Episode 22: Our Dreams for Agriculture and Scientific Research

 

In the name of Allah the All-Merciful, the Ever- Merciful.  Peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah (SAWS[1]).

 

We are continuing with our program ‘Life Makers’ and we are still calling for a    complete revival for our countries.  This has been our target since the very beginning, not only for the past two episodes.  All the projects that we have managed to accomplish since the first phase (collecting clothes, Guardians of the Future, combating smoking and narcotics, the marathon, etc) were nothing but a warm-up to prove that we can, indeed, achieve a revival.

 

The word ‘revival’ is, of course, an enormous word, but it is by all means attainable.  We do not want to put vague targets by saying that we want a revival and nothing else.  Instead, we want to ask ourselves, “What exactly is this revival?”  We asked you to send us your dreams about our nations after 20 years.  We asked you to provide tangible dreams so that we can realize them; we know where we are at the present time.

 

I have promising news.  We asked our viewers from all age categories, only ten days ago, to send us their dreams and the result was that 30,000 persons sent us their dreams.  The total number of ideas they posted were 250,000.  We received ideas for all domains: scientific research, agriculture, self-sufficiency in crops, tourism, ideas regarding women's affairs etc.  Altogether, we received about a quarter of a million ideas in ten days.  I am not just telling you this to make you feel happy, but to make you feel serious about what we are doing.  We have a dream and we want to make it a reality.

 

The total number of faxes we received was 2,350 in ten days.  The total number of phone calls we received was 4,200.  The total number of people who used the website (www.amrkhaled.net) to post their dreams was 19,500 and the result was the following:

 

• The total number of suggestions that came via fax was 6,000.  We had to change the ink cartridge for the fax twice per day.
• We received 140,000 ideas over the phone.
• We received 215,000 ideas over the internet.
• The number of countries that participated with us was incredible; 35 countries in all.

 

What was really interesting was that we received six faxes from Japan.  We received faxes from Turkmenistan, Malaysia (we received some ideas about the Malay experience).  We received ideas from Ukraine, Romania, Mauritania, Somalia, Spain, USA and the UK.  I am telling you about all these countries to prove to you that this is indeed serious and that we will achieve our revival, Allah (SWT) willing.

 

Among the surprises was that some youth from different universities and faculties gathered to formulate their dreams and ideas, despite their summer vacations.  They are youth from various universities, including: Cairo University, Ain Shams University, Alexandria University, Kafr al-Sheikh University and Qena University.  They come from various faculties: Faculty of Medicine, Commerce, Veterinary College, etc.  We also received suggestions from the ‘Sunaa’ al-Hayah Youth’ who worked together to formulate their dreams.  They are groups of youth in different countries and cities that have gathered together and gave themselves that name.  Nowadays, I find such groups in all sorts of countries and governorates, wherever I go.

 

Among the very pleasant things, right before airing this episode was that I met a group of youths from Tripoli who were here in Lebanon.  They gave me a huge pile of papers with their dreams written on them.  Another wonderful thing, which I really wish to get more of, is these two pages which I received from a group of Christian youths.  They say that they want to participate in the revival.  This project is not only for Muslims but for our whole countries.  This is exactly what I have been calling for, if you remember.  They have sent us their dreams and their names are Louisa, Tubair, Juwail, Sandy, Maria, Mary, Emile and Antonio.  Among the magnificent things I found were very unique signatures on the faxes and the posts made at the forum, for example:

 

• “This dream is from my husband, my brothers and my children.”
• “A husband and a wife who love Islam.”
• “The friends; Heba, Noha and Safa’, gathered for the sake of Allah and the revival of the Muslims.”

 

Many officials also sent us their dreams:

 

1. The Head of the Court of Appeal in Egypt, Consultant Saad Abu-al-Fotouh Shalaby, sent us some great ideas, including a comprehensive vision of the whole judiciary system in Egypt in 20 years’ time.
2. A comprehensive visualization of tourism in 20 years’ time was sent.
3. A group of Syrian women sent us their visualizations about architecture in their country after 20 years and they attached a large file with their dreams, and detailed blueprints of the buildings.

