Introduction

There are those who insist that you can either hold religious beliefs or you can hold scientific beliefs but you cannot have both. For such people there are two distinct paths; the rational, logical, empirically provable path of science on the one hand, and on the other, the illogical irrational path of religion which is entirely reliant on faith. They believe that the scientist has to enquire about everything and seek proof before he can accept a particular proposition. Faith, therefore, can play no part in the mind of a scientist. Similarly, they believe that those who are religious are firstly dealing with subject matter which is incapable of being proven and secondly, in any event, they will not seek proof because for them faith alone will suffice. They have these views about religion generally but then go on to adopt a gradation between specific religions and we find nowadays that where individual religions are concerned it is Islam that is regarded as the most unscientific or most backward.

It is of course this latter belief which is the main issue to be addressed by this article but one cannot proceed to discuss Islam and science without making some observations about science and religion in general. Perhaps the main point to remember here is that we cannot divorce contemporary views about science and religion from their historical context. Why was there a scientific backlash against religion? The answer to this lies in the way Christianity came to be established in and go on to dominate the West. The insular approach of the Church and its subsequent persecution of “heretical” or unorthodox belief (including scientific views) was partly responsible for this backlash but it must be noted that this reaction was a western phenomenon. As we shall see later there was no such adverse reaction towards scientists in Muslim countries. Not only were they encouraged to carry out their scientific enquiry but they were also at an advantage in not having to grapple with the more complex doctrinal issues faced by Christians.

Muslim scientists, therefore, enjoyed a freedom which their Christian counterparts had to wait centuries for and it was this freedom which created the conditions in which the many achievements of Islamic science were to flourish. These achievements will be the starting point for this article because given the state of modern-day Muslims and the low regard in which their religion is held, it is only proper to begin with a reminder of their past glories to illustrate how their history has shown that religion and science need not be incompatible. It is further contended that not only was Islamic science a spectacular success, but that it was so because of, and not in spite of, Islam. This contention will be amplified in the second part of this article which will highlight exactly what the Quran has to say on scientific subjects and whether or not such Quranic contributions make scientific enquiry inevitable in Islam. The third part of this article will concentrate on the theory of evolution and consider whether or not it fulfils the function of many of its proponents in proving that religion and the idea of a Creator are false. As part of our conclusion we shall look at the prospects for the future, both for Muslims without science and those who have science but no religion.

If in these words the reader finds any benefit then all praise is due to God; as ever only the mistakes are ours.