And These Are The Signs - cis-ca.org · Ibn Sina—Al-Biruni Correspondence ... ethical and moral questions which emerge through the use of this research ... ontology and natural

Islam & Science Volume 1 June 2003 Number 1

Contents

EDITORIAL Shadhrah 1 .....................................................................................3

ARTICLES Islam, Science and Muslims A Conversation with Seyyed Hossein Nasr ..........................................5

Reformulating a Comprehensive Relationship Between Religion and Science: An Islamic Perspective Osman Bakar ..................................................................................29

Does Science Offer Evidence of a Transcendent Reality and Purpose? Mehdi Golshani ...............................................................................45

Between Physics and Metaphysics: Mulla Çadra on Nature and Motion Ibrahim Kalin .................................................................................59

Ibn Sina—Al-Biruni Correspondence Translated by Rafik Berjak and Muzaffar Iqbal..................................91

Holisitic Approach to Scientific Traditions Alparslan Açıkgenç ..........................................................................99

Islam, Rationality and Science

Islam & Science, Vol. 1 (June 2003) No. 1 © 2003 by the Center for Islam and Science.

ISSN 1703-7603 Islam and Science (Print ed.)

ISSN 1703-762X Islam and Science (Online ed.) 1

2 • Islam & Science • Vol. 1 (June 2003) No. 1

Mohammad Hashim Kamali .............................................................115

REVIEW World-Maps for Finding the Direction and Distance to Mecca: Innovation and Tradition in Islamic Science by David King Muzaffar Iqbal ................................................................................135

OBITUARY Remembering Muhammad Hamidullah Mahmud Rifat Kademoğlu ...............................................................143

THE END MATTERS Roshdi Rashed.................................................................................153

Shadhrah 1 ١ ةشذر

B

lood, oil, and water flow. Science studies these diverse liquids; its discoveries are then used to develop technologies that use these liquids to foster life or eliminate it.

All religious traditions view blood, oil and water from their own unique perspectives and build belief systems, ideas, and concepts which change these materials into symbols, making it possible for us to transcend the physical realm. Thus transfixed between the physical and the non-physical realms, blood, oil and water assume new meanings, now accentuated by a war that has desecrated these veritable representatives of profound mysteries in a manner and at a scale that has brought humanity to a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions.

As this inaugural issue of Islam & Science goes to press, this menacing catastrophe looms large in the foreground: dreadful images and sounds, originating in the battlefields located in ancient centers of civilization, are spreading to all parts of the world. Techniques used in the making of these images, weapons being used in the war and the way news is reaching millions of human beings are all products of technologies that did not exist a decade ago.

Dehumanized and made abstract through technologically generated images, the human suffering caused by lethal weapons is being depicted as if it were merely a computer simulation, as if men, women and children who were walking on Abu Talib Street in Baghdad a day ago and who have now been charred beyond recognition were not real human beings with feelings, desires and aspirations, but merely caricatures designed by a computer graphics program. This callous attempt to subtract the human element from the tragedy is only possible because there exists a fundamental disconnect between contemporary science, technologies produced through its application and values which define humanity as a distinct species capable of establishing an inalienable bond with the transcendental reality. In the absence of such a linkage with the transcendent, science and its products have become demonic tools which




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are being used to plunge humanity into an abyss, the like of which has never before been witnessed.

This chasm, that runs through the entire fabric of contemporary scientific enterprise, is observable at the social plane in an eerie silence that characterizes the response of the scientific community toward a war in which the lethal weapons being used are products of research carried out by scientists who take no responsibility in the death and destruction caused by their research. The short-lived activism of the scientific community which had opened a small window of hope after the horrific events of World War II is dead. It has left us nothing but a few axioms and reflections by a handful of leading scientists who felt pangs of guilt and remorse.

Since World War II, science has marched from one summit to another. It has also been a period during which the scientific community has fallen deeper and deeper into an immoral acquiescence to the demands of politicians and empire builders, without taking any responsibility for its deeds, as if the handiwork accomplished in the laboratory had no connection with real life. Throughout this period, while new connections were being established between the laboratory and the market, helping science find monetary resources it needed to flourish, it was simultaneously being robbed of all values, by stripping the scientific community of its essential humanness which alone can keep it connected with the larger body of humanity. This disconnect between a scientist’s research and the ethical and moral questions which emerge through the use of this research has now reached such terrible proportions that even the annihilation of thousands of human lives through weapons created by the use of scientific and technological discoveries and inventions has produced no response among the scientific community, as if it lives on another planet.

As we watch the descent of the human race into an abysmal state in which no one is willing to take responsibility for unleashing the destructive power of new inventions and discoveries, this appalling silence of the scientific community has itself become a solitary cry in the wilderness, calling out for a reflective reexamination of the role scientists are playing in the wanton destruction of our humanness. Muharram 28, 1424/ March 31, 2003

ISLAM, SCIENCE AND MUSLIMS A Conversation with Seyyed Hossein Nasr

The understanding of the relationship between Islam and science is intimately connected with many foundational issues. In this wide-ranging conversation Seyyed Hossein Nasr shares his ideas, hopes and aspirations for the Islamic polity. How can the Muslim world successfully come to terms with challenges posed by a science and technology-driven era without losing the Islamic characteristics of its civilization? What are the ways to revive the Islamic tradition of learning? How can Muslims living in the West contribute toward this revival? Keywords: Islamic intellectual tradition; spiritual ambience; Islamic civilization; critique of modern science and technology; authentic madrasah system; revival of Islamic tradition of learning; cosmology; Faustian science; origins.

Iqbal: For more than two centuries, Muslims have faced a dilemma which seems to be insurmountable: in a world driven by science and technology produced by the West, how can the Muslim world cope with numerous problems requiring scientific and technological expertise without destroying the Islamic characteristics of its civilization? The answer suggested by the nineteenth century reformers was to import Western science and technology, without importing the value-system and the worldview that characterizes the modern West. Their premise was based on the notion that science and technology are value-free. On the other hand, you have always emphasized the need to ensure the preservation of the “Islamic space”—that unique aspect of Islamic civilization that is reflected

Osman Bakar is Professor, Malaysia Chair of Islam in Southeast Asia, Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington DC 20057, USA; email: [email protected].




REFORMULATING A COMPREHENSIVE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE: AN ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE

Osman Bakar

Formulation of the relationship between Islam and science has been confused because of misuse and misunderstanding of key terms and their precise context. Which Islam? Which science? If we are aiming at a science molded in the crucible of Islam, we need to approach science as a theoretical construct with four components: a body of knowledge, basic premises, methods of study and goals, all of which must be fully informed by the domain of iman and understood at the level of ihsan. This paper establishes a philosophical framework for the harmonious relationship between epistemological dimensions of science and the Islamic worldview as well as between ethical and societal dimensions of science and Sharicah. Keywords: Islam; science; context; normative teachings; theoretical structure; hierarchy of values; conceptual goals; epistemological; ethical; practical application; holistic; Sharicah.

Introduction

This paper has been written in response to a specific question which has two facets: What is the best way to formulate the relationship between Islam and science? How does this methodology constrain/explore the discourse from an Islamic perspective? In attempting to provide a clear and fairly

Osman Bakar is Professor, Malaysia Chair of Islam in Southeast Asia, Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington DC 20057, USA; email: [email protected].




DOES SCIENCE OFFER EVIDENCE OF A TRANSCENDENT REALITY AND PURPOSE?

Mehdi Golshani

In this paper, we elaborate on several crucial theological problems dealing with the role of science in providing some evidence for the existence of God and purpose in nature. It has become fashionable to eliminate notions of purpose and goal for the universe. Even many believing scientists ignore teleological considerations in their scientific work. In the Qurbanic view, however, God is the Creator and the Sustainer of the universe. He has created everything in measure and has decreed for it telos. In our view, modern science does offer some clues to the teleological aspects of our universe, as recent debates on anthropic principle suggest. Furthermore, some inferences from science can be used as a premise to construct philosophical arguments for the existence of God. Two theories have generated heated discussions about this matter: the theory of Big Bang and the Darwinian theory of evolution. We believe that empirical science can give us only a cognition of the works of God, but the deduction of God from His works is a matter of intellection or intuition. Keywords: Theological problems; teleology; Qurbanic view of cosmos; modern science; anthropic principle; arguments from design; telos; Qurbanic epistemology.

