Letters

Islam, science, and free and open inquiry

I suspect that Pervez Hoodbhoy's personal concerns unjustifiably and recklessly led to narrow and predetermined conclusions about science and Muslim culture ("Science and the Islamic World—The Quest for Rapprochement," PHYSICS TODAY, August 2007, page 49). That sort of judgment unfortunately resonates with prevailing and popularized Western attitudes.

Hoodbhoy missed an opportunity to discuss the teachings of Islam in relation to science, and the effects of historical, social, and political realities—a thesis that would have been much less stereotypical. I take issue with many aspects of the article and will comment on a select few.

Making connections between Islam and science is a precarious and complex undertaking. It is precarious in that true science cannot be characterized by the religion of those who engage in it, so any reference to "Muslim science" is without meaning. And the making of such connections is complex because nonreligious values govern how and whether science education and research are supported and encouraged. Clear distinctions must be made between the basic teachings in a given religion on one hand and the effects of religious fundamentalism on the other.

The question of why Islamic society seems disengaged from science when it contributed so much knowledge centuries ago may be relevant. Hoodbhoy disappoints with his casual attempt to answer it; he proposes instead a solution tantamount to changing Muslim societies (like the turning of a switch) to secular ones that accommodate science.

The author's choice of data sets is questionable. The Organization of the Islamic Conference is a very loose political coalition of dissimilar states, and at least one of its member nations is closely aligned with the Christian tradition. The effect of politics on science in some of the organization's countries is more pronounced than the effect of religion on science. Furthermore, the measure he used to gauge science productivity is not reliable; it does not account for the survival imperative of those nations or their efforts to meet national needs through applied science and engineering, which may trump contributions to pure science. A case in point, to which Hoodbhoy alluded, is the growing suite of technology projects in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East.

Funding may not be a panacea, as the author wisely stated, but steady funding is critical, and increases in government support for applied science initiatives across the region over the last decade have been significant. Hasn't funding been the primary driver of growth in industrialized nations? Sustaining the funding, creating high expectations and a strong work ethic, and establishing educational systems and environments conducive to scientific engagement must follow. Hoodbhoy's cynicism regarding the significance and the impact of regional developments in science and technology to date negates the rapprochement between science and Islamic societies that he leads us to believe is important.

Science's absence from the national agenda appears to be common among developing countries, regardless of the people's religion. Some nations have been deliberate about increasing science activities by strengthening education and substantially increasing funding. Some see economic growth as a motivator of science—a familiar concept in the West.

The PHYSICS TODAY article also includes a casual, isolated reference to plagiarism in Iran. Plagiarism should not be tolerated at any level, in any setting; but the author should take a moment to review the situation more broadly. Regrettably, plagiarism occurs in other contexts, including Western countries, where university faculty members succumb to the pressure to publish for the sake of promotion and tenure.

Developing a strong science base takes time. Research growth at leading international universities and the ensuing advances in science and technology took decades and serious financing. They were made possible by strong national commitments and, in the case of the US, certain freedoms and a market economy. We should welcome signs of a growing science agenda in Muslim-based societies. It is our obligation as a global scientific community to support scientists in any way we can in their efforts to advance science everywhere.

Hoodbhoy wasted a good opportunity to suggest strategic initiatives that would help bridge the perceived chasm between science and Muslim-based societies, to identify areas and paths of likely success, and to explain how the industrialized West can be of assistance.

 

We would like to comment on some of the points Pervez Hoodbhoy raises in his article about the reasons for the decline of Islamic scientific greatness over the past several centuries.

Islam's Golden Age in the 9th–13th centuries brought about major advances in mathematics, science, medicine, and every field of human endeavor. In addition to translations of Greek, Chinese, and Indian scientific classics, Muslim scientists generated brilliant ideas and unique innovations because they took great inspiration from the Qur'an and from the exemplary life of the prophet Muhammed.

