@@anonUK It has been propagated by western historians that the Arabs destroyed the famous Alexandrian library. The latest historical researches have established beyond doubt that the said library was destroyed by the Romans themselves long before the advent of Islam. Writing in the Glimpses of World History, Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru says: "There is a story that the Arabs burnt the famous library of Alexandria, but this is now believed to be false. The Arabs were too fond of books to behave in this barbarious manner. It is probable, however, that Emperor Theodosius of Constantinople was guilty of this destruction or part of it. A part of the library had been destroyed long before, during a siege at the time of Julius Caesar. Theodosius did not approve of the old pagan Greek books dealing with the Greek mythologies and philosophies. He was too devout a Christian. it is said that he used books as fuel with which to heat his bath". On the contrary, it was the Christian crusaders who burnt the great Muslim library of Tripolis (Syria) containing more than three million books.
I grew up in Canada... but my parents are from Algeria. We were a family of 6 and I was the only one reading books... I have read all the classics and beyond... I would spent hours reading ... even late at night when I was younger. By the age of 10, I would finish a Lord of the rings in one weekend... My parents never encourage me to read and I never saw them read books. I remember one day I ask my mom why she never read books... she responded with... "the only book I need to read is the Qu'ran... nothing more.." I couldn't understand why she would associate reading literature with wasting time and nonsense...
well dose she really reads tge Quran? like really reads it and understands it? and tafsser books? ahadeeth books? and great muslims scholars books? muslims should read these books as well.
We now have the Arab numbers (1,2,3,4....) thanks to Arabic/Muslim scholars of before the first millenium. Muslim scholars also were among the very first to do really deep Astronomy. Back then Muslims thought that reading and learning was a way to be able to understand God's creation, and thereby also understanding a part of God. Hard to understand why this changed.
One day I was discussing with a Malaysian girl, a chemist, therefore someone with a university degree. I asked her if she had read fiction books by some popular authors, like for example Paulo Coelho. She told me that those authors, not being Muslims, should not be read by Muslims.
You summarise the people with the words of one person, huh? But her words are to be taken seriously because she has a degree (which is worthless nowadays) and is a chemist? Sure! And she is not even an arab.
Sadly this is the unfortunate reality we face and I believe it's harmful for our ummah لذلك أتعلم لغة العربية، للأسف لاأعرف كثير الكلمات ، و ايضا لي الفهم في مستوى المبتدئين
@knowntoache يبدو ان مستواك في اللغة العربية لا بأس به Arabic is not an easy language but with practice, you can definitely improve it. However, I think the point here is more than u trying to learn Arabic, the average Muslim doesn’t mind not knowing the meaning of his religion.
@adn7q657 all languages are difficult, but with effort, you can learn any language. It has to do with culture, subcontinent muslims are more towards trade and education isn't a greater endeavour for lot of people.
As an afghani I have to say, the muslims I know, all want to drive a Mercedes and be a doctor or dentist, but nobody has any kind of books at home (also somehow no particular hobbies?) and when talking to them you you can feel there is a missing layer in their mind. This is a total consequence of cultural decisions, still everybody wants a highly functioning government to arise out of the nowhere out of this. Iranians different story.
"Everybody wants a high functioning government out of this" You have answered my question about why many Muslim states have dysfunctional government, thank you
@simarabiei in some terms yes, you are right, but Iranian culture is pretty involved in poetry, philosophy, and art, in comparison to any other muslim countries. Here, where I live, there are some Iranian professors holding up in university in fields like sociology. Now try to find any Syrian, Afghan, or Pakistani person holding up in an intellectual field....there is just nothing. Those people are very homogeneousy busy in fields with numbers, either business or technical related, often out of its repetitie workway, not really in fields with words. Of course, this has to do with reading books, but mainly with century long suppression of art and philosophy or any other form of abstract thinking.
There was a documentary about Quran schools in Afghanistan in the 1990s. The boys were taught to read the Quran, and they were highly skilled to memorize full chapters of the book. Turned finally out that they only spoke an afghanistan language, but the Quran books they got from Saudi arabia was in arabic. A language they didn’t understand. So much for learning to read at Quran schools.
@@ombotaklicinz0024 the development of Indonesian economy is largely influenced and carried out by its Christian and Buddhist minorities (as well as its Balinese Hindus in tourism industry)
The ottoman empire, which ruled most of the arabs, banned the printing press until the late 18th century. By that time Europe had spent 300 years developing a reading culture which valued the posession of the dissemmination of books. Wealthy people had full libraries, middle class people had book shelves full of books and poor people had one book they read repeatedly. I'm icelandic and we have a special book culture stretching back all the way to the viking age with middle class people having one book and wealthy people having book shelves. The contents of those books is what made us a nation. It's never too late to start but understand, books are dangerous to governments and as long as the arab world remains a world of dictators the people will be prohibited from reading.
Lucky you living on an island. Imagine being the only group with long reading culture surrounded by people who resent knowledge? Btw your nation boycotts us, for defending ourselves.
This is very true, and the only people who could afford books were the wealthy and the clergy. And most books in Arabic until the mid-19th century were liturgical, so the general public were excluded from that practice. Only with the advent of modernism did reading become an occupation of the middle and upper-middle classes. Of course, this has nothing to do with literacy. The vast majority of my Palestinian family are very literate and consume newspapers daily or can write nicely, but they rarely have any books on their shelves, even if they went to private schools or had gone to university.
@@ThedeadaccountAL The PAINTing press has never been banned. While technically the press wasn't banned. Religious minorities could use it. It was banned for muslims. The few arabic books that were printed were typically printed in Italy or other christian countries.
During my military service i brought some books with me as a way to kill time granted they weren’t arabic but i was dumbfounded by the question the people around me would ask “why are you reading” and it wasn’t asked like “what are you doing” but as “why are you doing what you are doing”
I think another reason Arabs read less is because the dialects in the region vary so much that Modern Standard Arabic is alien in to them. In Morocco the dialect in shops like IKEA is written with Roman letters. In houses in Morocco there are no books, I was married to a Moroccan lady for 33 years (RIP) she was frustrated that I had so many books around, she grew to understand that in the course of reading a book one grows to love it, to treasure it. I recently asked a nephew of mine to help me with some Arabic grammar, he declined admitting ignorance of the subject, yet this man is fluent in three European languages. Arabs are a very oral race, and audience gathers round the story teller and he holds them entranced with very familiar stories now that’s something we don’t have in the West.
I am an Arab and I started reading when I was 25. I don't read as much as I want. Politics plays a major role here. People are busy caching up with the news. I think there were not less than 50 wars in the region from the 1950s. The reading issue is big here. I remember one day a guy asked me at work: "give me one benefit you got from reading books?" I was stunned and preferred to be silent. 😅
One benifit you got from reading books? How about being able to hear the ideas and thoughts of far wiser men than I? The explorations of how existence could be, and from that, drawing greater understanding of my own opinions and values? Inspiration for creative endevors? The expansion of vocabulary? The immersion into cultural contexts of a wider world? How about skills and specialized knowledge from reading instuction books on a skill you wish to develop? Language was mankinds greatest invention; greater even than fire or metalworking or agriculture. But language was limited to those in you vicinity of space and time until the written word. Then mankind could speak across continents and eons. What benifit did we gain from that? We gained the world.
@@klosnj11I can already hear the counterargument for these: all that reading does is introduce those stupid ideas people now believe strongly enough to fight and die for, and make society more degenerate...
This reminds me of a conversation I had with an Egyptian friend about the disappointing results of the Arab Spring. I asked him why, after the majority of the people overthrew the military regime to ostensibly demand democratic self governance, the undemocratic Islamic Brotherhood which represented the views of a minority (about 30%) was so easily able to seize power? Then about a year later, when the majority of the people who were likewise dissatisfied by that religious regime returned to Tahrir Square to demand its end, why did they settle for the return of military rule instead of genuine self governance by majority rule? His answer was illuminating. He explained that, in Egypt, almost everyone who gets an advanced education studies either medicine, engineering or architecture as these are considered essential professions. But nobody studies fine arts and humanities like literature, history and philosophy. Neither do they generally study the softer social sciences like psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics or political science. It’s not rocket science to see why these critical thinking disciplines might be deprioritized by a militarist regime. Consequently, when the revolutionaries demanded self government and then looked around Tahrir Square, there was nobody there who knew how to do it. They knew what they didn’t want but couldn’t coherently describe what they did want instead, let alone conceive how it might actually be created. So they were ultimately left with a choice between two forms of autocracy: military or religious; because, at the end of the day, they lacked the requisite knowledge of humanities and social science to govern themselves. The Brotherhood at least had a preexisting political narrative that they had been waiting for decades to deploy so, when the opportunity presented itself, they were ready to step into the power vacuum created by the events of the Arab Spring precisely because the democratic majority didn’t have a plan for what was to follow the fall of military rule. The Egyptian secular educational system had produced technocrats while the religious madrasas had produced theocrats but neither had created intellectuals who possessed the capacity for the type of abstract critical thought that is the prerequisite for democratic self governance. While mathematics and the hard sciences are absolutely essential, they are ultimately insufficient if one is to understand the nuances of the human condition which are less easily quantifiable and which require an appreciation of ambiguity accompanied by a tolerance of dissenting opinions. History would indicate that, whether secular or religious, autocrats tend to be uncomfortable with ambiguity and are disinclined to tolerance of dissent; but then one would need to have studied humanities and social science in order to know that.
Thank you for a very illuminating and thoughtful response to the main question of the video. I'll remember this, especially your observations about the subjects regarded as "essential professions."
I don t quite agree. During the Arab spring, people had very sharp minds and expressed themselves much better than I had ever thought, regardless whether they read or not. I respect reading but am not sure the correlation btw democracy and reading is that strong, but it s true that Arab culture did not generate Nietzsche s, Dostoyevsky s, Schopenhauer s or even Darwin's who challenged vigorously the old order and helped humanism to upstage and sideline religion in the West. Humanism helps democracy.
The Islamic Brotherhood government was elected in an open election, so how was it "undemocratic"? It was far more democratic than the present dictatorship. You seem to call any political movement you don't favour autocratic.
I'm pakistani Muslim, never was i insulted more for my inability to speak/write arabic than by arabs who didn't freaking read or even speak their own language that well 😂 meanwhile i can read and speak urdu, taught myself korean, and have been a voracious reader since i was a child. My parents instilled such a love for reading in me, in both english and urdu, because they understand the importance. Now i read to my baby and he's got a small library already 😊
@@green1880 Learning Korean is pretty easy. So much resources, TV shows etc on TH-cam alone which you can use to learn to read and understand Korean. The alphabet is also pretty easy to learn (unlike Chinese characters for instance).
Historically, Islamist armies of medieval ages burnt down libraries in India - Nalanda and Takshila were major education centres ith huge libraries. They were burnt down because these libraries did not align with islamic religious ideas. So disrespect for books other than islamic religion goes a long way back.
has nothing to do with india or burning books. it had an alternative reason. Indians were just there. I have to say this, stop making about Indians or India. No one cares.
Christians did the same, a Catholic priest whose name I forget systematically set about destroying the entire Mayan written language and more or less succeeded.
@@financialvigilante365 They did the same in Iberia. In fact we still have massive vacuums of knowledge as to how cities during the early moorish period worked in some regions and what they went through, because every time a new muslim denomination conquered the land, their first edict was to burn the prior's libraries. And in the case of the almohades, they burned most other things too. Ironically all we really know is about the regions that interacted with christians a lot or got conquered by them before they fell to other muslims. Because it is the christians that tried to keep these places of knowledge alive and annexed them to the castillian institutes for record keeping. If another denomination got there first, gaps inevitably appear.
I was married to an Arab for 20 years and we have 5 children and lived in his Arab country. I was a voracious reader all throughout their childhood yet their Arab govt school never once gave book reports as homework to any of them. Their father never read...ever. There was no encouragement from anybody in the schools, mosques etc to read for the joy of reading...except from me. It was me against everything this guy up there stated...and I lost. None of my 5 children (all adults now) read for the joy of reading. One of them does read but it's a hit and miss affair with her...but at least she does sometimes. That truly makes me feel like a failure in their upbringing because I value reading and I know the advantages those who read have over those who don't. I also spent 20 years inside Arab homes and there were very few of them that had books beyond the Quran and hadeeth and such and usually even those were dusty and unused. There might be newspapers and magazines but no books. That was pretty consistent over those 20 years. Everything he said is absolutely correct.
@leeannfleetwood9482 there is only so much a parent can do to influence his/her children. I cant tell you what to feel but this is not a failure on your part
there is a saying in its right place,and that it's like this ,the arab doesn't read ,but if he reads he doesn't understand and if he understands he doesn't put it into effect.
@leeannfleetwood9482 Unfortunately, that is very often the case. My afghani father had some books, but since his vocabulary never ever evolved over more than 300 words - because a typical family in the muslim bubble influences each other very much not to go higher, I tried and it was seen as problematic; only if it has sth do with status or money - he actually never read those books. So, those books often function to upvalue an image, more with an extrinsic aspect. Somehow, I suspect you as a person were also more of an intellectual image holder, but that is just guessing.
I remember talking with a friend from Saudi Arabia, and when I asked him what kinds of books he read as a kid he just acted kind of confused. He said the only books people read more or less were religious books. I guess its just a cultural thing, but still that’s alot of knowledge just totally lost on these people.
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Not just culture. Culture can explain the cousin marriage and inbreeding that comes with that but willful ignorance is either a choice or you’d have to conclude that Arabs have no sapience. And that line of thinking only leads to one horrific conclusion.
This is an extremely ignorant and generalizing statement: "A lot of knowledge just totally lost on THESE PEOPLE." Seriously? You have a singular friend from Saudi Arabia, who does not read; therefore, you instantly judge a nation of 30 million people, which has many different class and family structures, and fully, with your entire chest, say that knowledge is totally lost on these people. I don't know where to start, honestly, but the most vibrant indicator of ignorance and a lack of knowledge is this type of extreme generalization due to one personal anecdote. Personally, in both sides of my family, there are poets, authors, and literary's, and we have been encouraged to read from a very early age in both English and Arabic. Our personal library, along with that of my aunts and uncles, would put your local libraries to shame. Furthermore, in my schooling as well, we had a massive library and would have to read many books and discern ancient Arab poetry, as well as western classics such as War and Peace. Next time before you comment such a vulgar and ignorant statement perhaps try actually researching or visiting said country.
The traditional Muslim extreme emphasis on reading the Quran to the exclusion of all else (because it is not worthwhile to do so) has to be overcome for progress in reading to be made. The decline in Islamic learning (so, reading) began in the 11th C. when the Caliph decided an internal argument in favor of the side proposing that no thought outside of the Quran was to be allowed. Anything other than the Quran was treated as worthless trash and must be avoided, even destroyed. The previously vibrant and quickly developing Arab civilization has never recovered from that unfortunate decision a thousand years ago.
Good point. Also, the Mongols didn't exactly respect books either as they burned libraries full of scientific and mathematical texts when they destroyed Baghdad 😞
I've read a lot of the comments especially those by Arabs/Muslims and I noticed that while the question of why Arabs don’t read is indeed a critical one, Arabs love to put the blame on anyone but themselves and often cite the fact of the scarcity of books that aligns with their culture (as if u only read what aligns with what u already know lol), I believe that almost all the answers to the topic of why Arabs don't read and why arab influence in books are nonexistence compared to their size often fail to look inward. While external influences, like the prevalence of Western ideologies in literature, or the Othman period, are often cited, the real issue lies deeper. The absence of books imbued with our culture is not the cause-it’s a symptom of more profound societal challenges. Historically, during the golden age of Islam, books reflecting diverse ideologies thrived. We didn't see differing perspectives as a threat; instead, we engaged with them, countered them with our own arguments, and produced knowledge that stood the test of time. The current situation, where books promoting certain ideologies dominate, stems not from their mere presence but from a lack of well-supported alternatives that resonate with our cultural identity. Rather than viewing this as a problem of external domination, we should ask ourselves: Why aren’t we fostering a strong literary and intellectual culture? Why aren’t we investing in authors, publishers, and educational reforms that prioritize critical thinking and instil a genuine love for reading? It’s also worth noting that external circumstances like wars are not necessarily the primary reason for low reading rates. Palestinians, despite enduring decades of conflict, have some of the highest literacy rates among Arab countries. This demonstrates that a love of reading and literacy thrives when societies value and prioritize them, regardless of external challenges. while I don't have answer for everything I think we could start by changing our perspective
You knocked it out of the park! Islam needs what Christianity had in the 14th century Renaissance and later Reformation...Every crisis is an opportunity to grow...
A GOOD SOLUTION IS THAT YOU MUSLIMS STAY IN MUSLIN VILLES !! YOU ARE TOO BACKWARDS AND NOT EVOLOVED !! JUST BACKWARDS AND NEED 800 YEARS TO TRY TO GET EVOLVED PAST THE STONE AGES , BUT YOU WOULD STILL FAIL !!
