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United States Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has sparked widespread outrage following remarks denying Arab contributions to mathematics, science, and literature. During a campaign event, he asserted that a population of half a billion Arabs produces no science or literature and fails to win major international awards such as the Nobel Prize, Fields Medal, or Wolf Prize.
Context and Criticisms of the Remarks
RFK Jr made the statements while supporting Republican nominee Mike Rogers in a competitive Senate race in Michigan against Arab-American Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. Critics condemned the assertions as racist, Islamophobic, and factually incorrect, highlighting extensive historic and modern Arab innovation across multiple disciplines. Al Jazeera reported that numerous commentators and public figures pushed back against the claims by citing centuries of foundational scholarship and recent award-winning achievements.
Historical Contributions to Mathematics and Science
During the Islamic Golden Age from approximately 750 AD to 1258 AD, Arabic served as the primary language of science and scholarship while Europe navigated its Dark Ages. Arab mathematicians adopted and spread the numerals 0 through 9 from ancient India, displacing Roman numerals, and studied the concept of zero in Baghdad. Muḥammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizzi, known as the father of algebra, authored Al-Jabr during the ninth century, establishing linear and quadratic equations still utilized today. In optics, Ibn al-Haytham explained how light entering the eye enables human vision, while Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi wrote a 30-volume medical encyclopaedia and designed numerous surgical instruments.
Additional historical milestones include Fatima al-Fihri founding the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco, during the ninth century, and Ibn al-Nafis describing pulmonary circulation centuries before European understanding. In literature and geography, poet Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi produced classical Arabic verses that evolved into everyday sayings, while Muhammad al-Idrisi created the Tabula Rogeriana, one of the most accurate medieval world maps.
Modern Nobel and Major Prize Winners
Contrary to the assertion that Arabs do not win major accolades, individuals of Arab descent have secured numerous prestigious global awards. Peter Medawar won the 1960 Nobel Prize for Medicine for work on acquired immune tolerance, and Michael Atiyah received the Fields Medal in mathematics in 1966, both born to Lebanese fathers. Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz won the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature for his body of work, remaining the only laureate who wrote in Arabic. In chemistry, Elias James Corey, an American of Lebanese descent, won the Nobel Prize in 1990 for retrosynthetic analysis, while Egyptian scientist Ahmed Zewail won both the Wolf Prize and the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in the 1990s.
Further modern recipients include Egyptian scientist Mohamed ElBaradei, who shared the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize while leading the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Moungi Bawendi, who won the 2003 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for quantum dots. Omar M Yaghi, born in Jordan to a Palestinian refugee family, won the Wolf Prize in 2018 and subsequently shared the 2025 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing metal-organic frameworks used to capture gases and harvest water from air.
Reactions from Scientists and Advocacy Groups
Vaccine scientist Peter Hotez emphasized the historical preservation of classical philosophy and medicine by medieval Arab scholars, stating that they kept the works of Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen alive to pass down to the Renaissance. Broadcaster Mehdi Hasan labeled the remarks racist, pointing out that a Palestinian-American won the chemistry Nobel Prize. Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations urged the removal of the US health secretary, stating that a cabinet official disseminating fabricated talking points dehumanizes millions of people and fans anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hatred.
