WILL THE fall of the Taliban mean anything for the hold of fundamentalism on
science in the Muslim world? After all, fundamentalism and science are strange
bedfellows, as we鈥檝e seen in the US with Creationism. And if it does, will there
be hopeful answers this time to the questions I asked twenty years ago in these
pages鈥攃an Muslim scientists pick up the threads that were dropped 400
years ago?
Then and now, everyone in the Muslim world agrees that an essential component
of any cultural revival is the recovery of the spirit and values of Islamic
science. Muslim scholars are keen to make science an integral part of their
culture. They are angry at lost opportunities and at the possibility of dropping
the ball again.
Basically, the debate on Islamic science has been hijacked by fundamentalist
mystics. To judge by the special issue on Islam and science published last
winter in the Pakistani journal Islamic Studies, for these people
science does not mean science as it has existed in Muslim tradition and history.
Instead, it鈥檚 some sort of esoteric experience based on Islamic mysticism or
Sufism. This mystical tendency has now established itself as a new academic
orthodoxy: from Kuala Lumpur to Islamabad, this is what is being discussed and
taught under the rubric of 鈥淚slamic science鈥�. But this didn鈥檛 have to
happen鈥攁nd understanding how it did may yet show a way forward.
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The Islamic science debate captured Muslim imagination in the late 1970s. The
emergence of OPEC power, the Iranian revolution and a growing consciousness of
cultural identity were fuelling optimism in the Muslim world. There were
encouraging signs that Muslims wanted to reinvent their own science. This was
discussed at conferences from Riyadh to Rabat. One particular study, sponsored
by the International Federation of Institutes of Advanced Studies (IFIAS) in
Stockholm brought together Muslim scientists and scholars worldwide in seminars
held between 1980 and 1983.
The IFIAS study, published as The Touch of Midas, concluded that the
issue of science and values in Islam must be treated within a framework of
concepts that shape the goals of a Muslim society. Ten fundamental concepts were
identified: tawheed (unity), khalifah (trusteeship),
ibadah (worship), ilm (knowledge), halal (praiseworthy),
haram(blameworthy), adl (justice), zulm (tyranny),
istislah (public interest) and dhiya (waste). All intellectual
and cultural activities in Islam are guided by an ethical framework, so the
creation of an ethical framework for science was seen as the first step toward
integration.
A system guided by these concepts and values, it was argued, embraces the
nature of scientific enquiry in its totality, integrating facts and values, and
institutionalises a whole system of knowing that is based on accountability and
social responsibility. The pursuit of scientific enquiry in a Muslim society
should, then, be seen as a form of worship, promoting enquiry and thought,
public interest and social justice.
This framework was widely debated and criticised in the Muslim world. At its
core was the idea of science as systematic observation and experimentation,
which allowed scientists to build models and theories that generate universal
knowledge. Just like science in Islamic history, which is full of people doing
just that.
In the early 1990s, however, there was a definite shift away from this
methodology into obscurantism. This was part of both a general, sharp rise in
the 鈥渓iteralist鈥� mode of thought in the Muslim societies and a growing retreat
into mysticism. The impact on the Islamic science debate was devastating.
Two strands mark out the change. First, it began to be argued that all
knowledge, including scientific knowledge, could be found in the Koran. This
thesis received a tremendous boost from the well-funded Saudi project,
Scientific Miracles in the Qur鈥檃n (Koran). The project spanned both empirical
work, involving comparisons of those verses of the Koran that deal with
astronomy and embryology with the latest discoveries, and popularisation through
conferences and seminars. Relativity, quantum mechanics, big bang theory,
embryology鈥攑ractically everything was 鈥渄iscovered鈥� in the Koran.
This toxic combination of religious literalism and 鈥渟cience鈥� resembles
Creationism in that it doesn鈥檛 just accept that version of science as true, but
attacks all critics of it. Unfortunately, this variety is now the most popular
version of Islamic science.
The second strand is best described as mystical fundamentalism鈥擨slamic
science becoming the study of the 鈥渆ssence鈥� of things. The material universe is
investigated as an integral and subordinate part of higher levels of existence,
consciousness and modes of knowing. So science becomes not a problem-solving
enterprise or objective enquiry, but a mystical quest to understand the
Absolute. Conjecture and hypothesis have no real place: all enquiry must be
subordinate to the mystical experience.
The Iranian scholar Syed Hossein Nasr is the leading figure in this. For
Nasr, his students and followers, such as the Malaysian philosopher of science
Osman Bakr and the American scholar William Chittick, Muslim science was and is
鈥渟acred science鈥�, a product of a particular mystical tradition that traces its
roots to the neo-Platonists. In his historical works, Nasr has concentrated on
areas such as the occult, alchemy and astrology鈥攁t the expense of vast
amounts of research into exact sciences鈥攊n an attempt to show that
historically Islamic science was largely 鈥渟acred science鈥�. Nasr鈥檚 rewriting of
history has been strongly refuted by scholars ranging from the German-Turkish
historian of science Faut Sagzin to Western historians such as Donald Hill.
Sadly, none of this has been enough.
Which is why I feel a strong sense of d茅j脿 vu. After saving
Europe from itself by preserving and taking forward scientific basics from
ancient Greece, which could so easily have been lost in Europe鈥檚 Dark Ages,
science in Muslim civilisation can only ever be marginalised by obscurantist and
mystical tendencies. Dislodging them will take considerable courage and will.
Ironically, and sadly, while quoting the scientific achievements of Muslim
civilisation has almost become a clich茅, a genuine revival of Islamic
science now appears rather remote.