Jew World Order

Today, however, the Muslim world produces only 1 per cent of global scientific
output. The decline may have begun with the 13th-century Mongol invasion of
Baghdad, or subsequent fighting between caliphates, or a fear that science
would lead to a rejection of faith. Professor Jim al-Khalili, a
British-Iranian physicist and broadcaster, has speculated that the printing
press allowed ideas to circulate in Europe during the Enlightenment, but
excluded Arabic script. And so the history of science has largely written
out the Islamic world.

There are spectacular efforts to gain lost ground. Qatar, ranked by Forbes as
the world’s richest country per head, thanks to its natural gas reserves,
has been spending 2.8 per cent of GDP – currently £2.2 billion – on
education, science and research. Britain, like most of Europe, spends under
2 per cent; the US 2.6 per cent. A single facility at Education City, the
Sidra Medical and Research Centre, has a £5 billion endowment from the
ruling family.

The country’s research focus is on biomedical sciences, especially new
treatments for common conditions in the region – diabetes, heart disease,
neurological conditions and infectious diseases – and how to cope with the
energy, food and water needs of a growing population in a dry country. Over
the past two years, it has invited a succession of Nobel laureates to give
lectures, and to consider opening labs.

Qatar is not alone in its ambitions. Across the border, Saudi
Arabia has created the King Abdullah University of Science and
Technology with a £6 billion endowment; it has the region’s one
supercomputer and the country’s only unsegregated campus entrance, admitting
both men and women. Jordan is building a particle collider called Sesame;
the multi-country project is headed by Prof Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, a
former Cern director-general.

Yet, as Education City hosted its first international scientific conference
earlier this spring, in the Japanese-designed convention centre – a glass
building the size of an airport containing one of sculptor Louise
Bourgeois’s giant bronze spiders – the question was: will this spending
really usher in another golden age of Islamic science? Significantly, Qatar
has its own demographic problems: of its 1.7 million people, 80 per cent are
foreigners. If any renaissance comes, it will be largely an imported
commodity. Qatar University has also taken the decision to shut its physics
department, hardly conducive to a renewed scientific spirit.

Prof Llewellyn Smith says that the rise of interest in science across the
region is “impressive, but it will take time to judge the success of newly
established centres in the Gulf, mainly staffed by returned expatriates and
foreigners, and of efforts to foster an indigenous science base in those
countries without a recent scientific tradition”.

Prof Kirk Smith, who travelled from the University of California, Berkeley, to
address the conference on environmental toxins, describes the country’s plan
to become a knowledge economy by 2030 as a “really interesting experiment.
Here, two variables that contribute to scientific success are completely
taken out of the equation: there is limitless money and top-level
commitment. But will it be enough to get where Qatar wants to be by 2030?
I’d love to come back and find out.”

From chatting to many at the conference, I gained the impression that they
regarded Qatar, a relatively liberal Muslim country, as a gilded cage. They
cited as obstacles the lack of things to do, the prohibition on
homosexuality and alcohol (foreigners can get an alcohol licence or drink at
the few international hotels that serve it), and gender politics.

While Qatari law doesn’t restrict what women can wear or do, nearly all wear
the abaya (full-length dress) and headscarf. One female European scientist
in a panel discussion chose to sit in the audience rather than on the stage
because she did not feel comfortable in a knee-length skirt. And the
foundation was unable to name the most senior woman scientist on campus,
although the president of Qatar University is a woman. On the positive side,
one American relished the idea of exposing his children to a different
culture – and all scientists dream of having a blank cheque to pursue their
ideas.

Professor Abdelali Haoudi, who oversees biomedical research for the Qatar
Foundation, believes the country offers something else so unique that
frustrated scientists in cash-strapped institutions might just bite. “It’s
not enough to publish great papers – for science to be a success, you have
to translate it and apply it,” insists the Moroccan-born geneticist, who has
worked at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland and the Pasteur
Institute in France. “We may be a small country, but on one campus we have
access to basic, translational and applied research, all the way to
commercialisation. Here, no scientist has to struggle to take his new
development further.” Translational research, often called technology
transfer, is that tricky midpoint in the evolution of a great idea into a
best-selling product – it might, for example, be research into a specific
drug formulation before it goes into clinical trials.

Dr Rabi Mohtar, a Lebanon-born, US-trained civil engineer who heads the Qatari
Energy and Environment Institute, and who sees solar power as the future,
accepts that the money has to be good, “but it’s not the first thing on the
list. I recently interviewed someone from Silicon Valley, and we could offer
him a 10-15 per cent higher salary, a free home, no utility bills, a car,
the best schools in the world for his children, and no income tax. The
bottom line is that anyone who comes only has to worry about work, not
whether they can pay the bills.

“This is really about writing a new chapter in building sustainable, dry
economies. We’ve recruited 31 people from all over the world, including
Spain, Germany, France and the US, and the list is growing. What drives me
personally is the belief that, with these resources and the positioning of
Qatar, we could be a global leader in this technology.”

Perversely, the religious chasm between East and West might just tip the
balance in the Islamic world’s favour. The Koran “does not interfere with
the business of science, nor does it infringe on the realm of science”,
al-Biruni wrote in the 11th century. A millennium later, Prof Haoudi says:
“Qatar allows research on embryonic stem cells that is not permitted in some
European countries.” To brilliant scientists, regulatory regimes matter, as
shown by the exodus of top biologists from the US when the Bush
administration stopped funding such research.

Perhaps if you’re spending all day and all night in one of the world’s most
lavishly funded labs, it doesn’t matter that you can’t crack open a beer
when your experiment works.