> http://optagon.page.tl/Flawless-Bridge-between-%%26%%238216%%3BScience%%26%%238217%%3B...
>
> Flawless Bridge between 'Science' and 'Religion'
>
> By Nadeem Haque and Mehran Banaei
>
> One of the greatest philosophical conflicts in the dynamic
> vistas of human dialectical thought, is that of the perceived
> incompatibility between science and religion. In the last few decades,
> a spate of books, articles and television documentaries have arisen,
> dealing with this issue as circumscribed by the Judeo-Christian
> tradition. Yet it appears strikingly odd and intriguingly compelling,
> that the general debate on such a universal theme has turned
> overwhelmingly into an exclusive debate between science and the
> Biblical account of the creation of the universe and its multifarious
> processes. This has no doubt contributed to highlighting the existing
> variances between scientific facts and the Bible, in turn leading many
> people to dismiss religion in general, whilst concomitantly fostering
> the growth of atheism and agnosticism. It seems even more odd, that
> such a discussion, by default, usually excludes all religions except
> the Judeo-Christian tradition. Yet, once this tradition is
> conclusively shown to be incommensurate with science, all religions,
> including the initially excluded ones, are brought back into the fold
> of discussion and summarily tainted with the stain of scientific
> incompatibility. This is indeed a most bizarre state of affairs,
> especially when it emanates from those who advocate the scientific
> method of discovery -the very group that claims to value accuracy and
> objectivity.
>
> One of these often excluded worldviews is that of Islam, and its
> claimed revelatory foundation - the Qur'an. Muslims, however, claim
> that no dichotomy or chasm exists between science and the Qur'anic
> belief in monotheism. In fact, Muslims acknowledge that any book that
> claims to describe the creation of the universe ought to accurately
> reflect the essence of the universe in both principles and processes.
> It would therefore be most intriguing for the interested and
> contending parties to examine whether the Qur'anic model casts some
> light or indeed fresh new insights into this ongoing epistemological
> divide. Yet in the West, it is felt that Islam, far from being
> compatible with modern science, must be the underlying reason that has
> directly had something to do with fomenting retrogressiveness,
> intolerance and 'fundamentalism'. In fact, in this discourse on
> science and religion, Islam seems to have become unfairly excluded,
> since it has been misperceived to be an exclusive religion of the
> Arabs, emanating from a primitive and outmoded culture. However, it is
> not generally known that the word Islam is absolutely non-exclusive,
> universal and timeless, since, unlike most religions, it is not tied
> to a culture, nationality, race, region, personality or somebody's
> personal belief; rather, it is a description of a state of mind and
> action, linguistically denoting voluntary peaceful submission to the
> singular Creator, where one flows in concordance with the universal
> natural order of cosmic scheme (22:18). A Muslim is anyone, anywhere,
> at any time, who chooses to follow such ubiquitous natural laws in the
> realm of existence.
>
> Yet despite this misunderstanding, evolving incipiently, side by
> side with the resultant inordinate rejection of Islam, is an ever-
> growing realization among many Muslims, as well as some non-Muslim
> academics, that the Qur'an appears to be addressing this age and the
> coming 21st Century and beyond, over and above the contents and
> approach found in many other scriptures.
> Scientific Correlations
>
> In the 20th Century, perhaps the greatest realization or
> discovery has been that the universe has evolved from a 'singularity'
> - commonly referred to as the Big Bang. Indeed, it has been admitted
> by leading atheists, such as philosopher Antony Flew, that this point
> has become their nemesis. This is because an origin implies that
> there was once 'no thing' - whatever that may mean - and that such a
> rude beginning borders on the now taboo or embarrassing question of
> 'God' or a Creator. This is not to say that many scientists have not
> tried to escape the dreaded 'beginning' by postulating an accidental
> universe; however, their 'solutions' themselves have been highly
> problematic, unprovable or wildly speculative, such as: imaginary
> time, quantum fluctuation, multiple-universes, infinitely cyclical
> universes, etc. In fact, it appears that all the purported solutions
> to escape the singularity problem are haunted by the growing awareness
> that there appears to be intelligence embedded within the processes of
> the universe. This line of thought, under the right conditions, would
> naturally lead to the logical question as to whether there is some
> connected overall purpose to the universe and, concomitantly, a
> species such as the human being.
