From: minhaszt@ucbeh.san.uc.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian
Subject: Re: Can science come back to Islam? [Part 3]/Mutazilat v. Ashariyah
Date: 13 Apr 92 21:02:43 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Cincinnati



> If Muslim scientists were capable of such achievements, it is
> legitimate to ask, what caused the demise of Islamic science and the
> consequent colonization of the Muslim world? Was it something
> inherent in Islam? Or was it purely a result of certain historical
> coincidences?
> 
> The rise of the Muslims to the zenith of civilization in a period
> of less than a hundred years and the development of contemporary
> Islamic science was based on Islam's insistence, indeed
> over-insistence, on learning. The Qur'an and the traditions of the
> Prophet Muhammed (p.b.u.h.) are saturated with references to learning,
> education, observation, and the use of reason. The very essence of 
> Islam is summed up in the first verse of the Qur'an revealed to the
> Prophet (p.b.u.h.) on the fateful night of 27th Ramadan, 611:
> 
> 	   Read: In the Name of thy Lord who created,
> 	   created Man of a blood clot.
> 
> 	   Read: And thy Lord is the Most Generous
> 	   Who taught by the Pen
> 	   taught Man, that he knew not. (96:1-5)
> 
> "The Pen" has THE most exulted place in Islam. Some samples of the
> Qur'anic teachings: 
> 
> 	   And they shall say, had we but listened or 
> 	   used reason, we would not be among the inmates
>            of the burning fire. (67:10)
> 
> 	   Are those who have knowledge and those who have
> 	   no knowledge alike? Only the men of understanding
> 	   are mindful. (39:9)
> 
> 	   He causes to grow for you thereby herbage and the
> 	   olives and the palm trees and the grapes and of
> 	   all the fruits; surely there is sign in this for a
> 	   people who reflect. And he has made subservient to
> 	   you the night and the day and the Sun and the Moon,
> 	   and the stars are made subservient by His command;
> 	   surely there are signsin this for a people who 
> 	   ponder. And what he has created for you in the early
> 	   of varied hues; surely there is a sign in this for
> 	   a people who have sense. (16: 11-13)
> 
> 
> The Prophetic traditions supplement these teachings of the Qur'an.
> For example:
> 
> 	   The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the
> 	   blood of the martyr.
> 
> 	   Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave.
> 
> 	   An hour's study of nature is better than a 
> 	   year's adoration.
> 
> 	   To listen to the words of the learned and to instil
> 	   unto others the lessons of science is better than
> 	   religious exercises.
> 
> 	   Acquire knowledge: it enables its possessor to
> 	   distinguish right from wrong; it lights the way 
> 	   to Heaven; it is our friend in the desert, our
> 	   society in solitude, our companion when friendless;
> 	   it guides us to happiness; it sustains us in misery;
> 	   it is an ornament amongst friends and armour against
> 	   enemies.
> 
> The teachings drove many great natural philosophers to their
> accomplishments: For example,
> 
> al-Khawarizmi (d. 850) whose KITAB AL-JABR
> WAL'L MUQABALA laid the foundations of modern algebra;
> 
> al-Battani (d. 928) who measured the solar year as being only
> 24 seconds longer than the currently accepted value;
> 
> al-Khazini (d. 971) whose THE BOOK OF THE BALANCE OF WISDOM
> first introduced the concept of center of gravity;
> 
> ibn Sina (d. 1037) whose CANNONS OF MEDICINE was the standard
> medical text in Europe for 800 years;
> 
> and Jabir ibn Hayyan (d. 815) who introduced scientific method
> into chemistry.
> 
> For them, science was integral to Islam and equivalent to piety.
> Some of the best and most eloquent praises of science ever written
> come from the pens of the Muslim scientists who considered their
> work to be acts of worship; such as the great Andalusion scholar
> Abu Umar Yusuf al-Qurtubi (d. 1071) whose book THE COMPREHENSIVE
> ACCOUNT OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND VIRTUES OF SCIENCE AND OF THE
> PRE-REQUISITES OF TELLING ITS TRUTHS AND OF CARRYING ITS MISSION
> has no contemporary parallel. The same motives led to the
> establishment of al-azhar (c.800), the first university in the world;
> the Shammasiyah observatory (c. 828), the first in the world;
> and the celebrated House of Wisdom (c. 815) of Baghdad.
