Organization Of Islamic Cooperation Member Research Articles

Development Trends in Islamic Societies: From Collective Wishes to Concerted Actions

Today, approximately one-fourth of the world’s population includes 1,620 million persons who are part of the expanding Islamic Ummah. Muslims are found in large numbers in all regions of the world but are concentrated in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and selected successor states to the former Soviet Union. Despite the obvious wealth of some Islamic nations most Muslims live under conditions of poverty, joblessness, illiteracy, ill health, social and political unrest and, in some regions, religious extremism. Using the extensively pre-tested Weighted Index of Social Progress, this paper reports a 40-year time series analysis of the nature, extent, and pace of social change that is taking place within 53 of the 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Data are reported at four levels of analysis. Selected data also are reported for both the OIC-as-a-whole and for the world-as-a-whole. The present analysis offers a sometimes bleak, but generally optimistic, picture of the dramatic differences that characterize development patterns within Islamic countries, subregions, and regions. Particular attention is given to: (a) the legacy of colonialism that persisted for some OIC states until as recently as 1991; (b) the recurrent social unrest that continues to characterize development in many Islamic states, e.g., the “Arab Spring” (Vision of Humanity 2012); (c) the presence or absence of marketable natural and human resources; and, (d) the significant contributions being made to the development of Islamic countries by the United Nations’ Millennium Development Campaign (United Nations 2005) and the OIC’s Ten-Year Programme of Action (OIC 2005). However, the important social gains reported in this paper for some countries and geographic regions remain highly variable, potentially reversible, unless the collective wishes of Islamic nations are translated into concerted actions both within OIC member states and the larger world community of nations.

Nanotechnology research among some leading OIC member states

In this study we present an overview of the research activities in nanotechnology for the period 2001–2011 for six selected countries belonging to the Organization of Islamic cooperation (OIC). The selection has been made based on the research output of these countries. The countries are Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. The factors considered are the number of publications, citations per paper, p-index, and collaborative research output. Iran with 7,795 publications and an annual growth rate of 41 % leads the group, followed by Turkey with 3,169 publications and an annual growth rate of 29 %. Turkey however, has a much better citation per paper (8.96), and p-index (63.34) as compared to Iran (4.59 and 54.36, respectively). We can classify the six countries into two categories. Those, that have a well coordinated national program in nanotechnology, namely, Iran, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia and those that do not have any national program but are still showing a reasonable good activity in nanotechnology namely Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan. A brief account of the initiatives taken by the six selected countries of OIC in the field of nanotechnology is also presented.