Islamic attitudes towards science

Work in the observatorium of Taqi al-Din

One of the earliest accounts of the use of science in the Islamic world is during the eighth and sixteenth centuries, known as the Islamic Golden Age.[18] It is also known as "Arabic science" because of the majority of texts that were translated from Greek into Arabic. The mass translation movement, that occurred in the ninth century allowed for the integration of science into the Islamic world. The teachings from the Greeks were now translated and their scientific knowledge was now passed on to the Arab world. Despite these conditions, not all scientists during this period were Muslim or Arab, as there were a number of notable non-Arab scientists (most notably Persians), as well as some non-Muslim scientists, who contributed to scientific studies in the Muslim world. The mass translation movement in the ninth century allowed for the integration of science into the Islamic world.

A number of modern scholars such as Fielding H. Garrison, Sultan Bashir Mahmood, Hossein Nasr consider modern science and the scientific method to have been greatly inspired by Muslim scientists who introduced a modern empirical, experimental and quantitative approach to scientific inquiry. Certain advances made by medieval Muslim astronomers, geographers and mathematicians were motivated by problems presented in Islamic scripture, such as Al-Khwarizmi's (c. 780–850) development of algebra in order to solve the Islamic inheritance laws,[19] and developments in astronomy, geography, spherical geometry and spherical trigonometry in order to determine the direction of the Qibla, the times of Salah prayers, and the dates of the Islamic calendar.[20] These new studies of math and science would allow for the Islamic world to get ahead of the rest of the world. ‘With these inspiration at work, Muslim mathematicians and astronomers contributed significantly to the development to just about every domain of mathematics between the eight and fifteenth centuries”[21]

The increased use of dissection in Islamic medicine during the 12th and 13th centuries was influenced by the writings of the Islamic theologian, Al-Ghazali, who encouraged the study of anatomy and use of dissections as a method of gaining knowledge of God's creation.[22] In al-Bukhari's and Muslim's collection of sahih hadith it is said: "There is no disease that God has created, except that He also has created its treatment." (Bukhari 7-71:582). This culminated in the work of Ibn al-Nafis (1213–1288), who discovered the pulmonary circulation in 1242 and used his discovery as evidence for the orthodox Islamic doctrine of bodily resurrection.[23] Ibn al-Nafis also used Islamic scripture as justification for his rejection of wine as self-medication.[24] Criticisms against alchemy and astrology were also motivated by religion, as orthodox Islamic theologians viewed the beliefs of alchemists and astrologists as being superstitious.[25]

Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149–1209), in dealing with his conception of physics and the physical world in his Matalib, discusses Islamic cosmology, criticizes the Aristotelian notion of the Earth's centrality within the universe, and "explores the notion of the existence of a multiverse in the context of his commentary," based on the Quranic verse, "All praise belongs to God, Lord of the Worlds." He raises the question of whether the term "worlds" in this verse refers to "multiple worlds within this single universe or cosmos, or to many other universes or a multiverse beyond this known universe." On the basis of this verse, he argues that God has created more than "a thousand thousand worlds (alfa alfi 'awalim) beyond this world such that each one of those worlds be bigger and more massive than this world as well as having the like of what this world has."[26] Ali Kuşçu's (1403–1474) support for the Earth's rotation and his rejection of Aristotelian cosmology (which advocates a stationary Earth) was motivated by religious opposition to Aristotle by orthodox Islamic theologians, such as Al-Ghazali.[27][28]

According to many historians, science in the Muslim civilization flourished during the Middle Ages, but began declining at some time around the 14th[29] to 16th[18] centuries. At least some scholars blame this on the "rise of a clerical faction which froze this same science and withered its progress."[30] Examples of conflicts with prevailing interpretations of Islam and science – or at least the fruits of science – thereafter include the demolition of Taqi al-Din's great Constantinople observatory in Galata, "comparable in its technical equipment and its specialist personnel with that of his celebrated contemporary, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe." But while Brahe's observatory "opened the way to a vast new development of astronomical science," Taqi al-Din's was demolished by a squad of Janissaries, "by order of the sultan, on the recommendation of the Chief Mufti," sometime after 1577 CE.[30][31]

