Yet all of this is not so much evidence of any inherent Muslim handicap regarding science as a sign of the activity of reconstructing Islam that is going on today. Much is up for grabs as Muslims try and join fragments of medieval views of knowledge with modern ideas to produce a satisfying intellectual picture of the world. Muslim thinkers consciously try and avoid the path of secularization, and continue to demand that scientific ideas should be constrained by social and religious needs.
Examining science and Islam today provides an intriguing alternative to the Christian-centered approaches that dominate current thinking about science and religion.
The Averroists, drawing inspiration from their understanding of Averroes, began to hold doctrines that challenged articles of faith such as placing limits on the omnipotence of God. After a lot of acrimony — the end result was a set of prohibitions by the local bishop that essentially separated philosophy from theology. Only those who had formally trained as theologians could speak about theology. However, by implication, philosophy would be left alone, as long as it did not presume to interfere with theology.
It was a solution that kept the peace and allowed the different disciplines to continue their work. The idea of separateness, and indeed of inherent conflict between science and religion based on such instances — which recur throughout history is so powerfully rooted in our society, that it can be hard to even imagine a different relationship.
The ideas are so powerful that we can miss what the fields have in common. They, are, for instance, both concerned with knowledge. Both make extensive use of reason. Where do the ideas that great scientists have come from?
While many come from careful study of reality — there are innumerable stories of dreams or sudden inspiration like Archimedes sudden Eureka moment in a bath tub. The turning in thought to a problem or issue will bring forth new insight:.
The source of crafts, sciences and arts is the power of reflection. Make ye every effort that out of this ideal mine there may gleam forth such pearls of wisdom and utterance as will promote the well-being and harmony of all the kindreds of the earth. Perhaps the most ironic example of inspiration by dreams is Rene Descartes attribution of his organisation of the process of science in the scientific method to dreams!
Dreams, needless to say, are not typically included in a description of what science does. In the twentieth century, philosophers of science began to systematically study the nature of science itself. As their study progressed, they found that traditional understandings of the scientific progress were contradicted by the history of science itself.
Factors such as the scientific attraction to beauty and simplicity — and faith in order in the universe were powerful driving factors in the progress of science. If science was solely composed of the trenchantly skeptical it could not have progressed. It was many years before experiment confirmed the new ideas of Newton or Einstein and indeed sometimes experimental results contradicted theory, yet the ideas became articles of faith on which scientific progress was built.
Download Download PDF. Translate PDF. Science and Religion in Islam. By Taner Edis. New York: Prometheus Books, Eventually, we may achieve a balance that requires fewer illusions. But we cannot expect that everyone will call this process.
To make the critique short: this book is neither on Islam nor on science. It is a colourful collection of essays on the theories and doctrines of almost exclusively Ottoman and Turkish Muslim thinkers who themselves thought to have something to contribute to the issue.
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