Science and civilization
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Science and civilization

Muslim sciences should not be viewed at merely as a forerunner to modern science but as an alternative

Post by on Wednesday, December 8, 2021

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The pursuit of knowledge within the historic civilization of Islam was never segmented or departmentalized like that of the West. Its religious worldview enabled Muslims to develop many sciences which exerted significant influence on Western science without disrupting the established order. Thus a scholar like Ibn Sina could achieve distinction equally as a physician and a philosopher. A monarch like Nasir-ud-din Tusi could also be the leading mathematician of his day and also the author of a classic on Shi'ah theology and a treatise on mysticism. His, student, Qubt ud-din Shirazi could be the first in the history of science to correctly explain the cause of the rainbow and then write a celebrated work on theology and mysticism. AI-Biruni, perhaps the most brilliant of all the Muslim scientists, also achieved equal renown as a mathematician, an astronomer, an explorer, a historian and through his exhaustive, accurate and objective study of the Hindus of India, an anthropologist as well.

 

Ibn Khaldun, whose Muqaddimah won him acclaim in both East and West as the founder of the science of Sociology and historical philosophy, was also an eminent statesman, diplomat and judge. The ideal man of learning in Islamic culture was not the specialist but the Hakim or wise-man who encompasses within himself all the intellectual qualifications of the sage, scholar, philosopher, saint, medical healer and spiritual guide. If he happens to be a student, a diplomat, a traveler, a warrior or a wise merchant also, that too confirms to the Muslim concept of the ideal man for he is traditionally an itinerant person. The Hakim seldom chose to specialize for then he would sacrifice knowledge in its total aspect. Although considerable progress in science, medicine and technology was achieved without which civilization could not exist, and experimentation in the research laboratory did take place, originality, innovations and change were never upheld as intrinsic virtues.

 

The ideal of Islamic culture was not mechanical evolutionary progress but the permanent, immutable, transcendental, divinely-revealed moral, theological and spiritual values of the Quran and Sunnah. For this reason, a secularized concept of the natural environment could never take root in the East as it did in the West. Creation could never be considered by learned Muslims as a specialized, segmented object of study isolated from all other branches of knowledge without any reference to the Creator. This is why it is unfair and misleading to judge the achievements of Muslim scientists according to the standards of present day science. Muslim sciences should not be viewed by the scholars as a mere forerunner of modern science but as an alternative. The contemporary science of the West and the sciences developed by the Muslims are totally different and conflict with each other in aims and ideals.

No single aspect of a culture, including science and technology, can be regarded objectively as "neutral" but rather they are totally dependent upon the set of ideals and values cherished by its members. That is why it is impossible to think that the concrete scientific achievements of Western civilization have no relevance to its basic intellectual character. If the roots of the tree are rotten, then the tree is rotten; therefore all its fruits are rotten.

 

(The writer has done PG in Mass Communication and is a Columnist)

 

 

Box: The ideal of Islamic culture was not mechanical evolutionary progress but the permanent, immutable, transcendental, divinely-revealed moral, theological and spiritual values of the Quran and Sunnah. For this reason, a secularized concept of the natural environment could never take root in the East as it did in the West

 

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