ICT (Information Communication Technology) has brought a great change to the globe. The whole world is now like a small village. Computer hardware, software, and communication media (like satellite and internet) has surely brought revolution to this world. These tools have helped mankind a lot, and added to it's sufferings as well.
In this article I will attempt to shed some light on ICT, it's white and black sides, and some ways to exploit this bounty in the progress of mankind.
If the past century is characterized by Industrial revolution, this century might be characterized by Information (or Knowledge) revolution. Probably information was available to mankind since long time, but sharing this information was very limited due to lack to communication means. Now, with the boom in communication technologies, people access and share information very easily. Me sitting in my office and writing this article, which knows no geographical boundaries is a prove. Now, the mankind is properly networked.
Now, the above mentioned assumption is not entirely true. Here are few reasons:
ICT business is a western product, mainly American product. Hence, English is a dominant language on the net. Some 80% of the Internet content is in English. The content density on the net is directly proportional to the Military, economic and political power of a region. Thus, Internet has lots of materials in live European languages, Japanese, Chinese, etc. In other world, ICT is a network of the Materialistic powerful community. The content of the Internet does not reflect the equal distribution of the cultures of the mankind. A huge community in Asia, Africa and Middle East does not have proper representation in the ICT community.
Theoretically, the blame for not being able to catch the ICT bus should be on these third world communities, but practically, the 'owners' of ICT must share the blame. If Internet is considered the main player in ICT business, then America has it's tight grasp on it. Without going into technical details, the reader must know that the Internet has root servers that hold the top-level domains (like .com, .edu, .org, etc) which acts as the door to all Internet sites. This top-level domains has a great control by the Department of Commerce and its technical arms (like ICANN). Furthermore, the poor countries need to pay rich countries (USA) to connect to Internet. Furthermore, all technical tools to utilize Internet (browsers, protocols, DNS, etc) are English oriented, and thus so many cultures and communities are deprived from proper utilization.
Arabic culture and language is a full civilization of which the west knows almost nothing. This culture started from the time of Prophet Muhammad -peace be upon him-. Over centuries, cumulative build of this culture created a huge mountain of materials, that if the west gets 1% it would advance a lot in it's poor meta-physical life. I will not be lying if I claim that the modern western materialistic civilization was erected on the foundation which was built by Muslims; and the Europeans discovered them when they came into contact with Muslim civilization during the Crusade Wars and through business channels in Spain and Italy. Now, it is time for the west to learn a little bit of meta-physical development from Muslims.
Let us go back to ICT issue.
ICT tool is a very powerful engine in the hands of brilliants only. To get the fruit of ICT, creative use of it is a must. Unfortunately, ICT is been properly used for destruction of morals and behaviors, by the pornography industry. Searching for money by the capitalism mindset of the west dominated the Internet usage, and Spam mails in a proof.
Unfortunately, this powerful means of out-reaching and communication was not utilized properly for reaching the hearts of mankind and showing the light to a dark majority of this globe. If the message of Allah was able to penetrate Internet in full thrust, thousands of people would have been illuminated. Only individual efforts in this respect is not enough. It is very sad that, inhuman people use Internet in full strength in an organized fashion -like porn industry- and those who have the greatest truth on Earth does not have proper access, and does not have much financial fund or International body supporting them.
One more problem with Internet is the Information flood. One gets drowned in the huge pile of information which can not be authenticated. Also, difficulty of searching for a particular information. Although, there are good search engines, still many valuable information remains hidden. If you search on Islam under Amazon, you will find books against Islam written by orientalists and Islam hating authors, or by people outside the mainstream ideology of Islam. Simply, Internet fails to represent the greatest civilization mankind ever witnessed.
No doubt human being has advanced a lot, and there are lots of information in various fields. But with the increase in information and knowledge, harmful and useless knowledge has also increased. Our Prophet -peace be upon him- used to seek refugee from a Knowledge that will not benefit. It is very sad that many people spend their life running behind knowledge that ruined their life.
Finally, I would like to suggest few ways to get benefit from ICT in the benefit of the mankind:
Establish under the umbrella of a global body (like UNESCO) a forum to discuss various culture without bias to any religion or civilization. And grant access to the key personalities to express their ideas freely. With this set-up, I am sure, no religion can beat Islam, because it has the utmost logic, science and wisdom in it. To ensure transparency and global participation, ICT means should be utilize in this regard.
Build software industry to produce Islamic materials using ICT techniques of multimedia and other up-to-date technology to present Islam for non-Muslims.
If it is not possible to stop the hatred tone of the western media towards Islam, then it is necessary to counter that with powerful Islamic media groups, not to promote hatred against other religions, rather to radiate the light of Islam as was revealed to our Prophet Muhammad -peace be upon him-. When a free mind seeking salvation receives these materials, he/she will for sure be happy to accept.
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Indeed, We have sent down for you (O mankind) a Book, (the Qur'ân) in which there is your reminder (and Honor). Will you not then understand? [Quran al-Anbiay (21):10]
ICT (Information Communication Technology) has brought a great change to the globe. The whole world is now like a small village. Computer hardware, software, and communication media (like satellite and internet) has surely brought revolution to this world. These tools have helped mankind a lot, and added to it's sufferings as well.
In this article I will attempt to shed some light on ICT, it's white and black sides, and some ways to exploit this bounty in the progress of mankind.
Muslim Creed