Religion and Islam

Religion, in general, is a system of beliefs (“dogmas”), practices (or “rituals”), and/or norms (or “rules”) of behavior. Religion is usually based on faith, in God, Spirit (divine), “spirits” (nonmaterial beings), “spirit” (a nonphysical dimension of humans), prophets, saints, sacred texts, spiritual or mystical experience, reincarnation, and other ideas of this kind. While not all of these concepts are carried by all religions, it is important to note that all are nonnatural/nonphysical, hence outside of the realm of natural science, as we shall define it. However, they may well be the subject of fields such as psychology, anthropology, and other social sciences.

Islam is one of the “monotheistic” religions, that is, it starts with the strong belief in the One God, Allah. Indeed, this “unicity,” known in Islamic vocabulary as tawhid, is by far the most important concept in Islam. Relations with God, through prayer, inspiration, and (for prophets) revelation, are a central idea; in fact, being (constantly) mindful of God (taqwa) is supposed to be the guiding principle for humans. Additional essential beliefs in Islam are stated in one famous hadith:Footnote ¹ belief in prophets (humans who receive divine revelation), sacred (divinely revealed) texts, the Day of Judgment, angels (who transmit the revelation or perform tasks as instructed by God), and “fate.”Footnote ²

Islam is also often characterized by its famous “five pillars”: the belief in Allah and Muhammad as His (final) messenger, the five daily prayers, giving alms (obligatory charity on one’s financial and material property), the fasting in Ramadan, and the pilgrimage (hajj), which should be undertaken at least once in a lifetime by those who can afford it. Except for the first pillar, which is a belief, all others are practices and rituals. Finally, Islamic norms of behavior or ethics are summed up in the last part of the same hadith that defined the six essential beliefs and the five pillars: to “worship God as if you see Him, for if you do not see Him, He certainly sees you”; that is, one should be constantly mindful of God (taqwa) and behave accordingly.

Islam’s holy book, the Qur’an, is absolutely central. As Massimo Campanini stated, “Islam is a culture grounded on a book, the Qur’an” (Reference CampaniniCampanini 2005: 48). Other scholars have noted the Qur’an’s central place in Islam. Fr. Georges C. Anawati, Egyptian Dominican friar and specialist of Islamic thought, wrote: “In the beginning was the Qur’an” (Reference Anawati, Schacht and BosworthAnawati 1979: 358). Many have stressed the key role that the Qur’an plays in Muslims’ lives; Suha Taji-Farouki notes that “millions of people refer to the Qur’an daily to justify their aspirations or to explain their actions,” adding that the scale of this kind of reference has in contemporary times reached “unprecedented [levels] in the Islamic experience” (Reference Taji-Farouki and Taji-FaroukiTaji-Farouki 2004: 20). The Qur’an plays a central role in defining not just the beliefs and the behavior of Muslims, but their worldview as well. Kenneth Cragg notes that Muslims regard it as “the ground plan of all knowledge” (Reference CraggCragg 1998: 15); he adds: “We may say that if Muslims are to be assured on any and every issue, they will need to be Qur’anically persuaded, however variously they invoke it” (Reference CraggCragg 1998: 28).

Science

Before we can properly define “science,” we need to distinguish it from “knowledge”; “knowledge” also needs to be distinguished from “information,” which itself needs to be distinguished from “data.”

1. ▪ Data is raw numbers, texts, figures, symbols, and so on, which on their own have no meaning.

2. ▪ Information is data that has been structured or placed in context.

3. ▪ Knowledge is information that has been treated into an actionable state: understanding something, relating to other, and so on.

4. ▪ Science (natural or social) is a systematized body of knowledge, built on a methodology that seeks to reach objective results (facts and theories).

Since knowledge, as we shall see, is particularly important in the culture of Islam, we should look at it more closely and raise a few issues that will resurface later in our exploration. There are various sources of knowledge: traditional/religious versus modern (evidence-based); personal versus collective; formal versus informal; explicit versus implicit; “common sense” or intuitive versus tested. Can the same data/facts lead to different knowledge for different people? Is scientific knowledge of a “special kind”? When does knowledge become “truth”? Is knowledge subject to authority?

Defining science is not straightforward. First, in the Islamic tradition, until it was introduced in Islamic lands in its new, “modern,” or “Western” version (mostly in the nineteenth century by colonial powers), science was not distinguished from other forms of knowledge. It was all referred to as ʿilm, a term which basically means “knowledge” and which plays a significant role in the culture of Islam. Furthermore, most of the Muslim scholars who wrote about natural phenomena, whether empirically, theoretically, or even speculatively, filed them under philosophy, alongside other fields such as ethics, political philosophy, metaphysics, and logic.

In the West also, for a long time “science” was referred to as “natural philosophy,” that is, the study of natural phenomena, signifying that it was under the umbrella of philosophy (as it was in the East). The differentiation of science from philosophy and its splitting into branches (natural, social) came only in recent centuries. Likewise, “science” gingerly split from “philosophy” in the Islamic world at the hands of Al-Biruni and Ibn Al-Haytham (both in the eleventh century, but separately) and more fully with the scientific revolution in Europe (seventeenth century onward).

Current dictionaries offer multiple, more-or-less-similar definitions of “science”:

• “The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.” (New Oxford American Dictionary)

• “(Knowledge from) the careful study of the structure and behaviour of the physical world, especially by watching, measuring, and doing experiments, and the development of theories to describe the results of these activities.” (Cambridge Dictionary)

• “Knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through the scientific method; knowledge or a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena: NATURAL SCIENCE.”Footnote ³ (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

Countless books discuss the “philosophy of science,” a discipline whose goal is to delineate science and characterize it, with the aim of ensuring rigor and awareness of whatever limitations it may carry. In Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction, Samir Okasha starts by asking: “Surely science is just the attempt to understand, explain, and predict the world we live in?” (Reference OkashaOkasha 2016: 1). While highlighting several important aspects of science, this first-draft definition may be lacking in some respects; most notably, it says nothing about the nature of the enterprise of constructing objective explanations.

Ziauddin Sardar (more on him later) provides a more precise definition: “[Science is] an organized, systematic and disciplined mode of inquiry based on experimentation and empiricism that produces repeatable and applicable results universally, across all cultures” (Reference Sardar and MasoodSardar 2006b: 181). This definition has the virtue of emphasizing the goals of objectivity (repeatability, universality) and testability (experimentation, empiricism). It also implicitly restricts the field to the natural sciences.

The essential characteristic of science may very well consist in the method and process it has developed, almost canonized, and required everyone who practices science to adopt, with the aim of ensuring that we “do not fool ourselves,” as Richard Feynman so eloquently phrased it. That is what we call “the scientific method” and what we uphold as the most glorious aspect of science, even more marvelous than the array of results that scientists have achieved.

However, some important aspects are still missing from the above description: (a) it downplays the personal/subjective elements; (b) it does not emphasize the role of the scientific community in the gathering of facts and the checking not only of results and predictions (experimental and theoretical) but also the internal consistency of any proposed theory/model. This second (peer-reviewing) aspect is in fact what has given science its robustness, allowing it to distinguish erroneous claims from true results. This part is often greatly underappreciated by the public at large, including highly educated but nonscientific groups.

The subjective human element in the scientific enterprise is its Achilles’ heel. Few people, even in the scientific community, are fully aware of it. However, it is often exaggerated by the detractors of science, including traditionalists, cultural relativists, and other postmodernists. For instance, philosopher William Chittick dismisses the claim that modern science carries any true objectivity, considering it simply as “a vast structure of beliefs and presuppositions” (Reference ChittickChittick 2007: 24). For him, “what people call ‘science’ is strikingly similar to what in [previous] times was called ‘sorcery’. Certainly, the goal is exactly the same” (Reference ChittickChittick 2007: 34). This overly harsh description and assessment of science is probably based on an erroneous understanding of the scientific enterprise, along with its foundations, methods, analyses, results, and interpretations.

From the discussion in this section, we may summarily define (natural) science as the attempt to know the physical world, based on observations and experiments, both for our understanding (satisfying our curiosity) and for our benefit. Moreover, science is methodical, tries to be rigorous, and aims to be objective (independent of one’s personality, background, beliefs, etc.). Science is also supposed to be evidence-based, falsifiable, and repeatable. After much work, it produces “facts” (e.g. the Earth is round and orbits the Sun) and “theories” (a box of facts, laws, models, and other pieces, which fit together and explain a number of phenomena and observations), but its results are often open to interpretation.

Relations between Religion/Islam and Science

Having defined and characterized religion and Islam as well as science and the kind of knowledge it provides, we can ask how they relate and interact. Do they somehow clash, particularly in the claims they make about humans, nature, phenomena (how they occur and what they mean), and God’s role in it all? Are they two “magisteria,” separate but complementary teachings, or fields of human thought, knowledge, and existence/experience?

Science and religion are two approaches to the world. Claiming to describe “reality” and explain our existence and that of the world, they often compete for the place of guiding principle in humans’ minds. The famous physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson described religion as “an essential part of the human condition, more deeply rooted and more widely shared than science” (Reference DysonDyson 2007: 131). Science and religion are fundamentally different conceptual systems, however. It is thus of utmost importance to understand their differences, their domains of overlap, and the possible ways in which they can interact. The realization that there is much to discuss in this regard has given birth to the field now known as “science and religion.” This encompasses two subdomains: (a) the academic arena, where issues about science and religion are rigorously discussed (journals, conferences, courses, theses, etc.); (b) a public arena, where a “free-for-all” exists through various media about many topics pertaining to science and religion.