 

Have hope, we are formulating dreams that will penetrate deeply into our souls and make us do things far beyond our imagination.  Unsurpassed powers will be released and we will succeed for sure.  Our determination will be so clear in our eyes, which will be filled with challenge and persistence.  If you look into the eyes of some people you will find nothing but despair, loss and hopelessness.  On the other hand, if you look into the eyes of some youth you will see a challenge and determination to succeed.  You will see their seriousness, while their heads are held up high and their postures are straight.  I have seen that in your letters and I just wanted to convey that feeling to all of you.  There are many examples of your ideas:

 

1. Ideas from businessmen.
2. Ideas from immigrants.  Among them was Dr. Bassem Fouad el-Ghalayini from Australia who has a PhD in ‘Innovation and how to make others be Innovative.’  He contacted us offering his assistance in helping the youth to be innovative.
3. Ideas from football players in the Moroccan and Egyptian teams.  They asked to remain anonymous, but they sent us their dreams about how they want football and sports to become in their countries after 20 years.
4. Ideas and inventions from a large group of inventors.  Among them was Professor Beshir Mahmoud (who received the Honorary award in scientific research), who sent us a comprehensive visualization for developing scientific research in our countries.
5. Some have sent us their dreams in a very theatrical and dramatic form.  They wrote their dreams very nicely in the form of drama, poetry and prose.
6. Children:

·  Shiha Ibrahim from Yemen said that she dreams of having no factories within the borders of the inhabited cities of Yemen.

·  Amr Ashraf Tag said that he wants Egypt to stop importing wheat within 20 years.

·  Mashary Mansour al-Zahrany (sixth grade student from Jeddah) said that she wishes to see the whole Muslim world free of smokers.

·  Marwan Sheikhal-Ard (11 years, from Sudan) said that all this relatives have Malaria and that he wishes Malaria would disappear completely from Sudan.

·  Khadijah Hisham Abu-Ali (6 years) sent us her dream written with her own hands saying, “I wish that Jerusalem would be liberated, and that hair-bands and children's toys would be made perfectly.  I wish that children's TV programs would be useful.  My name is Khadijah Hisham Abu-Ali; I am six and a half years old.”

·  One of the things that really touched me to the point of tears was a nine-year old Lebanese boy who came to me right before I came.  He said that he could not send his dream by fax or over the internet so he wrote it on a piece of paper and brought it to me.  I asked him what his dream was and he said, “I would like us to build an Arab-made car, whose model would be named ‘Sunaa’ al-Hayah.’”

 

As long as these things are happening, then there is definitely hope for a true revival.  I won’t ask you to execute a particular project, but I ask you to come up with a dream.  It will be our own dream and we must all share it together.  That is why we will extend the deadline for receiving your dreams for another week, so that everyone can send them.  We want a total of half a million dreams, or even a million. 

 

The dream will start penetrating our very being and the more we envision it, the more we would not be able to live without it.  That way we will succeed, and that way the words of Allah (SWT) shall be realised in us as He say what can be translated as, "Verily, never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change it themselves (with their own souls)." (TMQ, 8:53)[2].

 

This is because we will have a target so big, that it will overcome any hurdles.  It starts small, in the form of an individual dream, and then it spreads and becomes the dream of 10 individuals, and still it spreads to become the dream of a quarter of a million, and so on and so forth.  The dream becomes more precious than our worldly possessions and much stronger to overcome all the obstacles; I will give you some examples to prove this:

 

Gandhi and India:

 

India was a very poor country and a colony of England.  It was fully under the thumb of England and the people were extremely weak and poor, yet, one Indian man had a dream and that man made his dream come true.  He was Mahatma Gandhi, who succeeded in conveying his dream to all his countrymen; Muslims and non-Muslims alike.  They were moved by the dream and they started doing things far beyond their imagination.  Gandhi himself was a young lawyer who had just graduated from Cambridge.  He used to talk very theoretically and always dress very elegantly wearing a suit, but then the lawyer started changing.   He started dressing like the poor, as if his trip from Cambridge back home had totally transformed him.