@@cliomaniac While I agree that we need a change as transformative as the Renaissance and Reformation periods in the West, I am not convinced that adopting a solution from elsewhere would be effective. The circumstances that fostered change in Europe differ significantly from the challenges we face today. Nonetheless, I believe it is valuable to learn from their experiences rather than replicate them directly. Past attempts to simply copy the European model or even the past Islamic model have failed to address our issues effectively, underscoring the importance of tailoring solutions to our unique context.
the answer is demographic. The Arab world is now where Europe has been in the late 19th century: high birth rates but already increased modern medicine and healt care leads to a massive increase of the uneducated urban petty proletariate class, plus massiv urbanizations. Millions of sons of goat herders now live in enormously big cities.
With a culture and religion that prohibits art, music, theatre, romance, comedy , hobbies, and much else, and seems to totally ignore the wonders of nature and modern science, what is there to read about?
@@crissmilton5007 Only because Pictures and Idols used to be worshipped back then, paganism back then had a constant threat of coming back if people were allowed to practice art. Now it is no longer an issue, It has moved from Haraam to Mukruh (Which means you can do it but keep it to yourself). I am a Muslim and an Artist, I also do animations and am currently working on a comic book project.
@@earlygenesistherevealedcos1982 don't spread lies, I thought your Jesus didn't teach you for lying. House of Wisdom provide education to anyone who want to learning
I would submit a simpler explanation. With reading comes an incremental awareness of how texts work, how they differ from one to the next, and with time, one begins to discern qualitative differences. Truth. Verifiability. Internal consistency. Relative value. Consequence. These insights, largely arising spontaneously as the scope and depth of one's reading increases, ultimately lead to the development of a critical faculty. This process is amplified immensely when one reads alone, rather than being read to in groups. And it is the risk of this capacity to critique and to think independently arising among the general Arab population that causes reading to be undervalued or even discouraged. In a world in which so much is proscribed, the capacity to think critically (and activities that generate this capacity, such as reading) will only be seen as subversive and leading to heresy.
As an outsider (Korean-American) I readily agree with your assessment. I think the primary reason is the dominant role of faith of everyday life in Muslim societies. I think there's a relatively high correlation in lack of reading to one's religiosity, irrespective of one's ethnic/cultural/personal background. And the reason why East Asians (China/Korea/Japan among a few others) have such high literacy rates of over 95% is due to explicit Confucian teachings to improve the mind and focus on education which of course comes primarily from reading.
@@Michael-k8r2g 🎯Knowledge---learning---is a terrible responsibility that is vulnerable to persecution precisely because learned people cannot easily hide...
Well said. I’m a Western European Christian but I have long been interested in history including that of the Middle East. I’ve read many books on the Ottoman world and have toured modern day Turkey to see places I read about. One thing that your comment reminded me about is when what historians now call the Industrial Revolution occurred in Europe (basically in the 1800’s ) the Ottoman Empire was aware of its relative technological decline and a debate arose between the religious authorities on one side and the Sultan and his advisors on the other side. A number of Sultans were reformers who wanted to introduce secular schooling and teaching of reading and writing and mathematics and this was hugely opposed by the religious authorities who feared losing control of the people if the people could develop critical thinking skills by education. This even extended to introducing western concepts of ordering your day by the time via use of clocks and calenders. This was held back in the Ottoman Empire by the religious leaders who insisted that it must be the local religious center (the mosque) that must control the order of the day.
@sweetaznspice1 Christians and Jews did have very high literacy rates, in large part because their religions were text-based. Synagogues were famous as centres of learning. And the Gutenberg press and the Reformation boosted literacy and critical reasoning in the West.
I'm a Mexican Catholic and I find how the Arab world is now pretty jarring. In history I learned of the Spanish fighting for generations against the almost unbeatable and extremely intelligent Muslim armies in the Reconquista. I look back and see the Islamic golden age which saved and developed so much knowledge which gets us where we're at today. But when I look at Arabs and Muslims now (particularly in very rich countries like Saudi Arabia) I see nothing like what I've read about in history. I have friends that live there and every week they show me pictures of their new phones, new cars, new makeup they purchased, or pets they own but I don't see what I see as true wealth which is learning and spreading literature. I discuss religion often with one of the Saudi friends of mine and I often use metaphors to explain Catholicism (I usually learn a lot when metaphors are used on me so I use them a lot on others too) but she seems to not understand what a metaphor is. I'm in my 20s and she is a year older than me so it is not like she is a child who hasn't completed here education. She is a college graduate. It is heartbreaking because I hear that Arabic is a beautiful language but nobody seems to use that language to write books like with Europeans Latin, Greek, or English. Thank you for the video! Bendiciones!
I'm not surprised, that's probably one of the reasons why Dubai suddenly became a popular spot, and in general not just in Dubai, there seems to be a new emerging culture of spending time mall shopping for flashy, shiny material goods and comparing each other's material achievements through social media...pretty shallow.
@@thewamp9306 As Catholics we should be proud of our Church preserving knowledge all throughout the centuries! I've not once been to a monastery that didn't have a huge library! They were even called amoraries, because books were considered armour against ignorance and heresy 💪
I haven’t considered that my reading as a hobby was perhaps due to my father reading to me as a child and my parents library at home. Interesting video and topic. Here’s hoping the next generation somehow become better than ours in this!
The Sahaba were reported to have read/recited in the evening and implemented what they learnt during the day and this was a routine of growth. Evening reading sounds like a good habit.
@Salman_Saho Ameen. The more we learn of Sahaba and Seerah the more hope we can have. The blocks are forming. No change in power or situation without the intercession of Allah.
@@Salman_Saho Just because someone is Sahaba doesn't mean that they are all good and nice. Some of what the Sahaba did was just evil "ehhm'" Muawya. If we ever want to stand a chance to progress as collecttive culture, Sahaba''s deeds as well as the prophet's should be deemed as human deeds and therefore fallible.
I made several friends from Egypt and Saudi Arabia on a language learning app, and what startled me about them was how many normal things about being human was something they couldn’t even have a discussion about. If I talked about owning a dog, I would get “well in Islam we don’t like dogs” or if about music and dance, another prohibition or skepticism, about romance, well, it’s all arranged by family and lacks agency. So many things that are worthy challenges with being human are either off limits to them or taken out of their control. It’s no wonder to me how they might not be able to intellectually engage with literature. They would just shut off immediately.
@@Swrdfshtrmbns compared to the millions of things they can do and do, music being forbidden by Allah swt, and Muslims needing to pray at least 5 times daily with rituals that include clean clothes, and dog saliva bring impure, hence keeping of dogs very impractical, however dogs are allowed for hunting , guarding, farm dogs etc, don't paint Muslims, implicitly or explicitly, followers of such an amazing religion, which combines all the goodness of the world and next life , as Backwards etc.
@@MuhammadKhan-sq1eo ever wonder why despite a lot of Muslim countries have the black gold, they don't become as advanced technologically as the countries of other faith? Unfortunately arab leaders knows this -- They are educated, they know it is easier to control illiterate people than literate ones.
Yea its sad, its like the creative and expressive half of their brain is shut down, or shut down by the religion and culture. Not reading, writing, or making art and music is just repressing creative urges that come out in other ways. I can see how many of the younger people, especially men, with nothing else to do will end up getting recruited by these extremist groups who promise all these things like friendship or some greater goal (at the expense of others unfortunetly). They really need to shift this perspective and improve their countries arts and culture.... otherwise many of these countries will fall into the same trap of constant government exploitation and constant govt overthrow by radical groups. Lack of reading, education, or open minded view of other cultures and religions will just keep them ignorant and hateful of others, including their own.... if they have no "other", their "other" becomes the women typically.
Not in North America. Independent book stores are growing, there are more reading groups popping up near me consisting of younger readers. The “book-tok” craze has persisted and translated into even more Gen Z interest in physical books. I think the times of political upheaval in the West has encouraged a revival of reading, so much so that Barnes & Noble is opening more than 50 stores this year. Reading is encouraged and valued more and more. The Muslim world has not had the same response, I don’t think reading is as prized or prioritized in most Arab countries at this time.
TH-cam is a social medium and here I am, reading your comment. What I mean by that is, people will find a way to take the best things and use them in the worst way possible. Social media just make you *aware* of this
@@Ri-Ci my generation has come to despise the society the naive and delusional so called progressive values have created. It's time to go back to where things were solid.
It's because of Salafis telling Muslims not to read philosophy and fiction. They're "Haram." They basically limited the permissible reading to religious texts. Not a lot of people are interested in that.
@@ayhanfedai5013 I get it but we're talking about today. If you don't live in the Arab world you don't really know their influence. You're correct though, their claim to the Salaf is weak. Ashi'ari and Mufawidha have way older roots in Islamic theology. That's why it's more fitting to call modern Salafism. 50 years ago they used to call themselves Wahabis because he's the one who popularized their movement. Now they consider it derogatory.
I studied arabic fusha for 3 years at my university as part of my extra curricular subjects to complete on humanities requisites. It always struck me utterly was the total absence of modern literature translated into arabic. The whole world literary corpus was there waiting to be translated into MSA. Now the answer is patent, no global publisher house would ever run a risk to print in arabic to sell just a few hundreds of copies.
I remember reading the arabic translations of the novels Anna Karenina and The Black Tulip in school, and how much I enjoyed them. It mostly had to do with my teacher's enthusiasm regarding the books which encouraged me to engage with those novels.
Great video. As a Nigerian, it's both surprising and not surprising to me that this trend of refusing to read or even education is found among Arab Muslims. It's ironic given how the Arab world, during the golden age of Harun al Rashid, was a hub of intellectual, academic, scientific and social progress but eventually, the rulers rejectefbthese advancements because it would threaten their power and control and privileges. So they used religion a d Arab culture to mandate a rejection of reading and education😢 Here, in the Southern part of my country, the Muslims (among the Yoruba, Igbo, Ijaw etc) tribes have cultures that promote education, entrepreneurship and tolerance. That's why despite their faith, they value reading and getting new ideas while Northern states have more "Arabized" Muslim tribes (Haisa and Fulani) that prefer to imitate Arabic cultures and tend to reject modern education, reading, entrepreneurship etc. Some also view writing in Arabic as sinful snd brutalize others who do for blasphemy😢
Brazilian here. We have this exact same problem. But I think it might be even worse, since we're now a deep secular nation, so not even the Bible is being read. The internet also didn't help, because anyone prefers to stay on their phones than read the news or a book (it gives way more dopamine...) 😢
Ya. But you have more books than Arabic nations. I’m ignorant of Portuguese literature. Portugal publishes as many books as the whole Arab world, Brazil publishes 3 times as much with half the population
@@StFrancisEnjoyer Books doesn't have to be literal books, they also include other arts, philosophies etc because ultimately the objective is to find creativity and knowledge. Brazil has a thriving Art culture, lots of music dances which is also a creative outlet. Arabs don't even have that, lately they started allowing cinema atleast so that is a start.
I once was on a Christian-Muslim forum, their debates were weird, terrible because most of them had never read anything but the Bible/ Qur’an and they understood neither. They didn’t understand the connections between sentences, between paragraphs or between ideas And that turned them into fanatics.
Agreed. I grew up in a fairly secular part of the US. I had only the bare minimum of religious instruction. I was very surprised to find in adulthood that I know more about the bible (its history and as a work of literature) than almost every conservative christian I've ever met.
I’m wondering if this issue might also be influenced by other factors, such as poverty and the limited accessibility of education for lower social classes. Additionally, the political aspects should not be overlooked-does freedom of the press truly exist, and do political systems play a role in discouraging reading within society? The ability to read a book also requires time, and time is a precious commodity, especially when you are merely trying to survive.
Your points are valid. I think the freedom elements is diminishing in its impact on the overall limitation of reading as technology breaks down significant barriers. For sure survival reduces living to its most fundamental. Thank you for your insights.
@@azzilh I think one factor is also the relationship between the teacher and students. Having an open mind was a type of rebellion that almost looks like a power grab in the eyes of the teacher making the joy of learning almost non existent. As an American I lived in Yemen for one year and went to public school I remember being reprimanded for asking too many questions which led me to stay quiet.
@@azzilh I've lived in Saudia Arabia for a few months. Most of them are all well fed and doing nothing the whole day because they live on kafalat system. And others who do not work for the government are also doing very well. But still they do not read. Not in schools, not in universities, no science, no mathematics, not literature of any kind.
Very interesting. This explains a lot about the relationship of Muslims to their own religion, culture and the world. The prevailing oral tradition of pre-Islamic Arabia even after the advent of the Quran characterizes the Arab and Muslim mentality in general. By the way, although "iqra" is usually translated as "read", the first meaning of this word is "to recite". God does not ask Muhammad to read (among other things because he was illiterate - ummi), but to recite, i.e. to repeat orally what God tells him. It is paradoxical that a religion that relies so much on (mostly only one) book and reading remains so illiterate in other aspects of human thought and cognition. Of course, there are commendable exceptions among individual intellectuals of Muslim origin, who are open to the secular world and culture, but most often they are not well accepted by other Muslims. The topic of this video invites deeper reflection, especially regarding the socio-political and cultural consequences of the facts presented. Thanks to the author!
To be fair, I am Iraqi and I think you skipped a lot of really important information. I’d say that in Iraq, literature and art in general is highly valued. We have an entire street called “Al-Mutanabbi” dedicated to it where books literally fill the walls from the floor up to the ceiling! My entire childhood was wholly based on books. My dad would read to me countless books until I fell asleep (especially a thousand and one night). Poetry is incredibly important to us. You can find people reciting poetry out on the streets as well as in their homes. I think what brings the literacy rate down in Iraq is the people in the south (no offense). They still hold on to their traditional views and are a very simple people. They go fishing, farming etc, but literature is not as important to them. It also doesn’t help that they make up a big part of the population since they have a bazillion kids 😅 But again, this doesn’t apply to a few countries and especially not the country where The House of Wisdom once stood! The place where books would be written and texts would be translated. Without it, many ancient languages could not be deciphered!
lmao my mom is kurd and turcman from the north and she’s normal and then my dad from al nasriyah is uh.. kinda crazy and so much childhood trauma lol barely feels like a father. they met in baghdad btw and most of my family lives there now idk how she agreed to marry him.
I'd beg to differ, the marshes of the south gave rise to the biggest minds Iraq had ever seen, some are even radical. The problem of the south being "illiterate" is somewhat of a stereotype, but the truth is, when a society is limited by the structures that were inherited from feudalism, and by the political demagoguery of certain sides, it's doomed to have a high percentage of an uneducated population. Alas you rarely see a grand bibliothique in Amarah, but still, younger generations are proving to be more leaning towards reading and exploring various cultures, even under the strict limits of feudal tradition, hell, like I said, many minds from the past and present come from the south. Shatra isn't called little Moscow for nothing. I'm a man who's lived the first half of his life in Baghdad, with the other half spent in the South. It is bad, just not as bad as you think, and definitely comparable (if not better) to the other more rural parts of the country. :)))
Also, rural areas tend to have lower literacy rates and higher pop. density worldwide. If I were to criticise anything about Iraq in this regard, then I'd argue it's really the inherited soceital habits rhe majority of the population has, the awfully outdated education system, and the lack of infrastructure and services, especially in remote areas.
@@georgenovak2395 I definitely agree with you on that one. I did follow the stereotype for sure and I absolutely agree that it’s not their fault that the society they’ve grown up in doesn’t allow them to learn as much as the people in the capital. Sadly, this is one of the problems Iraq faces and it can be partly attributed to the great dependence on religion as well as Iranian control in Iraq. My family from my mother’s side are from Basrah and the entire family is well educated. My grandpa is a civil engineer, my mother is a professor with a phd and my two aunts are both doctors! However, they could never reach this high if they didn’t move to Baghdad. The south simply lacks the necessary tools at the moment to create educated individuals
Extremely interesting video, now also sad. As a child, I read a lot, at night under the covers with a flashlight. Not because it was forbidden, but because I should have slept, but I couldn't put the book down, I was so interested :)
Crazy that the country with the largest Muslim population in the world is nothing like it I went to Indonesia and despite the fact that the vast majority of people there are Muslim, they don't share the issue that muslim countries like Arab have. Despite Muslim majority, Indonesia is not a Islamic country and only the minority are taking the Qur'an too literally. Indonesian people that I've met feel much closer to westerner than middle easterners
I’m so grateful to my parents who encouraged us as children to read for pleasure in both Arabic and English, which was one of the best things they ever did. I remember growing up being viewed as a weirdo by extended family members whenever they saw me with a book, as though reading was such a bizarre thing to do and sometimes even actively discouraged from reading, as if there’s something inherently dangerous about reading diverse thoughts, perspectives or ideas.
