Over 1 million pilgrims benefit from golf cart service at Grand Mosque during Ramadan    Visitors welcomed with Eid initiative at Thee Ain Heritage Village in Al-Baha    Tebuk emir reviews rain response in Tayma    Saudi Arabia considers rent cap as part of major real estate reforms    Messi's bodyguard banned from touchline at Inter Miami games    Screen time in bed linked to insomnia, study finds    Le Pen vows to appeal political ban, calls verdict a 'denial of democracy'    Death toll from Myanmar earthquake rises to 2,719 as rescue efforts continue    Russia, Ukraine trade blame over new energy strikes    Putin orders Russia's largest military call-up in over a decade    Albania hosts MWL chief for Eid sermon at largest mosque in the Balkans    Haramain High-Speed Railway transports over 1.2 million passengers during Ramadan    Saudi Transport Authority says passengers can ride for free if taxi meters are off    Ministry of Education forms 425 community partnerships with SR653 million impact    Mexico bans junk food in schools to fight childhood obesity epidemic    Sweet sales surge ahead of Eid as Saudi chocolate imports top 123 million kg in 2024    Saudi creatives shine at Jeddah's Fawanees Nights with art, fashion, and storytelling    T1 CEO confirms Gumayusi's return for LCK Spring after lineup shakeup    100 Thieves claim Marvel Rivals Invitational NA crown as 2025 scene heats up    Bollywood actress vindicated over boyfriend's death after media hounding    Saudi Arabia hold Japan to goalless draw in Saitama to stay in World Cup hunt    Grand Mufti rules against posting prayers and preaching in mosques on social media    King Salman prays for peace and stability for Palestinians in Ramadan message King reaffirms Saudi Arabia's commitment to serving the Two Holy Mosques and pilgrims    Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan 'out of danger' after attack at home in Mumbai    Exotic Taif Roses Simulation Performed at Taif Rose Festival    Asian shares mixed Tuesday    Weather Forecast for Tuesday    Saudi Tourism Authority Participates in Arabian Travel Market Exhibition in Dubai    Minister of Industry Announces 50 Investment Opportunities Worth over SAR 96 Billion in Machinery, Equipment Sector    HRH Crown Prince Offers Condolences to Crown Prince of Kuwait on Death of Sheikh Fawaz Salman Abdullah Al-Ali Al-Malek Al-Sabah    HRH Crown Prince Congratulates Santiago Peña on Winning Presidential Election in Paraguay    SDAIA Launches 1st Phase of 'Elevate Program' to Train 1,000 Women on Data, AI    41 Saudi Citizens and 171 Others from Brotherly and Friendly Countries Arrive in Saudi Arabia from Sudan    Saudi Arabia Hosts 1st Meeting of Arab Authorities Controlling Medicines    General Directorate of Narcotics Control Foils Attempt to Smuggle over 5 Million Amphetamine Pills    NAVI Javelins Crowned as Champions of Women's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) Competitions    Saudi Karate Team Wins Four Medals in World Youth League Championship    Third Edition of FIFA Forward Program Kicks off in Riyadh    Evacuated from Sudan, 187 Nationals from Several Countries Arrive in Jeddah    SPA Documents Thajjud Prayer at Prophet's Mosque in Madinah    SFDA Recommends to Test Blood Sugar at Home Two or Three Hours after Meals    SFDA Offers Various Recommendations for Safe Food Frying    SFDA Provides Five Tips for Using Home Blood Pressure Monitor    SFDA: Instant Soup Contains Large Amounts of Salt    Mawani: New shipping service to connect Jubail Commercial Port to 11 global ports    Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Delivers Speech to Pilgrims, Citizens, Residents and Muslims around the World    Sheikh Al-Issa in Arafah's Sermon: Allaah Blessed You by Making It Easy for You to Carry out This Obligation. Thus, Ensure Following the Guidance of Your Prophet    Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques addresses citizens and all Muslims on the occasion of the Holy month of Ramadan    







Thank you for reporting!
This image will be automatically disabled when it gets reported by several people.