This field, although recent, has explored a number of important issues of relevance to humanity in general and to specific cultures. One main idea that should be stressed is the basic but essential distinction between various types of knowledge (science, natural and social, humanities, religion, etc.). Another is what people must know and accept as true (“established knowledge”) versus what they can choose to believe. Deeper into the subject, we find issues of general epistemology: What are valid modes of knowing? Is scientific knowledge (more) objective and universal? Is it constantly evolving or are some of its results definite and permanent? Does science provide a worldview or only factual information? How does scientific knowledge relate to (accept, reject, ignore) “revealed knowledge”? How is one to understand and interpret scriptural statements, stories, descriptions, and so on? Is it all interpretative, or are some religious statements more fixed in meaning? How does scientific knowledge affect scriptural exegesis?

As we have mentioned, because “science” was not originally distinguished from “knowledge” in Islamic culture, it did not have a separate word/term in Arabic and came to be referred to as ʿilm – the same as “knowledge”; however, to stress the wider meaning of knowledge and to differentiate it from ʿilm, some (modern) authors started to use maʿrifa for “knowledge,” while hikma, literally meaning “wisdom,” was often used to refer to philosophy. The decision to identify “science” as ʿilm was made by Muslim reformers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries partly to legitimize this “Western” science, which was seen as the crucial factor that had propelled European powers well ahead of the Muslim world.

ʿIlm enjoys high esteem in the Islamic culture, including in the Qur’an. For instance, one reads: “Are those who know equal with those who know not?” (39:9), and “Truly fear Allah those among His Servants who have knowledge” (35:28). Indeed, the Qur’an encourages Muslims to explore and discover the world: “Say: Travel in the land and see how He originated creation” (29:20). One of the main contributors to the contemporary debate on Islam and science, Iranian physicist Mehdi Golshani, emphasizes that, “In the Holy Qur’an, the word ʿilm (knowledge) and its derivatives are used more than 780 times” (Reference GolshaniGolshani 2003a: 65).

The Prophet raised the status of ʿilm and ʿulama (scholars) in many famous hadiths, including the following: “The virtue of knowledge is higher than the virtue of worship,” and “The status of the scholar compared to the worshiper is like [the splendor of] the full moon compared to the [tiny] planets [in the sky]; indeed, scholars are the heirs of the prophets, who did not leave any money behind but knowledge, and whoever acquires it has acquired great value.” Various levels of religious knowledge are required of Muslims, individually (fard ʿayn, i.e. obligatory) for the correct practice of Islam, or collectively (fard kifayah,Footnote ⁴ i.e. sufficient group acquisition) for the appropriate handling of new issues or queries.

But what does ʿilm encompass? Golshani says: “We believe that the spectrum of knowledge recommended by Islam is very wide. It includes both specifically religious teachings and those branches of knowledge that are beneficial to the welfare of individuals and human societies” (Reference GolshaniGolshani 2013). He insists that ʿilm as described in the Qur’an is not (as some traditional scholars claim) limited to the religious fields that are obligatory for Muslims to know about. In fact, Golshani simply rejects the traditional classification of knowledge into religious and nonreligious; he notes that in the Qur’an (e.g., 39:9, 96:5, 16:70), ʿilm is presented in its most general meaning. Golshani adopts the twentieth-century Iranian scholar Murtaza Mutahhari’s principle: “Islam’s comprehensiveness and finality as a religion demands that every field of knowledge that is beneficial for an Islamic society be regarded as a part and parcel of the ‘religious sciences’” (Reference MutahhariMutahhari 1922: 137).

Ziauddin Sardar, another important author whose ideas on Islam and science will be expanded on in the next section, fully supports this holistic philosophy of knowledge in Islam. He writes:

Muslim scholars often say that the first acquisition of ʿilm by humans occurred when just after creating him, God taught Adam “all the names” (interpreted as “concepts”) and asked him to recite them, which he did successfully, thereby proving to the angels that humans had a distinct capacity that made them superior to all other creatures and worthy of carrying God’s mission on Earth. Man can thus learn anything – in principle. Conversely, this means that nature can be understood.

Furthermore, knowledge is vast and encompasses many fields. In the many Qur’anic verses which relate to knowledge and its acquisition, one finds a variety of terms pointing to a hierarchy of methods: listening (in the sense of understanding), observing, contemplating, reasoning, considering, reflecting, and so on, each occurring a dozen times or more. Examples include: “And He has subjected to you, as from Him, all that is in the heavens and on earth: Behold, in that are Signs indeed for those who reflect” (45:13). The exploration and study of nature is highly encouraged and recommended: “Say: Consider what is in the heavens and the earth” (10:101) and “Say: Travel in the land and see how He originated creation” (29:20). Golshani remarks:

Similarly, the illustrious astronomer Al-Battani (858–929) wrote: “By focusing attention, observation, and extensive thought on astronomical phenomena, one is able to prove the unicity of God and to recognize the extent of the Creator’s might as well as His wide wisdom and delicate design” (Reference MujahedMujahed 2004: 100). Golshani refers to Al-Biruni’s insistence on the necessity of justifying every claim “by clear proof,” citing the Qur’anic verse (8:2): “That he who lives might live by clear proof, and most surely Allah is Hearing, Knowing” (Reference GolshaniGolshani 2003b: 142). Likewise, Ibn Sina (980–1037) stressed the importance of requiring proof: “He who gets used to believing without proof has slipped out of his natural humanness” (Reference GolshaniGolshani 2003b: 126).

Brief Historical Review: When Did the Debates Start?

Even a brief historical review of the debates around science/knowledge/philosophy and Islam requires us to go back to the genesis of the Islamic scientific tradition and how it was considered in relation to Islam’s principles. There is an ongoing debate among historians on whether that tradition was jump-started by the “translation movement,” that is, the great effort to bring the knowledge of ancient cultures and civilizations (mainly Indian and Greek) to Arabic, to be digested and improved upon by Islamic scholars. We must remark that labeling scholars as “Islamic” does not refer to their religious identity, but simply their belonging to the Islamic civilization. Many were not Muslim, and most were not Arabs, but the overwhelming majority of their works were written in Arabic, hence the tradition is sometimes referred to as “Arabic.” Some historians, however, insist that some scientific activity (astronomy mainly, more precisely “prophetic cosmology,” see Reference IqbalIqbal 2007: 29–32) was taking place before the translation movement exploded.

Contemporary historian Ahmad Dallal insists that we should start any exploration of the relation between Islam and science by reviewing the various exegeses of the Qur’an, the incorporation of scientific knowledge in those works, and the status such knowledge was given (Reference Dallal and MarshallDallal 2012). A famous and influential work that represents perhaps the strongest engagement of classical exegesis (tafsir) with science (of the time) is that of Fakhr Al-Din Al-Razi (1150–1210). He was fully familiar with the scientific (particularly astronomical) knowledge and philosophical debates of his period and did not hesitate to include that knowledge in his commentaries on various verses, particularly those relating to “the marvel(s) of creation,” a leitmotiv in Qur’anic exegeses.

Classical Qur’anic commentaries often highlighted the numerous, varied, and beautiful phenomena of nature that are mentioned and taken to point to the Creator. Moreover, classical exegetists insisted on God’s power in making the world as He wished. Philosophers and theologians, on the other hand, discussed what reason and purpose there must have been for God to have made the world in this form, for the Qur’an itself says: “We have not created the heavens and the earth and all that is between them in vain, that is the view of the disbelievers” (38:27). The questions of contingency and teleology (purpose and “final” goals) in the creation of the world and its present phenomena were to be a prime topic of debate as well as a motivation to explore and try to understand the world.

Most importantly, however, Dallal insists:

He concludes: “Thus it follows that religious knowledge and scientific knowledge are each assigned to their own compartments” (Reference Dallal and MarshallDallal 2012: 33).

Muslim philosophers and “scientists” held interesting views on the relation of philosophy/science and Islam. Al-Biruni, devout as he was, explicitly stated that the Qur’anic injunctions to contemplate and explore God’s creation were a prime motivation for his research (Reference GolshaniGolshani 2003a: 154). Additionally, he upheld a highly rigorous methodology, insisting on the obligation for scholars to justify every claim “by clear proof.” Furthermore, he warned against letting one’s religious beliefs influence one’s scientific conclusions. Dallal notes: “Evidence from the writings of religious scholars suggests that Biruni’s view was in conformity with prevalent views within Islamic discursive culture. This … further suggests a conceptual separation of science and religion in the mainstream classical Islamic culture” (Reference Dallal and MarshallDallal 2012: 29).

Al-Ghazali (1058–1111), the famous and influential Islamic scholar, is largely (and simplistically) portrayed as an enemy of philosophy and of science as he warned against some of their claims, and even condemned the philosophers who made claims that, in his view, blatantly contradicted Islamic dogmas. In reality, Al-Ghazali condemned metaphysical ideas such as God’s ignorance of “particulars” (details of phenomena), the nonbodily resurrection of humans (on the Day of Judgment), and the past eternity of the world, ideas that he deemed in total conflict with Islamic beliefs and in no way justifiable by philosophical or scientific inferences. Additionally, he stressed that the sciences (mathematics and astronomy in particular) often provide strong knowledge that can be confirmed, thus (conservative) scholars must not reject them wholesale just because (some) philosophers have drawn nonjustifiable conclusions from them.

Finally, Al-Ghazali is widely “known” to have rejected the principle of causation, or, more precisely, “secondary causes,” that is, the idea that phenomena are caused by conditions or occurrences in nature, which then inexorably lead to effects or results that are (deterministically) predictable.Footnote ⁵ Al-Ghazali claims that there is enough consistency in natural phenomena, due to God’s “habits” (al-sunan al-ilahiyya) – and indeed, the Qur’an speaks of God’s habits being “unchanging” (Q 33:62) – to enable people to understand nature’s workings; however, it is God who acts in the world at every instant and on each phenomenon, minor or major, not some causal nexus.

