this is an important and fascinating piece. important because the elements regarding fundamentalism in Islam and science and cultural and educational attitudes toward the scientific method which he discusses may clearly be projected to our modern society. A scientist himself, the author points out historical yet focuses on present-day factors including the impact of Western intervention, to understand the dearth of scientific achievements in Muslim countries.

addresses the question of what happened to the genius of the Islamic world over the last 1000 years and concludes that pedantry has superseded critical thinking (plus the requirement to stop everything and pray five times a day). Cites statistics on percentage of women in university, scientic papers published in Islamic world, etc. by chair of dept of physics in Pakistan. presentation is academic rather than journalistic