in the Sciences. While the rest of the world sprints forward, using the springboard of R&D to fuel the engine of innovation, the Muslim world lags behind, unable or unwilling to accept that resting on the laurels of a glorious, golden age of Islamic Science that ended in the year 1258, has consigned us to irrelevance and obsolescence. Why have we stagnated, dead in the water, while others have used the time to collaborate and build infrastructures that support discovery, learning, and innovation? When private companies, research Universities, and Public-Private partnerships have infused the field with new funding streams that have attracted ever more brilliant minds and resulted in stunning discoveries in physics, chemistry, medicine, etc, why has the Muslim world not accepted the enormous, inherent value of a collaborative, open-minded education? “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it” per astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson, but human reactions to science change like the seasons, pulled and pushed this way and that by different creeds and philosophies and belief systems, and men whose power is won or lost when the seasons change. The enormous translation project undertaken by the Abbasid Caliphs formed the backbone of the Islamic Golden Age. The flickering flame of curiosity became a raging conflagration that burned strong and hot and steady. The Empire had two fundamental beliefs -the knowledge acquired by those who came before them was valuable and worthy, and when faced with the new and the unknown, it was wiser to examine and explore rather than to destroy in preservation of ignorance. Theenvironment was one which encouraged open dissemination of the knowledge and wisdom of other cultures, religions, and civilizations, the establishment of libraries and centres of learning to improve access to that knowledge, the setting up of one of the most exhaustive translation programs in the history of human thought, and encouragement of experimentation and open discourse on every subject, without fear. The former Empire is churning out workers in science, technology, economics, and finance but the researcher, the visionary, the innovator, and the risk-taker are missing Over the centuries as the discoveries of the Islamic Empire were added to humankind’s bank of knowledge and startedfuelling the fire of Renaissance in Europe, the former bastion of knowledge itself sank into the darkness and comfort of passivity and incuriosity, when the Tigris and Euphrates ran black with the ink of millions of destroyed manuscripts. For the Muslim world of today the bank of human knowledge must be managed very carefully, constantly walking a knife-edge to keep on the right side of the powerful ignorant, by focusing on technology and incremental improvements, rather than Science and the discomfiting discourse it sparks. There are pockets of excellence -in Turkey, Malaysia, Qatar,and the miracle that is Iran, but inglorious is the complacency with which we use the discoveries of others with no thought towards understanding or blazing paths of our own. The former Empire is churning out workers in science, technology, economics, and finance but the researcher, the visionary, the innovator, and the risk-taker are missing. The bedrock of discovery is to first know what came before – how then to explainPakistan’s distasteful and contemptuous act of banning mainstream books? And,if history is any judge, our journey ends at state approved, sanitised,piecemealknowledge that is devoid of all the jagged edges that catch the imagination and stimulate curiosity. By limiting access to information and knowledge deemed undesirable based on personal, subjective, and prejudicial criteria, we will only ever create worker-bees, and research will forever be stripped of curiosity and desire. Leadership and governments whose utter reluctance to re-examine the bonds of status quo keeping them and their ilk in positions of power for centuries can never move towards freedom of thought and collaboration.Centuries ago, unity was created through the fist of Empire – Empire is impossible now, and Muslim countries, with their rivalries and reservations, will never unite voluntarily. The preservation at all costs of the ‘way of things’has sowed the seeds of a mediocrity that is now being reaped in the form of intelligent minds made placid and incurious, and those whotranscend the limitations are looked upon, in Pakistan at least, with suspicious eyes and punitive minds. The closest thing the Muslim world has to any kind of unity is the pale shadow of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC). An organization created for the uplift of the Muslims of 57 nations, has become one that exists only to perpetuate the hereditary rulers and dictators of the Muslim world. Its irrelevance, indeed its roadblock nature, has resulted in the formation of other organizations, headed by progressive Islamic nations where science, research, and innovation are considered the route to national prosperity and sustained economic growth. The Developing 8 or D-8, set up in 1997 by then Turkish PM Dr. Erbakan, consists of 8 young, developing Islamic nations including Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, Egypt, etc that together contain 60% of the world’s Muslim population andcan be a great catalyst in the progression of those countries in many fields, including trade andR&D. But even though D-8 has existed for decades and has held regular meetings, the suspect freedom and autonomy of some member countries holdsit back from complete take-off. The KL Summits, brainchild of Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, are unique because they bring together the leaders of Muslim nations and their scholars, researchers, scientists, intellectuals, and innovaters. The recent KL Summit held in 2019 was attended by a great many progressive, dynamic Muslim countries but Pakistan, uncertain and faltering, chose to bow out at the behest of Gulf nations desperate to maintain the status quo. Our future lies in breaking the shackles of a golden but long-gone past. At the OIC conference in 2011, President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan said, ” neither money, nor rich natural resources will play a defining role in achieving innovations and the development of Islamic civilization. But the intellectual environment and socio-political climate will.”And maybe for some countries, that success will come from going it alone, without having to carry the ghosts of Empire and Ummah with them. The writer is an investment analyst at raanas@gmail.com