Ibn Rushd (1126–1198), who responded at length and in detail to Al-Ghazali (see Reference Averroes and van den BerghAverroes 2008 and Reference Averroes and Campanini2017), accepted God’s right and power to act wherever He wishes (i.e. the possibility of miracles), but insisted that nature is ordered in such a way as to preserve causal relations. For him, abandoning the principle of causality is tantamount to abandoning reason. In his Decisive Treatise on the connection or harmony between philosophy and Islamic law, Ibn Rushd strongly reiterated a principle that other major scholars (including Al-Ghazali) had stated (but not applied clearly and systematically): If sufficiently proven knowledge from philosophy or science conflicts with the statements of the Qur’an, it is necessary to resort to hermeneutics (taʾwil), that is, to reinterpret the Text, harmonizing it with established knowledge (philosophical or scientific).

For all Muslim thinkers (Ibn Sina, Al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, and others), there is unity and harmony between the rational process of knowing the world and proper reading of the Revelation. However, Muslim thinkers differ on the appropriate approach to ensure such unity and harmony.

Modern Science and Its Impact

Science has changed substantially and in several ways since medieval times. It has made leaps in theory (thanks to advanced mathematical tools such as calculus, numerical analysis, probabilistic and statistical analysis, and more) and in experiment (the range and sophistication of instruments is too immense to describe here). Science has also invited philosophers to help define and refine its methods, where and however appropriate. Furthermore, philosophy of science has helped clarify something that was promoted by some scientists in medieval times (e.g. Al-Biruni and Ibn Al-Haytham), namely that science must remain naturalistic, that is, only invoking natural causes and factors (no supernatural agents) when attempting to explain a natural phenomenon. This will be one of the main contentious issues in the science and religion debates, particularly in the Islamic context. Last but not least, thanks to the increased speed in communication, peer reviewing of scientists’ works has become more efficient, helping filter out mistaken ideas and results.

The Muslim world’s experience with modern science is directly related to its encounters with modernity in the last two or three centuries. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the Muslim/Ottoman world became aware of the important advances that Europe was making in various scientific fields (astronomy, i.e. the Copernican revolution, physics with Newton and others, medicine, and other fields).Footnote ⁶ This new knowledge and its applications (new technology, including military) were worrisome developments; indeed, colonialism was soon to follow.

The dazzling Western advance in science and technology both before and after colonialism raised a perplexing question: Why did that scientific leap not take place in the Islamic world, before colonialism (eighteenth–nineteenth centuries) or after independence? Is there something in the culture/religion of the Muslim world that has made the methods of science difficult to adopt? In a famous lecture given at the Sorbonne in 1883, Ernest Renan (1823–1892), a French orientalist, historian, and philologist, answered the question bluntly:

He added that the scientific development that had occurred during the Islamic civilization was merely tolerated by Islam, and it dried up after a few centuries.

The same question, along with similar yet gentler answers, resurfaced at the end of the twentieth century, when, after some fifty years of independence, the Islamic world was producing less than 5 percent of the scientific and technological developments of humanity. Is there something in Islam or in modern science that makes the two difficult to marry? Muslim reformers of the nineteenth–twentieth centuries (Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Jamal Al-Din Al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, M. Rashid Rida, Muhammad Iqbal, Said Nursi, Süleyman Ateş, and others) tried to ignite Muslim development in science and technology, while believing that the problem was deeper, rooted in Muslims’ adoption of a less dynamic and more conformist and fatalistic religious worldview. Their answer consisted in a call and drive to “reopen the gates of ijtihad” (individual or collective effort to address new issues). However, they also noted that science was being presented in a materialistic garb, to which Al-Afghani reacted, for example, with his book The Refutation of the Materialists, first published in Persian in 1881, then in Arabic in 1886. The “reform” took on different forms according to each “reformer”: a return to the “sources” (according to Ibn Abdelwahab, Hasan El-Banna, and other Salafists or traditionalists), to a modernity that can be compatible with Islam (according to Khan), that is, rational, scientific, universalist, or other “programs.” Internal debates, if not fights, broke out: Al-Afghani labeled Khan a nechari (“naturalist”), that is, close to materialism. Ibn Abdelwahab and his followers accused everyone else of bidʿa (innovation), that is, introducing into Islam what was never part of it, and so on. A “middle path” was taken by Said Nursi (1877–1960), a Turkish reformer who accepted and appreciated the ability of modern science to discover unimaginable wonders of the universe, which for him made it a good conduit to knowing God and worshiping Him. Nursi wanted Muslims to pursue a double program: leading a deeply spiritual life, partly fueled by contemplating natural and cosmic phenomena, and strictly following the Qur’anic injunctions, which make up the moral code for life.

At about the same time, a new approach to Qur’anic tafsir was beginning to appear. Some scholars, most famously Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905), began using new scientific information (about bacteria, planetary orbits, etc.) to interpret some verses more “scientifically and rationally”; this approach came to be known as tafsir ʿilmi (“scientific exegesis”). Others, starting with the physician Muhammad Al-Iskandarani (d. 1889) and the religious scholar Tantawi Jawhari (1870–1940), both Egyptian, began claiming the existence of scientific content in the Qur’an, predating modern knowledge and discoveries; this came to be known as iʿjaz ʿilmi (“miraculous scientific content” in the Qur’an, and later in the Sunnah as well). Indeed, Al-Iskandarani can be considered the founder of iʿjaz ʿilmi, which by the late twentieth century became an extraordinarily popular cultural movement in the Arab-Muslim world. In 1880, Al-Iskandarani published The Unveiling of the Luminous Secrets of the Qur’an in Which Are Discussed Celestial Bodies, the Earth, Animals, Plants, and Minerals (Kashf al-asrar al-nuraniyya al Qurʾaniyya fi ma yataʿallaqu bi-l-ajram al-samawiyya wa-l-ardiyya wa-l-hayawanat wa-l-nabatat wa-l-jawahir al-maʿdaniyya). He followed this up in 1883 with Divine Secrets in the World of Vegetation and Minerals and in the Characteristics of Animals (Tibyan al-asrar al rabbaniyya fi al-nabatat wa-l-maʿadin wa-l-khawass al-hayawaniyya). In 1931, Tantawi Jawhari took things to another level by publishing a twenty-six-volume encyclopedic exegesis of the Qur’an titled Pearls from the Tafsir of the Noble Qur’an (Al-Jawahir fi tafsir Al-Qurʾan Al-Karim), complete with an assortment of illustrations and tables.

In these books, and countless others that were to follow in the next 100 years or so, Qur’anic verses (revealed over 1,400 years ago) are claimed to refer to scientific discoveries – and later also technological inventions – that had only been made in the last century or two. Indeed, the iʿjazFootnote ⁷ literature came to claim that atoms, genetics, pulsars, black holes, the speed of light, the ages of Earth and of the universe, the phone and fax, email, radio, and TV were all in the Qur’an, if one just read the verses with a discerning eye. As we will see in another section, a boost to this phenomenon came in the 1970s with the work of the French physician Maurice Bucaille (1920–1998). One can safely state that the Muslim world now displays (for reasons that warrant careful scrutiny) a veritable infatuation with his “theory,” currently being taught in many curricula, from middle school to doctorate levels.

Last but not least in our brief historical review of the genesis of the debates in Islam and the sciences is the reception of Darwin’s theory of evolution. While Muslim scholars and intellectuals became aware of Darwin’s theory soon after it was published (in 1859), for all intents and purposes, its wider impact and disputes would only become evident well into the twentieth century. Some early books, particularly those of Al-Afghani (The Refutation of the Materialists, in 1881, previously mentioned) and of the Lebanese theologian Husayn Al-Jisr (1845–1909), discussed evolution in the context of “materialist” theories. The burgeoning Arab science magazinesFootnote ⁸ of the day also contributed to the discussion. Although it was known for its substantial discussion of and thoughtful reaction to Darwin’s theory, Reference Al-JisrAl-Jisr’s 1887 book A HamidianFootnote ⁹ Essay on the Veracity of the Islamic Religion and the Veracity of the Islamic Canon Law (Al-Risala al-Hamidiyya fi haqiqat al-diyana al-Islamiyya wa-haqiqat al-Shariʿa al-Muhammadiyya) was in fact a defense of Islamic theology and jurisprudence against “materialist” theories, of which evolution could be viewed as one example, since it provided a naturalistic explanation for the appearance of living creatures without reference to God. Al-Jisr’s position, however, was quite interesting: (a) Darwin’s theory remains unproven; (b) if it does become established with strong evidence, Islam will not have a problem with it as long as it does not deny the central principle of a creator; indeed, verses can be reinterpreted, using the same principle that Ibn Rushd and others had invoked to harmonize Islam with rational knowledge; (c) it is highly doubtful that humans could be part of such an evolutionary scheme; (d) more generally, explaining phenomena naturally is acceptable, if these explanations are seen as “God’s ways.”