When I ask Arabs when do they think the printing press was invented, they usually say the 19th century. When I ask Europeans they say the 15th century. The Arab world wasn’t introduced to printed work until the late 19th century, while Europe was way back in the 1800s
The Arab Muslim world embraced writing and reading during the Abbasid era by learning paper production from China. However, they failed to embrace the printing press until late after the Europeans. Now they're facing the dilemma of the digital divide with the advent of computers , along with their deficit literacy rates historically .The less demanding world of literacy in the Arab Muslim lands of the past has shaped the mindset and attitudes towards reading today in the culture. It's urgent for the Arab Muslim peoples to learn how important the demands for literacy are in all its forms are for them in today's technological environment, and this will require nothing short of a Renaissance.لا حول ولاقوة الابالله
I can talk for myself only. I was a book warm when I was a school girl and a university student. My father had great collection of Russian classic book like Tolstoy, Pushkin, Lermontov and others. We also had 10 volumes of Walter Scott, Hugo, Goethe , Duma, and tons of other books. I gradually stopped reading when I came to USA, got busy with work and studying. I think around 2012 or so I started to engage in social media and since then my reading habit has significantly declined. I can feel the impact of it. Less imagination. Less patience and ability to concentrate. Often feeling bored. Social media and especially TH-cam shorts make it way worse. Glad this video popped out. It gives me flashback of my youth years when I would read at the table while eating, choosing books over hanging out with friend or even in the toilet. My whole family like to read. We are Muslims from North Caucasus. I hope I can revive that habit and start enjoying it and instill it in my kids.
Thank you for your video. How sad that books and reading are not part of the lives of many Arabs. Till I watched and listened to this video, I did not know of this tragedy. I am 78. Your video explains a lot. Over my career, I have had lengthy conversations only with Turkish and Iranian Muslims and only one Egyptian Muslim. Only short talks with Arabic Muslims. My world of books, magazines, journals, etc. is totally different or very foreign to nonreading Arab Muslims. I read a biography of Ghandi when ten years old, and my world view changed considerably. I read about Mohammed as a high-school student. I read medical books, chemistry texts, books on rocket science, etc. I read history books and sociology texts. What a difference it has made in my life! This is a great tragedy! Reading brings us not only knowledge but the wisdom beyond our own.
Good video but I think you missed an important point: the effect of religion. Yes the Quraan does start with "iqraa" but, at the same time, we have been told that all the knowledge we need to know is contained in this one singular book, so where is the incentive to study other sources? Everything else is bid'aa. We have no sense of curiosity because we believe we've been told everything there is to be told, 1500 years ago. I visited Amman a few years ago and struggled to find a single bookshop, and when I did it was only selling religious books. A very sad situation.
@@NikoBellaKhouf2 Maybe, they just weren't easy to find, so there are probably not that many. If there were, I would have easily found them. Go to any capital city for the first time and believe me you will find bookstores without even looking, so the "you didn't know where to look" argument doesn't hold any water. I'm a Muslim too, by the way. Of course you have "never heard such nonsense" because you probably didn't know where to look :)
@@NikoBellaKhouf2 That's a very silly argument. I shouldn't have to "know where to look", I was looking for a bookshop, not gold dust or the Holy Grail! Go to any city in the world and you will find bookshops very easily.
I am from Libya, and I often hear this talk from the sheikhs and elders. However, I cannot access books due to the absence of bookstores, so I rely solely on reading PDFs 😢
@@PandaPanda-ud4ne Ethnic-German. And the friends I'm talking about too. So, while Germany still is a huge book market, I think we have a big reading crisis in my generation aswell.
You don't need a bookshelf to read. Gen Z also don't have a CD or DVD or even a hifi system in their living room, that doesn't mean they don't listen to music. Same with books: E-Book Readers took off in 2007, that was 18 years ago.
@@mariotomazzoni6523 yeah but HIFI is better if you want to enjoy it fully. I know, i know, most people nowadays listen to music in bed or in the subway or while walking, but still. And the haptic feel of a book in your hands is also something else. I love and accepted e-books with my whole heart, but i still like the FEELING of a book in my hands, the paper rustling under my fingers...it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, you know?
I'm a brazilian muslim, I'm taking courses in both Arabic and persian and so far I'm loving it! It baffles me to know arabs don't know how to read their own language, this makes me very sapient, as I am somewhat of a teacher myself, so i would love to teach young kids to speak and read arabic from young age.
Isn't the answer fairly evident? Most Muslims believe the Quran is the only book one needs to read to have all the answers in the world. On top of that they believe other books might lead Muslims down the wrong path, that they might start having un-Islamic thoughts. So they avoid all other books. Many in the comments are asking how it's possible that the Islamic world was once a place of scientific pursuit and philosophy, but the all that disappeared. But the answer for that is evident, and probably something all Muslims should know. During the first centuries of Islam, the so-called "golden age" of Islam, Muslims did engage in science and philosophy, intellectual pursuits. But that was because during that time people didn't really follow Islam that strictly. They had alcohol, ate pork, partied, and spent time and cooperated with Christians and Jews, even engaging in poetry contests with them. That weak commitment to Islam is what allowed Muslims to study the world, without getting beat over the head with the Quran. The lack of strictness is what made Muslims tolerant. But after the first couple of centuries it all went downhill, and Islam entered its dark period, which has lasted until today. The reason is that a couple of Islamic scholars and preachers stepped forward and announced that Muslims had strayed from the true, strict reading of the Quran, and they would have to recommit to following the Quran to the letter. Once Muslims began doing that, the progress and open-mindedness in the Muslim world ended. This demand to worship the Quran as sacrosanct, and finding all answers in it, with all other text seen as heresy - philosophy and science were demonized - led to intellectual stagnation in the Islamic world. While the rest of the world continued pursuing knowledge about the world, and looking outward, Muslims hid in their bubble hoping to keep their minds pure by just following the Quran, with no contact with outside thoughts.
😂 nice fairy tale … I’m Muslim and I’m an avid reader - I’d recommend you watch dr Tim winter and his Islam series - he explains why it went downhill and no! Islam is perfect, Muslims are imperfect
@@green1880First and foremost, and i mean no disrespect, nothing is perfect as it is. Nothing can work by itself. A tree doesnt just grow without the sun, water and a seed. Just as how you dont breath without the contraction of your lungs. Stating islam is perfect is the root of the issue, and its exactly what the original comment describes. If something is perfect, then there is absolutely no need to seek anything else, as why risk seeking inperfect knowledge? This is exactly what islam demands, kaffir this, corruption that. Things outside of its influence are seen as a danger, and if not they can and will be. Its circular reasoning which is anti-thetical to logic. The fact that the quran claims to be the actual literal word of god is the problem. Why should a muslim seek knowledge from anyone but god?
I would just amend the part where you say "Islam demands" with "Modern Muslims demand", the problem is with their interpretations and the propensity for corruption of man to aim for power and status in society through telling the rest of their people how to think and behave, coincidentally it also aligns with their own self interests where they get people to submit to their rule while they get powerful and usually rich...
That UN report (conducted by liberal Arabs) that Spain translates more books into Spanish in a single year than Arabs have to Arabic in 1,000 years says everything. I taught English to immigrants, mainly from the Middle East. They were hard working, prudent, stressed education, family, civility, rules and almost all were successful (without government help) They could not understand Americans with all our advantages griping so much. We shared food and culture but books were NEVER a topic. Homes had religious "books" or pamphlets but a shelf (or in my case, library) of book did not exist. They were stunned at the shelves of books, silently taking in the various sections (sci-fi, history, religion, bio, science, food, etc) but fiction unrelated to religion or culture was "foreign" to them. Why did I have books on history when I "took history in school"? It was the most alien aspect - not a hostility but a complete indifference.
My mother was illetrate. She expressed the wish to learn to write and read around the age of 40 or more. I remember it as a vague memory. My father could hardly read. He only read the Quran, he had this large old book with big letters. I still cherish it to this day, even though I'm agnostic. I started by reading the Quran myself, and it's a real treasure, despite what most of the comments are saying. Most of those who disrespect "holy" books don't know what they're talking about, they lack the curiousity and the tolerance to let themselves actually see and take advantage of reading such a well written book. Doesn't matter who wrote it. I had the chance of growing up with looking at our small library, never actually saw anyone holding a book in the family, except to study. My cousin used to tell me stories before bed, it planted the seed in me; I wanted to be able to enjoy more stories. At the time, I wasn't conscious about it, but books were the only thing I asked for when I was a kid, I never asked my parents to buy me something beside book, not even sweets. I realize now that, growing up, books were my haven. Now I speak a pretty good French thanks to books, a decent English thanks to movies and series..and of course Arabic. I had a very long break from reading, work, daily life, screen addiction.. It's so easy to let yourself drown in all of that. Last year I woke up from my slumber, and decided to read again. I had wished to read all Proust once, and I'm almost done, 10 pages a day. Modern life makes it so hard to read. This was such a long and boring comment, if you made it here, i appreciate your patience. 🤓
An agnostic na’uzubillah. Since you love reading, I recommend you to read: - imam Ghazali “remembrance of death and afterlife - book 40 - fariddudin attar - biography of the saints
Pretty sweeping statement that "most" of those who disrespect holy books don't know what they are talking about". How do you know? And most are not well written but revered for being set down in writing a long time ago. 'If it ancient it must be true.' Humanity has a strange respect for texts. As an author and teacher I wrote manuals for use on training courses which I would update continuously as laws and technology changed. Students would argue with me that I must be wrong because the book they had on their desk said something different from what I had just told them even though I was the author and the text was in need of revision. Approach a book without awe or reverence for it being a written text, or for some value or authority that you have been told it possesses: just read it for what it says. Even the Bible falls apart at Genesis 2.4. No matter what religion you may follow it is necessary to cherry pick verses and chapters and skip over parts that contradict your selections.
It’s so strange to me that it’s widespread that parents don’t read to their kids. I did this every night, and often throughout the day my kids entire childhood (until they were too old for that haha.) I honestly assumed this transcended culture. There are SO MANY great children’s authors and books and I loved reading books to my kids that my parents did for me. I’m sad for so many people that don’t understand how reading is not only enlightening but it’s enjoyable. I read because I like too!
Iqra means actually ,recite’ more than ’critical reading’, ’recite’ this religious text, ’recite’ and learn by heart, do not question. That’s basically what Arabs and followers of that religion of peace do. Learn that book by heart. So they can recite it. Just that one book. If you understand this, you know very well why they don’t ’read’.
@@thecrimsondragon9744Understanding that Muhammed was illiterate at the time, it makes no sense to understand it as read, as he was literally incapable of it.
@sinocam I can’t be thankful enough for your generosity. Truly appreciate this and will put it to great use. Am happy that this content is resonating with you and hope to see more of you in the comments section.
This is SO sad! In the Middle Ages the Islamic world was the power-center of intellectual achievement in the Middle East and the West. The House of Wisdom in Baghdad was the greatest library in its day, probably in the entire world.
My Arab students are forced by their mom to study with me, they didn't like it at first but now they love my class and love learning English and think it's easy and I'm so proud of them.
The Arabic word iqra (إقرا) means "read" or "recite". Quran Arabic الْقُرْآن is from same root. Q-R-A root The Bible in Semitic Hebrew language is called Miqra (מִקְרָא) from the same root. Quran is Biblical Hebrew semitic word also.
How long Israel is going to Hide. Ayatollah آیتالله Ayat + Allah (אוֹת + אַלָהּ ) Birth of Emanuel is Ayatollah in the Bible. Ayatollah is Jewish word it means "Sign of God" Birth of Christ is "Ayatollah" in Christianity. Sabbat is Ayatollah Sign of Jonah is Ayatollah.
this is new to me. the information i know that is (Q R A) in Arabic (قرأ) is an Arabic word. the Arabic and Hebrew languages are Semitic. so may be some roots will similar or the same.
@@NikoBellaKhouf2 Hebrew and Arabic have lots of common words. Most of the Hebrew Bible is Arabic. Like About 70-80 99 names of Allah are in the Hebrew Bible. Allah, Muhammed, Quran, Muslim, Salem, Salaam, Hajj are all in the Bible. The information is correct for the Hebrew lexicon. Type Hebrew Arabic Lexicon you will find it.
@@abo3le502 Lots of Arabic root are in the Hebrew Bible. And the information is from Hebrew Bible Lexicon called Brown Driver Briggs. Hebrew and Arabic have lots of common words. Most of the Hebrew Bible is Arabic. Like About 70-80 99 names of Allah are in the Hebrew Bible. Allah, Muhammed, Quran, Muslim, Salem, Salaam, Hajj are all in the Bible. The information is correct for the Hebrew lexicon. Type Hebrew Arabic Lexicon you will find it.
The main problem is what happens when they read books that don’t fit the religious and culture norms . Instead of reading conflicting stories and trying to understand how both sides are right and wrong to find the truth about the situation they are ignoring the facts. Just as the old European areas actually imposed the religious inquisitions and state run cencership .
Similar to what evangelism tries to do but it's not easy because people in the US have an easy access to different influences but it doesn't stop the hardcore evangelists to spread division, fear and the idea of a manufactured armageddon among other oddities, even though Jesus brought God's word to them that says "thou shall not kill" and "love thy neighbor as you love yourself" among other similar teachings. Because regardless of our differences we are all still God's creatures and God would rather see us unite as much as we can rather than listen to the evil side and help sow chaos in the world.
I have always wanted an answer to this. Im an avid reader studying political sciences at university, and a Muslim before that. We were once the bastions of knowledge and thought, and some of us have ceded part of that heritage.
Because you guys intentionally lazy, mohammed has all this history and networking under his belt meanwhile you modern muslims are just cosplaying as the emams who fed you bullshit.
@@s-a6202 Islam was NEVER a 'bastion of knowledge'. 😂 All of that knowledge was Greek/Roman/Egyptian/Persian/Assyrian. Islam has not created a single thing of worth in 1,400 years. The so-called 'Islamic golden age' is nothing more than false, modern wahabbi propaganda.
@s-a6202 so cool that you study political science. Maybe you could consider doing some youtube content one day, especially for muslim areas, since there is a lot of content discussing Islam, but there is, in my opinion, a gap abstract views on wat humanism, democracy and law has to do with each other, but also what the ideas of Kant, Hegel....brought together.... at least I would like to do it, but I miss the deep knowledge.
I am British. Since an early age my mother encouraged me to read. She took me to the local library and got me a ticket for the children's section. I read voraciously. Before long I had read everything in the children's section. She managed to get me a ticket for the adults section and I started to read everything I could get my hands on, At school we were strongly encouraged to read. We had a library there as well. English was one of our main subjects but I was starting to read in French as well. I took English at A level GCE and got an A pass. One of the main reasons for reading is developing the ability to think critically . I later graduated with an Honours degree in economics and politics. Later I got a Masters Degree in American History and politics. When my son and daughter came along I did much the same as my mother had done for me, My daughter got a Masters Degree in Law and became a lawyer. I had Saudi students staying with me who were studying English at a local language. I was amazed about how little they knew about anything. Some of them just did not want to know. I now have a large library which I have collected over many years. The Koran is just one of them.
Last year, as part of a tour group I visited several abbeys and cathedral in Europe. Apart from the magnificent architecture, what surprised me most was the collection of books. The monks spent their lives writing and reading books.
To be fair its a worldwide issue with a preference for mobile phones and wasting time. I would say the only Arabs who read a lot are those pursuing Islamic knowledge as learning is encouraged.
It's no surprise that in the last 100 years, the Arab world have given us about 11 nobel prize winners. Mostly prizes for peace. I think one for chemistry. That's it. Meanwhile there are more Nobel prize winners in just the upper East side of New York.
Apocrophally : Caliph Omar on the capture if the Library of Alexandria „If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them.”
remember... this is the same people that gave us ALgebra... ALcohol... at some point they chose the path of ignorance... and demand the rest of us follow...
Producing cheap books is not necessarily the problem. I don't know the stats from Mexico or France or southern Europe, but in the past at least there seemed to be a significant reading scene based on cheap editions affordable for all. In France the Livres de Poche bring out inexpensive editions of all kinds of lilterary periods and genres, and of recent books often only a year or two after the original (expensive) book came out. and there's the beloved "Que sais-je?" series - granted not literature but informatiive / academic books. In Mexico the whole Porrua publishing house is based on inexpensive editions of all kinds of classics, though they also have more expensive hardbacks. I'd think that Arab publishing houses should take a similar tack as in France and Mexico: more expensive limited editions of higher quality, alongside inexpensive editions that everyone can afford. Maybe they do something similar already?
Books having become expensive is actually becoming a bit of a problem, imo. Prices for newly released soft covers have gone up a lot in recent years. Personally, I'm back to using the library or buying second hand, like I was as a teen in the 90's. Which is not a problem for me as a lifelong reader..but not being able to just spontaneously pick up a book in a bookshop is yet another hurdle I between people and books. And I also can't help but wonder about the ramifications for authors. Especially those without a large, established following. How many will end up giving up on *writing* books, because when it's between one fiction book and Netflix for a whole month, for the whole family, the latter just seems better value for their money? I always feel bad, when I buy a fairly newly released book second hand, because I know, that person now doesn't really get paid for the work of writing that book anymore. I had hoped once, that electronic books would be a solution to that problem. But sadly, they're often unreasonably close in price to physical books. More so than they should be imo, considering there's a lot of cost saved, if you don't need to print and distribute the thing. So yeah....bring on the cheaply made books, please!
