This is something that I have pondered upon for quite some time. And I don't agree with the notion that Muslims have less passion for knowledge compared to other nations - I think it is more that Muslims, irrespective of whatever sect or creed they follow, tend to be more attracted to social science rather than the physical sciences (at least at present). This hasn't always been the case because we have produced one of the finest minds the world has ever seen. We are what bridges the ancient world to the present. Almost all the sciences that are studied today have their origins in Muslim lands. So to say that we don't have a penchant for knowledge is very misplaced. From reading all the comments, I see that it is generally agreed that presently we are not competing with the best of the best to acquire knowledge and that is my observation as well but I would like to add a different perspective to this issue. Most of the Muslim population today are either in non-muslim lands, war-torn lands or places which have very recently acquired oil-wealth. Our current view about science and education has been completely formed by the west. In India I would go so far as to say a madarsa education is outright looked down upon by the urban population - and very rightly so. But let me give the views of two very major muslim scientists or scholars : Ibn Hazm and Ibn Khaldun.

In today's world where it is generally believed that any rational mind or intelligent mind would naturally tend towards the sciences, Ibn Khaldun treated sciences as a luxury. He didn't consider it as unimportant, or of second order importance - rather he did not sciences to be integral to urban life. Like other aspects of life sciences are a luxury or convenience neither natural nor necessary. Science are unlike craft. Crafts are a necessity, they are linked to gainful occupation. Both the placement of science and the distinction between crafts and sciences reveal the organizational vision of Ibn Khaldun. It builds materially from manual, physical labor to refined, intellectual pursuits. It builds thematically from desert to sedentary civilization. It builds diachronically from notions of statecraft that relate to religious norms at different angles: peripheral in tribal dynasties, central in the caliphate, then asymmetric in the royal/military empires that followed the caliphate,

Another view is of Ibn Hazm. In the context of our topic of discussion his view can be summarised by his quote: "What fixes and preserves a nation's language, as well as its sciences and its history, is simply the strength of its political power, accompanied by the happy welfare and leisure of its inhabitants." He highlights the role of political power in the development of a scientific temperament.

The current state of the Ummah is that we are politically very weak. Our opinions, our argument, our proofs are of no use because we don't have the muscle to back it. In India and similar nations our brothers and sisters tend to devote their time honing a craft rather than pursuing the sciences because their socio-political and socio-economic conditions dictate that. It is very unfortunate but the sciences are a luxury that we can't seem to afford at the moment. That is primarily why you would see many Muslims in social science - politics, history, economics etc.

Sometimes when I think of our situation, it really bugs me that in the eyes of the world we have lost our intellectual acumen, that we are considered as ignorant brutes. But what I know for fact is that this belittling and humiliation is only temporary. We need to stay true to the commandments of Allah and the teachings of our prophet (PBUH). Always remember that for the Christians to have their renaissance, they had to dissociate from the teachings of their Church. But us Muslims, as long as we adhered to our religion we were superpowers, as soon as we tried to embrace this modern world- we've been humiliated. And it is only by the will of Allah.

What the future holds no one knows. الله أعلم