Islam, History of Science and Religion

An account of science and religion in Islam must examine the attitudes of the faith of Islam towards science, as well as the scientific enterprise in Islamic civilization. The first aspect assumes that the perspective of religious thinkers and religious institutions play a determinative role in science through their coercive power or influential authority. The second aspect tempers and even challenges this assumption, for it investigates actual factors that facilitate or hinder scientific practice during particular historical periods and examines how and why particular social and political contexts promote or inhibit science.

These two aspects illustrate the complexity surrounding the term Islam. Primarily, Islam denotes a faith with particular beliefs, practices, and institutions within its historical and contemporary diversity of expressions. Beyond faith, Islam denotes an empire and then a series of successor states during particular periods in world history over a vast expanse of territory in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Despite inherent differences, these regions shared the bond of participating in Islamic civilization, although many inhabitants, including practitioners of science, were not Muslims. The flow of goods, ideas, fashions, and movements of peoples through these regions and the common strands in their intellectual, political, aesthetic, and social outlooks and the social institutions of their elite classes, broadly speaking, characterize these regions with those particular features that are the hallmarks of Islamic civilization. The account of the relationship of science to the faith of Islam at particular locales and times must acknowledge the unifying role played by this civilization. On the other hand, discourse regarding the relationship between religion and science in contemporary Islam is largely dominated by the notion that science, albeit a universal human endeavor, is nevertheless largely developed and exported from external sources, namely the Western world.

Faith to civilization

The faith of Islam was established in seventh century c.e. by the Prophet Muhammad (570-632 c.e.), who, according to Muslim belief, was the recipient of divine revelations, which are collected in the Qur'an, the Muslim sacred text. Facing hostility and opposition, Muhammad fled his birthplace of Mecca, in present-day Saudi Arabia, to Medina. By the end of his life in 632 c.e., he overcame opposition and united almost the entire Arabian peninsula under the banner of Islam. Muhammad had commanded both religious and political authority, and his death raised the issue of the scope and manner of the subsequent exercise of authority. Not surprisingly, there were, and continue to be, a range of responses. Over the centuries, these responses solidified into religious and political institutions, as well as a multiplicity of attitudes regarding their power and authority. Although sectarianism played a role in shaping some attitudes, the lack of a centralized religious institution fostered a diversity of attitudes on all subjects, including the relationship of religion to science.

The nascent community established the primarily political institution of the caliphate following the death of Muhammad. Disagreement between supporters of 'Ali¯ (d. 661 c.e.) and his opponents over succession and the scope of this office was to later crystallize into the Shi¯'i¯ and Sunni¯ branches of Islam. Over the next three decades, under the leadership of companions of Muhammad, the community commenced a campaign of expansion whereby Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Iran were soon incorporated into the emerging Islamic empire. These "rightly-guided" caliphs were succeeded by the Umayyads (661–750 c.e.), who continued the expansionist policy. The Umayyads faced several rebellions because of their perceived Arabo-centrism. They also resisted the efforts of religious elites to establish normative frameworks for religious study and institutionalization of religious authority. Since this venture was external to, and at times actively opposed by, the Umayyad court, the genesis of a recurrent conflict between religious and political authorities in Islamic polity was born.

By the early eighth century, the Islamic empire reached its greatest expanse, extending from Spain to the Indus and the borders of China, thereby incorporating Hellenistic and Iranian centers of science, philosophy, and learning. Like its predecessors, this vast empire, with its diversity of peoples, languages, faiths, traditions, and administrative and monetary systems, was susceptible to divisive forces. 'Abd al-Ma¯lik (r. 692–705 c.e.) therefore sought to unify the empire by instituting Arabic coinage and the Arabic language as the administrative language of the empire. Arabic was soon catapulted beyond the language of revelation and then language of governance to the language of literature, humanities, philosophy, science, and indeed all learned discourse. The attitude towards science at the Umayyad court was utilitarian. Evidence suggests that the court sought physicians who were primarily non-Arab and non-Muslim.