Arabs don't read and this shows in their culture. I do not want to be negative but in reality while I have met and talked to 100s of Arabs I do not remember a single Arab that has ever impressed me with his intellect and/or knowledge. They lacked even a basic understanding of history and the world around them which makes it clear to me why they are considerably more susceptible to propagandas even compared to Americans. Contrary to Arabs, Iranians are a different breed. These guys read more for sure, I have met lots of Iranians that impressed me with their cultural level.
my exact same experience. Every person from an Arab culture that I've ever met (and as an instructor, it has been a lot) is mostly incurious about everything beyond the most superficial level. In learning environments, they would rather be told about something than read or discover it for themselves. The widest range of any media consumed has been American movies or series. Not much engagement with or interest in books or anything of other places, nothing at all of ideas. They are mostly interested in material consumption and comfort, not effort of any kind.
@@robLV I think it has to do with the desert mentality. Arab and many other cultures (but not all - e.g. the shia Syrians and Iranians are different breeds as said) are based on the original Arabian desert culture. It is understandable that in the desert where the one having a flask of water dictates affairs, there is no room for "wider worries", no room for curiosity. The whole life point is to consume any luxury you can fall upon to and exploit others. If anyone thinks this is just "European stereotyping racism towards Arabs" he is woefully mistaken. I can cross compare the Egyptian, the Indian, the Iranian and especially the Greek and the Norse mythologies with anything the Arabs have to bring and the contrast is stark. The Greeks gave us myths that exhault the heroic nature of man, overcoming evil and defending goodness, fighting against men and even contrarian gods, to elevate the human into the level of semi-god. Did Hercules become rich? No. He died in pain but only after he had atoned himself for his early life crime by doing more than 12 feats helping his people and then dying from what was essentially murder organized by Hera. Wanna compare Greek mythology to the Arab? What stories come from the Arab world? Ali Baba and the 40 thieves? The story is filled about gold and silver and gems! Maybe Sevah the Seaman? Again every voyage of Sevah is all about finding gold and gems and returning richer and richer. Extremely shallow tales. There is no depth like there is for example in Odyssey. And as said, I understand that : it is the desert culture. I can understand that people living in harsh environments where food and especially water is scarce, when they are baked under the sun all year round with little recourse to a refreshing shadow there is no point talking about elevating myth, philosophies and deeper meanings. Mind you, even the so-called "Golden Era of Islamic Civilization", it is largely the make up of post-modern leftists. Without wanting to retract anything from the Arabs/muslims, I still need to bring it to the real historical level. There is absolutely no case that the Arab/muslim civilization was at the forefront back then. I mean, even the very Arab/muslim writers of the day admitted that repeatedly over the centuries since the 8th up to 13th century AD. They talked about how they admired the Romans (i.e. the Greeks, at that time) and how they copied them, how they looked up to them and (yes there is research on that :) 4 different muslim writers from the 9th up to 12th century, proudly stated that the muslim armies were taking christian slaves from their razzias (raids) into the lands of the infidels, and were prizing especially the "Romans" among which they were finding educated people, engineers, architects, scientists, lawmakers, musicians, who then manned the muslim system and with whom they were building the public works, mosques, fortresses etc. It is a fact that not just Arabs but ensuing Turks did exactly the same and this gets crystal clear that by the time the Arabs and later the Turks did not have access to fresh slaves of that caliber (e.g. Greeks were reduced in Ottoman times, may fled to the mountains, overall their educational levels dropped - even if still stratospherically higher than those of the muslims), they collapsed. I.e. every single muslim culture that ceased to have access to a prime slave source collapsed. The situation today reminds us this : there is not a single muslim state that ever developed by itself. Even the "prime examples" of Turkey and Malaisia, they developed only after massive western European and North American investment - e.g. in Turkey which as a Greek I know better, it started prior to WWII and it continued up to the 1980s : all turkish companies had been opened as basically side-shops of British, American and especially German (especially German) multinationals. They didn't start on their own. This is even more evident in the Arabian peninsula where all oil rich Arabian states would colllapse overnight if foreign workers (... let alone foreign companies) left these countries. Overall, it is crystal clear : Arabs are not educated and they do not care much about education. They have their book, that is all they care about. Even their few intellectuals, they are lagging far behind intellectuals of non-muslim countries, there is just no comparison. As said, it is not a matter of intelligence, it is a matter of culture : it is the islamic culture, it is the culture of the desert.
Is it an Arab thing or an Islam thing? The Pre-islam Arab cultures and cities were some of the most advanced in the Mediterranean yet seemed to decline after Islamic invasion. This is similar to how the Roman Catholic Church only allowed the Bible to be in Latin, so they could control what people were taught.
Apparently the Arabs and Turks made great strides in science, arts and literature - until they stopped expanding. Then they started to stagnate. Seems it was the conquests supplying resources, both material and intellectual, that was powering the "golden age".
@green1880 The Golden Age is probably more accurately referred to as the Arabic or Persian Golden Age. It was the Pre-islam Persian/Arabic culture which was the main driver of the Golden Age and after the fall of these cities to the Mongols Islam remained but the enlightened culture was gone. This is why the culture in many Muslim dominated regions is still far behind 21st century culture.
@@green1880 See below, popes might have read Arabic but most Christians didn't read at all, remember there was a fuss about translating the bible from latin to the vernacular so people could read it themselves.
What a nonsense statement. The lack of critical thinking skills is due to a hegemonic education system that carefully curates knowledge for its own political ends. The 'conspiracy theorists' as you derogatorily call them, are the real critical thinkers who seek the truth outside the closed confines of academia. Also your statement makes no sense in the context of the video, what are the great conspiracy theories of the none reading Arab world?
Studies have shown that native Habrew speakers read Hebrew slower than native English speakers read an equivalent English text. It is surmised that the lack of vowels in Hebrew forces the brain to do extra processing to get the meaning from context. (I needn't emphasize that Jews are voracious readers, so it's presumably not a cultural deficit.) Perhaps Arabic has the same problem, compounded by the similarity of many letters and the often very stylized writing. I learned both Urdu and Devanagari scripts simultaneously in College, and Urdu was much more difficult.
@@JanBruunAndersen Actually it proves my point. It took me longer to read that line than if there had been vowels in it. There used to be advertisements in the NYC subways that read: If u cn rd ths msg u cn gt a gd jb w hi pa! It was for a different kind of shorthand. You had to think about it for a second before you understood. If you weren't a native English speaker, it could be daunting.
@rabbi120348 - except for the "hi pa" part (which I assume is some local company), I read that with very little hesitation. And my native tongue is Danish, not English. Oh, and I also speak a halting German, a smattering of French, and a passable Swedish.
@@JanBruunAndersen That's "High Pay." I consider virtually all Scandinavians as native English speakers! More to the point, the question is to what extent the lack of vowels puts an extra cost on the brain / mind to interpret the sequence of characters into meaning. I don't know if the experiment I mentioned has been replicated or not. In addition, it would be interesting to do the experiment with bilingual Hebrew and English speakers, of which there are many both in the English-speaking world and in Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu being a prime example.
For this non-Arab, your YT is a revelation. Thank you. My parents had me reading from an early age, and being a speed reader from the start, I didn't need much encouragement. I have been an avid science fiction fan AND history buff for most of my life, am well-read in other subjects, and feel that all this has benefitted me as a person. Sitting here now amid a home library - and the idea that reading might be seen by some groups as solely a chore, or only done as a duty for specific books, is almost incomprehensible.
I usually read about 45 books a year, none less than 250 pages. Anything smaller I don’t take serious. I read 4 languages. But most of my books are i my second language, English. I could not survive without reading. People that don’t read do not get into my circle of friends. They’re just not worth the time of day. Even my mentally disabled brother reads books.
Not only don't read. Also don't write. Means.once in a century there is a book coming out of an Arab country No professional books no fiction no science . No Nada.
Because if they actually read the Quran and Hadith it’s laughable. Most ex Muslims said they questioned their religion when they actually read it’s scriptures
your insight is very interesting. i know plenty of people here in the US who can read but don't even when surrounded with vast amounts of reading material. when children are taught to read early and encouraged, then they have something of value for life. if you don't read, you are no better off than one who can't read
As a non muslim outsider, it has always struck me how in the west children read and are taught (historically at least ) about things such as heroic explorers, scientists, inventers and so on. Where as childrens education in the middle east (as far as i can tell) seems to be more centered around religious texts. I may be wrong but I have often wondered if that is not a large part of the reason why Western counties tend to be more wealthy and technologically developed. ? I'm sure I can be accused of all sorts of bigotry for saying this, but it seems reasonable to me.
Politics has a lot to do with it. Wars begun by the west tear up any hope for development. How are supposed to devolop if you're in constant war? As for arab countries not in war, we study the same things you study, iraq,saudi,jordan,lebenon,oman,uae,kuwait, Thats a stereotype only applied to a few places like sudan,somalia etc
It's sad when there were so many Islamic scholars who collated knowledge from Ancient times, translated Ancient Greek texts and wrote treatise on medicine and mathematics.
Reading books = gaining knowledge = dangerous for religion. When the printing press was invented in Europe literacy shot up because not only more books could produced with unprecedented speed but were much cheaper, thus more people could afford books - the church panicked out of pure fear when Luther translated the Bilble in German and had it printed so that many, may people could read the Bible by themself instead of listening to it in Latin...
Books published in Greece in one year are more than the books published in all Arap countries. (From one book of Bernard Lewis). Thanks God (Allaha Şükür) Atatürk came and changed the alphabet and opened schools in Turkey.
Native Angeleno here, I live in Thailand, a nation that absolutely hates reading. In the capital (Bangkok, pop. 10M) there are NO PUBLIC LIBRARIES. They do have a couple of pathetically understocked "libraries": the National Library, which is a sad joke and another small one in the backpacker tourist area. There are bookstores and Thais do buy books, BUT THEY DON'T READ THEM. In their culture, "reading" is synonymous with "studying" or "cramming". Reading is a boring, dreadful chore that ends when they leave school. And I thought we don't have enough public libraries in Los Angeles 😊
So much of the knowledge and experience that form the foundation of our world came from Arab scholars through the ages. I hope we can enter an age of learning across our many people's and cultures of Earth. Each educated mind increases the wisdom and creativity of our entire species. How many potential artists, engineers and creators have we missed out on being humbled by simply because they never got the chance to thrive?
The middle east missed out on the Guttenberg revolution period 1500-1700 due to policies of the Ottoman . The Guttenberg revolution allowed the emergence of national writers as national heroes in Europe. The abundance of cheap printed books ment that the emerging middle classes of Europe viewed the habit of reading as part of adult behavior.
about 20 years ago the Arab Ligue has been guest of honor at the Frankfurt book fair. The only Arab nations with a significant amount of a variation of books have been Egypt and Lebanon, the nations with the biggest christian minorities. So many Arab books were christian literature. Saudi-Arabia had nothing to offer but wahabi propaganda. Lybia had the Green Book and other works of al-Gaddafi. Other parts of the islamic world did much better: Turkey and Iran. I remember some islamic propaganda from Egypt asking for a 'return' to Spain, with other words: to conquer Spain once again. Books printed in Cairo are not available in Alexandria and vice versa. Most horrible: Antisemitic/antijewish books are more popular than in other parts of the world.
As a Nigerian, it's both surprising and not surprising to me that this trend of refusing to read or even education is found among Arab Muslims. It's ironic given how the Arab world, during the golden age of Harun al Rashid, was a hub of intellectual, academic, scientific and social progress but eventually, the rulers rejected these advancements because it would threaten their power and control and privileges. So they used religion a d Arab culture to mandate a rejection of reading and education😢 Here, in the Southern part of my country, the Muslims (among the Yoruba, Igbo, Ijaw etc) tribes have cultures that promote education, entrepreneurship and tolerance. That's why despite their faith, they value reading and getting new ideas while Northern states have more "Arabized" Muslim tribes (Haisa and Fulani) that prefer to imitate Arabic cultures and tend to reject modern education, reading, entrepreneurship etc. Some also view writing in Arabic as sinful snd brutalize others who do for blasphemy😢
As a Nigerian, it's both surprising and not surprising to me that this trend of refusing to read or even education is found among Arab Muslims. It's ironic given how the Arab world, during the golden age of Harun al Rashid, was a hub of intellectual, academic, scientific and social progress but eventually, the rulers rejectefbthese advancements because it would threaten their power and control and privileges. So they used religion a d Arab culture to mandate a rejection of reading and education😢 Here, in the Southern part of my country, the Muslims (among the Yoruba, Igbo, Ijaw etc) tribes have cultures that promote education, entrepreneurship and tolerance. That's why despite their faith, they value reading and getting new ideas while Northern states have more "Arabized" Muslim tribes (Haisa and Fulani) that prefer to imitate Arabic cultures and tend to reject modern education, reading, entrepreneurship etc. Some also view writing in Arabic as sinful snd brutalize others who do for blasphemy😢
Beware the man of only one book- especially when he hasn't read that one either.
Ah ah …..you mean the Muslims 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@@anonUK
It has been propagated by western historians that the Arabs destroyed the famous Alexandrian library. The latest historical researches have established beyond doubt that the said library was destroyed by the Romans themselves long before the advent of Islam. Writing in the Glimpses of World History, Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru says: "There is a story that the Arabs burnt the famous library of Alexandria, but this is now believed to be false. The Arabs were too fond of books to behave in this barbarious manner. It is probable, however, that Emperor Theodosius of Constantinople was guilty of this destruction or part of it. A part of the library had been destroyed long before, during a siege at the time of Julius Caesar. Theodosius did not approve of the old pagan Greek books dealing with the Greek mythologies and philosophies.
He was too devout a Christian. it is said that he used books as fuel with which to heat his bath".
On the contrary, it was the Christian crusaders who burnt the great Muslim library of Tripolis (Syria) containing more than three million books.
@@spanglestein66 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_unius_libri
Excellent 👏🏻👏🏻
@anonUK Arabs are the most delusionally self confident people on earth. Yes 😂
I grew up in Canada... but my parents are from Algeria.
We were a family of 6 and I was the only one reading books... I have read all the classics and beyond... I would spent hours reading ... even late at night when I was younger.
By the age of 10, I would finish a Lord of the rings in one weekend...
My parents never encourage me to read and I never saw them read books.
I remember one day I ask my mom why she never read books...
she responded with...
"the only book I need to read is the Qu'ran... nothing more.."
I couldn't understand why she would associate reading literature with wasting time and nonsense...
well dose she really reads tge Quran? like really reads it and understands it? and tafsser books? ahadeeth books? and great muslims scholars books? muslims should read these books as well.
@@lukmanalghdamsi3189 good question. If not, that’s 100% an excuse for being lazy
We now have the Arab numbers (1,2,3,4....) thanks to Arabic/Muslim scholars of before the first millenium. Muslim scholars also were among the very first to do really deep Astronomy. Back then Muslims thought that reading and learning was a way to be able to understand God's creation, and thereby also understanding a part of God.
Hard to understand why this changed.
That book is an old opera
My wife only reads the bible and she gave the same response.. She also believe that books other than the
the bible corrupt people.
One day I was discussing with a Malaysian girl, a chemist, therefore someone with a university degree. I asked her if she had read fiction books by some popular authors, like for example Paulo Coelho.
She told me that those authors, not being Muslims, should not be read by Muslims.
@@ghemusci1694 oof
You summarise the people with the words of one person, huh? But her words are to be taken seriously because she has a degree (which is worthless nowadays) and is a chemist? Sure! And she is not even an arab.
Dont lie, malaysian read all kind of books
@@mrj475 Apparently not, because of this ONE girl! I have never even heard of this popular author.
Source, trust me bro 😂
Not to sound rude but there millions of sub continent Muslim who read the Quran without understanding a single word. That’s considered the norm!
@@mok8591 that’s literally every non arabic speaking people
Sadly this is the unfortunate reality we face and I believe it's harmful for our ummah
لذلك أتعلم لغة العربية، للأسف لاأعرف كثير الكلمات ، و ايضا لي الفهم في مستوى المبتدئين
@knowntoache يبدو ان مستواك في اللغة العربية لا بأس به
Arabic is not an easy language but with practice, you can definitely improve it. However, I think the point here is more than u trying to learn Arabic, the average Muslim doesn’t mind not knowing the meaning of his religion.
But thankfully sub continent muslims do read non-islamic books imo. While not very much, every city/town center has book vendors big and small.
@adn7q657 all languages are difficult, but with effort, you can learn any language. It has to do with culture, subcontinent muslims are more towards trade and education isn't a greater endeavour for lot of people.
As an afghani I have to say, the muslims I know, all want to drive a Mercedes and be a doctor or dentist, but nobody has any kind of books at home (also somehow no particular hobbies?) and when talking to them you you can feel there is a missing layer in their mind. This is a total consequence of cultural decisions, still everybody wants a highly functioning government to arise out of the nowhere out of this. Iranians different story.
Thank you for the great insight into the Afghani outlook with your comment.
"Everybody wants a high functioning government out of this"
You have answered my question about why many Muslim states have dysfunctional government, thank you
It is more or less the same for iraniens
Not necessarily. I know several Iranians with decent private libraries.
@simarabiei in some terms yes, you are right, but Iranian culture is pretty involved in poetry, philosophy, and art, in comparison to any other muslim countries. Here, where I live, there are some Iranian professors holding up in university in fields like sociology. Now try to find any
Syrian, Afghan, or Pakistani person holding up in an intellectual field....there is just nothing. Those people are very homogeneousy busy in fields with numbers, either business or technical related, often out of its repetitie workway, not really in fields with words. Of course, this has to do with reading books, but mainly with century long suppression of art and philosophy or any other form of abstract thinking.
