The present bad patch the Muslim world is sinking ever deeper into has many causes, but an overriding reason is that it is shutting on itself the doors that lead to education, enlightenment, science and technology.A recent research yet again points out that owing to backwardness in education, the proportion of Muslims as compared to others in control of the economic resources of the world (multinational corporations) is abysmally low; a damning indictment of our collective economic enslavement and lack of productive ambition. Some of the facts are common knowledge though; it is a crying shame that in the entire Muslim world which is a total of 57 countries, there are just 57 universities, while the report says that there are as many as 8460 universities in India alone. How many philosophers, how many Nobel laureates, Pulitzer prize winners are we producing? And the few we do produce, such as Abdus Salam, we refuse to recognise. How many universities and schools can we boast of to be of the same standard as those in the Western world despite the fact that the capital in the Muslim world in all conscience is plenty to have such centres especially in the oil-rich Middle East. The ill-piloted wreck of today inevitably turns the thoughts to the Mughal era in particular and rule of Muslims from that age in general which could not defend itself against anachronistic thinking and an inbuilt torpor to wake up to change, self-edification and modernisation. In striking contrast, the West, roughly at the same time was undergoing a sea change in the fields of enlightenment and renaissance that enabled it to display superiority in every sphere of achievement and learning.There is a lot that needs to be done to better this dismal picture which will only keep getting worse. What is happening at present in many Muslim lands has its roots in the exaggerated feelings of self-pity, lack of tolerance and inability to organise one's interests effectively, that has now naturally led us to the very bottom of the rung in economic and intellectual circles. So far we will continue to undervalue the power of reform and modernisation, the much needed change will elude us.