Scientific methods have been historically applied to find solutions to the technical exigencies of Islamic religious rituals, which is a characteristic of Islam that sets it apart from other religions. These ritual considerations include a lunar calendar, definition of prayer times based on the position of the sun, and a direction of prayer set at a specific location. Scientific methods have also been applied to Islamic laws governing the distribution of inheritances and to Islamic decorative arts. Some of these problems were tackled by both medieval scientists of the Islamic world and scholars of Islamic law. Though these two groups generally used different methods, there is little evidence of serious controversy between them on these subjects, with the exception of the criticism leveled by religious scholars at the methods of astronomy due to its association with astrology.[32]

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, modern science arrived in the Muslim world, bringing with it "the transfer of various philosophical currents entangled with science" including schools of thought such as Positivism and Darwinism. This had a profound effect on the minds of Muslim scientists and intellectuals and also had a noticeable impact on some Islamic theological doctrines.[33]

While the majority of Muslim scientists tried to adapt their understanding of Islam to the findings of modern science, some rejected modern science as "corrupt foreign thought, considering it incompatible with Islamic teachings", others advocated for the wholesale replacement of religious worldviews with a scientific worldview, and some Muslim philosophers suggested separating the findings of modern science from its philosophical attachments.[34] Among the majority of Muslim thinkers, a key justification for the use of modern science was the benefits that modern knowledge clearly brought to society. Others concluded that science could ultimately be reconciled with faith. A further apologetic trend saw the emergence of theories that scientific discoveries had been predicted in the Quran and Islamic tradition, thereby internalizing science within religion.[34]

According to 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center asking Muslims in different Muslim majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa if there was a conflict between science and religion few agreed in Morocco (18%), Egypt (16%), Iraq (15%), Jordan (15%) and the Palestinian territories (14%). More agreed in Albania (57%), Turkey (40%), Lebanon (53%) and Tunisia (42%).[35]

The poll also found a variance in how Muslim population in some countries are at odds with current scientific theories about biological evolution and the origin of man.[35] Only four of the 22 countries surveyed that at least 50% of the Muslims surveyed rejected evolution (Iraq 67%, Tajikistan 55%, Indonesia 55%, Afghanistan 62%). Countries with relatively low rates of disbelief in evolution (i.e. agreeing to the statement "humans and other living things have always existed in present form") include Lebanon (21%), Albania (24%), Kazakhstan (16%).[36]

As of 2018, three Muslim scientists have won a Nobel Prize for science (Abdus Salam from Pakistan in physics, Ahmed Zewail from Egypt and Aziz Sancar from Turkey in Chemistry). According to Mustafa Akyol, the relative lack of Muslim Nobel laureates in sciences per capita can be attributed to more insular interpretations of the religion than in the golden age of Islamic discovery and development, when Islamic society and intellectuals were more open to foreign ideas.[37] Ahmed Zewail who won the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and is known as the father of femtochemistry said that "There is nothing fundamental in Islam against science."[38]

Islamic scholar Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi has noted that important technological innovations—once "considered to be bizarre, strange, haram (religiously forbidden), bidʻah (innovation), against the tradition" in the Muslim world, were later accepted as "standard".

One of the main reasons the Muslim world was held behind when Europe continued its ascent was that the printing press was banned. And there was a time when the Ottoman Sultan issued a decree that anybody caught with a printing press shall be executed for heresy, and anybody who owns a printed book shall basically be thrown into jail. And for 350 years when Europe is printing, when [René] Descartes is printing, when Galileo is printing, when [Isaac] Newton is printing, the only way you can get a copy of any book in the Arab world is to go and hand write it yourself.[39]

In the early twentieth century, Iranian Shia Ulema forbade the learning of foreign languages and dissection of human bodies in the medical school in Iran.[40] On the other hand, contrary to the current cliché concerning the opposition of the Imamate Shiite Ulama to the modern astronomy in the nineteenth century, there is no evidence showing their literal or explicit objection of the modern astronomy based on Islamic doctrines. They even became the advocates of modern astronomy by the publication of Hibat al-Dīn Shahristānī' al-Islām wa al-Hayʾa (Islam and Astronomy) in 1910. After that, Shia ulama not only were not against the modern astronomy but also they believed that the Quran and Islamic hadiths of Imams admit it.[41]