> 
> Clearly there is nothing in the teachings of Islam that militates
> against learning, against science and against technology!
> 
> 
>                  
> 		 MUTAZILITES versus ASHARITES
> 
> But though Islam exalts the use of reason, it also places reason
> under the control of revelation. In other words, in Islam, the use
> of reason is not divorced  from the ethics and morality of the
> exercise. When the great physician al-Rhazi was asked to make
> poisons he refused saying that while he was quite capable of doing
> so, his profession demanded that he made only those drugs that would
> be  used for curing people and his religion forbade doing anything
> that could possibly harm other members of society. Al-Biruni, most
> exact of scientists insisted that his experimental work was subject
> to the moral principles of Islam; for him revelation was the supreme
> authority. The ethics and morality of Islam are all prevasive;
> theoretical and experimental sciences must both be guided by them.
> Yet it was the excessive use of reason which, ironically led to the
> fall of Islamic science. Revelation in Islam is above reasoning,
> but not above reason. Neither is reason above revelation. This rather
> subtle relationship was overlooked by a movement of Muslim scientists
> and scholars, the Mutazilites (who emerged c. 700) who believed
> that not just the mysteries of nature but also the profundities
> of religious belief could be explained and expressed in terms of 
> human reason. The Mutazilites provoked the emergence of counter-
> movement the Asharites who emerged c. 900 and contested the
> adulterations of religious dogma by over-zealous use of reason and
> condemned BIDAH, or innovation in religious belief. Both sides had
> powerful advocates. The Mutazilites boasted al-Kindi (d. 873),
> al-Firabi (d. 950),ibn-sina (d. 1037) and ibn-Rushd (d. 1198)
> among their ranks. In the Asharites, al-Rhazi (d. 924), al-Ghazali
> (d. 1111) and ibn-Khuldoon (d. 1406) stand out prominently. The
> debate between the Mutazilites and the Asharites spreads over
> several centuries reaching a climax with the publication of
> al-Ghazali's THE INCOHERENCE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS, a remarkably
> articulate defence of the Asharites position, and ibn-Rushd's 
> THE INCOHERENCE OF THE INCOHERENCE, an equally remarkable defence
> of the Mutazilites philosophy. But in the end, the Asharites had
> an edge over the Mutazilites. 
> 
> The Asharite victory had rather serious
> consquences for the Muslim civilization: a new paradigm enveloped
> the Muslim scholars. This paradigm was TAQLID---- the tyrannical
> attitude of passive acceptance. It is worth noting that TAQLID
> was NOT a tenet of the Asharites' philosophy but their success
> over the Mutazilites created an atmosphere for its wide acceptance.
> 
> The initial use of TAQLID was confined to religious areas. The 
> antithesis of TAQLID is IJTIHAD----to exert the utmost effort,
> to struggle, to do ones best to know something. IJTIHAD, after
> the Qur'an and Prophetic traditions, is the third source of Islamic
> law. At the end of the 14th century, when the Muslim civilization
> was recovering from the aftermaths of the Mongol invasion, the
> pious scholars, fearing a massive misuse of IJTIHAD by the 
> unqualified, and consequent deviation from the true teachings of
> Islam, closed the gates of IJTIHAD. This was not achieved by a 
> conference or a meeting, but over a period of several decades the
> learned scholars reached consensus that it was not allowed for any
> one to exercise independent reasoning in matters of religion. As
> Islam does not separate the scared from the profane, it was only
> natural for such an injunction to be generalized. When TAQLID was
> accepted as the dominant paradigm, Islamic science became a matter
> of history.
> 
> The rediscovery of Islamic science in our times is an intellectually
> formidable tas  requiring a sustained effort over several generations.
> While the IFIAS study and the Islamic science summit will undoubtedly
> increase our understanding of Islamic science, it has to be
> appreciated that Islamic science cannot be discovered outside a
> living, dynamic, thriving civilization of Islam. No serious study of 
> Islamic science can be carried out outside the circumference of the
> teachings of Islam. Essentially, the rediscovery of Islamic science
> is the rediscovery of the moral and ethical principles of Islam.
> As such, it is irrevocably linked to the cultural and religious
> awakening of the Muslim people.
> 
> ( TO BE CONTINUED)
> 
> KHALID SHAHZAD
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian