ARTICLE:
An Ongoing Debate
By Dr Sabieh Anwar
August 31, 2008
Over the years, there has been considerable hype about Islam and science in our
academic and public circles and several books have come out in the limelight.
Fortunately, there is consensus on three facts. First, Muslims enjoyed a
remarkable ascendancy in science for about five centuries, an ascendancy that
was unrivalled by any contemporary civilisation. Second, science has now
dwindled to frighteningly low standards in the Muslim world and there is a
critical need to rescue the Muslim culture from complete intellectual
annihilation. Third, there exists the appreciation that science and Islam are
compatible. Over and above these fundamental agreements, there is considerable
dispute.
One of the more influential articulations on the subject of science and Islam,
and the ongoing debate between the religious orthodoxy and the rational
intelligentsia has come from the camp of the modern secularists, especially
from the physicist, University professor and social activist, Pervez Hoodbhoy
in his book Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for
Rationality (Zed Books, London 1991).
The book is written in clear and effective language and sets the tone for the
more reasoned debate on this subject within Pakistan.
It performs the much-needed task of exposing Islam-inspired pseudo-scientists
whose only claim to fame is giving scientific explanations for miracles,
lending credence to superstitions, proving that all science is imbedded in the Quran
and of course, reject the theory of evolution.
The Beaten Track
Hoodbhoy’s gripping narrative is a classic example of the ‘classical
narrative’. According to the classical picture, Muslim scientists transcended
in all major fields of scientific inquiry but there role remained, at best, one
of an intelligent postman. They took the classic Greek sources and engaged in a
massive translation and commentary enterprise, mostly under the patronage of
the Abbasid Caliph Mamun-ur-Rashid in his bait-ul-hikmah (House of Wisdom)
around 830 C.E. The greatest translator of all times was Hunayn Ibn Ishaq, not
a Muslim but a Christian. After this translation movement, the end product was
bequeathed to the West at the time of the so-called first Renaissance, around the
12th century. Science in the Islamic world then became irrelevant.
There are, however, serious problems with this approach. First, the narrative
assumes that Muslims by themselves were incapable of originating any new
scientific ideas. The first Muslims were the desert-dwelling Arabs, incapable
of any scientific mode of thinking, and only when they came in contact with the
neighbouring Sasanian (Iranian) and Byzantine (Roman) civilisations, were they
exposed to the majestic works of the Greek intellectuals including Prolemy,
Plotinus and Aristotle
The second misgiving is the supposition that the Muslim scientific
consciousness somehow triggered woke up from dark languishing slumber in the
early Abbasid period (750 to 900 CE), but there was nothing inherent in the
Islamic belief system or in the uniquely Muslim culture that could instigate
such a complete reawakening. In other words, the impetus was all foreign.
Allama Iqbal in his lecture ‘The Spirit of Muslim Culture’ included in the
‘Reconstruction’ has also briefly addressed the naturalization of ancient and
Greek sciences into the Muslim scientific spirit and the kind of value-addition
they performed. According to the poet-philosopher, science flourishing in the
Islamic civilization marked an all-out revolt against Greek thought. In the
book Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance (reviewed in
Books and Authors, Jan 13, 2008), George Saliba also shows with several
historical evidences that the unique juridical requirements of the Islamic fiqh
provided the main thrust to the development of the exact sciences. For example,
the complicated inheritance laws gave birth to the discipline of algebra;
advanced computations of zakat and the jizya resulted in the maturing of the
numerical and fractional sciences; and the requirements for prayer directions
and timings laid the foundations for theoretical and observational astronomy,
radically changing the theoretical models proposed by Ptolemy. One could note
that this model of religion enriching science works not only in the Islamic,
but also in other contexts. For example, Babylonians, in a need to predict the
appearance of different celestial phenomena as omens started developing
mathematical astronomy around 2000 BCE and devised accurate tables around 500
BCE.
‘The most influential figure was the philosopher Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, who
argued in The Incoherence of the Philosophers against the very idea of laws of
nature, on the ground that any such laws would put God’s hands in chains. According
to Al-Ghazali, a piece of cotton placed in a flame does not darken and smoulder
because of the heat, but because God wants it to darken and smoulder. After
Al-Ghazali, there was no more science worth mentioning in Islamic countries.’
The Spectre of Al-Ghazali
The third most objectional premise of the classical narrative,
championed by Hoodbhoy’s approach is that the Muslim ascendancy in science was
the exception, rather than the rule. The scientists were outcasts living at the
fringes of a society that was under the grip of 
the mullahs who shunned and resisted
scientific thought, openly calumniated human reason, logic, deductive proof
systems and philosophy and were against all forms of art and music and the
subtler delicacies of free inquiry.