 

The dream started penetrating his mind.  He convinced his people to burn any imported clothes they had and to start weaving their own clothes using Indian weavers.  He insisted that they should produce their own clothing and food.  Then they decided to start the salt march; a 240 km walk to the sea, to encourage Indians to extract their own salt.  The whole nation of India followed him in the march to prove how serious they were.  Salt was only a small symbol, yet it meant that the dream had captivated the people.  Let us look at a few examples from our Islamic history:

 

Abu Hamid al-Ghazaly

 

All people think that Salah ed-Deen al-Ayoubi was the one who started the dream, but the dream began with Abu Hamid al-Ghazaly, the author of ‘Ehia' 'Ulum ed-Deen (Reviving the Teachings of Our Religion).’  This man travelled throughout the Islamic world for 20 years.  He researched problems and how to solve them, asking people for their opinions and writing down his observations.  Eventually he arrived to the conclusion that he had to instil a new methodology.  His enormous dream was to revive the religion and its teachings again.  Not only did he write about the branch of worship in his book but he wrote the means of being successful at work and trusting in Allah (SWT) as well; that you should lay your trust fully in Allah (SWT) and that He will always help you.

 

Then al-Ghazaly started to adopt the method and he set up schools to establish new generations who believed in this methodology as a way of developing thought.  When al-Ghazaly died, next in the line was Abdul-Qader al-Gilani, who was a scholar of al-Ghazaly's school of thought and of his revival of religious teachings.  Nour ed-Deen Mahmoud, the master and teacher of Salah ed-Deen, was again a scholar of one of Abdul-Qader al-Gilani's schools.  Thus a whole generation was brought up believing in the idea of reviving the nation.

 

Let us hear the famous story of Salah ed-Deen.  It is about the Prophetic Hadith that was narrated with a smile (meaning that the Prophet (SAWS) narrated it and then smiled.  Consequently, everyone narrating it would smile right after).  This tradition had been going on since the days of the companions until the days of Nour Ed-Deen Mahmoud who narrated the Hadith to Salah ed-Deen and then smiled.  During Salah ed-Deen's time, an idea possessed people's minds and people totally embraced al-Ghazaly's methodology.  Thus, when Salah ed-Deen narrated the hadith to his friends, he did not smile.  When asked why he did not smile he said his famous words, “How could I smile while the 'Aqsa Mosque is under siege.  I would be ashamed if Allah saw me smiling while my brothers there are facing what they are facing.”

 

This is because the dream possessed him, in the same way it did Muhammad al-Fateh (Muhammad the Conqueror).  He insisted on becoming the one about whom the Prophet (SAWS) said, “Verily, Constantinople shall be conquered.  Its commander shall be the best commander ever and his army shall be the best army ever.”  That is why Muhammad al-Fateh stopped the whole army before conquering Constantinople and ordered them to invoke peace and blessings on the Prophet (SAWS), reminding the army of the Prophet's words.

 

Thus, please continue to send us your dreams.  In order to show you how serious we are, I have chosen two out of the twenty three fields we have on the website to tell you about today.  I want to read to you the dreams we have received for these two fields, in order to raise your hopes.  I would like to show you how people are thinking and telling us about their dreams so enthusiastically.

 

First field: Food and Agriculture

 

Many people wrote about this field.  Although this issue is far away from many people's minds, I have received a large pile of thoughts, ideas, and dreams concerning this field.  I have summarised these thoughts into one sentence.  Our dream is: to become totally self-sufficient in food production, within 20 years.  This dream has been sent by university doctors, house wives, and even children.  They all want to achieve self-sufficiency in many areas and they all agreed on three points:

 

1. Self-sufficiency in wheat production.
2. Self-sufficiency in the production of food oils, of which we import billions of pounds worth.  Egypt alone, imports food oils costing one billion dollars every year.  From Malaysia, we import oil worth 600 million dollars.
3. Self-sufficiency in meat, chicken and fish production.

 

We import wheat in huge quantities; in fact, all the Arab countries import it except for Saudi Arabia.  Has anyone begun to imagine our dream? Let us take it further.