Ayoon Wa Azan (Innovations Come in Two Kinds: Some Guided and others Misguided)
Published in AL HAYAT on 15 - 11 - 2009

The Arab Creativity Award is one of many activities organized by the Arab Thought Foundation. In fact, I returned two days ago to London from a meeting of the award committee in Jeddah, the third of its kind following the previous two meetings in Beirut, and after tens of hours of deliberation in the committees' meetings and in reading the available material about the candidates applying for the awards.
Visiting Jeddah during the Hajj [pilgrimage] season deserves itself an award because of the hustle and the bustle, and the health and administrative restraints in place, and which are aimed at ensuring the safety of the visitors to the Sacred Mosque. However, this was not included as part of the Arab Creativity Award, but rather, we examined societal, scientific, technical, economic, literary, journalistic and artistic creativity.
There are many candidatures that really deserve the award, while there were others that do not merit to be shown to anyone, and must rather be concealed from the public to protect their authors' reputations. I say this while being aware that there are many creative people in every field out there, and of whom we are not aware, or whom no one stepped in to nominate for an award.
This is while some members of the award committees thought that the award should be withheld if the works nominated did not meet the required standard, especially when this is sometimes done with the Nobel Prize, even when the latter is awarded to candidates from all over the world, and is not limited to a particular people or geographical area. The opinion expressed by Prince Khaled Al Faisal, the chairman of the foundation, was that the prizes in the different fields should be awarded in appreciation of the successful candidates, and to encourage others who are seeking to become successful. He also said that creativity includes any work, or any person that goes beyond the ordinary and the basic and rises to excellence.
Innovation is a difficult construct, and many creative and innovative people were considered in their days to be renegades, or heretic or even insane, before becoming subsequently accepted, and their work becoming a part of the worldwide cultural heritage. We have seen many instances of this transformation from rejection to acceptance in philosophy, classical literature, and in the arts, be they in painting, dancing or music.
While innovation may be difficult, it becomes impossible when we look for it among the Arabs, who have become so innovative in failing that I now fear that we are on the verge of a second jahiliyyah [state of absolute ignorance]. I realize now that it is unacceptable, or unfair, to compare our generation to those who lived before us; I will thus content myself with one generation to say that there aren't any poets amongst us today of the same calibre as Ahmad Shawki, Nizar Qabbani or Maarouf Al-Rasafi, nor are there any singers amongst us of the same calibre as Mohamed Abdul Wahab and Umm Kulthum (may god grant Fairuz the long life); nor do we have any thinkers of the same calibre as Taha Hussein or Abbas Mahmoud Al-Aqqad, or historians such as Philip Hitti, or novelists such as Naguib Mahfouz, nor do we etc, etc, etc.
Perhaps I am being harsh and perhaps the reason for this is that I have as many hopes for this nation as it has latent potentials, and regardless of its poor performance. As for the Arab Creativity Award, every winner definitely deserved to win; otherwise, the award would have been withheld. In some cases in fact, we found many submittals to have deserved to win within the same category, and thus we had to make a choice even if that meant that we had to be unfair to some of the unsuccessful candidates. Those latter would have definitely won had they submitted their works a year earlier, or a year later than the final winner; however, it happened that they competed with candidate who beat them by no more than a few points.
Despite all of the above, the [Arab] nation still falls short of its own abilities and of what is required of it; if we – at the Arab Thought Foundation – had chosen an easier set of criteria, we would have given away awards in failure, as all we need to do in this regard is to consult the television guide, and pick a name – any name -, and he or she will be a failure with distinction in that category.
Personally, I focused my attention on the awards related to the society and the media, and divided – mentally – the works submitted into two sections: Ahl al-Bayt [family of the Prophet], or works that deserve to be nominated, and the Blasphemers of Quraish, or those works that did not deserve to be nominated, and which wasted our time by having to read and reject them. As every reader is probably aware, the Blasphemers of Quraish outnumbered Ahl al-Bayt many times over; however, God was on the side of his religion and his nation in the end, and perhaps he will come to be on their side again in our generation, since we have only tasted defeat ever since that ancient victory.
Finally, we know that the intransitive verb Bada'a [Ar. Invent] is what gave us the word invention; however, it is the same root behind the word Bid'ah [heresy], and we read before “every newly invented matter is bid'ah, and every bid'ah is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Hellfire”. Also, Ibn Kathir once said that innovations come in two kinds: some guided and others misguided, which means that everything that goes against the Sharia is an innovation [in the sense of heresy].
In the end, I want to say that we at the Arab Thought Foundation are with all creative inventors, or wondrous concocters from this nation.


Clic here to read the story from its source.