As the historian Adel Ziadat explains in his excellent review of the early reception of ‘evolution’ in the Arab world, the debates focused more on philosophical, religious, and social implications than on the scientific aspects of the theory (Reference ZiadatZiadat 1986). Still, we should stress that the positions covered a wide spectrum, ranging from simplistic rejection to acceptance in toto. (Some Arab secularists saw in Darwinism the embodiment of the modern, scientific spirit of the times.) However, in the second half of the twentieth century, Darwin’s theory came to be almost uniformly rejected by Muslims: laypersons and educated people, religious scholars and other intellectuals alike. In a sign that science had acquired a very high status and philosophical or religious critiques of evolution would no longer suffice, Muslims began looking for Western, scientific-sounding creationist material. The antievolution banner was picked up by the highly controversial Turkish figure Harun Yahya (pen name of Adnan Oktar, b. 1956) and his group, who produced voluminous materials (books, videos, websites) in multiple languages, distributed worldwide free of charge. The materials were often crude adoptions of Western creationist sources, full of scientifically incorrect arguments.Footnote ¹⁰ Only a few lone Muslim voices tried to redress the debate by both providing accurate scientific information and presenting more varied and subtle theological and philosophical opinions.

A Map of the Schools of Thought in Islam and Science

Theological Issues

Jurisprudential and Ethical Issues

Discussions of genetic engineering, cloning, stem-cell research and their applications have become commonplace in the world, including in Islamic societies, particularly with the advent of CRISPR-Cas9, the versatile and powerful gene-editing technique. We now have to address much more challenging topics such as “gene drives” (systematically removing a “bad” gene from an entire species), “synthetic life”Footnote ⁴³ (sometimes referred to as “artificial life”), technologically modified, “augmented,” or “enhanced” humansFootnote ⁴⁴ (sometimes referred to as “transhumanism”), and even “immortality.”Footnote ⁴⁵ The definition of “life” itself is being seriously affected by these changes, with implications for beginning-of-life and end-of-life issues (from conception to euthanasia), as we shall see below.

Muslim jurists, philosophers, and scientists have been contending with these developments, using Islamic principles such as the “preservation of life,” the preservation of “lineage,” the sanctity and dignity of the human body and mind, and so on (e.g. Reference Woodman, Al-Bar and Chamsi-PashaWoodman et al. 2019). More generally, the idea of “playing God” is often invoked to express general objections to such manipulations. The above bio-interventions raise a host of ethical and/or religious questions, including the following: When should editing human or animal genomes be allowed? How does one define “bad genes”? Where do we draw the line between “fixing” flaws and “enhancing” bodies, particularly brains? What about unintended consequences? Should cloning be allowed, for humans or for animals? What are the moral concerns? The field of Islamic bioethics has matured substantially in recent times, with the appearance of numerous papers, books, conferences, projects, and encyclopedias (e.g. Reference GhalyGhaly 2013; Reference PadelaPadela 2021).

Concluding Remarks

Numerous issues and topics at the intersection of Islam and the sciences require careful study and debate. They range widely from the theophilosophical (e.g. naturalism and divine action, evolution, etc.) to the very practical, ethical, and jurisprudential (e.g. organ donation, surrogacy, euthanasia, etc.). Many of these topics have long been discussed by Muslim theologians, jurists, and philosophers, some for hundreds of years. However, science, with its continuous and accelerating progress, keeps bringing new grist to the mill. Muslim scholars have started to realize that in order to address these topics in an informed and meaningful way, one must not simply rely on old Islamic principles, however general they may be, nor address topics in piecemeal or reactive ways, but rather consider more holistic and general paradigms, that is, address issues in a framework of the meaning, purpose, and value of life (human and other) as well as humans’ place in the universe. There is growing awareness of the need to construct a frameworkFootnote ⁵² (something that can be described as “Holistic Islamic ethics,” for instance) for thinking about newly emerging science-related issues and producing coherent ideas on the various topics that do or will need some treatment.

Fine-Tuning, the Multiverse, and Pre–Big Bang Cosmology

Cosmology and Islam is a topic that has been discussed at length by many authors, for a variety of reasons: (a) many verses of the Qur’an (and to a lesser degree the Prophet’s hadiths) lend themselves to cosmological discussion; (b) in the classical/medieval era of the Islamic civilization, cosmology was the subject of a number of interesting doctrines, some closer to astronomy and others to mysticism, theology, or philosophy; and (c) modern cosmology has brought fresh and sometimes challenging ideas to the field (such as fine-tuning, the multiverse, and pre–big bang theories) and have thus led to renewed interest in it. One forthcoming Element will be devoted to all these aspects, from Qur’anic exegesis related to cosmology to classical Islamic cosmological doctrines, all the way to modern theories. Here we shall limit ourselves to the new and future debates around cosmology and Islam, namely fine-tuning, the multiverse, and pre–big bang proposals.

Fine-tuning is the realization, which science has come to over the last half-century, that our universe has just the right laws, parameters, and building blocks to allow for complexity, life, intelligence, and consciousness to arise. On the one hand, there was no obvious reason why those laws and parameters had to have those features; on the other hand, if that were not the case, we would not be here to discuss them. So is this an obvious and trivial fact, or is it remarkable?Footnote ⁵³ And if so, what explanation can be given for it? As could have been predicted, Muslim thinkersFootnote ⁵⁴ have found in this another manifestation of “design,” here at a cosmic scale, and related it to the Creator and the purpose of creation, as have theists from other religions, particularly monotheistic ones. This is an ongoing debate,Footnote ⁵⁵ and here we restrict ourselves to pointing out the relatively new ideas brought forward by the American philosopher Robin Collins on fine-tuning and discoverability (Reference Collins and StewartCollins 2016, Reference Collins2018).

The concept of the multiverse has been the subject of extensive work, both scientifically and philosophically; it too is a topic that goes back centuries if not millennia, if one considers the “many-worlds” debates of ancient and medieval times to be very similar to, or possibly the same as, the multiverse debates of today. The latter are fueled by science (fine-tuning, eternal inflation, bubble universes, many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, etc.), while earlier debates were based on philosophical arguments. Today’s multiverse is partly a response to the fine-tuning problem and partly a result of (as-yet-unconfirmed) models/theories that predict the (possible) existence of countless universes of very different laws and parameters; the existence of one bio-friendly universe is then not only unsurprising but is even to be expected.

Some Muslim thinkers have resisted the multiverse idea, regarding it as the materialists’ response to cosmic fine-tuning, which theists see as a sign of divine design. Others have welcomed it, considering it a sign of God’s omnipotence,Footnote ⁵⁶ and recalling the fact that a number of illustrious Muslim thinkers of the past supported the “many-worlds” idea. Indeed, the great philosopher Al-Farabi (ca. 872–ca. 950) promoted it, and Ibn Sina (980–1037) accepted it, either as “worlds” within “our world” or outside of it; the same goes for the polymath Al-Biruni (973–1050) and the theologian and exegetist Fakhr Al-Din Al-Razi (1150–1210), both of whom mainly argued that God’s grace and creation are infinite in time and space. The prime opponent of the “many-worlds” doctrine was Al-Ghazali (1058–1111), who considered our world as the single best possible one. In recent times, some Muslim scientists and thinkers have expressed various views on the multiverse. The astrophysicist Jamal Mimouni abhors the idea: “From an ontological point of view,” he states, “it’s a catastrophe, because you’re proposing things you can never observe, universes that are causally disconnected from our universe” (Reference El-ShowkEl-Showk 2016).

Pre–big bang models are based on the possibility that the universe did not emerge from “nothing.” In particular, if its internal mass-energy is large enough, then it will (in hundreds of billions of years) collapse back on itself under its own gravity (in a “big crunch” event); however, it will not disappear into “nothingness,” but rather produce a new universe, perhaps with somewhat different laws and parameters.Footnote ⁵⁷ One could then consider pre–big bang phases on the basis of “quantum gravity,” a theory which remains elusive. Moreover, the physicist Reference BojowaldMartin Bojowald (2007) warns that extrapolations to “before” the big bang (before any “rebirth” from a previous collapse) “require exceedingly precise knowledge of the present state [of the universe] that cannot realistically be obtained.” In other words, “scientific” discussions of “before the big bang” are, and will long remain, largely speculative. This has not prevented scores of articles being written on this subject, reviving old debates of the eternal versus finite-age universe, a highly controversial debate among classical Muslim thinkers, philosophers and theologians.

Consciousness

Consciousness is the general state of being awake and aware of what is happening around us. Self-consciousness, more complex and challenging to explain, is one’s awareness of one’s own existence, sensations, thoughts, intentions, decision-making, and so on. How self-consciousness (in particular) arises, how it relates to reason, how much complexity (in the brain) it requires, which animals have it, and whether we can construct a “collective” self-consciousness, and so on, are all parts of what has been called “the hard problem.” In the West, and in relation to psychology and (now) neuroscience, consciousness has been the subject of investigation and discussion for centuries. In philosophy (of mind) and psychology, the above features of (subjective) experience of thoughts, feelings, decision-making processes, and the like have been referred to as “qualia” (plural of “quale”). How these relate to the physical world, both inside and outside the brain, has been the subject of intense studies. Theories of consciousness are often divided into “physicalist” and “non-/antiphysicalist,” or “reductive” and “nonreductive” approaches. Physicalist or reductive theories attempt to explain qualia in terms of physical, chemical, and biological (neurological) processes in the brain. Nonphysicalist or nonreductive varieties invoke either emergent phenomenaFootnote ⁵⁸ or nonphysical, dualist types of consideration.

Islamic thinkers tend to emphasize the “conscious of one’s existence” part of consciousness and link that to human nature (and how it is unique and different from that of, say, animalsFootnote ⁵⁹), intrinsic faith (fitrah), its relation to the spirit or soul, and to our special place and purpose on Earth (khalifah, God’s vicegerent). For instance, Turkish neuropsychologist Nevzat Tarhan writes: “Man is a being that adds meaning to everything and that is aware of his existence. Consciousness is one of the properties that distinguishes man from the other living beings and the most important and distinct property forming the difference that distinguishes him from the other species. Consciousness is a step between spirit and body” (Reference TarhanTarhan 2012).

In Islamic literature, consciousness is simply related to being awake or asleep; in the latter state, one completely loses awareness of one’s surroundings and even of one’s existence. Furthermore, several verses in the Qur’an refer to sleep as a “temporary” death; for instance: “And it is He who takes your souls at night (in sleep), and He knows what you commit in the day, then He raises you up therein to complete your appointed term” (6:60). Thus, Muslim writers often refer to sleep, where consciousness is lost, as a “small death,” hence consciousness is related to the spirit or soul, which (in a dualistic conception) can be separated from the body in a temporary or permanent act. Sufi-inclined thinkers, however, consider consciousness as permeating the cosmos (panpsychism), and as not being limited to humans. A representative of this approach is Mohammed Rustom who, in his article “The Great Chain of Consciousness” (Reference RustomRustom 2017), asks (rhetorically) “Do all things possess awareness?” He uses Sufi terms for consciousness (wijdan, instead of the usual word waʿy) and links it to wujud (existence or finding) to define consciousness as “finding God in ecstasy,” as per Ibn Arabi (d. 1240), perhaps the greatest master of Sufism ever. Rustom then explains, again in a Sufi vision, that all things and phenomena, including inanimate ones, are “modes of God’s consciousness” (God being “pure consciousness”). Finally, a jump is made from the claim that “things are modes of God’s consciousness or self-awareness” to the assumption that all things have some level or amount of consciousness or self-awareness (which is measured by “how intense they are on the scale of consciousness”). Thus, the old “great chain of being”Footnote ⁶⁰ is replaced by “the great chain of consciousness.” Rustom finds justification for this in the Qur’anic verse: “And unto God prostrates whosoever is in the heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly” (57:1). He likes panpsychism as a “single explanatory fact that unites our seemingly disparate parts of reality because it extends consciousness beyond the organisms in the brain to all other seemingly ‘inert’ forms of matter.” He takes this further: “That many if not most Muslim metaphysicians view all things, even seemingly inanimate ones, as alive should be taken quite literally.” For him, all things in the cosmos, from particles to galaxies, are living beings. His justification is from Ibn Arabi who insisted that

Finally, Rustom hails panpsychism for its environmental benefits: “If, for example, we believe a tree has consciousness, not just biological life, and that it participates in the same awareness, being, life, and consciousness as humans, we would likely feel more responsible about our custodianship over it” (Reference RustomRustom 2017).

Free Will

Free will, that is, the human ability to make choices and responsible decisions without external coercion and its relation to divine decree, action, and destiny, has been a major issue of discussion among philosophers and theologians since ancient times. Modern science has brought additional information to the debate in the form of experiments and physical processes as well as principles such as causal connections, determinism, and emergence. In Islam, the debates on free will have been fierce, even dividing major theological schools.

The Qur’an seems to argue both ways: for God’s decree and predestination of people’s faith, on the one hand, and for man’s freedom of belief and action and responsibility over one’s acts, on the other. Verse 14:4 states: “then God leads astray whomsoever He will, and He guides whomsoever He will; and He is the All-mighty, the All-wise.” In a famous hadith, the Prophet was more strongly “predestinarian”: “Know that if the nations gather together to benefit you, they will not benefit you unless Allah has decreed it for you. And if the nations gather together to harm you, they will not harm you unless Allah has decreed it for you. The pens have been lifted and the pages have dried.”Footnote ⁶¹ The last sentence (pens lifted and pages dried) is particularly striking, seeming to imply that predecreed actions cannot be altered. However, in another hadith, the Prophet negates this premature conclusion; he says: “Good works protect from evil fates. Charity in secret extinguishes the wrath of the Lord, maintaining family ties increases lifespan, and every good deed is charity.”Footnote ⁶² In another one, he says: “Nothing repels the divine decree but supplication, and nothing increases lifespan but righteousness.”Footnote ⁶³ These hadiths clearly indicate that divine decrees are not definitive, and humans have some capacity (qudrah, or qadar) to control and steer their actions. Indeed, in 13:39, the Qur’an states: “Allah effaces what He will, and establishes (what He will), and with Him is the source of ordinance [literally, ‘the Mother of the Book’].” Humans’ free action and responsibility was also famously affirmed by (the caliph) Umar Ibn Al-Khattab, who in the story of a town that had been afflicted by the plague, decided to turn away from it but was questioned (by Abu Ubaydah) “do you run from God’s decree?” He replied: “We run from God’s decree to God’s decree.”Footnote ⁶⁴

From very early times, these ideas produced major theological positions and splits. The QadriyyahFootnote ⁶⁵ school (early eighth century CE) declared humans’ absolute free will and responsibility. The JabriyyahFootnote ⁶⁶ or Jahmiyyah,Footnote ⁶⁷ then followed by the (“rationalist”) Muʿtazila,Footnote ⁶⁸ insisted that God’s absolute justice and fairness necessarily implied that humans are responsible for their actions and thus free to choose and act. Finally, the AshʿariteFootnote ⁶⁹ school came up with a “middle way” by introducing the idea of kasb (acquisition), whereby God is always the creator of all actions, but humans “acquire” them by their choosing. Muslim scholars from medieval to modern times have taken positions somewhere along that spectrum, with Ashʿarite theology largely dominating since its emergence in the early 10th century CE.

Modern science introduced two important ideas into these debates: (a) the idea that the same physical processes and outputs necessarily result when the same sets of causes occur, except possibly for quantum processes at submicroscopic levels; (b) the seminal experiment by Benjamin Libet in 1983 (repeated numerous times since then), which seemed to indicate the existence of hidden mechanisms working in our brains but “covered” by an illusion of free will. If we follow chemical processes from atoms and molecules in our bodies to electrical neurological processes in our brains to thoughts and actions, it seems that each one follows another in a causal chain, hence deterministically. Furthermore, psychologists and psychoanalysts have shown that there are often hidden forces working within us that belie our freedom of behavior, and if Libet’s results are correct, actions are worked out in our brains before we become aware of any “decision” we “make.”

Are we programmed biological robots with just enough illusory free will to keep us going and not stop or just kill ourselves? Is free will just an adaptive evolutionary trait that helps people keep doing what is needed for group survival? Or are there “emergent” processes where phenomena occur that are not simply the result of “lower-level” chemical interactions? Can our minds (or even spirits) produce decisions in some “downward causation” process? More and more scientists and philosophers, at least in the West, are convinced that we have no free will. This position tends to go together with materialism/atheism. Muslims object to a total rejection of free will, but if they want to seriously debate the materialists, they will need more than the traditionalist arguments of acquisition under God’s absolute creation of all acts.

Randomness

We may define “randomness” simply as the unpredictability of a process or phenomenon. There are two types of randomness. The first one is “fundamental” or “ontological,” that is, built into nature: This is what we find in quantum phenomena (assuming these are indeed intrinsically indeterministic, contra Einstein and a minority of scientists who believe that a grander, fully deterministic theory of the microscopic world awaits our formulation). The second one is “epistemic” randomness, where the phenomenon is actually deterministic but too complex and sensitive to initial conditions and parameters to allow for a prediction after some time (this is the case of “chaos”).

Randomness of one kind or the other is ubiquitous in nature. The question is how to square this with divine omniscience and benevolence and with the idea of “purpose” in human existence. A number of “random” but momentous events have occurred during the history of life and humanity, including the asteroid that struck Earth some 66 million years ago and triggered the disappearance of the dinosaurs, paving the way for the emergence of primates and humans, randomness in solar activity, and more. Classical/medieval philosophers and theologians, both Muslims (e.g., Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd) and non-Muslims (e.g., Augustine, Calvin) tended to reject randomness, equating it with haphazardness, which contradicts God’s purposeful, omniscient creation and action in the world. Some of those thinkers were more strongly deterministic than others, but they all interpreted “chance” events as simply human ignorance, insisting that God’s will is definite and all events are known to him, if mysterious to us.

Recently, a multidisciplinary, multicultural project was conducted on randomness. It resulted in an edited volume titled Abrahamic Reflections on Randomness and Providence (Reference Clark and KoperskiClark and Koperski 2022), including a chapter by Guessoum, “Randomness in the Cosmos.” According to Guessoum, first, without quantum randomness, the universe would not have produced galaxies and stars, and then planets and life; the cosmos would have been utterly homogeneous, without structure or complexity. Secondly, all randomness, quantum or chaos-type, satisfies statistical laws; hence individual events are often not predictable, but evolutions of systems are. Thirdly, without randomness, the cosmos, including life and humans, would be completely deterministic, thus ruling out any free will or accountability (Reference Guessoum, Clark and KoperskiGuessoum 2022).

Transsexual Issues

The phenomenon of “intersexuality” has been known since the dawn of humanity. An intersex person is born with mixed or underdeveloped reproductive or sexual organs, thus making it difficult to classify them as male or female, which often requires “rectifying” surgery to be carried out. Classical Islamic jurisprudence has addressed the question of what is to be done in such cases. The general consensus is to surgically “make” the newborn male or female, according to the dominant traits. If the situation is too ambiguous, the parents are advised to wait and see how things develop, including observation of the child’s behavior and inclination. If, however, the organs clearly indicate a dominance of male or female characteristics, the person’s “inclination” is not to be considered. Modern science has brought new information to help address, or sometimes complicate, the situation. First, the presence of internal organs (e.g., ovaries and fallopian tubes) can easily be checked for, using modern imaging instruments such as ultrasound. More sophisticated genetic tests can examine a newborn’s chromosomes to see if they are XY (male) or XX (female). One in 500–1,000 male babies are born with an XXY chromosome set (Klinefelter syndrome); they have normal male genitalia but often develop breasts later.

Modern psychology has further complicated matters, first by distinguishing between “sexual” and “gender” identities. Sex is defined by one’s anatomy, which is sometimes complicated. Gender relates to a person’s feelings and inclinations. Thus, “gender identity disorders,” or “gender dysphoria,” sometimes appear. The modern split between “sexual identity” and “gender identity” has led a number of countries to allow people to either change their legal and social status (i.e., change one’s name and identify as male, female, or nonbinary, regardless of one’s anatomy) or undergo “sexual reassignment” surgery or hormonal treatment. Contemporary Islamic jurisprudence has by and large refused to accept this distinction between sex and gender and rejected the idea that a person can freely and without an anatomically based medical reason decide to change his/her body (by growing or removing breasts, surgically modifying genital organs, etc.). The discussion of transsexual and transgender matters, though much less live than the question of homosexuality, has started to appear in the Arab-Muslim world. Cases of young men or women who have “changed their appearance” (grown or removed breasts, grown beards, etc.) have appeared, with hormonal treatment being available, and surgery being carried out either in semi-secret locations or abroad. Thus, in 2016, the UAE issued a (new) law on transsexuality.

In September 1992, the (influential) Saudi Council of Senior Ulama (Islamic scholars), responding to requests/questions submitted, issued a ruling on transsexual transformations, forbidding sex changes when the organs are clearly defined, deeming these attempts to “change God’s creation,”Footnote ⁷⁰ and only allowing “clarifying” medical procedures (such as surgery or hormone therapy) when the sexual organs are somewhat mixed. In February 1989, the Fiqh Council of the Muslim World League had already issued a ruling with the same stipulations. It will be interesting to see how the Western push to distinguish between sexual (anatomical) and gender (psychological and social) identities and the insistence that it is a personal right to identify, choose, and change both one’s sexual and gender identities will play out in the Muslim world and how Islamic scholars will react to cases as they increase in that sphere.

Artificial Intelligence

The latest and perhaps most intriguing topic to enter the “science and religion” domain is artificial intelligence (AI).Footnote ⁷¹ In the Islamic context, discussions and contributions have so far been few and minor, but this is slated to change with the publication of the “Islam and AI” Element in this series. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines AI as “the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings … systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past experience.”

Recent and significant progress in AI (thanks to faster computers and the availability of “big data”) has allowed AI to help humans solve complex problems and produce valuable applications, including (so far): face and object recognition, text and speech analysis and translation, more accurate medical diagnoses, online user profiling and personalized recommendations, self-driving vehicles, and so on. Most spectacularly, AI has defeated the best chess and go players, produced proofs of mathematical theorems, and generated works of art, to name its achievements in just a few “high-intelligence” domains. No wonder people are anticipating the construction of a machine with general artificial intelligence that can surpass humans in all areas; such a machine may become independent, possibly conscious, and perhaps dangerous.

Even before we get there, AI is already affecting our behavior, our perceptions of humanity and its values, and our beliefs. Is a superintelligent, conscious, omniscient (networked, with access to all available knowledge) and omnipotent (connected, and therefore able to command anything anywhere) machine not a god? Can we build unchangeable rules into such a machine to ensure that it will always serve virtuous higher principles and human values? Which principles and values should be imposed on all AI/robot machines? Some such values may be universally accepted, for example, justice/fairness, honesty/truth, tolerance/respect, forgiveness, and so on; but others, including those that are explicitly religious, may be contentious, for example, spiritual growth, higher (afterlife) purposes, obedience to God’s rules, and more. Even more distressing is the (real) possibility of AI technology soon combining with genetic engineering (to create “enhanced” organs or humans), nanotechnology (tiny robots performing various tasks, some of them inside human bodies), and the creation of brain–machine networks, and the like, developments which are often referred to as “transhumanism.”

AI thus needs to be interpreted against the backdrop of the religious/Islamic worldview (and its position on God, nature, and the place of humans in the universe) and the general purposes and ethics of human life, that is, a harmonious relationship with other humans (individuals and groups), with other creatures, with nature as a whole, and with God. A recent paper (Reference Raquib, Channa and ZubairRaquib et al. 2022) advances a holistic Islamic virtue-based AI ethics framework grounded in the context of Islamic objectives (maqasid) as an alternative ethical system for AI governance. We hope to see many more works (coming from Muslim and other perspectives) engaging with this vital topic.

Transhumanism

The Encyclopedia Britannica definesFootnote ⁷² “transhumanism” as a “social and philosophical movement devoted to promoting the research and development of robust human-enhancement technologies … Such modifications resulting from the addition of biological or physical technologies would be more or less permanent and integrated into the human body.” Biohackers have already modified their bodies by inserting chips that can control or be controlled at a distance, and Elon Musk’s Neuralink company is conducting projects to insert chips in animals’ brains, allowing researchers to read those brains and command them remotely. Such radical and permanent modifications to the human body and mind raise a host of ethical issues: Is it good or bad to drastically increase humans’ capabilities in vision, other senses and muscles, in cognitive capabilities, in life expectancy, and so on, to a super-human level? Is that “playing God”? Will it split humanity into a large “1.0” majority and a small, rich “2.0” minority? How much can humans be modified and still be human? What is “being human”? To what extent are we defined by our bodies and our capabilities? What does it mean if we extend our lifespan to hundreds or possibly thousands of years? Should we hold on to our weaknesses as defining features of our humanness, or shall we strive for “perfection” (at least asymptotically)?

Muslim thinkers and researchers have started to engage with this topic (Reference Mavani, Mercer and MaherMavani 2014; Reference BouzenitaBouzenita 2018; Reference HejaziHejazi 2019). They emphasize that corrective procedures and prosthetics are certainly permissible and even encouraged to rectify any defect or accident, assuming that these do not lead to drastic changes in the nature (shape and capability) of the patient. Humanity is even encouraged to seek betterments in its livelihood (more comfort, longer lives, etc.Footnote ⁷³), so long as these goals are in line with the divine purposes of creation and existence. However, the Qur’an contains stern warnings against drastic modifications of humans, animals, and the rest of creation. Indeed, Muslim scholars often remind everyone of the Qur’an’s origin story of Adam when he was tempted by “the devil,” who promised him immortality (Q 7:20) and power that “does not wane” (20:120). Indeed, “the devil” told God of his plan to “mislead them (humans) and create in them false desires … and command them to change Allah’s creation ” (4:119).

Conclusion

In addition to their complexity, fluidity, and urgency, what makes ongoing discussions particularly intriguing and testing is their global character. Scientific discoveries and innovations are almost instantly shared and debated by the community of experts the world over, followed by other intellectuals and the larger public. Technological transformation has rapid worldwide repercussions, and it impacts users who, in order to cope with change and in the attempt to respond to unprecedented questions (including dramatic moral dilemmas), may turn to traditional narratives, texts, and authorities for answers or directives. While taking up new challenges, Islam is therefore confronted with, and participates in, a global, intercultural, and interreligious conversation. Or, to put it somewhat more pessimistically, if Muslim thinkers were not to take up such challenges, they would condemn themselves and Islam to irrelevance in many vital sectors and developments of contemporary society.

’Islam and Science’ in Education

Education is a crucial area in which Islam and science interact, in urgent need of research and action. The dynamics of education involve multiple actors, levels, and factors, all intertwined in complex ways that warrant careful unpacking. Official educational policies impose orientations and constraints on curricula and pedagogy, based on various factors and objectives. Science instructors carry worldviews into the classroom, including particular perceptions of religion, science, and their relation. Students then respond to the (loaded) teaching based on their own prior knowledge and understanding of science, religion, society, and culture, including influences of public campaigns and debates, both local and global. The topic that perhaps provides the best glimpse of such complex interactions is the teaching of biological evolution.

Reference BurtonElise K. Burton (2010) has meticulously scrutinized science curricula that are implemented in several Middle Eastern countries (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel). Burton’s research combines a comparative analysis of official documents and textbooks with a sociological and historical approach. Comparing the curricula in Saudi Arabia and Iran is instructive. In both countries, religion is a driving force, and education is strongly centralized (curricula and textbooks are developed for all schools by the respective ministries of education), but marked differences can be found in the teaching of evolution. An official 2006 Saudi policy document states that science education is aimed at showing the Islamic contribution to science, as well as the “perfect harmony between science and religion in Islam.” Saudi textbooks are often interspersed with Qur’anic verses that make reference to natural phenomena. An official 2009 Iranian science education document is much subtler in its references to God and presents science as a field separate from religion; it also stresses goals such as fostering critical thinking and promoting scientific literacy among the citizenry. A major difference between the Saudi and the Iranian educational system emerges regarding the theory of evolution. The approach promoted by Saudi textbooks is simply creationist. A tenth-grade textbook mentions “adaptation,” though not in the context of the theory of evolution, but as evidence of divine creation. A twelfth-grade textbook explicitly states that humans were directly created by God, depicting Darwin as the proponent of a “Western” theory that lacked proof and was supported through unwarranted speculations and frauds; according to the textbook, it is a theory that has been embraced by some Muslims, whose stance therefore qualifies as “blasphemy.” Iranian students are introduced to the theory of evolution as early as in the fifth grade. While formulated in simple terms, evolution of nonhuman life forms is presented as supported by empirical evidence, and it is stressed that the authorities in charge of examining and validating such evidence are geologists and scientists. Subsequently, eighth-grade textbooks provide an explanation of evolution with adaptations being related to changes and selection. Finally, a high-school textbook with a forty-page chapter on evolution presents Darwin’s ideas, including a biographical profile and the statement that his theory is accepted by “nearly all biologists.” However, Iranian textbooks are almost silent on human evolution.