The main reasons for the decline of Islamic civilization, which started in the 13th century, were the removal of secular disciplines from the curricula of religious schools and the development and promulgation by some influential Muslim thinkers of the idea that human intellect can challenge God's reasoning. Starting from the late 19th century, the popularity of Marx-inspired materialistic philosophy among Muslim intellectuals intensified the identity crisis of many Muslims. Other reasons for the decline were a weakening of genuine faith among Muslims and destruction brought from outside by Genghis Khan and by some European powers.

As stated by Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, a great 20th-century Muslim scholar, "History testifies that whenever Muslims as a whole have adhered to their religion, they have advanced in relation to the strength of their adherence,"¹ that is, they were simultaneously strong in their state of knowledge, intellect, worldly affairs, and tolerance toward non-Muslims. But, wrote Bediuzzaman, "whenever they have lost their firmness in religion, they have declined."

According to Hoodbhoy, some "enlightened" Islamic scholars claimed that the Qur'an "tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." However, Bediuzzaman stated exactly the opposite: "Qur'an and science are like wings of a bird; if you cut one of the wings, the bird will fall and eventually die." He also strongly encouraged all Muslims to cooperate with the great legacy of Western physical sciences. Bediuzzaman emphasized harmony and moderation between faith and knowledge by stating that a person with faith but without knowledge tends toward bigotry and fanaticism, while a person with knowledge but without faith tends toward atheism and materialism. The trend of faith without pursuit of knowledge is what we often observe in many regions of the present Muslim world, whereas the trend of seeking knowledge with limited attention to faith has been seen in some Western societies for the past 200 years or so. Interestingly, Albert Einstein was a devout religious person who once made a statement similar to Bediuzzaman's: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."²

In addition to the criteria listed by Hoodbhoy to measure Muslim scientific progress, it is also crucial to stress the importance of how much attention Muslim governments currently give to boosting literacy rates and quality of secondary-school education in their countries. For instance, according to The World Factbook from the US Central Intelligence Agency, the seven Muslim countries having the highest literacy rate are former communist-bloc countries: Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Bosnia-Herzegovina.³ Those countries, along with Turkey, Iran, and Indonesia, have led all other Muslim countries in the numbers of gold, silver, and bronze medals their high-school students have won in international science and mathematics Olympiads over the past 10 years. Many observers see students' drive to participate in these contests as a strong indication of their future in science careers.

Religious moderation and constructive secular humanism, which are inherently compatible with common sense and the principles of logic and reason, are viable options for wise governance and progress in the Muslim world, as anywhere else.

Moreover, the diversity of cultures contributing to science is quite important today. Many bright Muslim scientists are active in non-Muslim countries, just as many non-Muslim scientists are active in Muslim countries. With increasing globalization and cultural diversity, science also transcends the boundaries of any specific state, religion, or culture, so it is difficult to evaluate the specific scientific contributions made by a people of a given state, faith, or culture. Science, now and in the future, is not just shared by Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, or Buddhist scientists. Science is a universally human treasury that belongs to everyone. The important task at hand is to preserve its achievements for future generations.

References

1. 1. B. S. Nursi, The Letters, Risale-i Nur Collection 2, Sozler Publications, Istanbul, Turkey (1994), p. 511.
2. 2. A. Einstein, "Science and Religion," talk presented at the Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, New York, 1941; available at [LINK].
3. 3. US Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, [LINK].

 

As a Jew living in Israel who believes any real progress and betterment of the lives of the surrounding population, our cousins, is to be applauded, I was very interested in the article on science in the Islamic world, and in the news report on a new research university in Saudi Arabia (PHYSICS TODAY, August 2007, page 33). I think the Saudi university report was fair, but Pervez Hoodbhoy's generally excellent article needs some comment, both on specifics and on general philosophy. I claim to represent no one but myself with these comments.

