Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Perspectives on Islam and Modern Science

The majority of Muslims today believe that Islam is in complete harmony with modern science and that the relationship between Islam and science is very strong. This belief is based on many claimed observations. There are many references in the Quran and the Sunnah that encourage the act of seeking knowledge and that appreciate and glorify science and scientists. Also, many Muslims are convinced that modern science was first developed in the Muslim world by Muslim scientists under the Islamic civilization. Moreover, there is a strong focus in the Muslim world nowadays to claim a divine inspiration for Islam by showing that it is a dispenser of scientific truth. This is done by interpreting particular verses of the Quran (and sometimes particular elements from the Sunnah) and claim to show that these verses make prescient statements about the nature of the universe and many other phenomena recently confirmed or discovered through scientific research. This field is widely known as the scientific miracles in the Quran (or Sunnah) and is widely presented by many Islamic scholars as a proof of the divine nature of the revealed Quran and therefore the divine nature of Islam itself. On the other hand, the term "religion scientists" is widely used in the Muslim world, from the layman to the highly educated individual, to refer to the Muslim priests who are specialized in issuing Fatwas or to the Muslim scholars who are involved in "Islamic studies"; which is an umbrella term for traditional Islamic academic research, such as Islamic theology, Islamic history, Islamic economics and Islamic jurisprudence.

However, this claimed association between Islam and modern science raises the following questions:
  1. Are the above claimed observations correct?
  2. Are they sufficient to claim a strong association between Islam and modern science?
  3. Do they reflect the reality of the scientific understanding in the Muslim world today?
The answers to these questions will be demonstrated in the following posts. So stay tuned!

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was good to meet you at the meeting. I like your blog and hope it stimulates thought. Lets keep in touch

Guido

Anonymous said...

Your blog has got off to a great start, and your English is better than mine! Well done! See you at the next meeting.

Lee

Anonymous said...

Very eloquently written. I don't know a lot about the relationship between Islam and science, so I'm looking forward to reading more as your blog develops.

James

Anonymous said...

Islam asks us to search and find. You said it yourself. Islam is not science nor does it talk about it. Neither is Christianity and Judaism. And Islam did not focus on science itself as a one word. Science is a general word. And science has been a focus many centuries ago.

Shahgir said...

You are raising lot of questions but not answering any of them. You are not even smart enough to understand that you cannot compare apple with orange. Quran was revealed 1400 years ago and it will stay as is until the last day of earth while scientific theories will kept on changing. Unlike the Quran the present scientific theories will be contradicted and new theories will evolve. You are even mentioning "a scientific discovery on 15/10/2006" and not keeping everybody in dark by not mentioning it? I doubt very much that (a)your name is Mohammed (b) you were a Muslim at all

Abs said...

As mentioned above, i too have a doubt whether owner of the blog was ever a Muslim..

Im sure he has been commissioned to spread hatred about Islam by disguising as an ex-Muslim.

pmadmin said...

The owner of this blog was never a Muslim,He must be a Jew Agent who is fed up of washing Sahron's Ass as he(sharon) cant do it on his own since he is suffering from such terrible disease.May Allah give the same disease to the Owner of this blog.

Atheist Mohammed said...

to Shahgir,
apparently, you admit in your comment that Quran has nothing to do with Science. Why not advice your fellow Muslims to stop talking about "scientific miracles" in the Quran instead. By the way, I'm Iraqi, Arabic, and ex-Muslim and my name is Mohammed and my family name is Alhasan. If you can not belive that a Muslim may ever leave Islam, then simply visit the following forum (Arab Atheists http://el7ad.com/smf/index.php?action=portal) where you will find dozens of Arabs ex-Muslims from Iraq to Morroco. Go there and enjoy the discussion. By the way, my identifier there is the same (but in Arabic محمد_الملحد ) and if you can read Arabic then this is my profile and my main posts (http://el7ad.com/smf/index.php?action=profile;u=6695;sa=showTopics).

To Abs,
Read my answer above.

