Abstract
Notwithstanding the outstanding contributions of modern sciences, particularly the natural, physical and medical sciences, to the material progress of human life, several Western scholars (Richard Tarnas (The passion of the western mind: Understanding the ideas that have shaped our world view. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993); Bernard E. Rollin (Science and ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Rupert Sheldrake (The science delusion: Freeing the spirit of enquiry. London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2012)) have highlighted several alarming aspects of modern science, which cause grave concern. Public confidence in the sciences based on naturalistic, empiricist or agnostic presuppositions to provide holistic and sustainable solutions to the global ecological, economic and human crises has been seriously eroded. The way forward for these concerned Western thinkers is seen in the reunification of science and philosophy, science and ethics and science and spiritual worldviews. We believe that if scientists, technologists, technocrats and scientific organisations and institutions continue to view natural phenomena from naturalist, positivist, materialist, empiricist, modernist, agnostic or atheistic philosophical presuppositions – which are different branches of the secular worldview – then modern science will continue to contribute to the grave crises of modern civilisation. As Muslim Believers, we subscribe to the perspective of reality, nature and life based on the doctrine of Tawḥīd (affirmation of the absolute oneness of God as the Creator, Sustainer and Sovereign of all that exists). Such a worldview is what the Noble Qur’an enunciates as the alternative to secular worldviews, and, therefore, it is high time that objective scientific minds and serious scholars, especially Muslim scientists and young science students, undertake the much needed paradigm shift in the study of natural phenomena. We believe that the real solution to the civilisational and planetary crises lies in re-establishing the Tawhidic conception of the Cosmos, Nature and Man as the metaphysical foundation of the natural sciences.
Updated version of the Keynote address delivered at the International Conference on Developing Synergies between Islam and Science and Technology for Mankind’s Benefit, organised by IAIS, Kuala Lumpur on 1 October, 2014.
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Notes
- 1.
For a comprehensive intellectual exposition in English of Tawḥīd and its implications in all aspects of human life and society, see al Faruqi (1982).
- 2.
Q. 2:38, 16:89, 20:47, 123.
- 3.
Q. 43:9.
- 4.
Refer to the historic First World Conference on Muslim Education held in Makkah al-Mukarramah in 1977 in the Conference Book and the Recommendations (Jeddah: King Abdul Aziz University, 1977).
- 5.
Q. 30:7.
- 6.
Q. 17: 85.
- 7.
To understand the full meaning and the attitude of the Ūlū al-Albāb, one needs to refer to classical and modern Arabic commentaries of Q. 3:190–194.
- 8.
Q. 3:189, 4:126, 131–132.
- 9.
Q. 3:83. In explaining this verse, Abul A‘la Maududi said regarding the statement ‘that all things in heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly, submit to Allah’, this means ‘When the whole universe and everything in it follow ‘Islam’ and submit to Allah, what other way of life than Islam do these rejectors, who live in the same universe, seek to follow?’
- 10.
Q. 17:44. In explaining this verse, Abdullah Yusuf Ali says: ‘All Creation, animate and inanimate, sings Allah’s praises and celebrates His glory, – animate, with consciousness, and inanimate, in the evidence which it furnishes of the unity and glory of Allah.’ Human beings may not understand how nature praises Allah the Most Gracious, but they should, as intelligent beings, be doing the same thing as nature in submitting to His will, obeying Him and praising Him. The Holy Qur’an, note 2229, p. 789. See also Q. 24:41–42, 59:24, 62:1, 64:1, 13:13.
- 11.
In Q. 76:3 we read, ‘Verily, We have shown him the way: [and it rests with him] to be either grateful or ungrateful.’ Allah the Most Gracious does not force human beings to be grateful, but He expects them to be grateful to Him for all the bounties – material or spiritual – that He has showered upon mankind. Yet many human beings choose to be ungrateful to Him because they have been deceived by their own egoism, intellectual capabilities and false notions of greatness and independence.
