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Vancouver Sun wrote:RELIGION
THE LESSON IN THE FATE OF ISLAMIC SCIENCE
Creationists sound very much like a 12th- century Muslim who cried ‘ heresy’ and set back a civilization 500 years
Former Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali might be controversial, but a statement she made in a recent Vancouver Sun profile was anything but.
“ Judaism and Christianity have gone through a long history of enlightenment and reflection,” she said, “ but the Islam we see today tends toward the seventh century.” Now, this is hardly an original sentiment, as we regularly hear that Islam is an immature, backward religion, desperately in need of reformation or enlightenment.
And there is much evidence to support this contention, from the Muslim Brotherhood’s 1981 call to end scientific education, to the proliferation of madrassas that emphasize only one R — religion — thereby leaving their students illiterate and innumerate, to the entire Islamic world’s rejection of science and loving embrace of creationism and intelligent design.
Despite this evidence, I want to ask some disquieting questions: What if Islam is not 1,000 years behind the West, but 1,000 years ahead? What if it took us until the turn of the third millennium to arrive at the place Islam occupied at the turn of the second?
There is also much evidence for this proposition. From roughly AD 700- 1200, while the European world was feeling its way through the Dark Ages, the Islamic world was in the midst of a Golden Age, a period of scientific and cultural innovation not seen since the days of the ancient Greeks.
In fact, the Greek philosophical and scientific texts that would later prove so influential to Christianity and the West were preserved and translated by Muslims. When books were few and far between in the West, the Muslims amassed a library of some 500,000 volumes, and then added thousands more of their own works.
During this time, tremendous advances were made in mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, geography and optics. Jabir Ibn Haiyan ( known as Geber in the West) became the father of chemistry, while Mohammed al- Khawarizmi ( Alghorismus) developed algebra in his Al- Jabr wa- al- Muqabilah. Needless to say, he’s also responsible for giving us the term “ algorithm.”
Abul Wafa made enormous contributions to trigonometry, and one of the most famous Muslim scientists, Ibn Sina ( Avicenna), “ the doctors of doctors,” became arguably the most important physician since Hippocrates.
Many historians have commented that the West would never have enjoyed an Enlightenment or a Renaissance had it not been for the work of Islamic scientists, and their influence is still evident today, with terms like alchemy, alkali, almanac, cipher, elixir, nadir and zenith populating our sciences. Many stars also carry Arabic names, in honour of those who discovered them.
During the Golden Age, the Caliphs established the House of Wisdom — a kind of Islamic Plato’s Academy — in Baghdad, which became the intellectual centre of the world. And Muslims also built sophisticated hospitals and universities, often arising out of mosques, that would provide models for the West.
Yet somehow, somewhere, a disaster occurred, a catastrophe that would return Islam to the seventh century, erasing hundreds of years of progress. Exactly what happened is a matter of intense debate, but several factors leading to the fall of Islamic science have been identified.
Perhaps most important were the Mongol invasion, the Crusades and colonialism. Many of the books in the impressive Islamic libraries were burned, and Muslims were often forbidden from studying.
While one can’t overestimate the impact of these events, many historians also suggest that Islam itself played a role in the decline of Islamic science.
Unlike many modern religions, including modern Islam, early Islam was a fervent supporter of scientific research. Much early research was conducted, not despite religious belief, but because if it, because using reason to probe the mysteries of the universe was a way of glorifying God.
Early Muslims arrived at this belief thanks largely to the teachings of the Koran and the Prophet Mohammed, but an early Islamic school known as the Mutazalites was also instrumental in promoting the using of reason.
Two hundred years later, a school known as the Asharites arose, which, according to historian Colin Ronan, “ condemned the overzealous use of reason and its ‘ adulteration’ of religious dogma.”
In particular, a 12th- century Asharite known as Abu Hamid al- Ghazzali condemned the very notion of scientific laws because such laws would amount to tying God’s hands.
In a book called the Incoherence of the Philosophers, in which he accuses scientists of heresy, al- Ghazzali provides an example: When we place a piece of cotton in fire, it doesn’t burn because of the fire, but because of God. God is the agent of the burning, not the fire, which is merely an involuntary agent, a “ dead body.”
Although it’s an overstatement to lay all the blame, as many historians do, for the fall of Islamic science at the feet of alGhazzali, The Incoherence of the Philosophers did have enormous impact in the Islamic world, and Asharite philosophy captured the imagination of Muslims.
Some Muslims dissented from al- Ghazzali’s view, including the famed Ibn Rushd ( Averroes), who attacked al- Ghazzali in The Incoherence of Incoherence, but failed to have a significant impact at the time. Islamic science therefore began a steep decline, and ended with the Crusades and colonialism.
If we return to the present day, we can see that Islam really was 1,000 years ahead of the West, that we are now exactly where Islam was a millennium ago. Science has triumphed in the West but, as in the early Islamic world, it is also facing significant attacks from those who claim it adulterates religion.
Creationists and intelligent design advocates — who like al- Ghazzali, want scientists to attribute effects to intelligent causes ( God), and who like the Asharites, condemn “ materialist” science — continue to represent a threat to science.
Indeed, while the theory of evolution is the flashpoint, the goal of the creationists has never been as modest as eliminating Darwinism.
According to what’s known as the “ wedge” strategy, created by intelligent design godfather Phillip Johnson, the goal is nothing less than overthrowing all of science as we know it, and replacing it with what creationists call “ theistic science,” which isn’t science at all.
Creationists therefore seem very much like latter day Asharites, and Phillip Johnson, like our very own Abu al- Ghazzali. And Islamic history reads like a science fiction novel, one where the author creates a dystopic future society to warn us about where our present society is heading.
For whether we like it or not, Islam’s past really is our present, and if we don’t realize that, Islam’s present could well become our future.
Article from Vancouver Sun (C5) Saturday, March 03, 2007 by Peter McKnight
pmcknight@ png. canwest. Com
. I'm also not convinced the parallel with the modern world works - last I heard the western world wasn't being invaded like that - we're dealing with a very different kettle of fish to the one Islamic civilisation had to deal with.