A ubiquitous figure in all of these debates is the theologian and philosopher,
Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (1058-1111). His over-arching stature in the Islamic
religious tradition aside, he is also considered to be one bitter enemy of the
sciences. Several writers would have us believe that Al-Ghazali strangulated
human reason and made it slavishly subservient to revealed knowledge and in the
present times, we are still reeling in the devastating blow inflicted by
Al-Ghazali on human reason.
Not surprisingly, these acquisitions gain more credence when they come from
accomplished scientists. For example, the Nobel Laurea-te and physicist, Steven
Weinberg published a review on Richard Dawkin’s book The God Delusion (Ban-tam,
2006) in the Times Literary Supplement (Jan-uary 17, 2007).
In his review, Weinberg comfortably pronounced, ‘Alas, Islam turned against
science in the 12th century. The most influential figure was the philosopher
Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, who argued in The Incoherence of the Philosophers against
the very idea of laws of nature, on the ground that any such laws would put
God’s hands in chains. According to Al-Ghazali, a piece of cotton placed in a
flame does not darken and smoulder because of the heat, but because God wants
it to darken and smoulder. After Al-Ghazali, there was no more science worth
mentioning in Islamic countries [emphasis added].’
Furthermore Hoodbhoy very strongly claims, ‘The most articulate and effective
opponent of physical causality was Al-Ghazali. According to Al-Ghazali, it is
futile to believe that the world runs according to physics laws.’
This simplistic bifurcation into the reasoned and the unreasoned; the
rationalist group of the ‘great heretics’ typified by the iconoclast,
Ibn-e-Rushd and the camp of the orthodox, with Al-Ghazali being its most
articulate representative, serves Hoodbhoy et al very well in their nifty
compartmentalisation schemes, but the division seriously challenges the more
serious and deep scholarship in this field.
In numerous places throughout his vast numbers of texts, Al-Ghazali makes it
very clear that his task is not to question the established truths in the
natural order. Disputing these facts of nature, far from being a disservice to
the scientific method, will be a disservice to religion itself. An instructive
example is provided in the second introduction to the Tahafat-ul-Falasifa
(Incoherence of the Philosophers), where Al-Ghazali discusses the solar and
lunar eclipses. After stating the ‘scientific’ facts that the solar eclipse results
from the moon intervening the sun and the earth and the lunar eclipse from the
earth coming in between the sun and the moon, he writes,
‘Whosoever thinks that to engage in a disputation for refuting such a theory is
a religious duty harms religion and weakens it. For these matters rest on
demonstrations, geometrical and arithmetical, that leave no room for doubt.’
Al-Ghazali on Scientific knowledge
Similarly, mathematics and arithmetic, in Al-Ghazali’s view, are ‘exact’
sciences with no connection with metaphysical or religious principles.
Therefore using mathematics to prove religious beliefs is, at best, absurd.
These sciences are based on demonstrative proofs and their implications cannot
be denied or affirmed in any religious connotation. In Deliverance from Error,
Al-Ghazali writes,
‘A grievous crime indeed against religion has been committed by the man who
imagines that Islam is defended by the denial of the mathematical sciences,
seeing that there is nothing in revealed truth opposed to these sciences by way
of either negation or affirmation, and nothing in these sciences opposed to the
truth of religion.’
Furthermore, Al-Ghazali claims that metaphysics and religion are not in need of
mathematics, just as poetry is not in need of mathematics, or philology or
grammar can be mastered by anyone who is totally ignorant of the mathematical
sciences. Why did Ghazzali then, at least apparently, discourage the learning
of mathematics? In fact, Hoodbhoy uses this argument quite skilfully and alas,
only erroneously in the section of his book titled ‘Al-Ghazali routs the
rationalists’.
A careful analysis of this argument asks for a holistic picture of Al-Ghazali’s
Weltanschauung. Al-Ghazali was not only a theologian or a scholar in the
ordinary sense of the word, rather he was a ‘public scholar’. His main purpose
was to safeguard the purely religious beliefs of the believers from straying
from the ‘straight path’. The average believers, who were the addressees of
Al-Ghazali’s Deliverance could not master mathematics or logic or geometry, and
mainly followed what they were instructed in matters of religious opinion or
the otherwise. In the present circumstances, Philosophers were regarded by many
as men ‘in possession of a distinctiveness from companion and peer by virtue of
a superior quick wit and intelligence’.
