From: ngrjn@milton.u.washington.edu (V Nagarajan)
Subject: Re: Can science come back to Islam? [Part 3]
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 19:46:35 GMT

In article <1992Apr10.004919.5406@philabs.philips.com> kam@philabs.philips.com (Khalid A Shahzad) writes:
>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?
.
.
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>
>		 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.
>

	Couldn't help reproducing this part of your article as it is
	persuasive and eloquent. However, I have a few questions: Dilip Hiro
	says: 'When it comes to applying the Sharia to the everyday life 
	of the Muslims, the choice is between taqlid and ijtihad. By and 
	large Islamic reformers have reiterated the believer's right to 
	practise ijtihad. This applies more to Sunnis than Shias: unlike 
	Sunnism, Shiaism almost always kept the gates of ijtihad open.'
	Is this a correct assessment? If not, what is? If it is, why
	haven't the Shias kept 'islamic science' alive - or have they?

							- Nagarajan