In 750 C.E, the Umayyads were overthrown and replaced by the Abbasids everywhere but in Spain. Even though they had capitalized on the anti-Umayyad sentiment of the religious elite, the Abbasids soon distanced themselves from their former allies. The litterateur Ibn al-Muqaffa'(d. 757 c.e.) advised the Abbasid Caliph al-Manṣu¯r (r. 754–775 c.e.) to bring the religious elite under state supervision and to enforce doctrinal and legal uniformity to replace diverse and opposing views. Even though this advice was ignored, the episode illustrates the continuing fluidity of political and religious institutions.

The Abbasids consciously promoted a new order. This was most evident in their establishment of the city of Baghdad in 762 c.e. in present-day Iraq. Baghdad soon became a thriving commercial center and magnet. Above all, it represented the civilization of Islam with its own distinctive literary and aesthetic preferences, attitudes, institutions, and fashion of refinement. The Arabo-centrism of the early Umayyads was replaced by a bustling engagement of peoples of many faiths and persuasions from all parts of the empire. The splendor and richness of the early Abbasid period, under the reign of the Caliph Ha¯run al-Rashi¯d (r. 786-809 c.e.), was later immortalized in the Thousand and One Nights. But this prosperity came at a price, as the Caliph was forced to grant fiefs to commanders and strongmen. The fiefs soon became semi-independent principalities, leading to the disintegration of the unified empire by the mid-ninth century. Nevertheless, the vision of a unified Islamic civilization endured for several centuries in a number of successor and competing principalities, thriving in even small provincial centers, as well as still-Umayyad Spain.

The "sciences of the Ancients" and religious sciences of Islamic civilization

In his Introduction to History, the fourteenth-century historian Ibn Khaldu¯n (1332-1382 c.e.) notes that urban civilization is characterized by sciences and crafts:". . . as long as sedentary civilization is incomplete . . . people are concerned only with the necessities of life. . . . The crafts and sciences are the result of man's ability to think . . . (they) come after the necessities" (p. 2:347). Ibn Khaldu¯n includes agriculture, architecture, book production, and medicine among crafts of urban civilization. With regards to the sciences: "one [kind] . . . is natural to man . . . guided by his own ability to think, and a traditional kind that he learns from those who invented it" (p. 2:436). The first kind are the "philosophical sciences"; the second, the "traditional, conventional sciences." Such a distinction was already recognized by Muhammad al-Khwa¯rizmi¯ (d. 997 c.e.) in the tenth century. He divided the sciences into "sciences originating from foreigners such as the Greeks and other nations" and "the sciences of the Islamic religious law and ancillary Arabic sciences." Al-Khwa¯rizmi¯ understood that these attributes denoted origins and were not judgments of intrinsic worth. The religious and Arabic language disciplines were peculiar to Muslims, originating after the advent of Islam; science and philosophy originated in pre-Islamic civilizations and were appropriated into Islamic civilization. Within Islamic civilization, the religious and Arabic language disciplines preceded the appropriation of the "sciences of the Ancients," but the mature development of both was largely coterminous.

The disciplines of philosophical theology (kala¯m ) and Islamic law ( fiqh, shari¯'a ) are paramount to an account of the relationship between religion and science in Islam. By the late eighth century, Mu'tazili¯ philosophical theology was immersed in cosmological questions, primarily, creation ex nihilo (from nothing), the fundamental constituents of the world, the nature of man, and God's causal role in the world. Notwithstanding a plethora of views in the early period, the late ninth-century consensus held that the world was created ex nihilo ; its material, temporal, and spatial structure is atomistic; human beings are complex compositions of such atoms (i.e., material beings); and God, who is completely different from created beings, is the primary causal agent, although for the Mu'tazili¯s,human beings have a limited causal role (the dissenting Ash'ari¯ view denied human causal agency). These positions are directly opposed to the Aristotelian bent of the "philosophical" sciences.

