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THE
WESTERN CONCEPT OF SCIENCE
AND
THE QUR’ANIC APPROACH TO IT
Science
regards as ‘scientific’ the facts
established through empirical methods.
Therefore, the assertions which have not
yet been established through observation
and experiment can only be theories or
hypotheses.
Science
cannot be sure about the future, it does
not make definite predictions. Doubt is
the basis of scientific investigations.
However, taught by God, the All-Knowing,
the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace
and blessings, made decisive
predictions, most of which have already
proven true, the rest waiting for their
time to come true. It is possible to
find many verses in the Qur’an which
point to certain established facts which
science has recently ‘discovered’.
The Qur’an mentions many important
issues of creation and a great number of
‘natural’ phenomena which let alone
an unlettered one, even the greatest
scientist could not have talked about
fourteen centuries ago. Furthermore, as
will be explained below, through the
miracles of the Prophets, the Qur’an
has alluded to the farthest reach of
sciences. This is because it originated
in the Knowledge of the All-Knowing One.
The
civilization Islam created
The
conflict of science and religion in the
West dates back as far as the thirteenth
century. Due to the essential character
of the corrupted Christianity
represented by the Catholic Church,
which condemns nature as a veil
separating man from God and curses the
knowledge of nature, scientific advances
were not seen in the West during the
Middle Ages, which are called dark ages
in European history. However, during the
same period a magnificent civilization
was flourishing in the Muslim East.
Muslims, obeying the injunctions of the
holy Qur’an, studied both the Book of
Divine Revelation, that is, the Qur’an,
and the Book of Creation, that is, the
universe, and founded the most
magnificent civilization of human
history. Scholars from all over the old
world benefited from the centers of
higher learning at Damascus, Bukhara,
Baghdad, Cairo, Fez, Qairawan, Zeitona,
Cordoba, Sicily, Isfahan, Delhi, and
other great centres throughout the
Muslim world. Historians liken the
Muslim world of the Middle Ages, dark
for the West but bright for Muslims, to
a beehive. Roads were full of students,
scientists and scholars travelling from
one center of learning to another. Many
world-renowned figures such as al-Kindi,
al-Khwarizmi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, al-Mas’udi,
Ibn al-Haytham, al-Biruni, al-Ghazzali,
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, al-Razi and many
others shone like stars in the firmament
of the sciences. In his multi-volume
Introduction to the History of Science
(1927-48), George Sarton divided his
work into fifty-year periods, naming
each chapter after the most eminent
scientist of the period in question. For
the years from the middle of the eighth
century (second century after Hijra) to
the twelfth century, each of seven
fifty-year periods carries the name of a
Muslim scientist. Thus we have ‘the
Time of al-Khwarizmi, the Time of al-Biruni’,
etc. Within these chapters Sarton lists
one hundred important Muslim scientists
and their principal works.
John
Davenport, a leading scientist,
observed:
It
must be owned that all the
knowledge whether of Physics,
Astronomy, Philosophy or
Mathematics, which flourished in
Europe from the 10th century was
originally derived from the
Arabian schools, and the Spanish
Saracen may be looked upon as the
father of European philosophy
(Quoted by A. Karim in Islam’s
Contribution to Science and
Civilization).
Bertrand
Russell, the famous British philosopher,
wrote (Pakistan Quarterly, Vol.4,
No.3):
The
supremacy of the East was not only
military. Science, philosophy,
poetry, and the arts, all
flourished in the Muhammadan world
at a time when Europe was sunk in
barbarism. Europeans, with
unpardonable insularity, call this
period ‘the Dark Ages’: but it
was only in Europe that it was
dark-indeed only in Christian
Europe, for Spain, which was
Mohammedan, had a brilliant
culture.
Robert
Briffault, the renowned historian,
acknowledges in his book The Making of
Humanity:
It
is highly probable that but for
the Arabs, modern European
civilization would have never
assumed that character which has
enabled it to transcend all
previous phases of evolution. For
although there is not a single
aspect of human growth in which
the decisive influence of Islamic
culture is not traceable, nowhere
is it so clear and momentous as in
the genesis of that power which
constitutes the paramount
distinctive force of the modern
world and the supreme course of
its victory-natural sciences and
the scientific spirit... What we
call sciences arose in Europe as a
result of a new spirit of inquiry;
of new methods of investigation,
of the method of experiment,
observation, measurement, of the
development of Mathematics in a
form unknown to the Greeks. That
spirit and those methods were
introduced into the European world
by the Arabs. (For the quotations
above, see, Abul A’la al-Mawdudi
(1970), Towards Understanding
Islam, I.I.F.S.O. pp. 69-70,
footnote 1.)
L.
Stoddard acknowledges that for the first
five centuries of its existence, the
realm of Islam was the most civilized
and progressive portion of the world.