>
> The verifiable fact about the Qur'an in this whole debate on
> origins, is that unlike other scriptures, in the Qur'an - during the
> depths of the Dark Ages, 1,400 years ago - it has been unequivocally
> recounted that the whole universe and the earth therein, were once,
> one piece and that the Creator ripped them apart and made every living
> thing from water (Qur'an: chapter 21, verse 30), that the Creator is
> continuously expanding the universe (Arabic word used for expanding is
> musiuna, 51:47), and that the universe has evolved to form celestial
> systems and the earth, from the coalescence of dust and gas (41:11).
> These concepts were not realized until the 20th century, particularly
> after the discovery of galactic recession by red shift by Edwin
> Hubblein 1925.
>
> Yet another branch of knowledge, among a myriad, where the
> Qur'an's correlation with science has been startling, is in the area
> of embryology. Although it was linguistically clear as to what was
> being said in the Qur'an, about human development before birth, by
> Arabic linguists, many of the verses on embryology were
> unconceptualizable to them, owing to a lack of specialized education
> in the subject. One of these intriguing verses which was queried,
> stated: "Read in the name of your Sustainer and Lord, who created the
> human from a thing which clings ('alaqa)" (96:1-2). The "clinging
> thing" 'alaqa is also the root word for the derivative meaning of
> 'alaqa which is "a leech-like structure". This is a pristinely
> accurate visual-cum-structural description of the embryo from day 7 to
> 24 when the zygote clings to the endometrium of the uterus much like a
> leech clinging to the skin. The University of Toronto embryologist,
> Professor Keith Moore, who was approached by linguists on these
> verses, explained, in the 1980's, that just as the leech sucks blood
> from its host, so too does the human embryo withdraw blood from the
> pregnant endometrium. By the 23rd to 24th day, the embryo has a strong
> physical and functional resemblance to a leech. The root meaning of
> the word for clinging is "'alaqa", which, unfortunately, has been
> mistranslated into English incorrectly, as "blood clot", in many
> translations of Qur'an.
>
> Yet another verse states that: There is a stage before birth
> when the human being is like a "chewed lump" (mudghah, verse: 23:14).
> The "chewed lump" verse was explained dramatically by Moore as
> follows: He made a plasticine shape resembling the 28-day-old embryo
> and then had it bitten into. When juxtaposed, the resemblance between
> the special plasticine model and the actual microscopically enhanced
> picture of the 28 day old embryo, is strikingly similar, for one can
> observe that the structures on the embryo are the somites, which are
> the early stages of vertebrae; they do indeed resemble bead-like teeth
> marks imprinted on the plasticine model and hence the appropriate
> description of this stage as resembling that of a "chewed lump" - the
> mudghah. The staging of pre-natal human development was first
> described in 1941 by Streeter, and a more accurate system was proposed
> by O'Rahilly in 1972.
>
> Another area that the Qur'an covers, most accurately, is
> geology. As geologist Z.R. El-Naggar points out concisely, "...the
> Qur'an consistently describes mountains as stabilizers for the Earth,
> that hold its outer surface firmly lest it should shake with us, and
> as pickets (or pegs) which hold that surface downwardly as a means of
> fixation. So simply stated, the Qur'an describes the outward
> protrusion of mountains from the earth's surface, and emphasizes their
> downward extensions within the Earth's lithosphere, as well as their
> exact role as stabilizers and as a means of fixation for such a
> lithosphere" . Some of the verses pertaining to these geological
> phenomena are: 78:6-7; 15:19; 16:15. The notion of mountains having
> roots was first hypothesized in the latter half of the nineteenth
> century, and their role in connection with providing stability to the
> dynamics of the lithosphere, through plate tectonics, has only begun
> to be comprehended since the late 1960s.