Reason played a primary role in the epistemology of the Mu'tazili¯ philosophical theologians. Reason also played a role in early Islamic legal theory. The primacy of reason was attacked by conservative religious scholars, who instead upheld the primacy of revelation and the inspired example of the Prophet Muhammad's personal practice (sunna ). These sources, in conjunction with the consensus of the religious elite (ijma¯' ) narrowly confined to the two sources of revelation and Muhammad's practice, provided, in their view, the "Islamic" basis for all spheres of human activity. The conservative movement clashed with the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma'mu¯n (r. 813–833 c.e.), who, wishing to establish state control over religion, promoted the teachings of the philosophical theologians. Al-Ma'mu¯n required all judges (who were state appointees) to uphold the doctrine that the Qur'an (technically, God's direct speech) was created. The conservative scholar Aḥmad ibn Hanbal refused to conform and was imprisoned. His continuing refusal resulted in severe beating and home confinement until al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–861 c.e.) revoked this policy.

The early Abbasids were more successful in their policy of encouraging the translation of scientific and philosophical texts into Arabic. This movement began with al-Manṣu¯'s commission to his physician to translate medical texts into Arabic. By their commitment to a program of appropriating the pre-Islamic scientific and philosophical legacy into Arabic, the early Abbasid view of science went beyond the utilitarian. This perspective is evident in the Abbasid establishment of the institution of a royal library, the House of Wisdom (bayt al-ḥikma ), which played a role in scientific activity and perhaps translation. These policies resulted in the translation into Arabic by the middle of the tenth century of almost the entire scientific and philosophical corpus of Classical and Late Antiquity and a handful of Sanskrit and Pahlavi texts. This endeavor relied on Nestorian Christian and other translators and financing by patrons beyond the court. The sons of Mu¯sa¯ are an interesting example. Their father, a former brigand, was befriended by al-Ma'mu¯n. Mu¯sa¯'s orphaned sons were raised at the palace and their education was supervised by the caliph. Subsequently prosperous, they patronized additional translations, apart from being excellent mathematicians in their own right. Translation activity was not haphazard. Manuscripts of texts to be translated were eagerly sought. Moreover, entire areas of the classical tradition, for example Greek drama and tragedy, were bypassed deliberately.

Despite the engagement of the Abbasid court, the translation enterprise was not uncontroversial. The scientist and philosopher al-Kindi¯ (d. ca. 870 c.e.), tutor to al-Mu'taṣi¯m's (r. 833–847 c.e.) son and patron of an early translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics, addresses critics in his On First Philosophy : "We ought not to be ashamed of appreciating truth and of acquiring it wherever it comes from, even if it comes from races distant and nations different from us." He rejects "those who are in our day acclaimed for speculation, who are strangers to the truth . . . because of their narrow understanding. . . . [They] traffic in religion, though they are devoid of religion" (p. 58–59). The targets of his remarks are undoubtedly philosophical theologians and legal scholars. Despite such controversy, the translation project was a resounding success. It initiated a vigorous scientific and philosophical tradition that extended and flourished beyond Baghdad, persisting in various forms until modern times. During the tenth century, scientists and philosophers were patronized at the courts of the Hamdanids in Syria, the Buyids in Iran and Iraq, the Fatimids in Egypt, and the Ghaznavids in Central Asia, among others.

The movement to appropriate was followed by the naturalization of the "sciences of the Ancients." The extent of naturalization is evident in the education of Ibn Si¯na¯ (980–1037 c.e.), also known as Avicenna. Residing in the eastern city of Bukhara in present-day Uzbekistan, he learned arithmetic from a grocer, then studied with an iterant philosopher, and then, having surpassed his instructor, taught himself the "Ancient" sciences from books that he purchased. An opportunity to examine the private library of the local ruler led to finding rooms of books on all subjects. Ibn Si¯na¯'s account illustrates the widespread engagement with knowledge and the extent of the naturalization of "the sciences of the Ancients," from the practical arithmetic of the grocer, to the iterant philosopher who sought eager students in peripheral locations, to the availability of books in the markets, as well as in private collections. The tenth-century Epistles of the Sincere Brethren illustrates another aspect. The epistles represent a sectarian educational program in ethics, politics, mathematics, physics, metaphysics, and the religious sciences, providing an Islamic worldview steeped in a Neoplatonism. Such a perspective was also promoted by the tenth-century Shi¯i'¯ Fatimid dynasty in Egypt.