Studded with splendid cities, gracious
mosques and quiet universities, the
Muslim East offered a striking contrast
to the Christian West, which was sunk in
the night of the Dark Ages. (Abul-Fazl
Ezzati (1978), An Introduction to the
History of the Spread of Islam,
London, p. 378)
This
bright civilization progressed until it
suffered the terrible disasters which
came like huge overlapping waves, from
the West and Far East one after the
other in the form of the Crusades and
Mongol invasion. The disasters lasted
centuries until the Muslim government in
Baghdad collapsed and the history of
Islam entered, from the beginning of the
fourteenth century, a new phase with the
Ottoman Turks. Islamic civilization was
still vigorous and remained far ahead of
the Christian West in economic and
military fields until the eighteenth
century, despite (from the sixteenth
century onwards) losing ground to it in
the sciences.
Cordoba
in the tenth century under Muslim rule
was the most civilized city in Europe,
the wonder and admiration of the world.
Travelers from the north heard with
something like fear of the city which
contained 70 libraries with hundreds of
thousands of volumes, and 900 public
baths, yet whenever the rulers of Leon
Navarre of Barcelona needed a surgeon,
an architect, a dressmaker or a
musician, it was to Cordoba that they
applied (T. Arnold, The Legacy of
Islam, p.9). Muslim literary
prestige was so great that in Spain, for
example, it was found necessary to
translate the Bible and liturgy into
Arabic for the use of the Christian
community. The account given by Alvaro,
the Christian zealot and writer, shows
vividly how even the non-Muslim
Spaniards were attracted to Arab/Muslim
literature:
My
fellow-Christians delight in the
poems and romances of the Arabs.
They study the works of Muhammadan
theologians and philosophers, not
in order to refute them, but to
acquire a correct and elegant
Arabic style. Where today can a
layman be found who reads the
Latin commentaries on holy
Scriptures? Who is there that
studies the Gospels, the Prophets,
the Apostles? Alas, the young
Christians who are the most
conspicuous for their talents have
no knowledge of any literature or
language save the Arabic; they
read and study with avidity
Arabian books; they amass whole
libraries of them at a vast cost,
and they everywhere sing the
praises of the Arabian world (Indiculus
Luminosus, translated by Dozy,
quoted by Ezzati, ibid., pp.
98-9).
If
the purpose of education and worth of
civilization is to raise the sense of
pride, dignity, honor in individuals so
that they improve their state and
consequently the state of society,
Islamic civilization is proven to have
been a worthy one. There is ample
evidence quoted by various writers
showing how Islam has succeeded in doing
this to various peoples of various
regions, e.g. Isaac Taylor, in his
speech delivered at the Church Congress
of England about the effects and
influence of Islam on people, said:
When
Muhammadanism is embraced,
paganism, fetishism, infanticide
and witchcraft disappear. Filth is
replaced by cleanliness and the
new convert acquires personal
dignity and self-respect. Immodest
dances and promiscuous intercourse
of the sexes cease; female
chastity is rewarded as a virtue;
industry replaces idleness;
license gives place to law; order
and sobriety prevail; blood feuds,
cruelty to animals and slaves are
eradicated. Islam swept away
corruption and superstitions.
Islam was a revolt against empty
polemics. It gave hope to the
slave, brotherhood to mankind, and
recognition to the fundamental
facts of human nature. The virtues
which Islam inculcates are
temperance, cleanliness, chastity,
justice, fortitude, courage,
benevolence, hospitality, veracity
and resignation.. Islam preaches a
practical brotherhood, the social
equality of all Muslims. Slavery
is not part of the creed of Islam.
Polygamy is a more difficult
question. Moses did not prohibit
it. It was practiced by David and
it is not directly forbidden in
the New Testament. Muhammad
limited the unbounded license of
polygamy. It is the exception
rather than the rule... In
resignation to God’s Will,
temperance, chastity, veracity and
in brotherhood of believers they
(the Muslims) set us a pattern
which we should do well to follow.
Islam has abolished drunkenness,
gambling and prostitution, the
three curses of the Christian
lands. Islam has done more for
civilization than Christianity.
The conquest of one-third of the
earth to his (Muhammad’s) creed
was a miracle. (quoted by Ezzati, ibid.,
pp. 235-7)
Science
and the modern scientific approach
By
way of explaining why I have given such
a lengthy introduction to the subject,
let me note here the conflicting
attitudes prevalent in the Muslim world
about the relationship of Islam and
science. For many years, swayed by
Western dominion over their lands, a
dominion attributed to superior science
and technology, some Muslim
intellectuals accused Islam itself as
the cause of the backwardness of Muslim
peoples. Having forgotten the eleven
centuries or more of Islamic supremacy,
they thought and wrote as if the history
of Islam had only begun in the
eighteenth century. Further, they made
the deplorable mistake of identifying
the relationship between science and
religion in general in the specific
terms of the relationship between
science and Christianity. They did not
bother to make even a superficial study
of Islam and its long history. In
contrast to this, some other
contemporary Muslim intellectuals who,
after seeing the disasters-atomic bombs,
mass murders, environmental pollution,
loss of all moral and spiritual values,
the ‘delirium’ which modern man
suffers, and so on-science and
technology have brought to mankind and
the shortcomings and mistakes of the
purely scientific approach in seeking
the truth, as well as the failure of
science and technology to bring man
happiness, follow some of their Western
counterparts in condemning science and
technology outright, and adopting an
almost purely idealistic attitude.
