A Muslim’s Lament Regarding Science

October 9th, 2007 gier Posted in Mentera Moden | 7 Comments »

There is an article on the August issue Physics Today, titled “Science and the Islamic world—The quest for rapprochement” that I think is a must read for any right thinking Muslim. The writer is the chair and professor in the department of physics at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan. In the article, he argued that science in the Muslim world essentially collapsed after the 13th century, after many centuries prior in making major advances.

He attributed this fall partly to the rise of fundamental Islam, which won the conflict against rationalist and liberal Islamic factions. That’s a weak simplification of the author’s reasoning on my part, obviously, but that’s the gist of it.

Then, using the OIC countries as a representation of the Muslim world, he proceeded to try and measure Muslim scientific progress, using four metrics,

• The quantity of scientific output, weighted by some reasonable measure of relevance and importance;
• The role played by science and technology in the national economies, funding for S&T, and the size of the national scientific enterprises;
• The extent and quality of higher education; and
• The degree to which science is present or absent in popular culture.

He then expanded on each of the four metrics.

Malaysia, being an OIC country, was obviously included in his study, and compared to other Muslim countries, we seemed to have come out rather okay. See Table 1 and Table 2 in the article, for a comparison of Malaysia against other countries. Table 1 shows “The seven most scientifically productive Islamic countries as of early 2007, compared against a selection of other countries” and Table 2 shows “High-technology exports as a percentage of total manufactured exports”.

It was interesting to see how Malaysia is looked at by outside eyes as a Muslim country. Consider the following observation by the author (emphasis mine):

Malaysia – a rather atypical Muslim country with a 40% non-Muslim minority – is much smaller than neighboring Indonesia but is nevertheless more productive.

and regarding the results in Table 2:

The anomalous position of Malaysia in table 2 has its explanation in the large direct investment made by multinational companies and in having trading partners that are overwhelmingly non-OIC countries.

I’m cherry-picking, I know, but the conclusion that I get from the above, plus other little factoids within the article is that, Malaysia is a bit of a strong performer within the OIC countries when it comes to science, though compared with the more developed world, we’re still laggards. Further, I would posit that we achieved this superstar (in our own Muslim backyard) status not because we’re a Muslim country, but because we are an atypical one.

In other words, it is likely that the multi-cultural and multi-religious nature of Malaysia that has made us rather better than the more homogeneous Muslim nations. It is because we have Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Animists, ekcetera (maybe the odd Jew or two?). It is because we are not a monoculture.

Right … anyway.

Further along the article, the author notes that in his opinion, science and religion remain at odds with one another. Aside from examples given regarding other religions, he had this to say about Muslims:

In the Islamic world, opposition to science in the public arena takes additional forms. Antiscience materials have an immense presence on the internet, with thousands of elaborately designed Islamic websites, some with view counters running into the hundreds of thousands. A typical and frequently visited one has the following banner: “Recently discovered astounding scientific facts, accurately described in the Muslim Holy Book and by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) 14 centuries ago.” Here one will find that everything from quantum mechanics to black holes and genes was anticipated 1400 years ago.

Science, in the view of fundamentalists, is principally seen as valuable for establishing yet more proofs of God, proving the truth of Islam and the Qur’an, and showing that modern science would have been impossible but for Muslim discoveries. Antiquity alone seems to matter. One gets the impression that history’s clock broke down somewhere during the 14th century and that plans for repair are, at best, vague. In that all-too-prevalent view, science is not about critical thought and awareness, creative uncertainties, or ceaseless explorations. Missing are websites or discussion groups dealing with the philosophical implications from the Islamic point of view of the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, chaos theory, superstrings, stem cells, and other contemporary science issues.

There were so many points of resonance in the article, since I have always thought that Islam as it is practised today is too steeped in rituals and mysticism. To see that there are others with the same point of view is … a relief, actually.

Professor Hoodbhoy then continues to suggest ways in which Islam and modern science can be reconciled. He wrote:

Science can prosper among Muslims once again, but only with a willingness to accept certain basic philosophical and attitudinal changes—a Weltanschauung that shrugs off the dead hand of tradition, rejects fatalism and absolute belief in authority, accepts the legitimacy of temporal laws, values intellectual rigor and scientific honesty, and respects cultural and personal freedoms. The struggle to usher in science will have to go side-by-side with a much wider campaign to elbow out rigid orthodoxy and bring in modern thought, arts, philosophy, democracy, and pluralism.

He advocates that religion not be state enforced, instead leaving it as a matter of choice for the individual. He ends by writing:

This leaves secular humanism, based on common sense and the principles of logic and reason, as our only reasonable choice for governance and progress. Being scientists, we understand this easily. The task is to persuade those who do not.

It must be said that the arguments he gave out are quite persuasive — if you’re already in the same choir. Appealing to the more rigid practitioners of Islam may be a tad bit more difficult. After all, there were several pressure points that might make them refuse to listen: secular humanism, pluralism, elbowing out rigid orthodoxy, and the separation of mysticism from scientific research — i.e. use reasoning first, and not automatically ascribe everything to divine revelation.

The pdf of the article can also be downloaded on the site.