Mathematics and arithmetic, in Al-Ghazali’s view, are ‘exact’ sciences with
no connection with metaphysical or religious principles. Therefore using
mathematics to prove religious beliefs is, at best, absurd. These sciences are
based on demonstrative proofs and their implications cannot be denied or
affirmed in any religious connotation.
These philosophers used the language of Aristotle, resorted to apodeictic
proofs, employed syllogistic rules for demonstrations, and wrote in a grammar
that was mainly abstruse, high-sounding and worded and therefore, inaccessible
to common Muslims. This perception led to the conclusion that metaphysics –
being ‘the most difficult of sciences for the intelligent minds’ – could be
deciphered only through the most sophisticated tools of mathematics and logic,
the expertise of the philosophers. As a result, the average minds incapable of
delving into the complexities of mathematics and logic themselves, would be
enticed into believing that the philosophers who apply their mathematical
skills with astounding precision to matters of the physical world, must also be
followed in matters of religion.
Al-Ghazali warns his readers that every discipline of study has its experts, an
expert in mathematics may not be an expert in grammar and an expert in geometry
may fail miserably when it comes to matters of religion. In short, Al-Ghazali’s
truck is not with mathematics, but with philosophers who could potentially lead
people astray in matters of pure religion. Al-Ghazali makes this very clear in
the introduction to the Tahafat-al-falasifa (not Tahafat-al-falsafa): he is not
contradicting philosophers on points of semantics and definitions, nor does he
disagree with them in issues with no religious significance (such as eclipses);
his major disagreements pertain to questions with fundamental theological
implications, and these are only three: (a) has the universe existed forever,
(b) does God know all particulars, and (c) is bodily resurrection possible! ‘It
is in this topic and its likes, not any other, that one must show the falsity
of their doctrine.’
Far from all this, Al-Ghazali considers mathematics and arithmetic to belong to
the category of the praiseworthy (mamduh) sciences. In his book Revival of the
Religious Sciences, Chapter 1 he writes,
‘Sciences whose knowledge is deemed fard kifayah comprise [all] sciences which
are indispensable for the welfare of this world such as: medicine which is
necessary for the life of the body, arithmetic for daily transactions and the
divisions of legacies and inheritances, as well as others besides. These are
the sciences which, because of their absence, the community would be reduced to
narrow straits.’
The science of mathematics is a community obligation and furthermore, delving
even deeper into the mysteries of mathematics and medicine has also been
regarded meritorious. In fact, Al-Ghazali laments the fact that Muslims prefer
a study of Islamic law over medicine and it becomes hard to find Muslim
physicians, yet jurisprudents abound and often indulge in disputation, rancour,
useless hair splitting and vehement diatribes, adding to confusion and strife.
For example, an individual deciding to take up study of fiqh when there is a
population in dire need of health care is someone ‘who neglects to give his
attention to the calamity which has befallen a group of thirsty Muslims [and]
is like the person who devotes his time to debate while several fard kifayah
duties remain neglected in town.’
A major problem of Al-Ghazali’s times was that all forms of knowledge had
acquired religious significance and so, points of intellectual dispute would
often slip into bitter religious disagreements, leading to brandings of
unbelief, excommunication and heresy.
Al-Ghazali addressed this situation by carefully proposing a classification
scheme of all common forms of knowledge, placing Islamic jurisprudence, one
major source of contention, at the level of ‘worldly disciplines’, not too
superior to mathematics and medicine and regarding it as a collective duty of
the community rather than an individual obligation.
Such a ranking was in opposition to the generally held opinion of the Islamic
scholarship, and was considered a sacrilege towards the religious merits of
fiqh, but Al-Ghazali stuck to his position. However, irrespective of all this,
Hoodbhoy in his book would like us to believe that,
‘He condemns mathematics with vigour and without reservation, rejecting the
notion that anything good can be contained in it.’ In fact George Saliba quite
convincingly shows that the period after Imam Al-Ghazali is marked by an
increase in scientific production, at least as far as astronomy is concerned.
After all, we have the names of Ibn al-Shatir, Tusi, Urdi, Shirazi, Khafri,
al-Baghdadi (d. 1152), Qushji (d. 1474), Nizam-al-Din al-Nisapuri (d. 1328) and
the famous potentate and astronomer Ulugh Beg (d. 1449), who all flourished
well nigh after Imam Al-Ghazali.
The foundation stone for the highly productive Maragha observatory was also
laid in 1259, a year after the destruction of Baghdad.
The golden age in Arabic astronomy was 
certainly after Imam Al-Ghazali, not
before him.
http://watandost.blogspot.com/2008/09/islam-and-science.html
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/books/books7.htm