First, as Hoodbhoy notes, at times Israelis did help Hamas against the Palestine Liberation Organization, and at times Israel helped the PLO against Hamas. In all cases those were local military antiterrorist decisions and not a policy of the Israeli government. If foreign countries funded terror by one of those groups while withholding funds from the other, Israeli military personnel could often buy the cooperation of the deprived terrorists. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel has often tried to help the PLO. Sometimes that help was used against Israel, but Hamas was then defined as an enemy because it has never yet recognized the legitimacy of Israel's existence.

Second, did Hoodbhoy meet with the scientists, the wealthy donors, or the religious authorities working on the breeding of a "red heifer"? Mainstream rabbinic Judaism has always taught that the temple will be restored only through peaceful means. The red heifer program may signify a greater understanding of both real Islam and real Judaism than Hoodbhoy acknowledges, and the peace between those two religions may be restored to what it was during the Golden Age. A reading of Leviticus 19:33–34 and the Qur'an's Jonah 93 suggests that religion can be a positive force toward peace between the two peoples.

The great question of why Islamic science declined has a simple answer. Before 1915 Islam was generally a tolerant religion—toward secular humanism, toward Judaism, and toward Christianity. Jews and Christians could and did visit Mecca, the center of Islam. The land now called Saudi Arabia had no blanket prohibition against construction of a church or synagogue, only the requirement that the building's height not exceed that of a neighboring mosque. After 1915 a desert tribe that had served British interests by attacking Turks was given the oil and Mecca; that tribe's intolerant version of Islam has spread. It is not Western imperial greed but the desire for cheap and dependable oil that has fueled the spread of this Islamic distortion and its terrorism.

 

I have a few comments on the themes raised in Pervez Hoodbhoy's article.

The table on page 52 of Hoodbhoy's article compares data on the number of physics and science papers produced by the seven most scientifically productive Islamic countries and by some selected non-Islamic countries, namely Brazil, India, China, and the US. The countries he lists have very different populations. It may be more meaningful to compare their scientific productivity normalized by their populations. The table above is modified to present the number of papers per million people as well as the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita for those countries, based on 2005 statistics.

Using these modified data, we may extract a few additional points.

•  In addition to religious causes, scientific productivity appears to be influenced by some measure of economic activity such as GDP per capita. The lowest numbers of papers per million people are produced by Pakistan and India, the two countries with the lowest GDP per capita among the countries considered. Muslims make up only a small portion of the Indian population.
•  The religion factor becomes most noticeable with Saudi Arabia and Iran. The two countries lag behind in scientific productivity despite having relatively larger GDPs per capita, primarily from oil income. They are also two of the most ideologically rigid Islamic states.
•  Turkey ranks highest in the number of publications (adjusted to population) among Islamic countries and non-Islamic India and China. Part of that ranking may be attributed to Turkey's democratic form of government and secular constitution. Muslims make up 99% of the population of Turkey. However, religion and state are clearly separated. Turkish Islam is also much more moderate in scope than Islam as practiced in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

I completely agree with the assertion that the effect of religious extremism on scientific thinking is not limited to Islam but is alive and well in all three monotheistic religions.

 

Using the analytical skills he undoubtedly acquired as a distinguished physicist, Pervez Hoodbhoy hits the nail on its head with his elegant analysis of a complex societal issue not readily susceptible to logical exploration.

I agree with everything Hoodbhoy wrote except one item in which he appeared to dismiss the lack of democracy as a primary reason for science's decline in the Islamic world. Hoodbhoy did mention in the same paragraph how denying freedom of inquiry or dissent can cripple science. He also countered the argument by correctly stating that science survived and perhaps even thrived under Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. The apparent contradiction is readily explained by differentiating between two types of dictators: those who grandiosely fancy the expansion of their virtual or physical territories, and those who focus their wrath on their own people.