There was a documentary about Quran schools in Afghanistan in the 1990s. The boys were taught to read the Quran, and they were highly skilled to memorize full chapters of the book. Turned finally out that they only spoke an afghanistan language, but the Quran books they got from Saudi arabia was in arabic. A language they didn’t understand. So much for learning to read at Quran schools.
That would be a problem. Any non-Chinese for reading Confucius in Chinese? Or non-Russians reading Solzhenitsyn in Russian?
its very impressive, even if all copies of qoran are destroyed it can easily be reconstructed.
The rulers learnt earlier that il litrate or half literate people are less threatening to tyrants.
It seems the same as what happened in my country, Indonesia
@@ombotaklicinz0024 the development of Indonesian economy is largely influenced and carried out by its Christian and Buddhist minorities (as well as its Balinese Hindus in tourism industry)
Reading expands the mind. If people are kept ignorant and fearful, they are easier to control.
i had the same thoughts. People who read get ideas and are harder to control. .
The ottoman empire, which ruled most of the arabs, banned the printing press until the late 18th century. By that time Europe had spent 300 years developing a reading culture which valued the posession of the dissemmination of books. Wealthy people had full libraries, middle class people had book shelves full of books and poor people had one book they read repeatedly. I'm icelandic and we have a special book culture stretching back all the way to the viking age with middle class people having one book and wealthy people having book shelves. The contents of those books is what made us a nation.
It's never too late to start but understand, books are dangerous to governments and as long as the arab world remains a world of dictators the people will be prohibited from reading.
Lucky you living on an island. Imagine being the only group with long reading culture surrounded by people who resent knowledge? Btw your nation boycotts us, for defending ourselves.
This is very true, and the only people who could afford books were the wealthy and the clergy. And most books in Arabic until the mid-19th century were liturgical, so the general public were excluded from that practice. Only with the advent of modernism did reading become an occupation of the middle and upper-middle classes. Of course, this has nothing to do with literacy. The vast majority of my Palestinian family are very literate and consume newspapers daily or can write nicely, but they rarely have any books on their shelves, even if they went to private schools or had gone to university.
@@gudmundursteinar thank you for this information, very enlightening!
Stop repeating the banning of painting press myth.
@@ThedeadaccountAL The PAINTing press has never been banned. While technically the press wasn't banned. Religious minorities could use it. It was banned for muslims. The few arabic books that were printed were typically printed in Italy or other christian countries.
During my military service i brought some books with me as a way to kill time granted they weren’t arabic but i was dumbfounded by the question the people around me would ask “why are you reading” and it wasn’t asked like “what are you doing” but as “why are you doing what you are doing”
I am not surprised at their surprise at your actions.
@@sul_6448 Right, and that question annoys me so much. Makes me wanna ask “why are you breathing” right back. I’m reading cuz I want to, why else.
Probably the only people an american could beat in a reading competition.
I think another reason Arabs read less is because the dialects in the region vary so much that Modern Standard Arabic is alien in to them. In Morocco the dialect in shops like IKEA is written with Roman letters. In houses in Morocco there are no books, I was married to a Moroccan lady for 33 years (RIP) she was frustrated that I had so many books around, she grew to understand that in the course of reading a book one grows to love it, to treasure it. I recently asked a nephew of mine to help me with some Arabic grammar, he declined admitting ignorance of the subject, yet this man is fluent in three European languages. Arabs are a very oral race, and audience gathers round the story teller and he holds them entranced with very familiar stories now that’s something we don’t have in the West.
Bill Hicks had a conedy but about thus exact interaction
I am an Arab and I started reading when I was 25. I don't read as much as I want. Politics plays a major role here. People are busy caching up with the news. I think there were not less than 50 wars in the region from the 1950s.
The reading issue is big here. I remember one day a guy asked me at work: "give me one benefit you got from reading books?"
I was stunned and preferred to be silent. 😅
@@Edio47 wow unbelievable, the comment that you receive from your colleague. Thank you for sharing!
@@danielgareth4205 you are welcome.
One benifit you got from reading books?
How about being able to hear the ideas and thoughts of far wiser men than I? The explorations of how existence could be, and from that, drawing greater understanding of my own opinions and values?
Inspiration for creative endevors? The expansion of vocabulary? The immersion into cultural contexts of a wider world? How about skills and specialized knowledge from reading instuction books on a skill you wish to develop?
Language was mankinds greatest invention; greater even than fire or metalworking or agriculture. But language was limited to those in you vicinity of space and time until the written word. Then mankind could speak across continents and eons. What benifit did we gain from that? We gained the world.
@@klosnj11I can already hear the counterargument for these: all that reading does is introduce those stupid ideas people now believe strongly enough to fight and die for, and make society more degenerate...
@@klosnj11 too damn wordy, actual benefit is making the brain work more efficiently the more you read lol
This reminds me of a conversation I had with an Egyptian friend about the disappointing results of the Arab Spring. I asked him why, after the majority of the people overthrew the military regime to ostensibly demand democratic self governance, the undemocratic Islamic Brotherhood which represented the views of a minority (about 30%) was so easily able to seize power? Then about a year later, when the majority of the people who were likewise dissatisfied by that religious regime returned to Tahrir Square to demand its end, why did they settle for the return of military rule instead of genuine self governance by majority rule?
His answer was illuminating. He explained that, in Egypt, almost everyone who gets an advanced education studies either medicine, engineering or architecture as these are considered essential professions. But nobody studies fine arts and humanities like literature, history and philosophy. Neither do they generally study the softer social sciences like psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics or political science. It’s not rocket science to see why these critical thinking disciplines might be deprioritized by a militarist regime.
Consequently, when the revolutionaries demanded self government and then looked around Tahrir Square, there was nobody there who knew how to do it. They knew what they didn’t want but couldn’t coherently describe what they did want instead, let alone conceive how it might actually be created. So they were ultimately left with a choice between two forms of autocracy: military or religious; because, at the end of the day, they lacked the requisite knowledge of humanities and social science to govern themselves.
The Brotherhood at least had a preexisting political narrative that they had been waiting for decades to deploy so, when the opportunity presented itself, they were ready to step into the power vacuum created by the events of the Arab Spring precisely because the democratic majority didn’t have a plan for what was to follow the fall of military rule.
The Egyptian secular educational system had produced technocrats while the religious madrasas had produced theocrats but neither had created intellectuals who possessed the capacity for the type of abstract critical thought that is the prerequisite for democratic self governance. While mathematics and the hard sciences are absolutely essential, they are ultimately insufficient if one is to understand the nuances of the human condition which are less easily quantifiable and which require an appreciation of ambiguity accompanied by a tolerance of dissenting opinions.
History would indicate that, whether secular or religious, autocrats tend to be uncomfortable with ambiguity and are disinclined to tolerance of dissent; but then one would need to have studied humanities and social science in order to know that.
Thank you for a very illuminating and thoughtful response to the main question of the video. I'll remember this, especially your observations about the subjects regarded as "essential professions."
Well explained. Thanks
STEM is useful but hardly everything needed to govern a society.
I don t quite agree. During the Arab spring, people had very sharp minds and expressed themselves much better than I had ever thought, regardless whether they read or not.
I respect reading but am not sure the correlation btw democracy and reading is that strong, but it s true that Arab culture did not generate Nietzsche s, Dostoyevsky s, Schopenhauer s or even Darwin's who challenged vigorously the old order and helped humanism to upstage and sideline religion in the West. Humanism helps democracy.
The Islamic Brotherhood government was elected in an open election, so how was it "undemocratic"? It was far more democratic than the present dictatorship. You seem to call any political movement you don't favour autocratic.
Old Arab glory is in the past and the past is gone.
I'm pakistani Muslim, never was i insulted more for my inability to speak/write arabic than by arabs who didn't freaking read or even speak their own language that well 😂 meanwhile i can read and speak urdu, taught myself korean, and have been a voracious reader since i was a child. My parents instilled such a love for reading in me, in both english and urdu, because they understand the importance. Now i read to my baby and he's got a small library already 😊
How did you learn Korean?
@@ynat2198 because of your Indian roots
@@green1880 Learning Korean is pretty easy. So much resources, TV shows etc on TH-cam alone which you can use to learn to read and understand Korean. The alphabet is also pretty easy to learn (unlike Chinese characters for instance).
I am so sorry for what you experienced
You still Muslim? 😅
Historically, Islamist armies of medieval ages burnt down libraries in India - Nalanda and Takshila were major education centres ith huge libraries. They were burnt down because these libraries did not align with islamic religious ideas. So disrespect for books other than islamic religion goes a long way back.
Was not always true. There was the library of Baghdad that famous until the Mongols burned down the city.
has nothing to do with india or burning books. it had an alternative reason. Indians were just there. I have to say this, stop making about Indians or India. No one cares.
Christians did the same, a Catholic priest whose name I forget systematically set about destroying the entire Mayan written language and more or less succeeded.
@@financialvigilante365 They did the same in Iberia. In fact we still have massive vacuums of knowledge as to how cities during the early moorish period worked in some regions and what they went through, because every time a new muslim denomination conquered the land, their first edict was to burn the prior's libraries. And in the case of the almohades, they burned most other things too. Ironically all we really know is about the regions that interacted with christians a lot or got conquered by them before they fell to other muslims. Because it is the christians that tried to keep these places of knowledge alive and annexed them to the castillian institutes for record keeping. If another denomination got there first, gaps inevitably appear.
@@dd-uy5lx state the reason . Cause without it looks like Islam is very intolerant of literature of other countries
I was married to an Arab for 20 years and we have 5 children and lived in his Arab country. I was a voracious reader all throughout their childhood yet their Arab govt school never once gave book reports as homework to any of them. Their father never read...ever. There was no encouragement from anybody in the schools, mosques etc to read for the joy of reading...except from me. It was me against everything this guy up there stated...and I lost. None of my 5 children (all adults now) read for the joy of reading. One of them does read but it's a hit and miss affair with her...but at least she does sometimes. That truly makes me feel like a failure in their upbringing because I value reading and I know the advantages those who read have over those who don't. I also spent 20 years inside Arab homes and there were very few of them that had books beyond the Quran and hadeeth and such and usually even those were dusty and unused. There might be newspapers and magazines but no books. That was pretty consistent over those 20 years. Everything he said is absolutely correct.
@@leeannfleetwood9482 how did you end up marrying him? I wonder.
@leeannfleetwood9482 there is only so much a parent can do to influence his/her children. I cant tell you what to feel but this is not a failure on your part
there is a saying in its right place,and that it's like this ,the arab doesn't read ,but if he reads he doesn't understand and if he understands he doesn't put it into effect.
@leeannfleetwood9482 Unfortunately, that is very often the case. My afghani father had some books, but since his vocabulary never ever evolved over more than 300 words - because a typical family in the muslim bubble influences each other very much not to go higher, I tried and it was seen as problematic; only if it has sth do with status or money - he actually never read those books. So, those books often function to upvalue an image, more with an extrinsic aspect. Somehow, I suspect you as a person were also more of an intellectual image holder, but that is just guessing.
@@wagdywilliam3393 who said this phrase and from which country it originated
I remember talking with a friend from Saudi Arabia, and when I asked him what kinds of books he read as a kid he just acted kind of confused. He said the only books people read more or less were religious books. I guess its just a cultural thing, but still that’s alot of knowledge just totally lost on these people.
Not just culture.
Culture can explain the cousin marriage and inbreeding that comes with that but willful ignorance is either a choice or you’d have to conclude that Arabs have no sapience.
And that line of thinking only leads to one horrific conclusion.
And Mein Kampf
This is an extremely ignorant and generalizing statement: "A lot of knowledge just totally lost on THESE PEOPLE." Seriously? You have a singular friend from Saudi Arabia, who does not read; therefore, you instantly judge a nation of 30 million people, which has many different class and family structures, and fully, with your entire chest, say that knowledge is totally lost on these people. I don't know where to start, honestly, but the most vibrant indicator of ignorance and a lack of knowledge is this type of extreme generalization due to one personal anecdote. Personally, in both sides of my family, there are poets, authors, and literary's, and we have been encouraged to read from a very early age in both English and Arabic. Our personal library, along with that of my aunts and uncles, would put your local libraries to shame. Furthermore, in my schooling as well, we had a massive library and would have to read many books and discern ancient Arab poetry, as well as western classics such as War and Peace. Next time before you comment such a vulgar and ignorant statement perhaps try actually researching or visiting said country.
The traditional Muslim extreme emphasis on reading the Quran to the exclusion of all else (because it is not worthwhile to do so) has to be overcome for progress in reading to be made. The decline in Islamic learning (so, reading) began in the 11th C. when the Caliph decided an internal argument in favor of the side proposing that no thought outside of the Quran was to be allowed. Anything other than the Quran was treated as worthless trash and must be avoided, even destroyed. The previously vibrant and quickly developing Arab civilization has never recovered from that unfortunate decision a thousand years ago.
Good point. Also, the Mongols didn't exactly respect books either as they burned libraries full of scientific and mathematical texts when they destroyed Baghdad 😞
I've read a lot of the comments especially those by Arabs/Muslims and I noticed that while the question of why Arabs don’t read is indeed a critical one, Arabs love to put the blame on anyone but themselves and often cite the fact of the scarcity of books that aligns with their culture (as if u only read what aligns with what u already know lol), I believe that almost all the answers to the topic of why Arabs don't read and why arab influence in books are nonexistence compared to their size often fail to look inward. While external influences, like the prevalence of Western ideologies in literature, or the Othman period, are often cited, the real issue lies deeper. The absence of books imbued with our culture is not the cause-it’s a symptom of more profound societal challenges.
Historically, during the golden age of Islam, books reflecting diverse ideologies thrived. We didn't see differing perspectives as a threat; instead, we engaged with them, countered them with our own arguments, and produced knowledge that stood the test of time. The current situation, where books promoting certain ideologies dominate, stems not from their mere presence but from a lack of well-supported alternatives that resonate with our cultural identity.
Rather than viewing this as a problem of external domination, we should ask ourselves: Why aren’t we fostering a strong literary and intellectual culture? Why aren’t we investing in authors, publishers, and educational reforms that prioritize critical thinking and instil a genuine love for reading?
It’s also worth noting that external circumstances like wars are not necessarily the primary reason for low reading rates. Palestinians, despite enduring decades of conflict, have some of the highest literacy rates among Arab countries. This demonstrates that a love of reading and literacy thrives when societies value and prioritize them, regardless of external challenges.
while I don't have answer for everything I think we could start by changing our perspective
You knocked it out of the park! Islam needs what Christianity had in the 14th century Renaissance and later Reformation...Every crisis is an opportunity to grow...
@cliomaniac which is likely why the ruling class in Arab countries prefers illiteracy.
A GOOD SOLUTION IS THAT YOU MUSLIMS STAY IN MUSLIN VILLES !! YOU ARE TOO BACKWARDS AND NOT EVOLOVED !! JUST BACKWARDS AND NEED 800 YEARS TO TRY TO GET EVOLVED PAST THE STONE AGES , BUT YOU WOULD STILL FAIL !!
@@cliomaniac While I agree that we need a change as transformative as the Renaissance and Reformation periods in the West, I am not convinced that adopting a solution from elsewhere would be effective. The circumstances that fostered change in Europe differ significantly from the challenges we face today. Nonetheless, I believe it is valuable to learn from their experiences rather than replicate them directly. Past attempts to simply copy the European model or even the past Islamic model have failed to address our issues effectively, underscoring the importance of tailoring solutions to our unique context.
the answer is demographic. The Arab world is now where Europe has been in the late 19th century: high birth rates but already increased modern medicine and healt care leads to a massive increase of the uneducated urban petty proletariate class, plus massiv urbanizations. Millions of sons of goat herders now live in enormously big cities.
With a culture and religion that prohibits art, music, theatre, romance, comedy , hobbies, and much else, and seems to totally ignore the wonders of nature and modern science, what is there to read about?
That’s why I quit my job as a university lecturer to become children’s picture book author and illustrator.
That's wonderful. Share some of your works!
Picture is haram in Islam.
@@susum2059SubhaanAllah 😡
@@crissmilton5007 Only because Pictures and Idols used to be worshipped back then, paganism back then had a constant threat of coming back if people were allowed to practice art.
Now it is no longer an issue, It has moved from Haraam to Mukruh (Which means you can do it but keep it to yourself).
I am a Muslim and an Artist, I also do animations and am currently working on a comic book project.
Yes please
Widespread reading would mean the end of Islam, and the authorities know it.
Then it would have ended thousands of years ago
@@Rachjumper it hadn't even started thousands of years ago.
