The present research found that the Muslim country mean IQ of 81 is half a standard deviation below the mean IQ of non-Muslim nations and is not related to strength of Muslim culture as defined by the percentage of Muslims in the country. The mean IQ of 84 in Arab countries is not associated with per capita income and is incompatible with the intellectual achievements of the golden age of the Muslim Empire. Possible explanations for this decline include hybridization with sub-Saharan Africans, dysgenic decrease in the more educated Muslims employing birth control as suggested by Meisenberg, the Muslim religion not fostering critical thinking, and the intellectual contributions being both exaggerated and made by non-Muslims.

1. Introduction

The purpose of the present study was to compare the mean IQs of Muslim and non-Muslim countries. The great intellectual achievements of the Muslim Empire from the 7th to the 12th century have been written about by numerous authors (e.g., Bloom & Blair, 2000; Lyons, 2009; Masood, 2009). These achievements have been especially noted in science, mathematics, architecture and medicine. However, the contemporary Muslim world is underrepresentated in highly creative contributions published in prestigious scientific journals. Lynn (1991) presented the total number of Nobel Prizes in science, literature, and economics combined with the Fields award in mathematics as a function of five major categories of ethnic origin. Europeans had a total of 541, North East Asians 23, South Asians and North Africans combined 10, Africans one (in literature), and Southeast Asians none. It is apparent that the predominantly Muslim countries are in the bottom three categories. Such a dearth of superlative scholarly achievement is consistent with the Lynn & Vanhanen (2006) Table 6.5 listing of mean IQs of the world's countries. Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country, has a mean IQ of 87. If the standard deviation in Indonesia is 15, two standard deviations above the mean is only 117, which probably is not a high enough IQ to obtain a Ph.D. in physics from prestigious universities in high mean IQ countries. Even if mean IQ differences between two countries are modest, the disparity of extremely gifted persons can be huge.

The IQs of the Muslim populations in non-Muslim countries tend to be lower than those of the majority population (Lynn, 2008a). In the Netherlands, the mean IQ of Turks is 83, of Moroccans 81, and Indonesians 94 (Lynn, 2008a). Mackintosh (2007) reported that in the United Kingdom Pakistanis score 4 to 6 IQ points below the Indians. It is unlikely that this can be attributed entirely to minority status. The Chinese are a minority in many countries of the world and yet obtain higher mean IQs than the majority populations. They generate and/or control over half the wealth in Southeast Asian countries. In Indonesia the Chinese constitute 3.8 % of the population and generate/control 73% of the wealth. In Malaysia they constitute 28% of the population and generate/control 69% of the wealth (Lynn, 2008a). Caution should be employed because of the possibility of selective migration.

Special attention is given here to the Arab countries for two reasons. One is to examine the role of the great variation in per capita income. At the high end are Kuwait with $25,314, Qatar with $20,987, and the United Arab Emirates with $20,585. At the low end areYemen with $2,588 and Syria with $2,892. The second reason is to raise for consideration an incongruity between the achievements of the past and the state of the present. The Muslim Empire began in the Arabian Peninsula and the Arabs played a dominant role in its expansion and rise to greatness. Islam did not become established until the 15th century in Indonesia and in what is now Pakistan. The 16 countries regarded as Arab are Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. …