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After
9-11 tragedy, Muslims have always been associated with terrorism especially in
the western media. Their Islamic faith has been put to blame even though there
are also cases involving terrorists from other religions. But another pattern
also emerged instead of religion factor: most of them have science and
engineering educational background.
According
to research by Gambetta, a renowned sociologist at the European University
Institute in Italy, and Steffen Hertog, an associate professor at the London
School of Economics, more than twice as many members of violent Islamist
organisations have engineering degrees as have degrees in Islamic studies. Another
possible factor especially for those who hail from Middle Eastern and North
African countries as well as from migrant communities, people with engineering
backgrounds encounter tougher experience in getting stable jobs due to economic
and political situations [1].
Based
on studies conducted on more than 4,000 political radicals operating across the
Muslim world and in the West in reference [2], engineers have been found to be dominating
every jihadist group worldwide. Sharing the same observation as [1], the
surplus of graduates in countries compared to small demands of labour could
lead to frustration.
Some of the examples of terrorists with engineering
background such as in February 2010, Joseph Andrew Stack, a software engineer,
crashed his plane into I.R.S. offices in Austin, Tex. The following month, John
Patrick Bedell, an engineering grad student, opened fire at an entrance to the
Pentagon. In early May 2010, Faisal Shahzad (bachelor of science in computer
science and engineering) was arrested at Kennedy Airport for a failed attempt
to set off a bomb in Times Square. In the same month, Faiz Mohammad,
a civil engineer, was caught at Karachi’s airport with batteries and an
electrical circuit hidden in his shoes. And list goes on for the coming years,
not confined to Middle Easterners and Muslims. Ganbetta and Hertog pointed out
the possible reason is that: engineers tend to have combined emotional
conservatism and intellectual habits [3].
On
the other hand, Martin Rose, the British Council’s senior consultant on the
Middle East and North Africa, concluded that science education fails to
inculcate critical thinking the way arts teaching do. Typically their minds
only search for right and wrong namely in binary. Therefore the engineering
students are more susceptible to be recruited by the terrorists [4].
However,
most works mentioned above were done by non-Muslims. We believe that the
Muslims themselves should play the role to revise the methods of teaching
Islamic knowledge to curb the problem of terrorism. Though the contents are
adequate, the problem lies in internalizing the true Islamic teachings. Rather
than blindly memorising and totally accepting without intellectual discourse,
the Muslim students should be allowed to question and discuss so that logical
reasoning could take place in their life decision makings. Incorporating
Islamic values in the engineering curriculum could also be beneficial for them
to balance between the worldly and religious knowledge, thus reducing the
inclination towards radicalism.
References