- 12.
This section is based on al-Faruqi and al-Faruqi (1986).
- 13.
We prefer, however, to use the term ‘temporality’ instead of ‘profanity’ in the original text to avoid any negative connotation in the meaning of profanity.
- 14.
Compare this to the statement by Prince Charles that in the West ‘we have tended to ignore or erase its [Islamic civilisation] great relevance to our own history’. (H.R.H Prince of Wales 1993).
- 15.
In The Hidden Debt to Islamic Civilisation, al-Djazairi (2005) wrote: ‘From street lighting to soap, from trigonometry to algebra, from windmills to universities, from nutrition to surgery of the eye, from the paper industry to mass literacy, from the banker’s cheque to religious freedom, Western civilisation owes its emergence to its encounter with the Islamic world.’
- 16.
See Tarnas 1993, pp. 356–365.
- 17.
Prince Charles expressed similar concerns about the materialistic, empiricist and secular Western worldviews in his 2010 address at Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies entitled ‘Islam and the Environment’: ‘The empirical view of the world, which measures it and tests it, has become the only view to believe. A purely mechanistic approach to problems has somehow assumed a position of great authority and this has encouraged the widespread secularisation of society that we see today. I must say, I find this rather baffling. If this is so, why is it that their sense of the sacred has so little bearing on the way science is employed to exploit the natural world in so many damaging ways?’
- 18.
It should be noted that since the last two decades of the twentieth century until today, more and more critical views of concerned and thoughtful Western scholars, scientists and intellectuals have been published regarding pressing global issues and crises. A more ethically oriented and socially responsible international scientific community and tradition are urgently needed to prevent further misuse of scientific expertise.
- 19.
Western thinkers, such as Carolyn Merchant, Theodor Adorno and E. F. Schumacher suggested that the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century changed the focus of science from understanding nature to manipulating nature with power rather than wisdom. Together with the growing impact of secularism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the manipulative outlook succumbed to pragmatism and utilitarianism. With religious or spiritual ethics removed, science and technology became submissive instruments of economic dominance of powerful nations over economically poor and technologically weak nations. In Oxford University’s ‘Islam and Science’, Ibrahim Kalin (2014) analysed the critical views of Muslim scientists and scholars who have voiced their criticisms and concerns regarding the crisis of modern science. In India, the University of Aligarh group, under Zaki Kirmani’s leadership, has also been concerned with secular and agnostic orientations of modern science. Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), the great Islamic poet philosopher of modern times, first expressed anxiety in the early 1930s that modern science, without being infused with spiritual and moral values, would become an instrument of destruction and oppression: ‘This [scientific] knowledge yields physical powers which should be subservient to deen (i.e. Islam). If it is not subservient to deen then it is demonic, pure and simple…It is incumbent for Muslims to Islamize knowledge’ (Ahmad 1962).
- 20.
See Butt (2003).
- 21.
The scientific worldview has been under serious scrutiny in the last few decades by scientists who do not subscribe to philosophical presuppositions of materialism or empiricism. But ‘For more than two hundred years, materialists have promised that science will eventually explain everything in terms of physics and chemistry. Science will prove that living organisms are complex machines, minds are nothing but brain activity and nature is purposeless. Believers are sustained by the faith that scientific discoveries will justify their beliefs. The philosopher of science Karl Popper called this stance ‘promissory notes for discoveries not yet made’. Despite all the achievements of science and technology, materialism is now facing a credibility crunch that was unimaginable in the twentieth century’ Sheldrake (2012, p. 9). See also the works of renowned theoretical physicist, Lee Smolin (2014).
- 22.
See Kincaid et al. (2007).
- 23.
