Apart from political leaders, a reasonably diligent reader of a quality newspaper in the West will not be able to name a single Muslim distinguished in any field of human endeavor. Excluding the politically awarded Peace Prize, Muslims have won only three Nobel prizes since their inception more than a century ago, or one for every 450 million Muslims alive today. By contrast, there have been 169 Jewish Nobel Laureates (excluding the Peace Prize), or about one for every 89,000 Jews alive today. During the past century, a Jew was 5,000 times more likely to win the Nobel than a Muslim.
The last native of a Muslim country to receive the Nobel was the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, a secular critic of his native country now living in New York City in virtual exile, unable to return to Istanbul in safety. Adonis calls his work an obituary for the Arabs. "We have become extinct," he told Dubai television on March 11, 2007. |
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