Islam's Golden Age in the 9th–13th centuries coincided with the empire's rapid expansion. Emperors and khalifs who aspire to conquer typically pay attention to science and technology as means to strengthen their armies. On the other hand, contemporary Islamic dictators, with few exceptions, care only about prolonging their rotten, corrupt, inefficient, brutal regimes. They do not care if their people are healthy, happy, and prosperous, or even if their countries are strong, as long as they stay in power. So science and technology are lowest on the dictator's list of priorities. In those cases lack of democracy is a prime suspect for the decay of science, and of everything else in the society. Common people are busy feeding their families and attending to their day-to-day miseries. The people are in a deep state of apathy, and science and even education in general are the least of their problems. And no one, including Western governments, cares if such non-hegemonist despots stay in power for another 100 years. A dream state for any dictator.

 

In a well-written analysis, Pervez Hoodbhoy states that "most universities in Islamic countries have a starkly inferior quality of teaching and learning" in which "obedience and rote learning are stressed" and "debate, analysis, and class discussions are infrequent."

Those particular problems also occur in non-Islamic countries, as Richard Feynman observed during a year of teaching physics in Brazil:

After lecturing the students about the need to work the physics homework problems to gain understanding, a student delegation "told me that I didn't understand the backgrounds that they have, that they can study without doing the problems, that they have already learned arithmetic, and that [working such problems] was beneath them."

  . . . Feynman would stress to the students "how useful it was to work [the physics problems] together, to discuss the questions, to talk it over, but they wouldn't do that either, because they would be losing face if they had to ask someone else."¹

Reference

1. 1. R. P. Feynman, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character, W. W. Norton, New York (1985), p. 194.

 

Pervez Hoodbhoy courageously details how "intolerance and militancy sweep across the Muslim world" while "personal and academic freedoms diminish" and "secularism continues to retreat." His sobering and well-documented account of Islamic science in which "the penalties for disbelief are severe" has dispelled many illusions.

But we should avoid new myths. Pseudoscience, parapsychology, and belief in UFOs offer no serious threat to Western science. Moreover, calls for experimental restraint in handling living matter are neither frivolous superstition nor antiscientific. Even creationists generally campaign only for a place in classroom discussion—a teaching opportunity at best and a mild inconvenience at worst, compared to the physical threats and crushed inquiry that Hoodbhoy has witnessed. Nor does scientific advancement demand abandonment of religion; Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, and James Clerk Maxwell demonstrate not only that Western science flourished well before the 18th-century rise of atheism but that later scientists continued to practice religion. (Many still do.) Michael Faraday used scientific experiments to discredit séances—a move admired by John Henry Cardinal Newman.

Science indeed triumphs through establishing belief on logic and reason rather than on fear. From Socrates to Jesus to Galileo to J. Robert Oppenheimer, the West reveres thinkers who suffer violence, rather than inflict it, for the sake of truth. Irrationalism in the West flourishes most among relativists who take power, rather than truth, to be the aim of science. A preference for irrational force over knowledge is in fact the common enemy of science in the Muslim world and the West. Hoodbhoy's bold manifesto heroically faces that enemy.

 

In his article, Pervez Hoodbhoy referred to "extreme Hindu groups such as Vishnu Hindu Parishad, which has called for ethnic cleansing of Christians and Muslims." He obviously meant the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, one of the largest Hindu organizations in India, with branches in many countries, including the US. The allegation of calls for "ethnic cleansing" is extreme; no authority of the VHP has made derogatory statements toward Muslims or Christians. No one can produce a pamphlet, speech, or statement made by VHP authorities that speaks of eliminating Muslims and Christians. It is irresponsible to publish such a vicious accusation without checking the facts.

 

[Editor's note: A correction for the name of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad appeared on page 17 of the October 2007 issue of PHYSICS TODAY.]