Until the 1960’s, Saudi Sunni ulema opposed any attempts at modernisation considering it as innovations (bidah). They opposed the spread of electricity, radios, TVs, internet. As recently as 2015, Sheikh Bandar al-Khaibari rejected the fact that Earth orbits the Sun, instead claiming that the Earth is "stationary and does not move.".[42]

In Afghanistan, Sunni Taliban turn secular schools into Islamic madrasas, valuing religious studies over modern science.[43]

In recent years, the lagging of the Muslim world in science is manifest in the disproportionately small amount of scientific output as measured by citations of articles published in internationally circulating science journals, annual expenditures on research and development, and numbers of research scientists and engineers.[44] Concerns has been raised that the contemporary Muslim world suffers from scientific illiteracy.[7] Skepticism of science among some Muslims is reflected in issues such as resistance in Muslim northern Nigeria to polio inoculation, which some believe is "an imaginary thing created in the West or it is a ploy to get us to submit to this evil agenda."[45] Also, in Pakistan, a small number of post-graduate physics students have been known to blame earthquakes on "sinfulness, moral laxity, deviation from the Islamic true path," while "only a couple of muffled voices supported the scientific view that earthquakes are a natural phenomenon unaffected by human activity."[7] Islamist author Muhammad Qutb (brother of and promoter of Sayyid Qutb) in his influential book Islam, the misunderstood religion, states that "science is a powerful instrument" to increase human knowledge but has become a "corrupting influence on men's thoughts and feelings" for much of the world's population, steering them away from "the Right Path". As an example, he gives scientific community's disapproval of claims of telepathy, when he claims that it is documented in hadith that Caliph Umar prevented commander Sariah from being ambushed by communicating with him telepathically.[46] Muslim scientists and scholars have subsequently developed a spectrum of viewpoints on the place of scientific learning within the context of Islam.[1]

The conflicts between these two ideas can become quite complicated. It has been argued that "Muslims must be able to maintain the traditional Islamic intellectual space for the legitimate continuation of the Islamic view of the nature of reality to which Islamic ethics corresponds, without denying the legitimacy of modern science within their own confines".[47]

While the natural sciences have not been "fully institutionalized" in predominately Islamic countries, engineering is considered an applied science that can function in conjunction with religion, and it is one of the most popular career choices of Middle Eastern students.[48]

During the twentieth century, the Islamic world was introduced to modern science. This was facilitated by the expansion of educational systems, for example, 1900 in Istanbul and 1925 Cairo opened universities. Unlike some of the discords between science and Islam in the past, the concerns for some modern students were different. This discord for Islam was naturalism and social Darwinism, which challenged some beliefs. On the other hand, there were efforts to harmonize science with Islam. An example is the nineteenth-century study of Kudsî of Baku, who made connections between his discoveries in astronomy and what he knew from the Quran. These included "the creation of the universe and the beginning of like; in the second part, with doomsday and the end of the world; and the third was the resurrection after death".[49] A passage in the Quran encourages congruency with the truth attained by modern science: "hence they should be both in agreement and concordant with the findings of modern science".[50] This passage was used more often during the time where "modern science" was full of different discoveries. However, many scientific thinkers through the Islamic word still take this passage to heart when it come to their work. There are also some strong believers that with modern viewpoints such as social Darwinism challenged all medieval world views, including that of Islam. Some didn't even want to be affiliated with modern science, and thought it was just an outside look into Islam.[50] Many followers tend to see the problems with the integration of Islam and science, and there are many that still stand by the view points of Ibn Hanbal (855). That the meaning of science is also knowledge, that of many different aspects. There is a sense of wonder, an open mind that allows for people to have both religious values and scientific thought. Along with positive outlooks on modern science is the Islamic world, there are many negative ones as well. It has become the idea for some that the practice of modern science, is that of studying Western science. A large issue that concerns those who don't believe in the study of Western science, is where the knowledge originated. For Muslims the knowledge comes from God, not from human definition of forms of knowledge. An example of this in the Islamic world is that of modern physics, which is considered to be Western instead of an international study. Islam values claim "knowledge of reality based not on reason alone, but also on revelation and inspiration".[47] The ideals of modern science contradict these views and many criticisms of modern science come from the value systems that some modern scientists uphold.