Mehdi Golshani is Professor of Physics, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran and Director, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Vali Asr Ave, P. O. Box 14155-1871, Tehran, Iran; Email: [email protected]. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Science and the Spiritual Quest Conference (Berkeley, June 1998). The author is grateful to the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences, Berkeley, for permission to publish the paper elsewhere.




BETWEEN PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS: MULLA SADRA ON NATURE AND MOTION

Ibrahim Kalin

Mulla Sadra’s concept of nature and substantial motion treats many aspects of traditional philosophy and cosmology in a new light. By allowing change in the category of substance (jawhar), Sadra goes beyond the Aristotelian framework followed by the Peripatetics and Suhrawardi, turning substance into a ‘structure of events’ and motion into a ‘process of change’. Sadra’s reworking of classical cosmology through his elaborate ontology and natural philosophy leads to a new vocabulary of ‘relations’ and fluid structures as opposed to ‘things’ and solidified entities. In his attempt to make change an intrinsic quality of the substantial transformation of things, Sadra posits nature (tabicah) as the principle of both change and permanence, thus granting it relative autonomy as a self-subsisting reality. What underlies Sadra’s considerations of change and nature, however, is his concept of being (al-wujud) and its modalities. Change as a mode of being and the de-solidification of the physical world goes beyond locomotive and positional movement, and underscores the dynamism of the world-picture envisaged by Sadra’s gradational ontology. Keywords: Sadra; nature; change; substance; ontology; being; actuality; potentiality; matter; permanence; form; motion/movement.

Mulla Sadra’s concept of substantial motion (al-harakat al-jawhariyyah) represents a major departure from the Peripatetic concept of change, and

Ibrahim Kalin is Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross, 1 College Street, P.O. Box 78A, Worcester, MA 01610, USA; Email: [email protected].




IBN SÅNÁ—AL-BÅRÃNÅ CORRESPONDENCE

Translated by Rafik Berjak and Muzaffar Iqbal

In this first installment of the translation of the correspondence between Ibn Sina and al-Biruni, al-Asbilah wabl-Ajwibah, Ibn Sina responds to the first question posed to him by al-Biruni who criticizes reasons given by Aristotle for denying levity or gravity to the celestial spheres and the Aristotelian notion of circular motion being an innate property of the heavenly bodies. Keywords: Ibn Sina-al-Biruni correspondence; criticism of Aristotelian natural philosophy; De Caelo; levity and gravity; heavenly bodies, circular motion; al-Macsumi; celestial bodies; Islamic scientific tradition.

Translators’ Introduction

Writing from Khwarazm, the modern Khiva and ancient Chorasmia, Abu Rayhan Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Biruni (362-442/973-1050) posed eighteen questions to Abu cAli al-Husayn b. cAbd Allah ibn Sina (370-428/980-1037). Ten questions were related to various concepts and ideas in Artistotle’s al-Samab wabl-cAlam (De Caelo).

Ibn Sina responded, answering each question one by one in his characteristic manner. Not satisfied by some of the answers, al-Biruni wrote back, commenting on the first eight answers from the first set and on the seven from the second. This time, the response came from Abu Sacid Ahmad ibn cAli al-Macsumi, whose honorific title, Faqih, is indicative of his high status among the students of Ibn Sina. He wrote on behalf of his master, who was the most representative scholar of Islamic Peripatetic natural philosophy.

Rafik Berjak is a scholar of Arabic language and literature; 9120152A Ave, Edmonton, AB T5E 5W1, Canada; Email: [email protected]. Muzaffar Iqbal is President, Center for Islam and Science, 349-52252 Range Road 215, Sherwood Park, AB T8E 1B7 Canada; Email: [email protected].