Reference ClémentPierre Clément (2015) studied the perception of evolution by teachers in 28 countries, with a total of 2,130 Muslim teachers in 12 of those countries. He found a strong resistance to evolution in countries where nearly all teachers are Muslim (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Senegal). Nevertheless, in countries where only some teachers are Muslim (e.g., Lebanon, Burkina Faso), there was no difference, or sometimes very little, between Muslim and Christian teachers. The country’s history and social dynamics, including religious practices, were found to have more important effects. Indeed, the more teachers believed in God and practiced their religion, the more creationist they were likely to be, regardless of their respective religion. Some religious teachers, however, accepted evolution, considering it as being governed by God. Reference Mansour, Billingsley, Chappell and ReissNasser Mansour (2019), an Egyptian science education specialist, has conducted research about the views of Egyptian science teachers on science and religion issues and how such views inform their pedagogy. According to some teachers, religion and science are in conflict; that is, science clashes with religion, as the two provide widely different teachings on topics such as the origin and evolution of humanity, planet Earth, the universe, and so on. Some teachers view science and religion as independent. Others seem view them in dialogue, although what they mean is in fact that religion should provide those answers that science is not able to attain, or that religion should provide ethical guidance. A large number of teachers view science and religion as integrated, that is, either complementing each other or seeing science as being contained in Islam or even in the Qur’an.Footnote ⁷⁴

Another factor affecting the teaching of evolution is public campaigns that are conducted against the theory in certain places. In Turkey, evolution was included in the biology curriculum after the foundation of the Republic (1923). However, after the 1980 military coup, creationism was sneaked into biology textbooks and Darwin’s ideas were criticized, while students had to take mandatory religious courses. Evolution was presented as a marginal “view” rather than a central and unifying theory, and only students who chose a science track in high school were learning it. Additionally, scientists defending evolution were the target of public campaigns, and the creation–evolution debate was extensively covered by national media (see Reference Peker, Comert and KencePeker et al. 2010; Reference Muğaloğlu, Deniz and BorgerdingMuğaloğlu 2018). Finally, in 2017, the Turkish government produced a new precollege curriculum with sweeping changes, where the only chapter on evolution, “The Beginning of Life and Evolution,” was removed from high-school textbooks, and all references to Darwinian theory were deleted. It was argued that “students don’t have the necessary scientific background and information-based context needed to comprehend” the evolution debates (Reference GençGenç 2018; Reference KarapehlivanKarapehlivan 2019).

A discussion of the treatment of science in Islamic educational contexts must cover the Gülen movement’s school network and its curriculum. A good resource for this topic is Caroline Tee’s book (Reference Tee2016), in particular its chapters on science and education. The movement is led by Turkish author and preacher Muhammed Fethullah Gülen (b. 1941), and its theology is based on that of Said Nursi (see section 2 of this Element). The movement’s educational institutions (from nurseries to universities) number around 500, according to Tee. The general curriculum emphasizes the importance of combining science and faith, with a rather conservative slant; its institutions observe gender segregation, for instance. It is, however, characterized by excellence in the natural sciences, with outstanding performance in the Science Olympics and students regularly securing places at top universities. In Tee’s assessment, this pursuit of excellence in scientific subjects is simply pragmatic; indeed, she finds no evidence for any promotion of scientific research. In fact, Gülenist pedagogy and its curriculum do not promote critical and creative thought, but rather a rote-learning style of education.

On issues related to science and Islam, we must note that Gülen’s literature presents evolution as “Darwinism” (an ideology), a vessel of materialism and atheism, and sees it as an unproven “theory,” incompatible with human dignity. Differently from Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar), the Gülen movement does not promote and disseminate its creationist material internationally. However, despite the rejection of, and frequent derision toward evolution expressed among its community members, the relevant scientific material is covered in classes, especially in higher grades, without reference to Islamic ideas. Students are expected to master evolutionary concepts in the interest of winning competitions and as a preparation for higher education.

Making a larger point about how Islam and science should relate properly in education, Nasser Mansour writes: “In cultures where religion has a major influence on people’s lives, the development of science curricula should be made in a partnership between science educators and religion scholars, especially with regard to socio-scientific issues associated with religion” (Reference Mansour, Billingsley, Chappell and ReissMansour 2019: 332). This, he explains, would result in a dynamic enterprise, subject to frequent updating and considering scientific and technological advancements; ideally, in collaboration with actual scientists.

Other scholars have proposed various strategies that could allow for a proper and constructive interaction between Islam and science in education. Rana Dajani, molecular biologist at the Hashemite University (Jordan), is convinced that evolution, including human origins, should be taught to Muslim students not only as a key element of scientific knowledge, but also as a way to foster critical thinking. She argues that Islamic creationism and Muslim reluctance to accept evolution are byproducts of colonialism; that is, they resulted from the hasty adoption of Western/Christian views hostile to evolution. Dajani recalls how some students complained to her administrators that she was “preaching against Islam” after she had explained evolution; in response, she pointed out that her teaching adhered to the books that the university had officially adopted. Dajani offers her students detailed evidence for evolution, as well as a methodology with which to deal with apparent discrepancies between scientific findings and Qur’anic passages. However, whether a student accepts evolution or not is not crucial in how she marks their papers: “I do not want my students to write that they accept evolution just to pass an exam” (Reference DajaniDajani 2015).

Jamal Mimouni, professor of physics at the University of Constantine (Algeria), offers critical (and indeed slightly pessimistic) reflections on the presence of religion in the science classroom (Reference Mimouni, Guessoum and OsamaMimouni 2015). He observes that in the Arab-Muslim world, interest in and a stated respect for the natural sciences are not always paired with an actual understanding of the scientific method. Hence, he does not see how Islam could safely and properly be brought into science classrooms. He dismisses S. H. Nasr’s vision of merging spirituality with science, based on the various objections that have been expressed against his scientia sacra. He also considers the proposed “Rushdian” methodology (i.e., inspired by Ibn Rushd’s harmonizing ideas), according to which the scriptures should be reinterpreted in the light of established knowledge/science any time there seems to be a conflict between the former and the latter, but he maintains that this approach could only be a tool for academic debates or possibly for informal discussions with students. Other options he considers include courses in the history of science with an emphasis on Muslim figures and their approaches; courses in ecology with an emphasis on Islamic values; and multidisciplinary “bridging” courses with an emphasis on scientific literacy, aligned with Islamic values. However, Mimouni points out that such courses would need doubly competent teachers and that students might perceive them as being useless for their goal of gaining specialized knowledge.

Nidhal Guessoum, who teaches at the American University of Sharjah (UAE), shares Mimouni’s concern for the state of scientific education in the Muslim world, pointing out its failures in terms of teaching the distinction between scientific and religious knowledge. He observes, however, that simply telling students that their views are wrong (e.g., on evolution) or that the Qur’an should be left out of a scientific discussion is not a constructive and fruitful option. If dismissed, students will feel antagonized, their wrong views will not have been corrected, and their reference to the Qur’an will not have been addressed. Guessoum is therefore in favor of the creation of “bridging” courses, either taught by instructors with double competency or by interdisciplinary teams. In such courses, religion and science may interact according to a SOMA model, or “softly overlapping magisteria”; in other words, issues at the interface of science and religion would be carefully unpacked while firmly adhering to some key principles and ideas, including the scientific method (particularly the concepts of “theory,” “facts,” “laws,” etc.) and the neutrality of science vis-à-vis worldviews and religion, all while stressing the fact that the adoption of a naturalistic methodology does not imply the nonexistence of God. Guessoum warns that such courses may carry some risks: in particular, the possible “sneaking in” of creationism and pseudoscience (especially in the form of iʿjaz) (Reference Guessoum, Adanan, Baydoun and HillmanGuessoum 2018).

One interdisciplinary course on Islam and science is offered by Stefano Bigliardi at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, an English-speaking liberal arts university in Morocco. Such courses (taught under the title of “History of Ideas”) have been offered almost uninterruptedly each semester since fall 2016, including a number of summer sessions. A recent syllabus of this courseFootnote ⁷⁵ lists three overarching intended learning outcomes: (1) to get a historical overview of the science–religion debate, with a focus on nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first-century discussions in the Muslim world, going back to the Galileo affair, covering Darwin’s theory of evolution, and reaching up to Bucaille, Sardar, Harun Yahya, Guessoum, and others; (2) to adopt and engage with Ian G. Barbour’s typology for the interaction of religion and science (Reference BarbourBarbour 2000); and (3) to formulate a well-argued opinion on the theories, ideas, and controversies covered based on using the technical and philosophical vocabulary needed to discuss science and religion, including concepts like “scientific theory,” “supernatural miracle,” and so on. The course echoes Philip Clayton’s and Mark S. Railey’s recommendation that a science and religion course should be “an advocacy for the discipline of science and religion itself rather than for any one particular theological agenda within the discipline” (Reference Clayton and RaileyClayton and Railey 1998: 129).