 

• Let us imagine that the youth will go out to reclaim the desert.  This would mean that we will be able to feed ourselves, not after 20 years, but within five years only.  The problem of unemployment will come to an end because the youth will work in reclaiming the desert.  Coffee shops and bars will become empty because the youths have no time to waste, for they will be working on reclaiming the desert, cultivating wheat and oil plants.

 

• Imagine driving on the Cairo-Alexandria desert road where, all along the road, wheat is cultivated.  I am not dreaming.  I am serious, and these are your words not mine.  Imagine having the largest water desalination plant for purifying underground reserves of water and sea water.  Imagine travelling to Africa to solve their problems for free and that our food surpluses are being sent to disaster-stricken areas.

 

• Imagine what had happened during the days of Omar Ibn-Abdul-Aziz happened again within 20 years.  When the alms money was gathered in his days, Omar ordered the money to be distributed amongst the poor.  His men returned to him saying that they found no more poor people because the harvest was so successful.  He ordered his men to pay off people's debts, but they replied saying that they found no one in debt.   Omar told them to prepare the army; they replied that the army was already fully prepared and equipped, so he ordered them to pay off the debts of the Christians and the Jews of the country, so they did and there was no one else who owed any debts.  Then he told them to buy wheat, corn and other seeds, with the rest of the money, and to scatter them on the mountain tops so that birds could feed from the Muslims’ wealth.

 

• Imagine that there are Prophetic Hadiths written everywhere, “Whosoever revives a land, then it is his,” and another Hadith, “If the Day of Judgment arrives, and in the hand of one of you is a palm shoot that he can plant, then he should plant it,” and the Hadith which says, “The son of Adam won’t eat better than the food he worked for.”  Imagine reading this Holy ayah everywhere in your country, in which Allah says what can be translated as, "So let them worship (Allah) the Lord of this House (the Ka‘ba in Makkah), (He) Who has fed them against hunger, and has made them safe from fear." (TMQ, 106:3-4).

 

• Imagine that the traffic jams in our streets began at 4 a.m. because people went to work right after praying Fajr.

 

• Imagine tourists noticing that the people in our countries were smiling all the time and that sadness and frowning had disappeared from their faces because they had found the happiness that comes from production and success; raising people's heads high.  Imagine, imagine, imagine.

 

These things I have mentioned to you are not fantasies.  Put them in your minds and always put them before your eyes.  Visualize all these things alive in front of your eyes and look at them.  Look at the green streets, the productive youth, the negligible number of spinsters, triviality which has disappeared, the video clips which encourage only production, and to everything around you that urges you to cultivate your country.

 

There are many other ideas sent by people that I have not mentioned in detail.  There is a girl who sent a dream about clearing the Western desert of landmines, so that the areas called ‘The Devil's Areas (because of the excessiveness of landmines within them)’ can be turned into green land.  Other professors sent us their expectations concerning the development of manures and fertilizers, using the trapped mud behind the High Dam to reduce the percentage of desert areas, and planting a palm tree in front of every house.  All these dreams are described in detail on our web site.

 

I have noticed a question in people's eyes.  They are wondering how we are going to achieve all that.  We are sure we can make it; don't ask about how we will make it now, we are concentrating on what we are going to do and afterwards we will deal with how we will do it.  Everything we have said is possible and is not hard to achieve.  Malaysia and India have achieved it, and Saudi Arabia has become self-sufficient in wheat production.  When we have will power and exert sufficient effort, our governments will help us and we will succeed if Allah (SWT) wills.

 

Second field: Scientific Research

 

It was a real surprise to find hundreds or perhaps thousands of contributions in such a field.  The budget set for scientific research in our countries is 0.4% while in Israel it is 15% so what we have reached so far is a predictable result.  A large number of youth sent us their thoughts and dreams concerning scientific research with the aim of achieving self-sufficiency in food production.  Imagine that we are the world's leaders in the fields of solar energy and desalination.  Europe, America and the West in general have little solar energy but we have huge amounts of it; if we developed the scientific research in that field, we could end up with great results.