HOLISITIC APPROACH TO SCIENTIFIC TRADITIONS

Alparslan Açıkgenç

There are at least two perspectives which must be taken into consideration when evaluating a scientific tradition; epistemological, because it is the result of an activity of acquiring knowledge, and sociological, because as a tradition it is the outcome of a community of scholars actively involved in acquiring that knowledge. If both of these perspectives are held together in all their aspects, then we shall have a holistic approach in evaluating a scientific tradition. Unfortunately, most explanations offered for the decline of science in the Muslim world neglect both of these perspectives. In this paper I attempt to explain from these perspectives that Islam has a viable relationship with science and secondly, offer my view concerning how these two perspectives solve the problem of revival of science in the Muslim world. Keywords: Islam and science; sociology of science; epistemology of science; scientific community; scientific tradition; science and religion; scientific progress; scientific process; worldview; holistic approach; contextual causes.

Introduction

A perspective is the position of an investigator who views the subject under investigation from that particular position. As human beings we cannot be “perspectiveless”. Since it is also our perspective that provides us with a view to look at things and the fact that we cannot be “perspectiveless”, whatever activity we do, we will necessarily put it within that perspective. If our activity is scientific, for example, it will be from our

Alparslan Açıkgenç is Professor of Philosophy, Fatih University, Buyukcekmece 34500 Istanbul, Turkey; Email: [email protected]




ISLAM, RATIONALITY AND SCIENCE

Mohammad Hashim Kamali

The debate over the compatibility of Islam and science still continues to invoke responses from basically two opposite camps: those who reject outright the prospect and feasibility of a compromise between religion and science, and those who see a compromise as not only reasonable but necessary if an equilibrium of values were to be kept in perspective. While identifying the basic points of tension between these two positions, this essay attempts to provide a survey and an analysis of basic Qurbanic evidence on relevant issues. An attempt is also made to present a round up of modern opinion in Muslim scholarly circles on the various aspects of the debate. The basic hypothesis maintained here is that the Qurbanic epistemology is inclusive not only of traditional knowledge but also of scientific knowledge. Keywords: Epistemology; metaphysics; experimentation; reason; secularism; induction; education; philosophy; positivism; revelation; hearing; sight; intuition; imitation; dictatorship; modernity; the West.

Introductory Remarks

The Islamic concept of knowledge encompasses transcendental knowledge as well as knowledge that is based on sense perception and observation. Islam also lays emphasis on beneficial knowledge that advances human welfare and seeks to utilize the resources of the universe for sound and beneficial purposes. The Qurbanic doctrine of vicegerency (khilafah) also places on Man, as a trustee and custodian of the earth, the responsibility to build the earth and utilize its resources with a sense of justice to oneself, one’s fellow humans, the environment and other inhabitants of the earth. Scientific observation, experimental knowledge

Mohammad Hashim Kamali is Professor of Islamic Law, Faculty of Law, International Islamic University, Jalan Gombak, 53100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Email: [email protected]




REVIEW David A. King (1999), World-Maps for Finding the Direction and Distance to

Mecca: Innovation and Tradition in Islamic Science, Brill/Al-Furqan, Leiden/London, xxix+638 pp, HB, ISBN 90 04 11367 3

If one finds a microchip in a tomb in a pyramid then either some modern put it there or we should revise our opinions of the technological achievements of the ancient Egyptians…But perhaps the idea behind the microchip is simpler than most people would think. (xiii)

These tantalizing opening lines of a book, whose somewhat misleading and euphemistic title and short “Foreword” suggest that it is a book about the discovery of two scientific instruments (simply called A and B) previously unknown to the historians of science, leads us directly into the heart of a fascinating work by one of the most respected historians of Islamic scientific tradition. But the writing of this work seems to have progressed through spurts of creative insights, meticulous rechecking of facts, figures, data, and, sadly, through numerous after-thoughts. Thus, the work, though coherent in its parts and concise in its details, suffers from an internal incoherence, as if the paint has been applied on unprepared walls, as if the growth of the book has been allowed to happen without a general plan. But in spite of this, the book is a fascinating account of two creative processes which intersect each other at various levels and planes throughout the book: the one dealing with the mysterious instruments and the other providing insights into the working of a creative and analytical mind; both processes provide an opportunity to know more intimately the person behind the book whose solitary labor of love and decades of research have blunted none of the human qualities that one expects from a scholar studying Islamic tradition—a tradition which is deeply entrenched and rooted in genuine human relationships.