The age of Ibn Si¯na¯ represents the culmination of the naturalization of the "sciences of the Ancients" in Islamic civilization. These sciences were flourishing almost everywhere. Ibn Si¯na¯ was based primarily in Iran. His contemporaries include the astronomer and mathematician al-Bi¯ru¯ni¯ (973-1050 c.e.) in Central Asia; the physicist, astronomer, and mathematician Ibn al-Haytham (965-1039 c.e.) and the astronomer Ibn Yunus (d. 1009 c.e.), who were both in Egypt; the physician al-Zahrawi¯ (963-1013 c.e.) in Andalusia; and others. These scientists were at the frontiers of research, yet they were critical of the scientific tradition they had received via the translations and its early proponents. In his encyclopedic work The Cure, Ibn Si¯na¯ presents an integral worldview of the "philosophical sciences" encompassing logic, mathematics, physics, and metaphysics. Ibn Si¯na¯'s writings were extremely influential. Many in later generations studied Ibn Si¯na¯'s works, whether as proponents of the "sciences of the Ancients" or as critics.

The fundamental premises of the worldview of the "philosophical sciences" as explicated by Ibn Si¯na¯ are as follows. The world is eternal, produced by cascading emanations of the Divine, who is otherwise removed from, and not directly involved in, creation. The world comprises celestial and terrestrial realms. The celestial realm is constant and unchanging, consisting of emanated spiritual beings—intellects and souls—associated with celestial spheres, which house each of the planets. Planetary motion is voluntary, exhibiting the desire of intellects and souls to imitate the divine. In contrast, the terrestrial realm, consisting of the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, is always in flux. Man, possessing intellect, are at the head of the terrestrial chain of being. The celestial realm influences events in the terrestrial realm through emanation. The phenomenon of prophecy, for example, occurs when a particularly receptive human with a powerful imagination is able, through the guidance of a celestial intellect via emanation, to represent pure knowledge in symbolic and cultural garb. Most men are incapable of grasping pure truth and thereby need symbols, rewards, and threats to preserve public order. Revelation is thus replete with symbols, necessitating allegorical interpretation by those with access to pure, theoretical knowledge, namely, the philosophers.

Critique and defense of the "sciences of the Ancients"

Soon after Ibn Si¯na¯'s death, the Shi¯'¯ Buyids were replaced by the Saljuqs, who favored Sunni restoration. By 1055, the Saljuqs controlled Baghdad. They then seized control of the eastern Mediterranean and Mecca and Medina from the Shi¯'i¯ Fatimids, and in 1071 they overcame Byzantine resistance in eastern Turkey. Like their Buyid predecessors, the Saljuqs were protectors of the powerless Abbasid caliph. The Saljuq vizier Niẓa¯m al-Mulk (r. 1064–1092 c.e.) established Niẓa¯mi¯ya madrasas (colleges) that, while nominally private, represented official sponsorship of the Sha¯fi'i¯ legal school. Already active at the end of the Buyid period, partisans of Ahhmad ibn Hanbal intensified their drive to promote the conservative perspective and caliphal authority. They staged popular uprisings against Mu'tazili¯ philosophical theology, the mystic al-Halla¯j (859-992 c.e.), and even the Hanbali¯ scholar Ibn Aqi¯l (1040-1119 c.e.). The movement culminated with the appointment of the Hanbali¯ Ibn Hubayra (d. 1165 c.e.) to the vizierate by the caliphs al-Muqtafi¯ (r. 1136–1160 c.e.) and al-Mustanjid (r. 1160–1170 c.e.). During the early years of the reign of the later, the property of a judge who had fallen out of favor was seized, and his books on philosophy, including Ibn Si¯na¯'s The Cure and the Epistles of the Sincere Brethren, were burned.

