Muhammad Qutb
In recent years, the lagging of the Muslim world in science is manifest in the disproportionately small amount of scientific output as measured by citations of articles published in internationally circulating science journals, annual expenditures on research and development, and numbers of research scientists and engineers. Concern has been raised that the contemporary Muslim world suffers from scientific illiteracy. Skepticism of science among some Muslims is reflected in issues such as resistance in Muslim northern Nigeria to polio inoculation, which some believe is "an imaginary thing created in the West or it is a ploy to get us to submit to this evil agenda." Also, in Pakistan, a small number of post-graduate physics students have been known to blame earthquakes on "sinfulness, moral laxity, deviation from the Islamic true path," while "only a couple of muffled voices supported the scientific view that earthquakes are a natural phenomenon unaffected by human activity." Islamist author Muhammad Qutb (brother of and promoter of Sayyid Qutb) in his influential book "Islam, the misunderstood religion", states that "science is a powerful instrument" to increase human knowledge but has become a "corrupting influence on men's thoughts and feelings" for half the world's population, steering them away from the Right Path. He gives as an example science's denial (he claims) of telepathy when in fact it is documented in hadith that Caliph Umar prevented commander Sariah from being ambushed by communicating with him telepathically.