> Nature of Belief in the Qur'an
>
> Given these considerations, one might be led to question how
> these verses ended up appearing in the Qur'an. Historically, it must
> be pointed out that the undeveloped paganistic Arabic society in the
> 6th Century had no 20th Century notions of the Big Bang, the expanding
> universe, plate tectonics and embryology, for the Qur'an was revealed
> to an illiterate Muhammad by God in the Dark Ages, and that the
> inductive aspect of the scientific method sprung up after the Qur'anic
> period. Several centuries prior to the advent of the Qur'an,
> superstitions, mysticism and a non-scientific way of explaining nature
> had gained a hold in most societies on earth. In this abysmal
> atmosphere, the Qur'an led untutored desert nomads and the people they
> came into contact with, to look into the nature of the universe in
> order to fathom things, which led to a scientific revolution that
> helped foster the Renaissance and the Enlightenment periods in
> Europe. Indeed, the Muslims had learned and then further developed
> the thought heritages of the Ancients, and in so doing, evolved the
> conduction of science to new and novel heights. As medieval historian
> Thomas Goldstein has remarked in his book, The Dawn of Modern Science:
> From the Arabs to Leonardo Da Vinci: "Every single specialized science
> in the West owes its origins to the Islamic impulse - or at least its
> direction from that time onwards."
>
> Methodologically and inspirationally, it was the Qur'an itself
> that led to the "Islamic impulse" that Goldstein refers to. To
> understand exactly why, we need to delve deeper into an analysis of
> the Qur'an itself. The Arabic word Qur'an literally means a book "to
> be read". It claims to be the complete and absolutely unaltered
> communication from the single intelligence that has originated and
> developed the entire universe. The Muslims' claim is that if this
> assertion is true, then the Qur'an must be able to withstand, at
> least, the following tests:
>
> Firstly, there should be no internal inconsistencies and
> contradictions within its contents. Secondly, it should not contain
> statements that are contrary to known facts, regarding for example,
> the structure and function of the universe. Thirdly, it must be
> linguistically clear, unambiguous, and precise. All these tests are
> necessary so that its contents can be objectively confirmed or
> refuted. Passing these tests, successfully, would indeed establish the
> credibility of the Qur'anic claim of its 'divine' origin. On the other
> hand, if inconsistencies and ambiguities do indeed exist, then the
> book in question is either entirely man-made, or might have originated
> from the Originator, but was subsequently corrupted by human beings.
> In a nutshell, this would mean that the book is not credible.
>
> The analysis of any book, which claims to be a revelation, ought
> to include the most important resource accessible to us - the human
> intellect. It is only through the human intellect that we can confirm
> or negate the presence of contradictions and thereby substantiate or
> invalidate claims. Surprisingly, the Qur'an itself emphasizes that the
> reader subject its contents to rigorous analytical scrutiny with an
> objective and honest intent, in order to ascertain if there are indeed
> any internal or external inconsistencies (4:82). In this way, the
> Qur'an boldly and confidently challenges its readers not to take its
> claim of divine origin at face value, but to examine the book and
> always remain alert for any kind of inaccuracy, a challenge which is
> unequivocally open to all skeptics and those with a keen interest in
> scientific investigation, particularly in the area of the
> compatibility or incompatibility between science and religion. The
> claim of the challenge, even after 1400 years, has still not been
> deposed, even by those who are no friends of the Muslims. More
> interestingly, from a scientific perspective, the Qur'anic proposition
> to find internal or external incongruity within its contents, as a way
> to dismiss its claim, is tantamount to a truly scientific method of
> falsifying invalid ideas and concepts.
>
> In general, the aforementioned criteria may be used to test any
> claimed revelation. Contemporary Islamic thinkers point out that if
> the information contained in this book was unknown 1,400 years ago,
> one would perhaps be led to question its presence in so ancient a
> document. They ask: Does the Qur'an indeed withstand the tests of
> precision, consistency and non-contradiction? And if so, is the
> structurer of the Qur'an also the structurer of the universe?