To be sure, while designing such courses, anticipating and mitigating challenges is crucial. Careful attention must be paid to political, cultural, institutional, and even individual aspects, in order to avoid counterproductive friction at various levels as well as pedagogic ineffectiveness. That being said, some perceived challenges may in fact be opportunities in disguise, and students may be more receptive, collaborative, and varied than anticipated. The fact that students come to class with strong beliefs makes for increased opportunities to engage in cooperative learning and lively debates. Additionally, while it is safe to assume that most students will be familiar with (and supportive of) views hostile to evolution and/or appreciative of iʿjaz, one can also expect that a few students will self-identify as atheist and will be familiar with discussions of evolution à la Richard Dawkins, while some others will entertain more “liberal” views on religion as harmonizable with evolution. All such students, if provided with an adequate “safe space” and a serene learning atmosphere, will be eager to express and debate their views, often enriching their initial viewpoint or even changing it. Finally, courses on Islam and science offer opportunities to explore and appreciate local or regional figures that would otherwise be left untapped or insufficiently capitalized on by typical education in high school and at university. For instance, students may have heard of, but never examined and discussed, the ideas of a major philosopher like Ibn Rushd, or important paleontological discoveries made in their country (e.g., the remains of Homo sapiens discovered in Morocco), or the achievements and views of contemporary Muslim scientists. However, a major problem that warrants careful discussion is whether the “intended learning outcomes” of a course should be considered fully achieved if a student persists in their belief in creationism, in iʿjaz, or in various forms of pseudoscience.

’Islam and Science’ in the General Culture

It is difficult to rigorously assess the general public’s views on Islam and Science (and how they should be related) because of the simple fact that there are essentially no surveys or studies of this topic covering the Muslim world. In fact, there is almost no data on scientific literacy or the more qualitative “culture of science” in today’s Muslim societies (in contrast to the existence of rich dataFootnote ⁷⁶ from many other countries). What we are left with is our (somewhat subjective) observations and personal experience of how people perceive the relationship between Islam and modern science. Indeed, we have numerous cases and manifestations, which – though anecdotal – in the aggregate produce a rather somber picture. In particular, the popularity of iʿjaz has not waned, despite the increase in critiques expressed by Muslim authors in the last decade or so.

In the foreword to this Element, we (briefly) related the striking story of a Tunisian doctoral student who, in 2017, submitted a thesis in which she combined deep misunderstandings of science with literal and superficial readings of the Qur’an and the hadith, trying to prove that the Earth is flat and rests in the center of the universe. Two years earlier, another incident took place in the UAE and caused reverberations around the world. In February 2015, a three-minute video appeared on YouTube, showing a Saudi sheikh declaring that the Earth does not move, whether around itself or around the Sun, also presenting “evidence” for this claim, some of it religious and some scientific (according to him). Sheikh Bandar Al-Khaibari affirmed to his audience, which included university students, that first Allah created the “heavenly house” (al bayt al-maʿmur) directly above the Kaaba, and if the Earth rotated or revolved (around anything), the “heavenly house” would be forced to move (and this could not be). Second, if the Earth rotated west to east, a plane would never reach China; or, if the Earth rotated east to west, a plane should just take off vertically and wait for China to come below. He further dismissed other claims made by scientists, adding a touch of “conspiracism,” by saying, “They say they went to the moon, but these are just Hollywood stories. ”

Some Arab-Muslim commentators tried to downplay his statements by citing polls showing that even today in the United States, 25 percent of the population think that the Sun revolves around the Earth, not the other way around. However, this ignorance in the West is not based on “religious knowledge” and is not championed and presented by a religious figure or to an educated public. In fact, those familiar with contemporary Islamic writings know that Al-Khaibari’s claims, although rare among current Muslim ʿulama (religious scholars), have been carried and sometimes expressed by a number of prominent Saudi clerics of recent years (the late Sheikh Bin Baz, Sheikh Al-Tuwaijri, Sheikh Al-Fawzan, and others) who defend the concept of a stationary Earth and do their best to dissuade the learning of modern astronomy in their country. Fatwas have even been issued on this subject, but everyone has more or less ignored them, and the rotation of the Earth and its revolution around the Sun continue to be taught to students in the Arab-Muslim world, including in Saudi Arabia. However, for several years now we have witnessed a daring and sustained social-media campaign rejecting the “Western theories” that the Earth revolves around the Sun, that Americans have walked on the moon, and the rest of NASA’s “claims” (NASA now has a bad reputation in some Arab social circles).

Serious discussions have taken place following the above “incidents,” raising the following questions: Are these cases just rare anomalies to be ignored or do they represent the visible part of an iceberg? Does the fact that the arguments presented against modern knowledge, whether by the sheikh or the doctoral student, were essentially religious (based on hadiths or verses taken literally) indicate that Muslims generally have great difficulty in harmonizing modern science with their religious beliefs? Why do we have students at the highest academic levels and religious scholars who still have not digested basic knowledge of the world and the relationship between this knowledge and religious beliefs? What should be done to prevent students from finding themselves in this bewildering situation at the end of their education?

Some insights can be gleaned by looking more closely at the Tunisian student’s doctoral thesis.Footnote ⁷⁷ Its general conclusions show a literalist approach to the Qur’an and the hadith as well as a very poor understanding of the scientific methods which allow us to declare certain knowledge as facts and not scientific “opinions” or “models.” Moreover, the doctoral student, presenting her “plate-geocentric model,” mixed – sometimes in the same sentence – religious “arguments” and scientific data. In fact, in her conclusion we find a statement according to which she is proposing “A new vision of the kinematics of objects in accordance with the verses of the Qur’an”; or “The geocentric model is thus repaired by the modification of the sphericity of the earth by the flattening and the modification of the orbits of the celestial bodies while in accordance with the verses of the Qur’an and the declarations of our Prophet” (our translation). More widely, flat-earthism has lately made a comeback, spreading like wildfire through social media in particular. Googling “flat earth” in Arabic, we get 138,000 hits and 51,000 videos, and specifically 61,700 references for “flat earth in the Qur’an.” While some of these webpages and videos may be refutations of flat-earthism, the explosion of this topic and debates around it is cause for concern.

The rejection of established knowledge is not limited to the “flat earth” topic. Astrology, too, is having a renaissance: A number of websites have reported that traffic to their horoscope pages has, in the last few years, increased exponentially – in one case by 150 percent in one year.

An interesting project pertaining to general-public activity in the field of Islam and science is the video portal constructed by Salman Hameed, director of the Center for the Study of Science in Muslim Societies at Hampshire College (USA) and his team between 2014 and 2017.Footnote ⁷⁸ The project evaluated some 220 videos from the internet (YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, etc.) whose creators combined ideas from Islam and from science, sometimes adding elements of history. Hameed’s team then provided a short summary and assessment of each video, along with symbols to denote positive (accurate, widely accepted), negative (erroneous or odd ideas), or null content on the subjects of Islam, science, and history (each separately).

’Islam and Science’ and Current Events (Coronavirus, Climate Change, Etc.)

The coronavirus pandemic affected world religions in various and unprecedented ways, raising a number of questions. Was this an act of God, some test or punishment? Should the faithful rely on medicine and science or pray and trust in their faiths? Will God intervene and rid humanity of the pandemic if many devout people offer heartfelt prayers? More generally, the pandemic reignited the debate between religion and reason/science. In the Islamic context, the same trends that are usually witnessed in the Islam and science debates reemerged: iʿjaz claims, rationalizations, fideist approaches, and so on. For example, on the more scientific or rational side, many chose to focus on the Prophet’s recommendations on hygiene, generally, and behavior during epidemics, in particular, citing hadiths that instructed Muslims to “shelter in place” when an outbreak occurred in one’s town, and more generally to seek medical treatment for any illness. Many declared the Prophet as prescient, even reading “social distancing” in some of his statements.

Another major issue facing humanity more and more urgently, and on which religious leaders have had to speak and take action, is climate change. In August 2015, forty or so Islamic scholars, policymakers, and Muslim social activists gathered in Istanbul to discuss climate change and other environmental and planet-related issues. They issued a bold, well-informed, and wide-ranging declarationFootnote ⁷⁹ that set clear targets on greenhouse emissions (phase out by 2050) and energy sources (complete replacement by renewable sources by 2050). The declaration reminded Muslims of their religious responsibilities and duties to safeguard the planet, asking: “What will future generations say of us, who leave them a degraded planet as our legacy? How will we face our Lord and Creator?” It also pointed to a host of environmental, ecological, and socioeconomic issues that require immediate and serious attention: global and local climate changes; contamination and befoulment of atmosphere, lands, water systems, and seas; soil erosion, deforestation and desertification; damage to human health, including a host of modern-day diseases, and others. Furthermore, it presented a list of Islamic moral and behavioral principles to live by for the betterment of our planet and human communities.

Concluding Remarks

The general public suffers from multiple confusions on a number of issues: what science really says and how it works, what looks like science but actually is not (pseudoscience), and how science and religion/Islam should relate. One of the main causes for this general confusion, and one which keeps growing, is social media. The new tools of connection and exchange between people have leveled the playing field: It does not matter how much or how little education or expertise one has on a given topic, one’s impact is proportional to the number of “friends”/followers one has. And should a scientist dare to brandish their expertise on a topic, they are immediately attacked as “elitist.” Furthermore, social media makes it easier for people to cling to their long-held (often erroneous) views by circulating supportive evidence for those ideas (what is known as “confirmation bias”). Indeed, changing minds is often an uphill battle.

What can we do? First, science educators need to be fully aware of these trends and of their causes. Secondly, our educational curricula and methods need to take the above biases and social conditions into account. In particular, before teaching any scientific knowledge, educators must address their audience’s deeply held ideas (often a result of their religious backgrounds and education) and make students aware that “obvious facts” are often wrong. Accurate knowledge and understanding can be acquired in a coherent and long-lasting manner only after misconceptions and fallacies in reasoning have been exposed and corrected. Educators, writers, broadcasters, and opinion makers have an important role to play in correcting the damage that digital media and platforms are inflicting on the young generation, often by spreading pseudoscience and sometimes basing it on religion.