There is something direct, spontaneous and richly human in David King’s work. Whether it is the description of seminars at the Institute for




O B I T U A R Y

REMEMBERING MUHAMMAD HAMIDULLAH

Mahmud Rifat Kademoğlu

It was a damp fall morning in Paris. The year was 1983. I had wandered through the streets for almost an hour and had finally found the apartment where Professor Muhammad Hamidullah lived a solitary life. I knocked at the door but there was no answer. I waited for a while and knocked again. When no answer came, I left a note and returned to my hotel. Later that day, when I came back to my hotel after a long stroll, I found a small note on the door of my room: “I am sorry to have missed you. I was in my apartment, but my hearing is not good anymore. Please accept my apologies. Hamidullah.”

I was touched by the humility of tone and by the fact that the old Professor had taken the trouble to come to my hotel and leave the message; we had never met before and he did not even know me. I went back to his apartment and had a memorable meeting. He was as lucid in his thoughts as in his books and his grasp of contemporary realities of the Muslim world was amazing.

On Tuesday, Shawwal 13, 1423/December 17, 2002, the 94-year-old Professor Hamidullah awoke in Jacksonville, Florida, USA, in the house of his brother’s grand-daughter, Sadida, said his Fajr prayer, had breakfast, and after a while went back to sleep, never to awaken again in this life. He was laid to rest in the Muslim cemetery in Jacksonville on December 19, 2002 at about 1:30 pm. Funeral prayer was led by his long-time friend Dr. Yusuf Ziya Kavakçı, an eminent Turkish scholar and Imam of Islamic Association of North Texas; about 75 people attended his burial.

His distinguished academic career, numerous books and articles testify to a life devoted to scholarship in the grand tradition of his ancestors. He discovered a very old hadith manuscript in a Damascus library and published it in a

Mahmud Rifat Kademoğlu, Bahcelievler Mah. Pelin Sok., Merve Apartment Number 16/5 81221, Cengelkoy/Uskudar, Istanbul, Turkey; Email: [email protected].




What was Islamic in the Islamic scientific tradition?

Science is universal. This is not a postulate, but a basic feature which defines scientific knowledge itself. A scientific result, of whatever kind, can only be fully communicable and provable by stringent arguments. But this epistemic universality is not at all separate from the living history of human beings and from institutions. That is to say that this universality is not an immediate given of the consciousness, but rather reveals itself through a lengthy and bold conceptual process. This work organizes itself along the lines of scientific traditions in which human beings and institutions are active. But these people and these institutions arise from a value-based system.

Islam provides a whole set of fundamental values. Among those values, one finds the uniqueness of truth, the lack of contradiction between revelation and reason, and thus between the two types of knowledge that they produce, the equality of human beings in jure before the truth and in the search for it, the pursuit of knowledge as a means to strengthen one’s faith and as a form of prayer, the obligation to communicate knowledge and not to keep it to oneself, etc. These values, among others, have without the least doubt pushed forth research and have fostered creation of open scientific communities. Furthermore, these values provide the framework to examine the formation of scientific communities in classical Islam—communities which had multiplicity of backgrounds and religions. This is quite a distinctive feature of these communities when compared to their contemporaries.

Roshdi Rashed is Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France; 8 allée du Val de Bièvre, 92340 Bourg la Reine, Paris, France; Email: [email protected].




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slam & Science e 1 December 2003 Number 2

on in the Global Context CLAYTON ology in the Firing Line of Science: onstructive Theological Response to the Sciences of Emergence

RICHARDSON A FAR IQBAL nces, Religions and Societies: ormulating the Discourse in the Global Context

OMANUL HAQ lections on Science in the Islamic World: t and Present

he End Matters ook Reviews

n Sina—Al-Biruni Correspondence

Science posed three questions to eight leading s:

What is the best way to formulate the relationship between Islam and science? How does this formulation constrain the discourse? At the most practical level, how can the Muslim world come to terms with those demands of the twenty-first century which require science and technology without

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losing its spiritual foundations?

• How can the Muslim world reinvigorate its intellectual tradition of which the Islamic scientific tradition was but one aspect?

DIMITRI DUTAS • AZIZAN BAHARUDDIN

and OTHERS

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And These Are The Signs - cis-ca.org · Ibn Sina—Al-Biruni Correspondence ... ethical and moral questions which emerge through the use of this research ... ontology and natural