>
> One certainly needs to question, where such 'scientific' verses
> came from? However, one thing is certain: If Muhammad did indeed write
> the Qur'an, expositing his own ideas and mindset, he would have had to
> have gained 20th Century knowledge regarding: embryology, cosmology,
> geology, ecology, archaeology, biology, sociology, anthropology,
> history, atmospheric sciences and cognitive sciences, whilst being
> deprived of libraries, laptop computers, telescopes, microscopes,
> universities, the internet and sophisticated databases. Even if they
> were somehow miraculously available, of what use would they be to an
> illiterate man. However, be that as it may, the central question
> remains: Whether one believes that Muhammad procured his knowledge
> from earthly or possible extraterrestrial sources, as opposed to from
> a Creator who is independent of our space and time conceptions, what
> exactly is the thrust and the message of this widely possessed, though
> seldom analytically studied book?
>
> To fully understand the Qur'anically inspired re-genesis of
> knowledge in the Dark Ages, its multiplier-effects over the ages and
> the import of the Qur'anic view of science, we must understand that
> the Qur'an unequivocally rejects belief based upon blind faith.
> However, many people tend to look upon the Qur'an from a Eurocentric
> perspective on the nature of religion, and tend to thereby color Islam
> as just another dogmatic belief system. For example, even the word for
> 'belief' in Arabic does not mean 'belief' construed as 'blind faith',
> as it has evolved to mean in Christianity and many other belief
> systems. In fact, this blind-faith notion is echoed in the
> authoritative proclamation of St. Augustine: "Credo quia abserdum est"
> - "I believe, because it is incredible". In stark contradistinction,
> the word for 'belief' or 'faith' that is used in the Qur'an, is iman,
> which has, at its root amana. This word means to confirm or verify
> things. Therefore a real Muslim is one who confirms ideas and
> statements, and is not given to accepting ideas without proof and
> evidence. There is no room for a leap of faith at any stage. The fact
> that many profess to adhere to Islam, but do not in fact follow its
> pristinely laid out Qur'anic methodology, in no way diminishes Islam's
> pre-eminent position towards evidence and proof (e.g. see 2:44;
> 3:190,191; 16:90; 8:22; 28:49; 23:17; 67:10). It was, after all, the
> Qur'an, which wrought a revolution in science by its emphasis on
> intellection. Through the influence of the Muslim philosopher Ibn
> Rushd's (Averroes') writings and that of others, the European
> Averroists in the Middle Ages set the trend for rationally criticizing
> authority based on mystical doctrines. Since the Qur'an fostered such
> a transformation of the West itself, it is in reality, a neglected
> part of the Western legacy, and is a document that is vitally worthy
> of scrutiny. This is because the Qur'an invites self-examination and
> proof at the crux of its fundamental framework.
>
> The Qur'anic approach is proof-seeking and teleological, that
> is, it is purpose, intention and design based, being identical in many
> respects with Unitarian beliefs, which had many well-known adherents
> such as Voltaire, Newton, John Locke, Milton and Joseph Priestly. The
> message of the Qur'an is that of Unitarianism, albeit an advanced and
> completed version of it, as the sample verses on embryology, geology
> and evolutionary cosmology illustrate. If one recollects, these
> Unitarians within Christendom, like the true Muslims, denounced
> mysticism, believed in rationality, and did not regard Jesus as divine
> or semi-divine.
> Socio-Environmental Implications
>
> Given the consistent rational stance of Islam, the laws of
> nature are seen to collectively form the primary revelation. The
> exposition of splendid artistry and remarkable engineering contrivance
> in divine creation overflows on almost every page of the Qur'an.
> Indeed, the quintessence of the Qur'anic outlook, is that by
> reflecting on the universe, and the diversity of life forms within it,
> we certainly observe a panoramic display of remarkable order and
> consistency. Such harmonious order is maintained throughout, by the
> structure of the extremely delicate dynamic balances in the physical
> universe. The Qur'anic outlook emphasizes that nature's equilibrium
> is itself comprised of interlocking and interdependent structures and
> processes. These processes by their very design have particular
> functions and boundaries that are not arbitrary or ad hoc. Therefore,
> the usage of the elements of nature, whether in the ecological or
> social spheres, have their usufruct limited to ensuring that they are
> not used in a manner in which their structure or function causes
> instability and disequilibrium, internally or in the wider domain.
