Scientific research and Darwish Midaq Alley

Scientific research and Darwish Al-Mudaq Alley

The reader still finds in the novels ofNaguib Mahfouz (1911 – 2006) a living record of the history of Al-Mahrousa with its details and miniatures, a fresh and renewed spring, and inspiring messages that do not lose their ties to the present, even after many decades have passed since the publication of his novels.

Besides the main characters of his novel Midaq Alley, I often stop before the character of Al-Darwish, a character who seems marginal, but influential and suggestive. His spontaneous comments come close to prophecies that are vague at times and explicit at other times. He ends them every time by mentioning an Arabic word with its translation into English. When the teacher, Karsha, the owner of the café, bought a radio, he dismissed the poet who was entertaining the audience with his poems and the hums of his rabbi, after telling him that he no longer needed his services. Here Darwish continued, saying: “The poet went and the radio came.” This is the law of God in His creation. In the past, it was mentioned in history, and it is what is called in English: History, and its spelling is: H i s t o r y.”

I still see in the character of Darwish Midaq Alley a symbol of someone who stopped at the door of knowledge, contented himself with looking at it, convinced that repeating the titles is enough to understand the details, and that memorizing the letters of the English word obviates the need to delve into the details of science. The Darwish stood up and contented himself with translating words from foreign sciences. It was a symbol of a distorted culture that spoke with a modern Western tongue and thought with a very ancient Eastern mind, separated from the lived reality far from development. I wish he had stopped at this point and been satisfied. Rather, he had begun to place the peels of his own knowledge above the knowledge of others!

And so that the honorable reader does not think that we have gone too far from the core of the issue file – education – I reassure him that we are at the heart of the file. Inspired by the spirit of the distinguished radio broadcaster Saad Al-Ghazawi in his enjoyable program, “The Philosopher Said,” when he says: “In my story is my answer.” I was honored to receive an invitation to participate in the discussion of the graduation project of bachelor’s degree students in one of the engineering colleges on “electric cars.”

With simple local tools, the students were able to make a golf car that can serve within service and residential complexes within a range of up to 500 square kilometers, with a capacity of six people, and its battery is charged through solar panels installed on its upper roof – a work that was appreciated by a discussion committee that included academics and industrialists.

In the context of the comments, one of the eminent professors came and went, obsessively opening his comments with a long list of notes about the format of the paragraphs and the font sizes used, and other things that are considered formal matters that do not affect the content of the work. Then he went back to the core of the idea, and he scolded and blamed until he sagged and belched in reproach, wondering how they had missed it by not suggesting Placing charging points in garages under buildings?!

Our professor spared no effort in explaining the importance of this note. He went on and on, and everyone waited – the discussion committee and the students – reluctantly, until he took a short pause to catch his breath, and took a drink of water, after which he resumed spraying his notes. When one of the students – quickly – picked up the reply thread, he threw a question that seemed to surprise the audience, including our venerable professor: “Where are the garages under the buildings?!” They were all turned into warehouses and showrooms.”

Regardless of those lame comments made by some, the question revealed the deep gap separating scientific research from the issues of reality with its complex entanglements, solutions, and wild imagination.

The researcher enters his laboratory and finds that it is a diligent silkworm, tireless and never tired of working, weaving its shiny, transparent silk thread. At first, it is a tusk that heals what is around it. Little by little, the density of the thread increases until it becomes a wall separating it from what is around it, so it moves from one state to another. From a silkworm to a caterpillar, then a butterfly that denies its loneliness and the walls around it, it was woven with that beautiful, shiny, expensive silk thread, penetrating it into the spaces of freedom.

The professor’s question and the student’s comment led me to this approach. The professor was immersed in his laboratory until he forgot the world around him, full of various challenges. He came and went, busy with his research, recording his notes and examining his conclusions. We rarely find anything of this or that that has a direct impact on one of our pressing issues of food, water, energy, industry, agriculture, and others.

Even if our scientist finishes his work and is confident that he has fulfilled the pillars of scientific research; He placed it before the eyes of the arbitrators, who examined it and scrutinized it with tools that had no connection to the lived reality, then issued their final decision, so the research turned into several papers in a publication that rarely anyone paid attention to. Papers that advance the individual functionally but do not advance society scientifically, research that develops near-ideal solutions for a virtual world that has no connection to that society concerned with the issues of inventing and manufacturing a pill, a loaf of bread, a handful of wheat, and a cog in a factory!

I saw in the work of the isolated academic researcher separated from his world a resemblance to some of the work of the silkworm, as it shows great skill in engineering its cocoon and dyeing it with colors that captivate the mind while it is isolated from the events that occur in its surroundings and the preoccupations of people. Here comes the role of the shearer – who works to care for the silkworms – to save it from itself and change its path before it breaks its thread too strongly. Its thread is transformed into silk of high value and status, which everyone who wears it can brag about.

Hence, international financing institutions require that researchers from executive agencies that can benefit from the results of the research participate in the research they fund, in addition to their role in directing its path towards a goal that helps overcome practical challenges and reduces the gap between the two sides of research and application.

Ideas are seeds that need fertile soil and a gardener who monitors their development and intervenes appropriately. What a seed needs at its beginning is different from that, which is a tall tree capable of extending its roots in all directions and extracting food from the soil. Not only that, but it becomes a shelter under which every tired person can find shade, a home for birds, and a vast world in which silkworms establish kingdoms of silk tended by skilled shearers. He turns it into wealth before it ruins itself.

Our research laboratories are in need of that genius who is able to link scientific research to the challenges of the nation, and turn its tide to become a valuable commercial product. The professor will advance in career and society will advance in service, even if it is a simple electric car manufactured locally! In addition to this, the model of Darwish in Midaq Alley is repeated, making his voice echo across the horizons, saying: “In the past, science was mentioned, which is what is called Science in English, and its spelling is S c i e n c e.”