Starting in the 1970s and 80s, the idea of presence of scientific evidence in the Quran became popularized as ijaz (miracle) literature, also called "Bucailleism", and began to be distributed through Muslim bookstores and websites, and discussed on television programs by Islamic preachers.[67][13] The movement contends that the Quran abounds with "scientific facts" that appeared centuries before their discovery by science and which "could not have been known" by people at the time. By asserting the presence of scientific truths stemming from the Quran, it also overlaps with Islamic creationism.

According to author Ziauddin Sardar, the ijaz movement has created a "global craze in Muslim societies", and has developed into an industry that is "widespread and well-funded".[67][13][68] Individuals connected with the movement include Abdul Majeed al-Zindani, who established the Commission on Scientific Signs in the Quran and Sunnah; Zakir Naik, the Indian televangelist; and Adnan Oktar, the Turkish creationist.[67]

Enthusiasts of the movement argue that among the miracles found in the Quran are "everything, from relativity, quantum mechanics, Big Bang theory, black holes and pulsars, genetics, embryology, modern geology, thermodynamics, even the laser and hydrogen fuel cells".[67] Zafar Ishaq Ansari terms the modern trend of claiming the identification of "scientific truths" in the Quran as the "scientific exegesis" of the holy book.[69]

An example is the verse: "So verily I swear by the stars that run and hide ..." (Q81:15–16),[70] which proponents claim demonstrates the Quran's knowledge of the existence of black holes; or: "[I swear by] the Moon in her fullness that ye shall journey on from stage to stage" (Q84:18–19) refers, according to proponents, to human flight into outer space.[67]

One claim that has received widespread attention and has even been the subject of a medical school textbook widely used in the Muslim world [71] is that several Quranic verses foretell the study of embryology and "provide a detailed description of the significant events in human development from the stages of gametes and conception until the full term pregnancy and delivery or even post partum."[72]

In 1983, an authority on Embryology, Keith L. Moore, had a special edition published of his widely used textbook on Embryology (The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology), co-authored by a leader of the scientific miracles movement, Abdul Majeed al-Zindani. This edition, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology with Islamic Additions,[73] interspersed pages of "embryology-related Quranic verse and hadith" by al-Zindani into Moore's original work.[74]

At least one Muslim-born physician (Ali A. Rizvi) studying the textbook of Moore and al-Zindani found himself "confused" by "why Moore was so 'astonished by'" the Quranic references, which Rizvi found "vague", and insofar as they were specific, preceded by the observations of Aristotle and the Ayr-veda,[75] and/or easily explained by "common sense".[71][note 1]

Some of the main verses are

• (Q39:6) God creates us "in the womb of your mothers, creation after creation, within three darknessess," or "three veils of darkness" . The "three" allegedly referring to the abdominal wall, the wall of the uterus, and the chorioamniotic membrane.[76][77]
• Verse Q32:9 identifies the order of organ development of the embryo—ears, then eyes, then heart.[78][note 2]
• Verses referring to "sperm drop" (an-nutfa), and to al-3alaqa (translated as "clinging clot" or "leech like structure") in (Q23:13-14); and to "sperm-drop mixture" (an-nuṭfatin amshaajin) in (Q76:2). The miraculousness of these verse is said to come from the resemblance of the human embryo to a leech, and to the claim that "sperm-drop mixture" refers to a mixture sperm and egg.[76][80]
• (Q53:45-46) "And that He creates the two mates—the male and female—from a sperm-drop when it is emitted," allegedly refers to the fact that the sperm contributes X and Y chromosomes that determine the gender of the baby.[76][80]