In a similar environment in 1091, Niẓa¯m al-Mulk appointed the religious thinker al-Ghaza¯li¯ (1058–1111 c.e.) to teach Sha'fi'i¯ law at the Niẓza¯mi¯ya in Baghdad. Al-Ghaza¯li¯ spent the first year studying Ibn Si¯na¯'s works and then publishing The Aims of the Philosophers. Soon after, he published The Incoherence of the Philosophers, with the aim of "[refuting] the ancients, showing the incoherence of their beliefs and the contradiction of their doctrines with regards to metaphysics" (p. 3). The Incoherence attacks the cosmology of the "philosophical sciences," in particular, the propositions of the eternity of the world, God's lack of direct involvement in the world evident through God's ignorance of particular events, the determination of particular events in the world by celestial souls, natural causality, and the denial of physical resurrection as described vividly in the Qur'an. Al-Ghaza¯li¯'s attack, albeit utilizing Ibn Si¯na¯'s philosophical vocabulary, is a defense of the cosmology of the philosophical theologians. The Incoherence concludes by charging those who pursued the "philosophical sciences" with unbelief (kufr ) on the grounds of their denial of creation ex nihilo, God's knowledge of particulars, and bodily resurrection.

When al-Ghaza¯li¯ himself was accused of unbelief, he composed the legal work The Clear Criterion for Distinguishing between Islam and Unbelief. He notes that this charge was hurled for sectarian purposes by the Hanbali¯s against the Ash'ari¯ philosophical theologians, or the Mu'tazili¯s against the Ash'ari¯s, and so on. Thus, this work is primarily directed against the philosophical theologians and conservative Hanbali¯s. Al-Ghaza¯li¯ asserts interpretive flexibility where the Qur'anic text is susceptible to interpretation, although he proposes strict guidelines. Nevertheless, his attitude of extreme caution in taxing a Muslim with unbelief raises the question of whether he had reevaluated the charge of unbelief against the philosophers in the Incoherence.

In his magnum opus, The Revival of the Religious Sciences, al-Ghaza¯li¯ discusses the classification of knowledge from a religious perspective. He divides knowledge into religious and secular, namely, knowledge derived from prophets, and knowledge guided by intellect, observation, or social convention (e.g., arithmetic, medicine, and language). The pursuit of secular sciences beneficial to human activity (e.g., medicine and arithmetic) is praiseworthy even though one need not engage too deeply into them. Geometry and arithmetic are neutral, although some may be led astray by them. Physical sciences, apart from medicine, do not have any utility, and lead people astray. Metaphysics also leads people astray. Thus, most natural sciences and metaphysics are blameworthy. Al-Ghaza¯li¯ does not evaluate logic, although he describes it as the examination of methods and conditions of proof. He had argued for the Qur'anic basis of logic in many treatises and incorporated logic into his major work on legal theory. Since Aristotelian categorization and analysis were indispensable to logic, al-Ghaza¯li¯'s action provided a foothold for the "philosophical sciences" at the heart of the religious sciences.

The Andalusian jurist and philosopher Ibn Rushd (1126–1198 c.e.), also known as Averroës, rebutted al-Ghaza¯li¯'s critique of the "philosophical sciences." Andalusia had undergone a series of social upheavals since the end of Umayyad rule in 1031. After a divisive period of the petty states (1031–1091 c.e.), Andalusia came under the control of the Berber Almoravids (1091–1147 c.e.) and then the Almohads (1147–1269 c.e.), who were invited to defend Spain against the Christian drive to reconquer Spain and oust the Muslims (known as the Christian Reconquista). Under the Umayyad rulers Hisha¯m (r. 788–796 c.e.) and Ḥakam I (r. 796–822 c.e.), Ma¯liki¯ law became the official Islamic legal school in Andalusia. Andalusian Ma¯liki¯ law was highly conformist, rejecting any exercise of independent judgment. Ma¯liki¯ scholars were deeply suspicious of the "philosophical sciences" and theological philosophy, and they even prevented the circulation of al-Ghaza¯li¯'s works.