Since publication of the influential book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) by renown American physicist and philosopher of science, Thomas S. Kuhn (1922–1996), the idea that scientific knowledge undergoes periodic ‘paradigm shifts’, has gained wide popularity. (The book has undergone subsequent publications in 1970, 1996 and 2012.) According to him ‘scientific revolutions’ have occurred in the history of science, and this has led to major shifts of the dominant paradigm, which the scientific community decided is the acceptable framework for scientific work at that particular time. As every paradigm is constructed and defined by the consensus of scientists operating within a particular social and cultural context, the element of subjective social, cultural or ideological values in the production of scientific knowledge cannot be ruled out. Kuhn’s analysis of the evolution of scientific views and the popularity of the phrase ‘paradigm shift’, especially in the social sciences, has made more scientists receptive to the need for paradigm changes. Therefore, our comprehension of science should not be based entirely on the belief that there is nothing but absolute ‘objectivity’ in natural or exact sciences; one must also be aware of, and allow for, subjective perspectives. We have to consider that objective conclusions, in some cases, may also be founded upon subjective conditioning, which excludes a different paradigm, worldview, school of thought or theory.
- 24.
‘[S]cience actually is saturated with values […;] values (and value judgements) and obligations (and ought-judgements) inhere in working scientifically…’ Archie J. Bahm (1971), pp. 391–396.
- 25.
‘This does not oblige us, however, to abandon science or objectivity, or to embrace an uneasy relativism. First, science does express a wealth of epistemic values and inevitably incorporates cultural values in practice’. Douglas Allchin (1988).
- 26.
Bernard E. Rollin is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University. See his book, Science and Ethics (Rollin 2006).
- 27.
He said: ‘How, for example, can we scientifically prove (i.e. empirically test) the claim that only the verifiable may be admitted into science? How can we reconcile the claim that science reveals truth about a public, objective, intersubjective world with the claim that access to that world is only through inherently private perceptions. How can we know that others perceive as we do or, indeed, perceive at all? (We can’t even verify the claim that there are other objects.) How can science postulate an event at the beginning of the universe (the Big Bang) that is by definition nonrepeatable, nontestable, and a singularity? How can we know scientifically that there is reality independent of perception? How can we know scientifically that the world wasn’t created three seconds ago, complete with fossils and us with all our memories? How can we verify any judgments about history? How can we reply that we know things best when we reduce them to mathematical physics, rather than stay at the level of sensory qualities? … Answers to the above questions are not verified scientifically. In fact, such answers are presuppositional to scientific activity’. Ibid., p. 27. Rollin showed that ‘at least in psychology, a major change in what counted as scientific legitimacy was driven by values.’ Ibid., p. 29. He said that ‘it has been argued that quantum physics in its current form would never have been possible without the cultural context prevailing in Germany between 1918 and 1927’. Ibid., p. 30. He concluded that ‘many scientists lack a grasp of the way in which cultural factors, values, and even ethics shape the acceptance and rejection of whole fields of study…’. Ibid., p. 29.
- 28.
For a good introduction to the issue of fraud, deception, data falsification and other unethical practices amongst scientists, see Broad and Wade (1982). One reason for occurrences of fraud and deceit amongst contemporary scientists is ‘science and research always function immersed within the surrounding environment. In the modern USA, research scientists are working today within a society where deception, fraud, insincerity, and even outright lying are too often considered useful and clever in advertising, all levels of education, business and commerce, court and legal activities, entertainment, federal and state governments, law enforcement, manufacturing, and, sports. Thus, it would be nothing short of a miracle if some few scientists do not also follow these widespread unethical practices’. ‘Why is it so very hard to eliminate fraud and corruption in scientists?’ http://dr-moornsrs.net/2014/02/20/why-is-it-so-very-hard-to-eliminate-fraud-and-corruption-in-science. Accessed 21/09/2014.
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Hassan, M.K. (2016). The Necessity of Studying the Natural Sciences from the Qur’anic Worldview. In: Kamali, M., Bakar, O., Batchelor, DF., Hashim, R. (eds) Islamic Perspectives on Science and Technology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-778-9_4
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