|
THE
QURANIC APPROACH TO SCIENCE
In
order to understand the relationship
between Islam and science, the following
analogy may be apposite:
For
an author to write a book, he should
first have the knowledge of what he will
write. That is, the general meaning of
the book should exist in the author’s
mind. Then, before setting out to write
the book, he designs the general
meaning: he gives it more definite form
in his mind and then starts writing
according to this form. To write a book
means, by using necessary material
things, moulding the meaning or content
into letters, words, sentences,
paragraphs, and chapters, and thus
making it known by others. However, if
the author does not will to write it, he
will keep it in his mind. This means
that even if he does not write the book,
the book will continue to have a kind of
existence. That is, it will continue to
exist in its author’s mind as meaning.
After the book is written, people read
it, understand it and thus the book
acquires another kind of existence in
their minds and memories. Even if the
book is lost or withdrawn, it will
continue to exist in both the mind of
the author and the memories of the
readers.
To
cite another example, for a palace to be
built, first an architect conceives it
and then gives form to his conception.
Afterwards, he makes a plan of the
palace, according to which the palace
will be built. Building means the
materialization of the architect’s
conception of the palace in floors,
rooms, doors, windows, and so on, by
using the necessary material. Even if
the palace is destroyed years later, it
will continue to exist in the architect’s
mind and in the memories of those who
saw it.
The
universe is like a book written by God
or a palace built by Him, to make
Himself known by conscious beings,
primarily including mankind. The
universe essentially exists in God’s
Knowledge in meaning. Creation means,
through His Will, God Almighty’s
specifying or giving a distinct
character and form to that meaning in
His Knowledge as species, races,
families or individuals, and then,
through His Power, clothing each in
matter and making each visible in the
material realm contained in time and
space. That is, the Divine Will
specifies and forms and the Divine Power
clothes and makes visible. After a thing
ceases to exist, it continues to live
both in God’s Knowledge and in
memories and through its offspring, if
it has any. For example, when a flower
dies, it continues to exist in God’s
Knowledge, in memories, and in its
seeds.
We
see that everything has five stages or
degrees of existence. Essentially, it
exists in the Creator’s Knowledge as
meaning. Even if God Almighty did not
create it, it would continue to exist in
His Knowledge as meaning. Thus, that
meaning constitutes the essential
existence of everything. The second
stage or degree of a thing’s existence
is that it exists in the Divine Will as
a form or ‘plan’. Then comes the
stage of a thing’s material existence
in the material realm. This is followed
by its existence in memories and, if it
has any, through its offspring. The
fifth stage is its eternal existence in
the other world. God Almighty will ‘use’
the wreck of this world in the
construction of the other one, where
animals will continue their existence,
each species through a representative of
its own, while each human being will
find an eternal life which will have
been designed for him according to his
living in this world.
Now
it must be clear what kind of a
relationship there is between science
and Islam or the Qur’an. First of all,
the universe, the subject-matter of the
sciences, is the realm where God’s
Names are manifested and therefore has
some sort of sanctity. Everything in it
is a letter from God Almighty inviting
us to study it to have knowledge of Him.
Thus, the universe is the collection of
those letters or, as Muslim sages call
it, the Divine Book of Creation,
issuing, primarily, from the Divine
Attributes of Will and Power. As for the
Qur’an, issuing from the Divine Will
of Speech, it is the counterpart of the
universe in written form. If we call the
universe the Qur’an of Creation (al-Qur’an
al-Takwini), we may call the Qur’an
the Recorded Qur’an (al-Qur’an
al-Tadwini). Just as there can be no
conflict between a palace and the paper
written to describe it, there can also
be no conflict between the universe and
the Qur’an, which are two expressions
of the same truth.
Similarly,
man is also a Divine book corresponding
to the Qur’an and the universe. It is
because of this that the term used to
signify the sentences of the Qur’an-ayah-also
means events taking place within the
souls of men and phenomena in the world
of nature.’ Man’s life is so
mysteriously interrelated to the natural
phenomena and events that, according to
Ibn Sina (Avicenna), one who discerns
these phenomena can draw
hundred-percent-true conclusions about
the future of the world; that is to say,
the laws of history can be deduced from
what is going on in nature.
What
does ‘reading’ mean?
It
is interesting that the first revelation
of the Qur’an was:
Read:
in and with the name of your Lord
Who created. He created man of an
embryo suspended. Read: and your
Lord is the Most Munificent, Who
taught by the Pen, taught man that
he knew not .