To pmadmin,
I advice you to visit a psychatric to treat you from the Jew Phobia. Another piece of advice, do not wate your time praying to Allah to punish me. If Allah is actually there and he really revealed Quran then I should have been struck by lightining by now specially after wiping my bottom with the sheets of surat Albaqara (Cow chapter) when I ran out of paper toilet (I really did that. I admit that the quality of the paper is really good). I've reached to the معوذتين and the دعاء ختم القرآن and I'm keeping them to any urgent need.

coco jumbo said...

LOL. a mal3oon trying to sound like an intellectual while all he is doing is providing references to others who have made scientific discoveries without highlight what his intellect has discovered from scratch? To me, such claimants of intellect are deceptive vermins who do not produce anything in the lab but claim to hold superiority over the believers.

Unknown said...

Dear Mohammed,
I'm currently working on a BBC1 documentary called "My Name is Muhammad", to be shown February next year.

In this film, we'll be meeting very diverse Muhammads around the UK to discuss what their name means to them and celebrating the different attitudes, values and beliefs held by each one.

I'd love to talk to you about the project. You can email me on ayesha.tq@gmail.com / ayesha.tariq1@bbc.co.uk

Thanks,
Ayesha

Unknown said...

as Wahabi Backward Mullah said...all you're doing is providing references to discoveries made by others. you said you made a discovery that forced you to atheism. what was that discovery?

also, i'd like to say that i have read on the subject of modern science and i have read the translation of Quran and find both of them co-relating. as i read somewhere, a mere knowledge of science will make you an athiest, a profound one will make you a believer.

I sense it stands true in your case.

I'm no damning you or judging you or anything. You have decided your way and i have decided mine. who was right will only be unveild on the day of judgement (which i blv you dont have faith in anymore).

you call yourself a man of science and i read your blog, quite intelligently written i must say....but the reply you made to pmadmin suggests that you probably are not an intelligent man after all. no grown up, mature, and knowledged man would insult another religion, another faith, another community after all.

when i read your post, i stopped halfway...frightened what i might discover, if that discovery made you an athiest, what about me? will it make me an athiest too?

Alhumdulillah, i'm glad to say that it only reaffirmed my faith :) if it was a test by ALLAH, i guess i passed.

but i guess i should be honest and tell you that i also made a discovery in 2003 and that did not make me an athiest per se, but it definitely planted a seed of doubt in my heart. i was going through a very hard time personally, reall the abyss of my world and it broke me....i asked myself, is there really an ALLAH, everybody says Islam is true but then everybody say alot of stuff thats not true so what about Islam...just because millions of ppl follow it is the proof of its authenticity? basically i just aksed myself and went round and round.....is there really an ALLAH? really? or we have just made it up so we could satisfy ourselves after losing that ALLAH didnt intend it for us?

after few weeks the answer came to me. and i pray to ALLAH k that answer come to you too. :) i will not tell you what that answer was. it is not scientific ;) but then again, Islam is superior to science...I dont need a scientist to tell me that the world was created from anti-matter...my ALLAH has already told me that 1431 years ago.

Science is a knowledge that ALLAH blessed the humankind with. it affirms what Quran says....Islam doesnt need science to prove itself right. Science needs Islam to further satisfies its search. Al-Bairuni, muslim scientist discovered, that earth was sphereical in shape in late 10th century,....if modern scientist were Muslims, it hadnt taken them till Columbus,in 17th century to prove what Quran said about spehere-shaped earth in 1431 years ago.

I pray to ALLAH that HE guide you to the right path and convert you back to Islam, (i.e., if you were a Muslim before, if not, then to bless you with Islam now).

Peace!

Unknown said...

First of all, this guy wrote that " after wiping my bottom with the sheets of surat Albaqara (Cow chapter) when I ran out of paper toilet (I really did that. I admit that the quality of the paper is really good)" No arab nor middle eastern will wipe his bottom, they wash the ass after their done business you western liar. I am ex atheist and now muslim al hamdullilla, (prase to be ALLAH), guys like you comes and go, but the word of Allah will stay.