> This parameter of universal utility is discernable by examining
> structure and function and the context in which structure and function
> are embedded or operate. In other words, human-made designs extracted
> from natural designs must be part of the balance which gives rise to
> absolute social and environmental principles based on: not upsetting
> absolute cause and effect relationships that maintain the dynamic
> equilibrium. In this discernment of nature, social and ecological
> rights are not ethnocentrically conventionalized or man-made synthetic
> constructs; therefore they cannot possibly be relative or biased. Such
> absolute rights encapsulated by the full recognition of reality are to
> be upheld under the auspices of a beneficent Creator, who is the
> ultimate Owner and Inheritor of the universe, and to whom all creation
> will eventually return (22:64 and 67:15). Indeed, all dominion belongs
> to the Creator, and not Man, who oftentimes attempts to be the
> arrogant opportunistic usurper. Man must maintain the balance
> dynamically inherent in natural order (55:7-9), and be ultimately
> accountable to the peerless God, for every action, large or small in
> thesocio-ecological realm.
> Perfect 'Convergence'
>
> In the globally united vision exposited by the Qur'an, non-
> contradiction and teleology are intricately interconnected, as much as
> dominant present day indeterminacy and relativism are inextricably
> intertwined with the notion of a blind chance-based universe. These
> two roads - one of intelligence, the other of chance -tend to lead
> individual thought and socio-environmental structuring into
> diametrically opposite destinations.
>
> Taking the route of intelligence, rather than that of chance, if
> humanity realizes that the Qur'an is nature's precise reflector, to be
> used as a prescriptive guide and motivator to prevent or cure our
> mounting socio-environmental problems, there would be an eventual
> dissolution of the artificial boundary between the sacred and the
> profane, science and divinity, through a natural rapprochement based
> on the correlation between causality in nature and pristine
> revelation. Inevitably, such a rapprochement would further set the
> stage for transforming human thought towards a unitary understanding
> of the whole purpose of creation and man's role within the vastness of
> cosmic order. In fact, anyone imbued with such an outlook would not be
> searching for a pristine revelation to act as a bridge between science
> and religion. That which is one, needs not to be bridged. Indeed, in
> this vein of reality, it can certainly be proclaimed that science is
> truly religion and religion truly science.
>
> If these ideas of verifiable unity are eventually realized, then
> the whole of humanity would indubitably reap the benefits of a
> perfectly complementary relation between the usage of scientific
> reasoning and the usage of revelation, where each one symbiotically
> reinforces the value of the other, for the enhancement of both
> humanity and the rest of nature, whilst simultaneously pointing to the
> very same ultimate providence.
>
>
> Nadeem Haque has a professional background in Civil and Environmental
> Engineering, having obtained a degree from the University of London,
> King's College and a degree in Economics at the University of Toronto.
> His research interests since the mid-1980's have led him to write
> several articles and philosophical short stories on Islam, rationality
> and the history of science. He co-authored two articles that appeared
> in the Organization of Islamic Conference Journal Islamic Thought and
> Scientific Creativity. In 1995, he co-authored From Facts to Values:
> Certainty, Order, Balance and their Universal Implications, published
> by Optagon Publications Ltd. He has also recently finished, as co-
> author, two soon to be published books: Nature in Islam: Socio-
> Environmental Concern for the 21st Century and Beyond and From
> Microbits to Everything: A New Unified View of Physics and Cosmology.
> He is currently working on a fourth book that develops the foundations
> of an Islamic theory of biological evolution.
>
> Mehran Banaei has a Master's degree in Philosophy from York
> University. Toronto. In addition to articles on Islam, he is the co-
> author of From Facts to Values: Certainty, Order, Balance and their
> Universal Implications and the soon to be published Nature in Islam:
> Socio-Environmental Concern for the 21st Century and Beyond. He has
> also recently completed a book entitled: "Moderation" in Consumption
> of Alcohol: Nonsense upon Flimsy Stilts."
>