(96.1-3)
It
is quite significant that the first
command of God to His Messenger, the
unlettered Prophet, was ‘read’, when
there was not yet the Book to read. This
means that there is another book or,
rather, there are two books,
counterparts to the Book which was to be
revealed. These two books are the
universe and man. A believer should
approach the study of the universe and
man without prejudice. It is also
significant that the verses of the Qur’an
and the phenomena in the universe and in
man-material and psychological-are both
called ‘signs’. The imperative ‘Read!’
is followed, not by a direct object or
an adverbial, but by ‘in and with the
name of your Lord Who created’. This
signifies:
-
‘Reading’
the universe-studying it-has
principles of its own, like, for
example, observation and experiment.
-
The
word translated as Lord is Rabb,
among whose meanings is ‘educator,
upbringer, sustainer, giver of a
certain pattern, and giver of a
particular nature to each entity.’
Man’s nature includes free will,
whereas every other entity acts
according to the primordial nature
assigned to it, what modern science
refers to in the words ‘nature’
and the ‘laws of nature’. What
man is commanded to do is to
discover these ‘laws’.
-
Every
act of man, including his scientific
studies, should be performed in the
name of God, and therefore be an act
of worship. That is the only limit
which the Qur’an or Islam has put
on science. Any act so performed
cannot be against God’s
commandments. For example, in the
pursuit of scientific knowledge as
worship, no one could harm mankind,
nor put that knowledge in the form
of a deadly weapon in the hands of
an irresponsible minority. If done
only in the name of God, by people
conscious of always being supervised
by God and who will be called to
account before a Supreme Tribunal
for all their actions in the world,
science could change the world into
a garden of Eden.
The
Qur’an orders man to read at a time
when there was nothing yet to read, this
means he is commanded to read-study-the
universe itself as the book of creation
of which the Qur’an is the counterpart
in letters or words. Man has to observe
the universe and perceive its meaning
and content, and as he perceives it he
comes to know more deeply the beauty and
splendor of the Creator’s system and
the infinitude of His Might. Thus, it is
incumbent upon man to penetrate into the
manifold meanings of the universe,
discover the Divine laws of nature and
found a world where science and faith
complement each other so that man will
be able to perform his function as God’s
vicegerent on earth and attain true
bliss in both worlds.
Thus,
as Seyyed Hossein Nasr emphasizes (Man
and Nature (1976), London, pp.
94-5), revelation to man is inseparable
from the cosmic revelation which is also
a book of God. Islam, by refusing to
separate man from nature and the study
of nature from gnosis or its
metaphysical dimension, has preserved an
integral view of the universe and sees
in the arteries of the cosmic and
natural order the flow of Divine grace.
From the bosom of nature man seeks to
transcend nature and nature can be an
aid in this process provided man learns
to contemplate it as a mirror reflecting
a higher reality. This is the reason why
one finds in Islam an elaborate
hierarchy of knowledge integrated by the
principle of Divine Unity-’natural’,
juridical, social and theological
sciences and also metaphysical ones-and
why so many Muslim scientists like Ibn
Sina (Avicenna), Nasir al-Din al-Tusi,
Ak Shamsaddin, and Ibrahim Haqqi of
Erzurum, besides being well-versed in
religious sciences, were either
practicing Sufis or were intellectually
affiliated to the gnostic schools of
Islam. A man like Ibn Sina could be a
physician and Peripatetic philosopher
and yet expound his Oriental philosophy
which sought knowledge through
illumination. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi was
the leading mathematician and astronomer
of his day and the author of an
outstanding treatise on the metaphysical
dimension of Islam. Ibn Jarir al-Tabari,
who is one of the most outstanding
figures in Islamic jurisprudence,
history and Qur’anic interpretation,
wrote eleven centuries ago about how the
winds fertilize clouds so that rain
falls.
Such
examples could be multiplied but these
suffice to demonstrate that in Islam
observation of nature and contemplation
of it has always represented a very
important aspect of the spiritual
journey of a Muslim. Furthermore, there
has been in Islam an intimate connection
between sciences and other fields of
Islamic studies. This connection is to
be found in the Qur’an itself, which,
as the Divine Scripture of Islam,
corresponds to the macrocosmic
revelation which is the universe.
There
are many other verses in the Qur’an
which shed light upon scientific facts,
and invite everyone to study. Certainly,
the day will come when God will have
shown mankind His signs in the outer
world, as well as in their own inner
worlds and it will be manifest to them
that the Qur’an is the truth:
We
shall show them Our signs in the
outer world and in their own
selves until it will be manifest
to them that it (the Qur’an) is
the truth (48.53).
Humankind
will concentrate more on sciences in the
future and the Qur’an, which is the
counterpart in letters of the universe,
the realm where God’s Names are
manisfested, will prove itself to be God’s
Revelation.
|
|