If that was true, Islam would end thousands year ago. Baghdad once the centre of scientific development and translation for any scrolls and books
@@systemreactive4092 which was ok for the ruling class, but the printing press gave books to the masses in Christendom, not Islam
@@earlygenesistherevealedcos1982 don't spread lies, I thought your Jesus didn't teach you for lying. House of Wisdom provide education to anyone who want to learning
I would submit a simpler explanation. With reading comes an incremental awareness of how texts work, how they differ from one to the next, and with time, one begins to discern qualitative differences. Truth. Verifiability. Internal consistency. Relative value. Consequence. These insights, largely arising spontaneously as the scope and depth of one's reading increases, ultimately lead to the development of a critical faculty. This process is amplified immensely when one reads alone, rather than being read to in groups. And it is the risk of this capacity to critique and to think independently arising among the general Arab population that causes reading to be undervalued or even discouraged. In a world in which so much is proscribed, the capacity to think critically (and activities that generate this capacity, such as reading) will only be seen as subversive and leading to heresy.
@@Michael-k8r2g this right here^
As an outsider (Korean-American) I readily agree with your assessment. I think the primary reason is the dominant role of faith of everyday life in Muslim societies. I think there's a relatively high correlation in lack of reading to one's religiosity, irrespective of one's ethnic/cultural/personal background. And the reason why East Asians (China/Korea/Japan among a few others) have such high literacy rates of over 95% is due to explicit Confucian teachings to improve the mind and focus on education which of course comes primarily from reading.
@@Michael-k8r2g 🎯Knowledge---learning---is a terrible responsibility that is vulnerable to persecution precisely because learned people cannot easily hide...
Well said. I’m a Western European Christian but I have long been interested in history including that of the Middle East. I’ve read many books on the Ottoman world and have toured modern day Turkey to see places I read about. One thing that your comment reminded me about is when what historians now call the Industrial Revolution occurred in Europe (basically in the 1800’s ) the Ottoman Empire was aware of its relative technological decline and a debate arose between the religious authorities on one side and the Sultan and his advisors on the other side. A number of Sultans were reformers who wanted to introduce secular schooling and teaching of reading and writing and mathematics and this was hugely opposed by the religious authorities who feared losing control of the people if the people could develop critical thinking skills by education. This even extended to introducing western concepts of ordering your day by the time via use of clocks and calenders. This was held back in the Ottoman Empire by the religious leaders who insisted that it must be the local religious center (the mosque) that must control the order of the day.
@sweetaznspice1 Christians and Jews did have very high literacy rates, in large part because their religions were text-based. Synagogues were famous as centres of learning. And the Gutenberg press and the Reformation boosted literacy and critical reasoning in the West.
I'm a Mexican Catholic and I find how the Arab world is now pretty jarring. In history I learned of the Spanish fighting for generations against the almost unbeatable and extremely intelligent Muslim armies in the Reconquista. I look back and see the Islamic golden age which saved and developed so much knowledge which gets us where we're at today.
But when I look at Arabs and Muslims now (particularly in very rich countries like Saudi Arabia) I see nothing like what I've read about in history. I have friends that live there and every week they show me pictures of their new phones, new cars, new makeup they purchased, or pets they own but I don't see what I see as true wealth which is learning and spreading literature.
I discuss religion often with one of the Saudi friends of mine and I often use metaphors to explain Catholicism (I usually learn a lot when metaphors are used on me so I use them a lot on others too) but she seems to not understand what a metaphor is. I'm in my 20s and she is a year older than me so it is not like she is a child who hasn't completed here education. She is a college graduate.
It is heartbreaking because I hear that Arabic is a beautiful language but nobody seems to use that language to write books like with Europeans Latin, Greek, or English. Thank you for the video! Bendiciones!
I'm not surprised, that's probably one of the reasons why Dubai suddenly became a popular spot, and in general not just in Dubai, there seems to be a new emerging culture of spending time mall shopping for flashy, shiny material goods and comparing each other's material achievements through social media...pretty shallow.
@@thewamp9306 As Catholics we should be proud of our Church preserving knowledge all throughout the centuries! I've not once been to a monastery that didn't have a huge library! They were even called amoraries, because books were considered armour against ignorance and heresy 💪
I haven’t considered that my reading as a hobby was perhaps due to my father reading to me as a child and my parents library at home. Interesting video and topic. Here’s hoping the next generation somehow become better than ours in this!
Thank you for your great thoughts. Appreciate it!
The Sahaba were reported to have read/recited in the evening and implemented what they learnt during the day and this was a routine of growth.
Evening reading sounds like a good habit.
@@not_mybrother7705 Where are we from the Sahaba 😫 but inshallah we will change - Syria has sparked the renewal within all of us
@Salman_Saho Ameen.
The more we learn of Sahaba and Seerah the more hope we can have. The blocks are forming.
No change in power or situation without the intercession of Allah.
The Sahabba gave us light on our daily lives .. for example to wipe our putts with three stones , without Sahaba , we might still use two stoens only
@@Salman_Saho Just because someone is Sahaba doesn't mean that they are all good and nice. Some of what the Sahaba did was just evil "ehhm'" Muawya. If we ever want to stand a chance to progress as collecttive culture, Sahaba''s deeds as well as the prophet's should be deemed as human deeds and therefore fallible.
They also didn't work 9 to 5 jobs 5 days a week and live in overpriced houses though.
I made several friends from Egypt and Saudi Arabia on a language learning app, and what startled me about them was how many normal things about being human was something they couldn’t even have a discussion about. If I talked about owning a dog, I would get “well in Islam we don’t like dogs” or if about music and dance, another prohibition or skepticism, about romance, well, it’s all arranged by family and lacks agency. So many things that are worthy challenges with being human are either off limits to them or taken out of their control. It’s no wonder to me how they might not be able to intellectually engage with literature. They would just shut off immediately.
@@Swrdfshtrmbns compared to the millions of things they can do and do, music being forbidden by Allah swt, and Muslims needing to pray at least 5 times daily with rituals that include clean clothes, and dog saliva bring impure, hence keeping of dogs very impractical, however dogs are allowed for hunting , guarding, farm dogs etc, don't paint Muslims, implicitly or explicitly, followers of such an amazing religion, which combines all the goodness of the world and next life , as
Backwards etc.
I read in a TripAdvisor book to iceland that there is a proverb there: "better Barefoot than without a book"
@@MuhammadKhan-sq1eo ever wonder why despite a lot of Muslim countries have the black gold, they don't become as advanced technologically as the countries of other faith? Unfortunately arab leaders knows this -- They are educated, they know it is easier to control illiterate people than literate ones.
Yea its sad, its like the creative and expressive half of their brain is shut down, or shut down by the religion and culture. Not reading, writing, or making art and music is just repressing creative urges that come out in other ways. I can see how many of the younger people, especially men, with nothing else to do will end up getting recruited by these extremist groups who promise all these things like friendship or some greater goal (at the expense of others unfortunetly).
They really need to shift this perspective and improve their countries arts and culture.... otherwise many of these countries will fall into the same trap of constant government exploitation and constant govt overthrow by radical groups. Lack of reading, education, or open minded view of other cultures and religions will just keep them ignorant and hateful of others, including their own.... if they have no "other", their "other" becomes the women typically.
Seems a real joy stealer of a belief system.
I think social media is killing reading all over the world.
Tiktok especially, spoonfeeding users with short visuals only accompanied with short texts so we read less and less
Not in North America. Independent book stores are growing, there are more reading groups popping up near me consisting of younger readers. The “book-tok” craze has persisted and translated into even more Gen Z interest in physical books. I think the times of political upheaval in the West has encouraged a revival of reading, so much so that Barnes & Noble is opening more than 50 stores this year. Reading is encouraged and valued more and more.
The Muslim world has not had the same response, I don’t think reading is as prized or prioritized in most Arab countries at this time.
TH-cam is a social medium and here I am, reading your comment.
What I mean by that is, people will find a way to take the best things and use them in the worst way possible. Social media just make you *aware* of this
@@Ri-Ci my generation has come to despise the society the naive and delusional so called progressive values have created. It's time to go back to where things were solid.
Can't agree more
It's because of Salafis telling Muslims not to read philosophy and fiction. They're "Haram." They basically limited the permissible reading to religious texts. Not a lot of people are interested in that.
Arabic is for Islam and the Quran. English is for reading technology, medicine, science and general conversations.
Salafis doesnt controll all Muslims and Salafis are not older than 200 year even though they claim connection to prophets time
@@ayhanfedai5013 English is for learning technology, science and medicine. Arabic is for the Quran.
@@ayhanfedai5013 I get it but we're talking about today. If you don't live in the Arab world you don't really know their influence. You're correct though, their claim to the Salaf is weak. Ashi'ari and Mufawidha have way older roots in Islamic theology. That's why it's more fitting to call modern Salafism. 50 years ago they used to call themselves Wahabis because he's the one who popularized their movement. Now they consider it derogatory.
@@Salim-wr2wk Arabic used to be the language of science and medicine. We have regressed a lot unfortunately.
I studied arabic fusha for 3 years at my university as part of my extra curricular subjects to complete on humanities requisites. It always struck me utterly was the total absence of modern literature translated into arabic. The whole world literary corpus was there waiting to be translated into MSA. Now the answer is patent, no global publisher house would ever run a risk to print in arabic to sell just a few hundreds of copies.
I remember reading the arabic translations of the novels Anna Karenina and The Black Tulip in school, and how much I enjoyed them. It mostly had to do with my teacher's enthusiasm regarding the books which encouraged me to engage with those novels.
Great video. As a Nigerian, it's both surprising and not surprising to me that this trend of refusing to read or even education is found among Arab Muslims. It's ironic given how the Arab world, during the golden age of Harun al Rashid, was a hub of intellectual, academic, scientific and social progress but eventually, the rulers rejectefbthese advancements because it would threaten their power and control and privileges. So they used religion a d Arab culture to mandate a rejection of reading and education😢 Here, in the Southern part of my country, the Muslims (among the Yoruba, Igbo, Ijaw etc) tribes have cultures that promote education, entrepreneurship and tolerance. That's why despite their faith, they value reading and getting new ideas while Northern states have more "Arabized" Muslim tribes (Haisa and Fulani) that prefer to imitate Arabic cultures and tend to reject modern education, reading, entrepreneurship etc. Some also view writing in Arabic as sinful snd brutalize others who do for blasphemy😢
Yes, certainly the Yoruba value education, the Igbo trade and the Haisa the military.
Brazilian here. We have this exact same problem. But I think it might be even worse, since we're now a deep secular nation, so not even the Bible is being read. The internet also didn't help, because anyone prefers to stay on their phones than read the news or a book (it gives way more dopamine...) 😢
Ya. But you have more books than Arabic nations. I’m ignorant of Portuguese literature. Portugal publishes as many books as the whole Arab world, Brazil publishes 3 times as much with half the population
@@StFrancisEnjoyer you have Paulo Coelho and his books are amazing
@@StFrancisEnjoyer Books doesn't have to be literal books, they also include other arts, philosophies etc because ultimately the objective is to find creativity and knowledge. Brazil has a thriving Art culture, lots of music dances which is also a creative outlet. Arabs don't even have that, lately they started allowing cinema atleast so that is a start.
@@Zurab_Robif you ask any Brazilian who is Paulo Coelho, he'll think of Peter Rabbit.
@@billyb6001Brazil didn't got its own printing industry untill 1953
I once was on a Christian-Muslim forum, their debates were weird, terrible because most of them had never read anything but the Bible/ Qur’an and they understood neither. They didn’t understand the connections between sentences, between paragraphs or between ideas
And that turned them into fanatics.
Agreed. I grew up in a fairly secular part of the US. I had only the bare minimum of religious instruction. I was very surprised to find in adulthood that I know more about the bible (its history and as a work of literature) than almost every conservative christian I've ever met.
I’m wondering if this issue might also be influenced by other factors, such as poverty and the limited accessibility of education for lower social classes. Additionally, the political aspects should not be overlooked-does freedom of the press truly exist, and do political systems play a role in discouraging reading within society? The ability to read a book also requires time, and time is a precious commodity, especially when you are merely trying to survive.
Your points are valid. I think the freedom elements is diminishing in its impact on the overall limitation of reading as technology breaks down significant barriers. For sure survival reduces living to its most fundamental. Thank you for your insights.
@@azzilh I think one factor is also the relationship between the teacher and students. Having an open mind was a type of rebellion that almost looks like a power grab in the eyes of the teacher making the joy of learning almost non existent. As an American I lived in Yemen for one year and went to public school I remember being reprimanded for asking too many questions which led me to stay quiet.
@@azzilh I've lived in Saudia Arabia for a few months. Most of them are all well fed and doing nothing the whole day because they live on kafalat system. And others who do not work for the government are also doing very well. But still they do not read. Not in schools, not in universities, no science, no mathematics, not literature of any kind.
@@ministersormonstersthey have a very lazy attitude then 🙄🤔
its also because they have to read backwards which is more difficult
Very interesting. This explains a lot about the relationship of Muslims to their own religion, culture and the world. The prevailing oral tradition of pre-Islamic Arabia even after the advent of the Quran characterizes the Arab and Muslim mentality in general. By the way, although "iqra" is usually translated as "read", the first meaning of this word is "to recite". God does not ask Muhammad to read (among other things because he was illiterate - ummi), but to recite, i.e. to repeat orally what God tells him. It is paradoxical that a religion that relies so much on (mostly only one) book and reading remains so illiterate in other aspects of human thought and cognition. Of course, there are commendable exceptions among individual intellectuals of Muslim origin, who are open to the secular world and culture, but most often they are not well accepted by other Muslims. The topic of this video invites deeper reflection, especially regarding the socio-political and cultural consequences of the facts presented. Thanks to the author!
To be fair, I am Iraqi and I think you skipped a lot of really important information. I’d say that in Iraq, literature and art in general is highly valued. We have an entire street called “Al-Mutanabbi” dedicated to it where books literally fill the walls from the floor up to the ceiling! My entire childhood was wholly based on books. My dad would read to me countless books until I fell asleep (especially a thousand and one night). Poetry is incredibly important to us. You can find people reciting poetry out on the streets as well as in their homes. I think what brings the literacy rate down in Iraq is the people in the south (no offense). They still hold on to their traditional views and are a very simple people. They go fishing, farming etc, but literature is not as important to them. It also doesn’t help that they make up a big part of the population since they have a bazillion kids 😅
But again, this doesn’t apply to a few countries and especially not the country where The House of Wisdom once stood! The place where books would be written and texts would be translated. Without it, many ancient languages could not be deciphered!
lmao my mom is kurd and turcman from the north and she’s normal and then my dad from al nasriyah is uh.. kinda crazy and so much childhood trauma lol barely feels like a father. they met in baghdad btw and most of my family lives there now idk how she agreed to marry him.
I'd beg to differ, the marshes of the south gave rise to the biggest minds Iraq had ever seen, some are even radical. The problem of the south being "illiterate" is somewhat of a stereotype, but the truth is, when a society is limited by the structures that were inherited from feudalism, and by the political demagoguery of certain sides, it's doomed to have a high percentage of an uneducated population. Alas you rarely see a grand bibliothique in Amarah, but still, younger generations are proving to be more leaning towards reading and exploring various cultures, even under the strict limits of feudal tradition, hell, like I said, many minds from the past and present come from the south. Shatra isn't called little Moscow for nothing.
I'm a man who's lived the first half of his life in Baghdad, with the other half spent in the South. It is bad, just not as bad as you think, and definitely comparable (if not better) to the other more rural parts of the country. :)))
Also, rural areas tend to have lower literacy rates and higher pop. density worldwide.
If I were to criticise anything about Iraq in this regard, then I'd argue it's really the inherited soceital habits rhe majority of the population has, the awfully outdated education system, and the lack of infrastructure and services, especially in remote areas.
Isn't there some sort of saying like" Egyptians write the books, Lebanese publish the books and Iraqis read the books" ?😅
@@georgenovak2395 I definitely agree with you on that one. I did follow the stereotype for sure and I absolutely agree that it’s not their fault that the society they’ve grown up in doesn’t allow them to learn as much as the people in the capital.
Sadly, this is one of the problems Iraq faces and it can be partly attributed to the great dependence on religion as well as Iranian control in Iraq.
My family from my mother’s side are from Basrah and the entire family is well educated. My grandpa is a civil engineer, my mother is a professor with a phd and my two aunts are both doctors! However, they could never reach this high if they didn’t move to Baghdad. The south simply lacks the necessary tools at the moment to create educated individuals
Extremely interesting video, now also sad. As a child, I read a lot, at night under the covers with a flashlight. Not because it was forbidden, but because I should have slept, but I couldn't put the book down, I was so interested :)
It's sad because reading increases your imaginative skills for visualisation
who needs fantasy, thought or any skills, when you are fully indoctrinated in a religious cult?!
For parents looking to buy Arabic reading books for kids, Colins "BIG CAT" and Oxford "ARABIC CLUB READERS" are great.
Thank you for your recommendation Umm Muhammad!
Crazy that the country with the largest Muslim population in the world is nothing like it
I went to Indonesia and despite the fact that the vast majority of people there are Muslim, they don't share the issue that muslim countries like Arab have.
Despite Muslim majority, Indonesia is not a Islamic country and only the minority are taking the Qur'an too literally. Indonesian people that I've met feel much closer to westerner than middle easterners
I’m so grateful to my parents who encouraged us as children to read for pleasure in both Arabic and English, which was one of the best things they ever did. I remember growing up being viewed as a weirdo by extended family members whenever they saw me with a book, as though reading was such a bizarre thing to do and sometimes even actively discouraged from reading, as if there’s something inherently dangerous about reading diverse thoughts, perspectives or ideas.
