The Re-emergence of Islamic Enlightenment — Page 45
AHMADI MUSLIM RESEARCHERS - RESTORING ISLAM’S GOLDEN AGE 45 ignorance amongst the Islamic world, it is the great challenge for Ahmadi Muslim scientists and researchers to revive the honour and dignity of Islam in the global academic arena. Indeed, it should be your ambition to take up the glorious mantle of enlightenment adorned by the great Muslim scholars and inventors of the Middle Ages. Each year, it is a tradition that our Jama’at awards gold medals for outstanding educational achievement in various fields. However, when the scheme was initiated by Hazrat Khalifatul-Masih III rta , he instructed that the gold medals and scholarships were specifically to reward those who excelled in science. He started the scheme shortly after Dr Abdus Salam Sahib won the Nobel Prize and it was his ardent desire that at least 100 Ahmadi Muslims would soon follow in the footsteps of Dr Abdus Salam and become eminent scientists by the time our Jama’at entered its second century. Three decades of the second century of Ahmadiyyat have now passed and regrettably, I do not think we have even produced a scientist who has become world-renowned in that time. In addition, for the past thirteen or fourteen years, I have instructed Ahmadi students either directly, or through Majlis Khuddamul Ahmadiyya, to enter the field of academia and research and to endeavour to reach the highest echelons of their fields. However, so far, it cannot be said that the results have been anywhere near as good as I had hoped. As far as I know, hardly any Ahmadi has played an outstanding or extraordinary role in the scientific and intellectual development of the world. Here I would also like to appreciate the efforts of the USA Chapter of