Amar Razali

Dr. Awadh Binhazim was born and raised in Kenya, East Africa. He studied Islam in the traditional styles of attending Madrassah at childhood and completed his undergraduate studies at King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, Masters of Science at University of Nairobi, Kenya, and finally his Ph.D. in Pathology at The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia.

He is the naqib for my usrah here. We always meet twice per month. I would like to share the piece of thoughts from Dr. Awadh Binhazim about his point of view of Muslim world.

I Was Just Thinking - Dr. Awadh Binhazim

I just returned from the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in Atlanta, Georgia. At the conference - I was served with the usual menu - topics on tropical maladies that we are still struggling to control, the battle against the diseases of our times - AIDS, the new buzz word of our times – “Bioterrorism”, and the list goes on.

I looked around for Muslim scientists and experts in these fields and once in a while I would pass someone with a badge and at last a Muslim name! They were very few. Then I read papers about Malaria studies in Malindi and Filariasis (elephantiasis) studies in the Bajuni Islands in Kenya, yet among the authors – there were no Muslim names to be found. I started thinking.

Our world is alarmingly out of balance and polarized. For many, the last century brought unprecedented progress, prosperity, and freedom. These would include those amongst us who migrated to America and Canada to escape the harsh economic realities of our homes or to seek better education. For others, it marked an era of subjugation, humiliation and dispossession. These would include many Muslims such as Somalis, Iraqis, Palestinians, Afghanis, Chechens, etc.

Ours is a world of great inequalities and paradoxes: a world where the income of the planet’s three richest people is greater than the combined income of the world’s least developed countries; where modern medicine performs daily miracles and yet 3 million people die every year of preventable diseases; where we know more about distant universes than ever before, yet 130 million children have no access to education; where despite the existence of multilateral covenants and institutions, the international community often seems helpless in the face of conflict and genocide.

For most of humanity, freedom from want and freedom from fear appear as elusive as ever. The complexities and the milieu out of which all this happened has been termed differently; greed, the new world order, the quest for democracy, anti-terrorism campaign, anti-Islam campaign, racism, and imperialism. Yet humanity is eager and desperately awaits meaningful solutions.

The anxiety and confusion caused by the “clash of civilizations” theory regrettably has distorted the terms of the discourse on the real nature of the predicament the world is facing. The history of relations between cultures is not only one of wars and confrontation. It is also based on centuries of constructive exchanges, cross-fertilization, and peaceful co-existence. This cross fertilization of cultures and ideas that once upon a time gave Islam its legitimate place on the table of global reality is increasingly dwindling at an alarming rate.

As Muslims we all need to dig deep within to illuminate our hearts with this spirit of a great faith whose capacity to change humanity is unmatched. It starts with the transformation of the self and then our families and subsequently our communities. Part of this process is education and removing ourselves from a state for being unaware and uninformed. This must be followed by personality changes and removing ourselves from being self-centered and reckless.

Truth looms and we must make an effort to be educated and search for the truth – it shall set us all free; an idea germane to Islam and its message.