 

Hoodbhoy replies: Toufic Hakim would have preferred that I discuss "the teachings of Islam in relation to science." But I could have added little to that age-old issue. Also, those teachings are nowhere near as complex or difficult to explain as he seems to think. According to Islam, and Christianity and Judaism, the world is governed by a god who responds to prayers and intervenes in physical processes. If science is understood as a search for the causes underlying natural phenomena, then for the faithful of any religion, although some knowledge of the physical world can be gleaned from using the tools of science, the ultimate cause for something's occurrence can be found only in the mind of God. Predictions are possible but only in a limited sense because he is not obligated to abide by the laws of physics. When angry, he may choose to send floods or drought, set mountains quaking, or rain pestilence from the skies—even if any of these involve physical principles being overruled. Although science considers geological phenomena to lie within its domain, Islamic authorities across the world held that the 2004 tsunami and 2005 Pakistani earthquake were expressions of divine wrath.

Hakim suggests that I have used the wrong metric to assess the scientific productivity of Muslim countries. Perhaps. There is certainly no right measure in such matters, so opinions will always differ. In my opinion it is not possible, as he suggests, to consider the impressive technology projects in the Persian Gulf or the Middle East as valid indicators. For example, the "miracle" of Dubai's present economic boom has scarcely any indigenous technical component—it was executed exclusively by multinational corporations and paid for with oil money.

Hakim thinks I should have explained how the industrialized West can be of assistance. Indeed, the West can contribute significantly in material terms in some areas. Laboratory equipment, chemicals, computers, and so forth are important and transferable accessories to science. But they are not science. The crucial and still-missing step toward achieving scientific progress is acceptance of free questioning. Without that, one cannot have forays into the unknown, so genuine science is unattainable. We who live in Muslim societies and who wish for scientific progress must understand that one cannot really fly while in chains. We cannot ache for the enormous power that free inquiry confers while we ban free inquiry itself.

Ismail Demirkan and Aksar Beketov, quoting Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, attribute the decline of Islamic civilization after the 13th century to a materialistic philosophy that brought identity crisis and to a "weakening of genuine faith among Muslims." I would be interested to know of historical evidence suggesting that Muslims had become less observant of their faith after that time. I am also unaware of the concomitant emergence of any "materialist philosophy." How do the authors explain that the most brilliant work of Muslim scientists was performed under the patronage of khalifs such as Harun al-Rashid and Al-Maa'moun, who even today are openly excoriated by the orthodoxy for their pluralistic liberalism and a casual regard for Islamic rituals? Far from marking the end of strong faith, the 13th century was when the rout of the Islamic rationalists (Mutazilites) had been completed and Islamic orthodoxy, inspired by the famous Imam Al-Ghazzali, had achieved ascendancy in all parts of the Muslim world except perhaps Spain. And why did the lessening of faith in Christianity after the European Enlightenment spur science, while the alleged lessening of faith in Islam in the 13th century led to scientific decline?

David Klepper comments on the story of the red heifer. I do not see the breeding of red heifers as having the slightest effect on a conflict wherein two historically constituted peoples have staked their claim to the same piece of land. The end of that conflict cannot come from a better understanding of each other's religion but from a just division of the land in a way that recognizes the inherent rights of both parties.

As for the letter from Anand Saxena and Rajiv Tyagi, I stand by my contention that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad is an extremist Hindu organization that has been responsible for large-scale murders of Muslims and Christians in India. The Gujarat pogrom of 2002, in which more than 2000 Muslims were massacred, occurred with the agreement and active assistance of the Gujarat state government, of which the VHP was a part. The authors' statement that "no authority of the VHP has made derogatory statements toward Muslims or Christians" can be refuted by any number of examples. The first leader of the VHP, Shivram S. Apte, propagated a paranoid Hitlerian vision of a world that is set to devour the helpless Hindu: "The world has been divided to Christian, Islam, and Communist. All of them view Hindu society as very fine rich food on which to feast and fatten themselves."¹ If that is not derogatory, I do not know what is.

Reference

1. 1. D. J. Smith, Hinduism and Modernity, Blackwell, Malden, MA (2003), p. 189.

 

Request product info