Shift Away From Numbers

The news that Muslims now make up 19.2 per cent of the world population, outstripping Catholics who stand at 17.2 per cent, should make us sit up and take notice. The statistics from the Vatican’s 2008 Yearbook of Statistics may momentarily gladden the hearts of some, but not of those who understand the link between demographic expansion, illiteracy, poverty, poor health conditions, and consequent passiveness of a people. Moreover, its potential to add to the arsenal of scaremongers and phobia manufacturers should not be lost sight of in a world where provoking hostilities against Muslims and Islam is increasingly becoming a pet-project of a tightly monopolized world media. Such quarters have not desisted from questioning the population growth and attributing it to an alleged intentional strategy on the part of the Muslim community to usurp control in Western democracies. In this day and age, the rise in the numbers of Muslims does not equate to strength. Strength comes from the quality of followers, their creativity, their capacity to innovate, their intellectual weight and their ability to contribute to civilization. Smaller communities that are more creative will continue to dominate academia, media, finance, industry, commerce and diplomacy, commanding the world’s respect and attention.
Where and who these Muslims are, is more important than their numbers. Populations are rising in the poorest nations in the world, where infant mortality is high, literacy rates are low, and child labour is common. In fact, unplanned quantitative growth often scuttles the effort to upgrade education and living conditions, as can be seen in overpopulated countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt and Indonesia. As a result, even countries endowed with immense natural resources like Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and the CIS are laggard due to deficient human resources. Until populations can be fed and educated, examples of resource mismatches will continue to colour the map of the Muslim world.
This news from the Vatican should set off alarms rather than spark off jubilation. Looking at the mindset of the ummah, this seems a remote possibility. Catchphrases like “Islam is the fastest growing religion” have done enough to reinforce the Muslim (mis)belief in the politics of numbers. It calls for a stupendous effort to affect a shift from sheer size to substance and quality.
It is within this context that one is overwhelmed by a sense of pity over those who see the population growth in terms of religious growth. The Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) likened the teeming multitudes who would form his followers with gossamer and the flotsam on the surface of the ocean. Not to be ignored are his warnings as to the hazards of unassertiveness such numbers might produce. One wonders if the Prophet’s words are finding an echo in these headlines. Islam today may indeed boast of vast numbers, but Muslim morale is at an all time low. The one billion plus people who reside in 50 and odd nation-states are a harried lot with dictators, despots, and monarchs ruling them at the dawn of the 21st century. Hardly ever, a piece of enthusing news makes it to the headlines from this region of vital natural resources. Political instability, social chaos and economic miseries have sapped them of their creative energies. Fatalism pervades the mindset of the entire ummah. Creative genius of the community constantly gets drained off to the developed and intellectually-free West in the absence of right ambience for rational debate and pragmatic action. As the West’s machinations constantly fuel conflict in the Islamic world, and refugees pour into Europe, growing numbers are bound to trigger unrest in even the “liberal” West. While birthrate for the native Englishwomen is 1.1, the birthrate for Muslim women is 3.4 or triple that of the average white population. We need to question if there is anything intentional on the part of the Muslims or is it sheer biological multiplication borne out of illiteracy and poverty.

Maqbool Ahmed Siraj is the Editor of the Islamic Voice, http://www.islamicvoice.com

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