When I ask Arabs when do they think the printing press was invented, they usually say the 19th century. When I ask Europeans they say the 15th century. The Arab world wasn’t introduced to printed work until the late 19th century, while Europe was way back in the 1800s
The Arab Muslim world embraced writing and reading during the Abbasid era by learning paper production from China. However, they failed to embrace the printing press until late after the Europeans. Now they're facing the dilemma of the digital divide with the advent of computers , along with their deficit literacy rates historically .The less demanding world of literacy in the Arab Muslim lands of the past has shaped the mindset and attitudes towards reading today in the culture. It's urgent for the Arab Muslim peoples to learn how important the demands for literacy are in all its forms are for them in today's technological environment, and this will require nothing short of a Renaissance.لا حول ولاقوة الابالله
Totally agreed Brian and thank you for the wonderful synopsis.
Literacy rates are much lower in your lands, Brian
I can talk for myself only. I was a book warm when I was a school girl and a university student. My father had great collection of Russian classic book like Tolstoy, Pushkin, Lermontov and others. We also had 10 volumes of Walter Scott, Hugo, Goethe , Duma, and tons of other books. I gradually stopped reading when I came to USA, got busy with work and studying. I think around 2012 or so I started to engage in social media and since then my reading habit has significantly declined. I can feel the impact of it. Less imagination. Less patience and ability to concentrate. Often feeling bored. Social media and especially TH-cam shorts make it way worse. Glad this video popped out. It gives me flashback of my youth years when I would read at the table while eating, choosing books over hanging out with friend or even in the toilet. My whole family like to read. We are Muslims from North Caucasus. I hope I can revive that habit and start enjoying it and instill it in my kids.
Thank you for your video.
How sad that books and reading are not part of the lives of many Arabs. Till I watched and listened to this video, I did not know of this tragedy.
I am 78. Your video explains a lot. Over my career, I have had lengthy conversations only with Turkish and Iranian Muslims and only one Egyptian Muslim. Only short talks with Arabic Muslims.
My world of books, magazines, journals, etc. is totally different or very foreign to nonreading Arab Muslims. I read a biography of Ghandi when ten years old, and my world view changed considerably. I read about Mohammed as a high-school student. I read medical books, chemistry texts, books on rocket science, etc. I read history books and sociology texts.
What a difference it has made in my life!
This is a great tragedy! Reading brings us not only knowledge but the wisdom beyond our own.
Good video but I think you missed an important point: the effect of religion. Yes the Quraan does start with "iqraa" but, at the same time, we have been told that all the knowledge we need to know is contained in this one singular book, so where is the incentive to study other sources? Everything else is bid'aa. We have no sense of curiosity because we believe we've been told everything there is to be told, 1500 years ago. I visited Amman a few years ago and struggled to find a single bookshop, and when I did it was only selling religious books. A very sad situation.
Who told you that? I'm a Muslim and never heard such nonsense
There's plenty of books in Amman. You just didn't know where to look
@@NikoBellaKhouf2 Maybe, they just weren't easy to find, so there are probably not that many. If there were, I would have easily found them. Go to any capital city for the first time and believe me you will find bookstores without even looking, so the "you didn't know where to look" argument doesn't hold any water.
I'm a Muslim too, by the way. Of course you have "never heard such nonsense" because you probably didn't know where to look :)
@@NikoBellaKhouf2 That's a very silly argument. I shouldn't have to "know where to look", I was looking for a bookshop, not gold dust or the Holy Grail! Go to any city in the world and you will find bookshops very easily.
I am from Libya, and I often hear this talk from the sheikhs and elders. However, I cannot access books due to the absence of bookstores, so I rely solely on reading PDFs 😢
Im a thirty-something from Germany. I am the only one with a bookshelf in my living room of all of my friends in my age.
Arab Migration Background? Or ethnic german?
@@PandaPanda-ud4ne Ethnic-German. And the friends I'm talking about too. So, while Germany still is a huge book market, I think we have a big reading crisis in my generation aswell.
You don't need a bookshelf to read. Gen Z also don't have a CD or DVD or even a hifi system in their living room, that doesn't mean they don't listen to music. Same with books: E-Book Readers took off in 2007, that was 18 years ago.
@@mariotomazzoni6523 yeah but HIFI is better if you want to enjoy it fully. I know, i know, most people nowadays listen to music in bed or in the subway or while walking, but still. And the haptic feel of a book in your hands is also something else. I love and accepted e-books with my whole heart, but i still like the FEELING of a book in my hands, the paper rustling under my fingers...it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, you know?
@ I doubt they really are a thing. My observation is, that they are used by the same people, who read paper books before.
I'm a brazilian muslim, I'm taking courses in both Arabic and persian and so far I'm loving it! It baffles me to know arabs don't know how to read their own language, this makes me very sapient, as I am somewhat of a teacher myself, so i would love to teach young kids to speak and read arabic from young age.
How can u be a Muslim after reading the Quran and the hadiths lol
Why did you convert to islam?
@grumpycrumbles7360 because I believe on it, on the message of it's prophet and his family.
Isn't the answer fairly evident? Most Muslims believe the Quran is the only book one needs to read to have all the answers in the world. On top of that they believe other books might lead Muslims down the wrong path, that they might start having un-Islamic thoughts. So they avoid all other books.
Many in the comments are asking how it's possible that the Islamic world was once a place of scientific pursuit and philosophy, but the all that disappeared. But the answer for that is evident, and probably something all Muslims should know. During the first centuries of Islam, the so-called "golden age" of Islam, Muslims did engage in science and philosophy, intellectual pursuits. But that was because during that time people didn't really follow Islam that strictly. They had alcohol, ate pork, partied, and spent time and cooperated with Christians and Jews, even engaging in poetry contests with them. That weak commitment to Islam is what allowed Muslims to study the world, without getting beat over the head with the Quran. The lack of strictness is what made Muslims tolerant. But after the first couple of centuries it all went downhill, and Islam entered its dark period, which has lasted until today.
The reason is that a couple of Islamic scholars and preachers stepped forward and announced that Muslims had strayed from the true, strict reading of the Quran, and they would have to recommit to following the Quran to the letter. Once Muslims began doing that, the progress and open-mindedness in the Muslim world ended. This demand to worship the Quran as sacrosanct, and finding all answers in it, with all other text seen as heresy - philosophy and science were demonized - led to intellectual stagnation in the Islamic world. While the rest of the world continued pursuing knowledge about the world, and looking outward, Muslims hid in their bubble hoping to keep their minds pure by just following the Quran, with no contact with outside thoughts.
😂 nice fairy tale …
I’m Muslim and I’m an avid reader -
I’d recommend you watch dr Tim winter and his Islam series - he explains why it went downhill and no! Islam is perfect, Muslims are imperfect
@@green1880First and foremost, and i mean no disrespect, nothing is perfect as it is. Nothing can work by itself. A tree doesnt just grow without the sun, water and a seed. Just as how you dont breath without the contraction of your lungs.
Stating islam is perfect is the root of the issue, and its exactly what the original comment describes. If something is perfect, then there is absolutely no need to seek anything else, as why risk seeking inperfect knowledge?
This is exactly what islam demands, kaffir this, corruption that. Things outside of its influence are seen as a danger, and if not they can and will be.
Its circular reasoning which is anti-thetical to logic. The fact that the quran claims to be the actual literal word of god is the problem. Why should a muslim seek knowledge from anyone but god?
I would just amend the part where you say "Islam demands" with "Modern Muslims demand", the problem is with their interpretations and the propensity for corruption of man to aim for power and status in society through telling the rest of their people how to think and behave, coincidentally it also aligns with their own self interests where they get people to submit to their rule while they get powerful and usually rich...
@@green1880 Star missiles, devils in space, talking ant; no perfection only deception . ..
NGL, the introduction and the ending were unbelievably shocking, concise yet impactful; I was genuinely moved by the eloquent phrasing.
That UN report (conducted by liberal Arabs) that Spain translates more books into Spanish in a single year than Arabs have to Arabic in 1,000 years says everything. I taught English to immigrants, mainly from the Middle East. They were hard working, prudent, stressed education, family, civility, rules and almost all were successful (without government help) They could not understand Americans with all our advantages griping so much. We shared food and culture but books were NEVER a topic. Homes had religious "books" or pamphlets but a shelf (or in my case, library) of book did not exist. They were stunned at the shelves of books, silently taking in the various sections (sci-fi, history, religion, bio, science, food, etc) but fiction unrelated to religion or culture was "foreign" to them. Why did I have books on history when I "took history in school"? It was the most alien aspect - not a hostility but a complete indifference.
I remember that one.
If they read, they will learn, if they learn, they will be free. Their governors don't want them free.
My mother was illetrate. She expressed the wish to learn to write and read around the age of 40 or more. I remember it as a vague memory. My father could hardly read. He only read the Quran, he had this large old book with big letters. I still cherish it to this day, even though I'm agnostic. I started by reading the Quran myself, and it's a real treasure, despite what most of the comments are saying. Most of those who disrespect "holy" books don't know what they're talking about, they lack the curiousity and the tolerance to let themselves actually see and take advantage of reading such a well written book. Doesn't matter who wrote it. I had the chance of growing up with looking at our small library, never actually saw anyone holding a book in the family, except to study. My cousin used to tell me stories before bed, it planted the seed in me; I wanted to be able to enjoy more stories. At the time, I wasn't conscious about it, but books were the only thing I asked for when I was a kid, I never asked my parents to buy me something beside book, not even sweets. I realize now that, growing up, books were my haven.
Now I speak a pretty good French thanks to books, a decent English thanks to movies and series..and of course Arabic.
I had a very long break from reading, work, daily life, screen addiction.. It's so easy to let yourself drown in all of that. Last year I woke up from my slumber, and decided to read again. I had wished to read all Proust once, and I'm almost done, 10 pages a day. Modern life makes it so hard to read.
This was such a long and boring comment, if you made it here, i appreciate your patience. 🤓
People who genuinely want to learn are never boring. They are inspirational.
@@donnarichardson7214 thank you 🌻
An agnostic na’uzubillah.
Since you love reading, I recommend you to read:
- imam Ghazali “remembrance of death and afterlife - book 40
- fariddudin attar - biography of the saints
@@green1880 I am actually very fascinated with mystics like Al-Hallaj, Rumi, etc. Thank you for the recommendation!
Pretty sweeping statement that "most" of those who disrespect holy books don't know what they are talking about". How do you know? And most are not well written but revered for being set down in writing a long time ago. 'If it ancient it must be true.'
Humanity has a strange respect for texts. As an author and teacher I wrote manuals for use on training courses which I would update continuously as laws and technology changed. Students would argue with me that I must be wrong because the book they had on their desk said something different from what I had just told them even though I was the author and the text was in need of revision.
Approach a book without awe or reverence for it being a written text, or for some value or authority that you have been told it possesses: just read it for what it says. Even the Bible falls apart at Genesis 2.4. No matter what religion you may follow it is necessary to cherry pick verses and chapters and skip over parts that contradict your selections.
It’s so strange to me that it’s widespread that parents don’t read to their kids. I did this every night, and often throughout the day my kids entire childhood (until they were too old for that haha.) I honestly assumed this transcended culture. There are SO MANY great children’s authors and books and I loved reading books to my kids that my parents did for me. I’m sad for so many people that don’t understand how reading is not only enlightening but it’s enjoyable. I read because I like too!
Iqra means actually ,recite’ more than ’critical reading’, ’recite’ this religious text, ’recite’ and learn by heart, do not question. That’s basically what Arabs and followers of that religion of peace do. Learn that book by heart. So they can recite it. Just that one book. If you understand this, you know very well why they don’t ’read’.
Iqra means both read and recite.
Ragebaot
@@thecrimsondragon9744Understanding that Muhammed was illiterate at the time, it makes no sense to understand it as read, as he was literally incapable of it.
@@think4thesoulit does and doesn't
Very interesting.
@sinocam I can’t be thankful enough for your generosity. Truly appreciate this and will put it to great use. Am happy that this content is resonating with you and hope to see more of you in the comments section.
This is SO sad! In the Middle Ages the Islamic world was the power-center of intellectual achievement in the Middle East and the West. The House of Wisdom in Baghdad was the greatest library in its day, probably in the entire world.
It’s very common for intensely devout folks to limit reading as they run into ideas that challenge their beliefs.
My Arab students are forced by their mom to study with me, they didn't like it at first but now they love my class and love learning English and think it's easy and I'm so proud of them.
The Arabic word iqra (إقرا) means "read" or "recite".
Quran Arabic الْقُرْآن is from same root. Q-R-A root
The Bible in Semitic Hebrew language is called Miqra (מִקְרָא) from the same root.
Quran is Biblical Hebrew semitic word also.
How long Israel is going to Hide.
Ayatollah آیتالله Ayat + Allah (אוֹת + אַלָהּ )
Birth of Emanuel is Ayatollah in the Bible.
Ayatollah is Jewish word it means "Sign of God"
Birth of Christ is "Ayatollah" in Christianity.
Sabbat is Ayatollah
Sign of Jonah is Ayatollah.
None of our words come from Hebrew
this is new to me. the information i know that is (Q R A) in Arabic (قرأ) is an Arabic word.
the Arabic and Hebrew languages are Semitic. so may be some roots will similar or the same.
@@NikoBellaKhouf2
Hebrew and Arabic have lots of common words. Most of the Hebrew Bible is Arabic. Like About 70-80 99 names of Allah are in the Hebrew Bible.
Allah, Muhammed, Quran, Muslim, Salem, Salaam, Hajj are all in the Bible. The information is correct for the Hebrew lexicon. Type Hebrew Arabic Lexicon you will find it.
@@abo3le502
Lots of Arabic root are in the Hebrew Bible. And the information is from Hebrew Bible Lexicon called Brown Driver Briggs.
Hebrew and Arabic have lots of common words. Most of the Hebrew Bible is Arabic. Like About 70-80 99 names of Allah are in the Hebrew Bible.
Allah, Muhammed, Quran, Muslim, Salem, Salaam, Hajj are all in the Bible. The information is correct for the Hebrew lexicon. Type Hebrew Arabic Lexicon you will find it.
The main problem is what happens when they read books that don’t fit the religious and culture norms . Instead of reading conflicting stories and trying to understand how both sides are right and wrong to find the truth about the situation they are ignoring the facts. Just as the old European areas actually imposed the religious inquisitions and state run cencership .
Similar to what evangelism tries to do but it's not easy because people in the US have an easy access to different influences but it doesn't stop the hardcore evangelists to spread division, fear and the idea of a manufactured armageddon among other oddities, even though Jesus brought God's word to them that says "thou shall not kill" and "love thy neighbor as you love yourself" among other similar teachings. Because regardless of our differences we are all still God's creatures and God would rather see us unite as much as we can rather than listen to the evil side and help sow chaos in the world.
Great video! I wasn't aware of this trend previously.
I have always wanted an answer to this. Im an avid reader studying political sciences at university, and a Muslim before that. We were once the bastions of knowledge and thought, and some of us have ceded part of that heritage.
Because you guys intentionally lazy, mohammed has all this history and networking under his belt meanwhile you modern muslims are just cosplaying as the emams who fed you bullshit.
@@s-a6202 Islam was NEVER a 'bastion of knowledge'. 😂 All of that knowledge was Greek/Roman/Egyptian/Persian/Assyrian. Islam has not created a single thing of worth in 1,400 years. The so-called 'Islamic golden age' is nothing more than false, modern wahabbi propaganda.
@s-a6202 so cool that you study political science. Maybe you could consider doing some youtube content one day, especially for muslim areas, since there is a lot of content discussing Islam, but there is, in my opinion, a gap abstract views on wat humanism, democracy and law has to do with each other, but also what the ideas of Kant, Hegel....brought together.... at least I would like to do it, but I miss the deep knowledge.
@@sinocam on your last point, id recommend the book "resistance" by alastair crooke, it ties in kant and hegels ideas with the development of Europe
@@s-a6202 ok thanks noted 👍
I am British. Since an early age my mother encouraged me to read. She took me to the local library and got me a ticket for the children's section. I read voraciously. Before long I had read everything in the children's section. She managed to get me a ticket for the adults section and I started to read everything I could get my hands on,
At school we were strongly encouraged to read. We had a library there as well. English was one of our main subjects but I was starting to read in French as well. I took English at A level GCE and got an A pass. One of the main reasons for reading is developing the ability to think critically . I later graduated with an Honours degree in economics and politics. Later I got a Masters Degree in American History and politics.
When my son and daughter came along I did much the same as my mother had done for me, My daughter got a Masters Degree in Law and became a lawyer.
I had Saudi students staying with me who were studying English at a local language. I was amazed about how little they knew about anything. Some of them just did not want to know. I now have a large library which I have collected over many years. The Koran is just one of them.
Very good video. Knowledgeable, informed and very well presented. I certainly learned something today. Keep up the good work.
Last year, as part of a tour group I visited several abbeys and cathedral in Europe. Apart from the magnificent architecture, what surprised me most was the collection of books. The monks spent their lives writing and reading books.