However,

• The "three darknesses" or three walls (Q39:6) could easily have been observed by cutting open of pregnant mammals, something done by human beings before the revelation of the Quran, ("dissections of human cadavers by Greek scientists have been documented as early as the third century BCE").[81][80]
• Contrary to the claims made about Q32:9, ears do not develop before eyes, which do not develop before heart. The heart begins development "at about 20 days, and the ears and eyes begin to develop simultaneously in the fourth week". However, the verse itself doesn't mention or claim the order of how the embryo will form first in the womb. "Then He proportioned him and breathed into him from His [created] soul and made for you hearing and vision and hearts; little are you grateful."[82][78]
• The embryo may resemble a leech (ala "clinging clot" or "leech like structure" of al-3alaqa in Q23:13-14), but it resembles many things during the eight week course of its development—none for very long.[80]
• While it is generally agreed the Quran mentions sperm (an-nutfa in several verses), "sperm-drop mixture" (an-nuṭfatin amshaajin in Q76:2) of a mixture of sperm and egg is more problematic as nowhere does the Quran mention the Egg cell or ovum—a rather glaring omission in any description of embryo development, as it the ovum the source of more than half the genetic material of the embryo.[78]
• With mention of male sperm but not female egg in the Quran, it seems likely Q53:45-46—"And that He creates the two mates, the male and female, from a sperm-drop when it is emitted"—is talking about the erroneous idea that all genetic material for offspring comes from the male and the mother simply provides a womb for the developing baby (as opposed to the sperm contributing the X and Y chromosomes that determine the gender of the baby). This idea originated with the ancient Greeks and was popular before modern biology developed.[80]

In 2002, Moore declined to be interviewed by the Wall Street Journal on the subject of his work on Islam, stating that "it's been ten or eleven years since I was involved in the Qur'an."[83]

Critics argue, verses that proponents say explain modern scientific facts, about subjects such as biology, the origin and history of the Earth, and the evolution of human life, contain fallacies and are unscientific.[84][85]

As of 2008, both Muslims and non-Muslims have disputed whether there actually are "scientific miracles" in the Quran. Muslim critics of the movement include Indian Islamic theologian Maulana Ashraf ‘Ali Thanvi, Muslim historian Syed Nomanul Haq, Muzaffar Iqbal, president of Center for Islam and Science in Alberta, Canada, and Egyptian Muslim scholar Khaled Montaser.[86]

Pakistani theoretical physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy criticizes these claims and says there is no explanation that why many modern scientific discoveries such as quantum mechanics, molecular genetics, etc. were discovered elsewhere.[87][86]

Giving the example of the roundness of the earth and the invention of the television,[note 3] a Christian site ("Evidence for God's Unchanging World") complains the "scientific facts" are too vague to be miraculous.[86]

Critics argue that while it is generally agreed the Quran contains many verses proclaiming the wonders of nature,

• it requires "considerable mental gymnastics and distortions to find scientific facts or theories in these verses" (Ziauddin Sardar);[67]
• that the Quran is the source of guidance in right faith (iman) and righteous action (alladhina amanu wa amilu l-salihat) but the idea that it contained "all knowledge, including scientific" knowledge has not been a mainstream view among Muslim scholarship (Zafar Ishaq Ansari);[69] and that "Science is ever-changing ... the Copernican revolution overturning polemic models of the universe to Einstein's general relativity overshadowing Newtonian mechanisms".[13] So while "Science is probabilistic in nature" the Quran deals in "absolute certainty". (Ali Talib);[90]

Nidhal Guessoum says that the central issue in the Islam-science discourse is the hierarchical positioning or place of the Quran in the scientific enterprise.[62]

Mustansir Mir argues for a proper approach to Quran with regard to science that allows multiple and multi-level interpretations.[91][92] He writes

“From a linguistic standpoint, it is quite possible for a word, phrase or statement to have more than one layer of meaning, such that one layer would make sense to one audience in one age and another layer of meaning would, without negating the first, be meaningful to another audience in a subsequent age.”