When Ibn Rushd was introduced to the Almohad ruler Abu¯ Yaiqu¯b ibn Yu¯suf (r. 1163–1184 c.e.), he hesitated engaging in a discussion regarding the eternity of the world. The ruler then commissioned him to write commentaries on the works of Aristotle, for which Ibn Rushd became known as "the Great Commentator" in medieval Europe. Abu¯ Yaiqu¯b also appointed Ibn Rushd as judge in Córdoba, Spain. In his Incoherence of the Incoherence, Ibn Rushd rebutted each point of al-Ghaza¯li¯'s critique of the "philosophical sciences." His Decisive Treatise on the Harmony between Religion and Philosophy is a legal defense of the "philosophical sciences." Ibn Rushd argues that the Qur'an commands Muslims to recognize their Creator through the study of creation. Since the "philosophical sciences" study creation via demonstration, which is the best manner possible, they permit capable minds to obey the Qur'anic edict. For the masses who cannot grasp demonstrative proof, rhetorical and dialectical knowledge is sufficient. Thus revelation is couched in rhetorical and dialectical language so that the masses can believe, perform religious acts, and maintain public order. Towards the end of his life, Ibn Rushd was briefly imprisoned by the Almohads, who were under external threat from the Reconquista and had to placate Ma¯liki¯ demands.

Appraisal

It would be a mistake to conclude that the episodes described above illustrate unmitigated religious opposition to science in Islam. The pursuit of science was not explicitly driven by the Qur'anic edict to study creation, despite Ibn Rushd's argument to the contrary. Nevertheless some Muslim scientists, for example al-Bi¯ru¯ni¯, reflect upon the Qur'an in their works. In The Determination of the Coordinates of Positions for the Correction of Distances between Cities, al-Bi¯ru¯ni¯ quotes the Qur'anic verse, "They consider the creation of the heavens and the earth [and exclaim], Oh our Sustainer, You have not created this in vain" (3:191). He then comments, "This noble verse incorporates all that I have explicated in detail. Only after carrying out its instruction will man arrive at the heart of the sciences and understanding" (p. 3). Al-Bi¯ru¯ni¯ illustrates the attitude that prompted the exploration of scientific problems connected to religious practice—the determination of times and direction of prayer, the sighting of the crescent moon, and the determination of the twilight and sunset. As a result, the office of the timekeeper versed in mathematics and astronomy and affiliated with the Friday congregational mosque became an important institution in some regions.

The "philosophical sciences" had always been studied privately and had no place in the curricula of the post-eleventh century, increasingly dominant institution of the madrasa. The exceptions of arithmetic and medicine at some madrasas. Yet the "philosophical sciences" were deeply rooted in the Islamic world and were incorporated into the religious sciences, as evidenced by Al-Ghaza¯li¯'s incorporation of logic into Islamic legal theory. In his massive commentary on the Qur'an, Fakhr al-di¯n al-Ra¯zi¯ (1149-1209 c.e.) turns to the "philosophical sciences" to discuss theories of light, planetary motion, and other such matters. This attitude is also evident in the philosophical theologian al-Iji¯ (d. 1355 c.e.), whose work The Stations of Philosophical Theology became the standard textbook in the Sunni¯ madrasas and was the subject of numerous commentaries across the Muslim world. The same can be said of other popular texts. Clearly the interaction of religion and science in premodern Islam was a complex phenomenon and requires due diligence to the specific contexts that supported, or opposed, the scientific enterprise.

See also AverrÖes; Avicenna; Creation; God; Islam; Islam, Contemporary Issues in Science and Religion; Metaphysics

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alnoor dhanani