To be fair its a worldwide issue with a preference for mobile phones and wasting time. I would say the only Arabs who read a lot are those pursuing Islamic knowledge as learning is encouraged.
I don't think it's anyone's preference to waste time on a phone. Social media is psychologically designed to be addictive
It's no surprise that in the last 100 years, the Arab world have given us about 11 nobel prize winners. Mostly prizes for peace. I think one for chemistry. That's it. Meanwhile there are more Nobel prize winners in just the upper East side of New York.
Apocrophally : Caliph Omar on the capture if the Library of Alexandria
„If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them.”
remember... this is the same people that gave us ALgebra... ALcohol...
at some point they chose the path of ignorance... and demand the rest of us follow...
Producing cheap books is not necessarily the problem. I don't know the stats from Mexico or France or southern Europe, but in the past at least there seemed to be a significant reading scene based on cheap editions affordable for all. In France the Livres de Poche bring out inexpensive editions of all kinds of lilterary periods and genres, and of recent books often only a year or two after the original (expensive) book came out. and there's the beloved "Que sais-je?" series - granted not literature but informatiive / academic books. In Mexico the whole Porrua publishing house is based on inexpensive editions of all kinds of classics, though they also have more expensive hardbacks. I'd think that Arab publishing houses should take a similar tack as in France and Mexico: more expensive limited editions of higher quality, alongside inexpensive editions that everyone can afford. Maybe they do something similar already?
Books having become expensive is actually becoming a bit of a problem, imo. Prices for newly released soft covers have gone up a lot in recent years. Personally, I'm back to using the library or buying second hand, like I was as a teen in the 90's. Which is not a problem for me as a lifelong reader..but not being able to just spontaneously pick up a book in a bookshop is yet another hurdle I between people and books. And I also can't help but wonder about the ramifications for authors. Especially those without a large, established following. How many will end up giving up on *writing* books, because when it's between one fiction book and Netflix for a whole month, for the whole family, the latter just seems better value for their money?
I always feel bad, when I buy a fairly newly released book second hand, because I know, that person now doesn't really get paid for the work of writing that book anymore.
I had hoped once, that electronic books would be a solution to that problem. But sadly, they're often unreasonably close in price to physical books. More so than they should be imo, considering there's a lot of cost saved, if you don't need to print and distribute the thing.
So yeah....bring on the cheaply made books, please!
that doesn't go with the arabs,and that's why most of them are of bird minds.
Arabs don't read and this shows in their culture. I do not want to be negative but in reality while I have met and talked to 100s of Arabs I do not remember a single Arab that has ever impressed me with his intellect and/or knowledge. They lacked even a basic understanding of history and the world around them which makes it clear to me why they are considerably more susceptible to propagandas even compared to Americans. Contrary to Arabs, Iranians are a different breed. These guys read more for sure, I have met lots of Iranians that impressed me with their cultural level.
my exact same experience. Every person from an Arab culture that I've ever met (and as an instructor, it has been a lot) is mostly incurious about everything beyond the most superficial level. In learning environments, they would rather be told about something than read or discover it for themselves. The widest range of any media consumed has been American movies or series. Not much engagement with or interest in books or anything of other places, nothing at all of ideas. They are mostly interested in material consumption and comfort, not effort of any kind.
@@robLV I think it has to do with the desert mentality. Arab and many other cultures (but not all - e.g. the shia Syrians and Iranians are different breeds as said) are based on the original Arabian desert culture. It is understandable that in the desert where the one having a flask of water dictates affairs, there is no room for "wider worries", no room for curiosity. The whole life point is to consume any luxury you can fall upon to and exploit others.
If anyone thinks this is just "European stereotyping racism towards Arabs" he is woefully mistaken. I can cross compare the Egyptian, the Indian, the Iranian and especially the Greek and the Norse mythologies with anything the Arabs have to bring and the contrast is stark. The Greeks gave us myths that exhault the heroic nature of man, overcoming evil and defending goodness, fighting against men and even contrarian gods, to elevate the human into the level of semi-god. Did Hercules become rich? No. He died in pain but only after he had atoned himself for his early life crime by doing more than 12 feats helping his people and then dying from what was essentially murder organized by Hera.
Wanna compare Greek mythology to the Arab? What stories come from the Arab world? Ali Baba and the 40 thieves? The story is filled about gold and silver and gems! Maybe Sevah the Seaman? Again every voyage of Sevah is all about finding gold and gems and returning richer and richer. Extremely shallow tales. There is no depth like there is for example in Odyssey.
And as said, I understand that : it is the desert culture. I can understand that people living in harsh environments where food and especially water is scarce, when they are baked under the sun all year round with little recourse to a refreshing shadow there is no point talking about elevating myth, philosophies and deeper meanings.
Mind you, even the so-called "Golden Era of Islamic Civilization", it is largely the make up of post-modern leftists. Without wanting to retract anything from the Arabs/muslims, I still need to bring it to the real historical level. There is absolutely no case that the Arab/muslim civilization was at the forefront back then. I mean, even the very Arab/muslim writers of the day admitted that repeatedly over the centuries since the 8th up to 13th century AD. They talked about how they admired the Romans (i.e. the Greeks, at that time) and how they copied them, how they looked up to them and (yes there is research on that :) 4 different muslim writers from the 9th up to 12th century, proudly stated that the muslim armies were taking christian slaves from their razzias (raids) into the lands of the infidels, and were prizing especially the "Romans" among which they were finding educated people, engineers, architects, scientists, lawmakers, musicians, who then manned the muslim system and with whom they were building the public works, mosques, fortresses etc. It is a fact that not just Arabs but ensuing Turks did exactly the same and this gets crystal clear that by the time the Arabs and later the Turks did not have access to fresh slaves of that caliber (e.g. Greeks were reduced in Ottoman times, may fled to the mountains, overall their educational levels dropped - even if still stratospherically higher than those of the muslims), they collapsed. I.e. every single muslim culture that ceased to have access to a prime slave source collapsed.
The situation today reminds us this : there is not a single muslim state that ever developed by itself. Even the "prime examples" of Turkey and Malaisia, they developed only after massive western European and North American investment - e.g. in Turkey which as a Greek I know better, it started prior to WWII and it continued up to the 1980s : all turkish companies had been opened as basically side-shops of British, American and especially German (especially German) multinationals. They didn't start on their own. This is even more evident in the Arabian peninsula where all oil rich Arabian states would colllapse overnight if foreign workers (... let alone foreign companies) left these countries.
Overall, it is crystal clear : Arabs are not educated and they do not care much about education. They have their book, that is all they care about. Even their few intellectuals, they are lagging far behind intellectuals of non-muslim countries, there is just no comparison. As said, it is not a matter of intelligence, it is a matter of culture : it is the islamic culture, it is the culture of the desert.
I can confirm your points here buying books is seen as a waste of time and money and looking down on it or even being mocked for it.
Is it an Arab thing or an Islam thing? The Pre-islam Arab cultures and cities were some of the most advanced in the Mediterranean yet seemed to decline after Islamic invasion. This is similar to how the Roman Catholic Church only allowed the Bible to be in Latin, so they could control what people were taught.
Basically Islam ruined everything. Before Islam Middle East were sort of advanced asf especially the Persians.
Apparently the Arabs and Turks made great strides in science, arts and literature - until they stopped expanding. Then they started to stagnate. Seems it was the conquests supplying resources, both material and intellectual, that was powering the "golden age".
You haven’t ready about the Islamic golden age?! The Christian popes used to learn Arabic and study in madrassas
I’m a Muslim and I’m an avid reader
@green1880 The Golden Age is probably more accurately referred to as the Arabic or Persian Golden Age. It was the Pre-islam Persian/Arabic culture which was the main driver of the Golden Age and after the fall of these cities to the Mongols Islam remained but the enlightened culture was gone. This is why the culture in many Muslim dominated regions is still far behind 21st century culture.
@@green1880 See below, popes might have read Arabic but most Christians didn't read at all, remember there was a fuss about translating the bible from latin to the vernacular so people could read it themselves.
Great video. One thing to note, this is also why conspiracy theories are rife in society. Lack of critical thinking skills gained through books.
What a nonsense statement. The lack of critical thinking skills is due to a hegemonic education system that carefully curates knowledge for its own political ends. The 'conspiracy theorists' as you derogatorily call them, are the real critical thinkers who seek the truth outside the closed confines of academia.
Also your statement makes no sense in the context of the video, what are the great conspiracy theories of the none reading Arab world?
Great video!
Studies have shown that native Habrew speakers read Hebrew slower than native English speakers read an equivalent English text. It is surmised that the lack of vowels in Hebrew forces the brain to do extra processing to get the meaning from context. (I needn't emphasize that Jews are voracious readers, so it's presumably not a cultural deficit.) Perhaps Arabic has the same problem, compounded by the similarity of many letters and the often very stylized writing. I learned both Urdu and Devanagari scripts simultaneously in College, and Urdu was much more difficult.
I tnd to agr wth yu bt th lck of vowls in ths txt provs othrwis.
@@JanBruunAndersen Actually it proves my point. It took me longer to read that line than if there had been vowels in it. There used to be advertisements in the NYC subways that read: If u cn rd ths msg u cn gt a gd jb w hi pa! It was for a different kind of shorthand. You had to think about it for a second before you understood. If you weren't a native English speaker, it could be daunting.
@rabbi120348 - except for the "hi pa" part (which I assume is some local company), I read that with very little hesitation. And my native tongue is Danish, not English. Oh, and I also speak a halting German, a smattering of French, and a passable Swedish.
@@JanBruunAndersen That's "High Pay." I consider virtually all Scandinavians as native English speakers!
More to the point, the question is to what extent the lack of vowels puts an extra cost on the brain / mind to interpret the sequence of characters into meaning. I don't know if the experiment I mentioned has been replicated or not. In addition, it would be interesting to do the experiment with bilingual Hebrew and English speakers, of which there are many both in the English-speaking world and in Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu being a prime example.
@@rabbi120348Arabic however has a form of writing with vowels, called harakat.
السلام عليكم
اَلْسَلآمْ عَلِيْكُمْ
Here's the difference
The number of arabs that think Earth is flat is really scary and disturbing 😭
Why do you want us to agree with you that the earth is flat when we know it's round?
Quran says it's round. You aren't smarter than the Quran
I do remember while reading the newspaper around 1981, a saude cleric insist the earth is flat.
I wonder if forcing your pious society to remain living like it’s still the Dark Ages has anything to do with it.
For this non-Arab, your YT is a revelation. Thank you.
My parents had me reading from an early age, and being a speed reader from the start, I didn't need much encouragement. I have been an avid science fiction fan AND history buff for most of my life, am well-read in other subjects, and feel that all this has benefitted me as a person. Sitting here now amid a home library - and the idea that reading might be seen by some groups as solely a chore, or only done as a duty for specific books, is almost incomprehensible.
For 1400 years only one book was required reading for the Arab world.
I usually read about 45 books a year, none less than 250 pages. Anything smaller I don’t take serious. I read 4 languages. But most of my books are i my second language, English. I could not survive without reading. People that don’t read do not get into my circle of friends. They’re just not worth the time of day. Even my mentally disabled brother reads books.
Thanks!
أمانتاً انني مخجول من هذا الدعم لرائع
Like all religions, including Islam, discourage critical thinking. For the love of god, we’ll think FOR YOU…..!!!!!
Born and raised Catholic, I was ALWAYS encouraged to think and read! Only made my faith stronger ❤
If they read they will abandon backward religious ideologies, the sheikhs can't let that happen
Closed minds will fall behind!
Not only don't read.
Also don't write.
Means.once in a century there is a book coming out of an Arab country No professional books no fiction no science .
No Nada.
Knowledge and !slam do not go hand in hand.. Simple.
Because if they actually read the Quran and Hadith it’s laughable. Most ex Muslims said they questioned their religion when they actually read it’s scriptures
your insight is very interesting. i know plenty of people here in the US who can read but don't even when surrounded with vast amounts of reading material. when children are taught to read early and encouraged, then they have something of value for life. if you don't read, you are no better off than one who can't read
As a non muslim outsider, it has always struck me how in the west children read and are taught (historically at least ) about things such as heroic explorers, scientists, inventers and so on. Where as childrens education in the middle east (as far as i can tell) seems to be more centered around religious texts. I may be wrong but I have often wondered if that is not a large part of the reason why Western counties tend to be more wealthy and technologically developed. ? I'm sure I can be accused of all sorts of bigotry for saying this, but it seems reasonable to me.
Part of it is governance. Authoritarian nations want to quell creativity and innovation because it threatens power. That's why.
Politics has a lot to do with it. Wars begun by the west tear up any hope for development. How are supposed to devolop if you're in constant war?
As for arab countries not in war, we study the same things you study, iraq,saudi,jordan,lebenon,oman,uae,kuwait,
Thats a stereotype only applied to a few places like sudan,somalia etc
"as far as you can tell"
It's clear you can't tell at all
It's sad when there were so many Islamic scholars who collated knowledge from Ancient times, translated Ancient Greek texts and wrote treatise on medicine and mathematics.
@@Jay-Kay-Buwembo that was all before the Ottoman Turks came. They didn't like education
Reading books = gaining knowledge = dangerous for religion. When the printing press was invented in Europe literacy shot up because not only more books could produced with unprecedented speed but were much cheaper, thus more people could afford books - the church panicked out of pure fear when Luther translated the Bilble in German and had it printed so that many, may people could read the Bible by themself instead of listening to it in Latin...
This explains a lot about the religion of Peace
Books published in Greece in one year are more than the books published in all Arap countries. (From one book of Bernard Lewis). Thanks God (Allaha Şükür) Atatürk came and changed the alphabet and opened schools in Turkey.
Native Angeleno here, I live in Thailand, a nation that absolutely hates reading. In the capital (Bangkok, pop. 10M) there are NO PUBLIC LIBRARIES. They do have a couple of pathetically understocked "libraries": the National Library, which is a sad joke and another small one in the backpacker tourist area. There are bookstores and Thais do buy books, BUT THEY DON'T READ THEM. In their culture, "reading" is synonymous with "studying" or "cramming". Reading is a boring, dreadful chore that ends when they leave school. And I thought we don't have enough public libraries in Los Angeles 😊
I am to say in Lebanon...we read and read and read
Muslims? Christians? Others?
So much of the knowledge and experience that form the foundation of our world came from Arab scholars through the ages. I hope we can enter an age of learning across our many people's and cultures of Earth. Each educated mind increases the wisdom and creativity of our entire species. How many potential artists, engineers and creators have we missed out on being humbled by simply because they never got the chance to thrive?
It’s a bit difficult to inspire reading in a culture whose primary role model was illiterate.
The middle east missed out on the Guttenberg revolution period 1500-1700 due to policies of the Ottoman . The Guttenberg revolution allowed the emergence of national writers as national heroes in Europe. The abundance of cheap printed books ment that the emerging middle classes of Europe viewed the habit of reading as part of adult behavior.
about 20 years ago the Arab Ligue has been guest of honor at the Frankfurt book fair.
The only Arab nations with a significant amount of a variation of books have been Egypt and Lebanon, the nations with the biggest christian minorities. So many Arab books were christian literature. Saudi-Arabia had nothing to offer but wahabi propaganda. Lybia had the Green Book and other works of al-Gaddafi. Other parts of the islamic world did much better: Turkey and Iran. I remember some islamic propaganda from Egypt asking for a 'return' to Spain, with other words: to conquer Spain once again.
Books printed in Cairo are not available in Alexandria and vice versa.
Most horrible: Antisemitic/antijewish books are more popular than in other parts of the world.
As a Nigerian, it's both surprising and not surprising to me that this trend of refusing to read or even education is found among Arab Muslims. It's ironic given how the Arab world, during the golden age of Harun al Rashid, was a hub of intellectual, academic, scientific and social progress but eventually, the rulers rejected these advancements because it would threaten their power and control and privileges. So they used religion a d Arab culture to mandate a rejection of reading and education😢 Here, in the Southern part of my country, the Muslims (among the Yoruba, Igbo, Ijaw etc) tribes have cultures that promote education, entrepreneurship and tolerance. That's why despite their faith, they value reading and getting new ideas while Northern states have more "Arabized" Muslim tribes (Haisa and Fulani) that prefer to imitate Arabic cultures and tend to reject modern education, reading, entrepreneurship etc. Some also view writing in Arabic as sinful snd brutalize others who do for blasphemy😢
As a Nigerian, it's both surprising and not surprising to me that this trend of refusing to read or even education is found among Arab Muslims. It's ironic given how the Arab world, during the golden age of Harun al Rashid, was a hub of intellectual, academic, scientific and social progress but eventually, the rulers rejectefbthese advancements because it would threaten their power and control and privileges. So they used religion a d Arab culture to mandate a rejection of reading and education😢 Here, in the Southern part of my country, the Muslims (among the Yoruba, Igbo, Ijaw etc) tribes have cultures that promote education, entrepreneurship and tolerance. That's why despite their faith, they value reading and getting new ideas while Northern states have more "Arabized" Muslim tribes (Haisa and Fulani) that prefer to imitate Arabic cultures and tend to reject modern education, reading, entrepreneurship etc. Some also view writing in Arabic as sinful snd brutalize others who do for blasphemy😢