 

Among your suggestions is the establishment of the biggest laser research centre, proposed by students of Dr. Zuweil.  Another one is establishing the biggest geological centre with the goal of finding out if our lands are fit for agriculture and whether water is available in them or not; to be built by the students of Dr. Farouk al-Baz.  Dr. al-Baz is the scientist who specified the location of the space vehicle landing sites on the moon's surface and the types of rocks astronauts should bring back from the moon.

 

Among the youth's dreams is imagining an American scientist being proud to have graduated from one of our countries' universities, after 20 years.  Imagine a headline in a Russian newspaper saying that one thousand Russian scientists are celebrating their admission to one of the solar energy research centres in Egypt.  Imagine Baghdad becoming the centre of scientific research in the world, like it used to be. 

 

Imagine that we are able to save Africa from famine and drought with our scientific research.  Imagine that in every governorate there is a centre for scientific research supplying the governorate with its needs in all fields.  Imagine hundreds of scientists living abroad, like Dr. Ahmad Zuweil and Farouk al-Baz and others returning to join the research centres in our countries. 

 

In Baghdad and Cairo, Muslims used to sit together and think.  This was also the way the scientific research in our countries used to advance hundreds of years ago.  This method is now known in the West as brainstorming.  Unfortunately, it is no longer known in our countries.  Brainstorming means that many people sit together, and they think until they come up with an idea.  We will help you to come up with many ideas through brainstorming.  Here are the steps:

 

Firstly: What is the definition of brainstorming?   It consists of a number of people trying to find innovative ideas that they could not reach if every one of them sat alone.

 

Steps:   A person should be nominated to be responsible for managing the session.  A group consisting of 8 to 12 people should gather.  A comfortable informal place should be chosen, and it should not have any children or distractions (telephones, cellular phones etc), in order to be suitable for concentrating.  Three things should be available: a large white board, a copy book, and different coloured pens (or a cassette for recording if there is no one to write); this helps in developing ideas.   

 

A few requests:  Beware of refusing any idea no matter how simple or weird it may be.  Build new ideas on existing ones.  Try to collect as many ideas as possible no matter how unimportant they are; just collect the ideas and do not feel ashamed of any of them.  Write down all the ideas on the white board so that everyone can see them.

 

This method is used everywhere in the world and we need to follow it here.  I ask university professors to gather for the sake of our future and our countries and apply the brainstorming method, especially for developing ideas for the sake of our countries.  We need to attain our goal of a million ideas.

 

I want to remind you of two points before we finish.  The twenty three fields lack two very important points:

 

1.      Women; how developed do you want women to be in 20 years? What is the woman's position going to be like? Will the rate of illiteracy remain the largest in our Arabic communities as it is currently or will their literacy rate increase? Will they be granted the right to have an equal share of jobs in the field of business or will the unemployment rate among the women who want to work remain the same? Many have done women wrong and claimed that Islamic law preaches that.  It is impossible for Islamic law to be unjust to women, so who is going to review the Qur'an and Sunnah teachings concerning what is said about women, because after 20 years we will not accept unfair treatment towards women while Islam is being falsely blamed for it.

 

2.      The common people's dreams; all the dreams sent to us represent the people who have internet, satellite channels and television, but where are the simple people's dreams who only wish for clean water and clothes for their children? There were no dreams of that kind among the dreams we received.  This cannot be right because our dream is not a dream for a certain social level but it is everybody's dream.  We need the dreams of simple people, please ask the doormen, workers in factories, and domestic help persons about their dreams after 20 years and send them to us. 

 

In the end, the internet is very important.  You must learn how to use the internet because the internet is the future.  Women, as well, have to learn it.  I feel very happy when I receive calls from women who tell me that they have learned how to use the internet so that they can join in with the life makers.

 

I have almost finished but I would like to say something to you: there will be no success without sacrifices and without people who live and make sacrifices to make their ideas come true.  Did you now know how dreams possessed the companions like Sohaib who gave all his money to Quraysh when he was leaving for Madinah so that they would let him go? He made the decision in a moment because Madinah was much more important in his eyes than all his worldly possessions.

 

We will make our dream come true and become self sufficient.  Send us your dreams and we will succeed Allah (SWT) willing.  I am very happy with this week's results and I am very optimistic, thank you and see you next week.   Peace and blessings be upon you all .