However, Islam is the middle way. It
neither rejects nor condemns the modern
scientific approach, nor does it ‘deify’
it.
It
is true that science has been the most
revered ‘fetish’ or ‘idol’ of
modern man for nearly two hundred years.
Scientists once believed that they could
explain every phenomenon with the
findings of science and the law of
causality. However, modern physics
destroyed the ‘theoretical’
foundations of mechanical physics and
revealed that the universe is not a
clockwork of certain parts working
according to strict, unchanging laws of
causality and absolute determinism.
Rather, despite its dazzling harmony and
magnificent order, it is so complex and
indeterminate that when we unveil one of
its mysteries, as many more appear
before us. In other words, the more we
learn about the universe, the more we
grow in ignorance of it. Experts in
atomic physics say that no one can be
sure that the universe will be in the
same state a moment later that it is in
now. Although the universe works
according to certain laws, these laws
are not absolute and, more
interestingly, they do not have real or
material existence. Rather, their
existence is nominal, that is, we deduce
them from observation of natural events
and phenomena. Also, it is highly
questionable to what extent they have a
part in the creation and working of
things. For example, scientists say that
a seed, earth, air and water bring a
tree into existence. However, these are
only causes for a tree to come into
existence. The existence of a tree
requires exact calculations and ratios
and the pre-established relations of the
seed, earth, air and water. Science
should also explain the beginning of
this process and the diversification of
seeds into different kinds. What science
does is only to explain how things take
place; it thinks it has got out of the
difficulty of explaining the origin of
existence by attributing it to ‘nature’
or ‘self-origination’ or ‘necessity’
and ‘chance’.
‘Nature
is, evidently, a design, not the
designer; a recipient, not the agent; a
composition, not the composer; an order,
not the orderer; something printed, not
the printer. It is a collection of laws
established by the Divine Will, laws
which our minds can grasp but which in
themselves have no power or material
reality.’ Attribution of existence to
self-origination or necessity and chance
is sheer delusion. For we evidently see
that existence displays absolute
knowledge, absolute wisdom, absolute
will, and absolute power. Chance,
self-origination and necessity are only
concepts without such material reality
that we could attribute to them
knowledge, wisdom, will and power.
The
modern scientific approach
The
modern scientific approach is very far
from finding out the truth behind
existence and explaining it. Truth is
unchanging and beyond the visible world.
Its relationship with the visible,
changing world is like that of the
spirit and the body or the Divine laws
of nature and natural things and events.
For example, the force of growth, which
is a universal Divine law, is innate in
living things. While this law is
unchanging, a tree or a man undergoes
incessant changes. Likewise, human
beings, no matter how their dress or
dwellings or means of transport have
changed during the course of history,
remain unchanged in respect of the
essential purposes they serve and the
impact of those purposes on their lives
and environment. As human beings, we all
share certain general conditions of life
and value: we are all born, mature,
marry, have children and face death; we
all possess some degree of will and
common desires, we share also certain
values-we all know the meaning of
honesty, kindness, justice, courage, and
so on.
Despite
this fact, the modern scientific
approach searches for truth in changing
nature, and in its search it bases
itself on the impressions of the senses.
However, these impressions are relative,
changing from person to person, and
deceptive. Also, people differ in
respect of their capacity of reasoning.
So, it is impossible to arrive at one
certain conclusion by deductive or
inductive or analytical reasoning of the
data received by the senses. It is
because of this that the modern
scientific approach resorts to
experiment to arrive at facts. However,
without pre-established axioms or ‘premises’,
it is not possible to establish a fact
through experiments. Since David Hume,
it has been generally accepted that it
is not inevitable that, because an event
has happened twice or a million times in
two or a million different places, it
must happen again. For this reason,
since the collapse of classical physics,
Western epistemologists speak not of
seeking the truth itself but only of
seeking approximations to it. Karl
Raymond Popper says that we consider the
theories of both Newton and Einstein as
science. . . both of them cannot be true
at the same time; rather, both may be
false.
Through
empirical methods, science will not be
able to find the truth which concerns
the essence of existence. Therefore, as
Guenon puts it (Orient et Occident,
Turkish translation by F. Arslan,
Istanbul 1980, p. 57), science or
scientists have two alternatives before
them: either they will acknowledge that
the findings of science are of no value
other than as suppositions about truth
and therefore not recognize any
certainty higher than sense-perception,
or they will blindly believe as true
whatever is taught in the name of
science. Doubting the findings of
science, modern scientists try to find a
way out in agnosticism or pragmatism,
thus confessing the inability of science
to find truth.
Science
should recognize its limits and concede
that truth is unchanging and lies in the
realm above the visible world. When it
can do that, it will find its real
value. Evidently, without the absolute,
it is impossible for the relative to
exist; what is changing can be possible
through the existence of the unchanging,
and multiplicity is impossible without
the existence of unity. It is only when
any knowledge reaches the point of
immutability that it acquires permanence
and stability. What is unchangeable and
permanent is above the human realm.
Truth is not something the human mind
produces. Truth exists independently of
man and man’s task is to seek it.
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