No walking out on science

Wednesday January 25, 2012

Rania Hafez believes that a primitive idea of religion is creating a divide between knowledge and faith

Religion and science are often seen to be in conflict. To many it seems that the rational mind seeks to know things that may contradict beliefs held on faith, but the division between reason and faith in science is a false dichotomy.

There is a powerful primitive idea of religion that we can describe in this way: a primitive religious tribesman says “the Spirit of Life lives in that tree. God exceeds science”.

Another tribesman, a primitive sceptic, chops it down, looks at the inside of the tree and declares “there’s nothing there beside the bark”. Science disproves God.

Both views are wrong. Both the tribesmen expect something they should not expect. There is no need to see a phantom spirit in the tree for the spirit of life to be evident there. We may see God’s work there without seeing anything physically different from the non-believer, although, in another sense of ‘seeing’, the believer sees the tree very differently. The believer may say “look at the patterns here, it is Allah’s work!” The non-believer says “No, this is just a natural formation”. And in this way the debate continues.

In other words what we see in the world, as what we see in the tree, is just what everyone sees and to think or believe otherwise is to erect a divide between religion and science which should not be there.

Islam long ago set down the parameters of the debate. The Qur’an, Islam’s holy book, urges believers to seek out patterns of creation in nature, astronomy and even social relationships. It talks of knowledge that is objective, universal and totally rational. Not of spirits in trees, but of real factual configurations in geography, chemistry and genetics. The spirit for believers is not in the unseen, but very much in the perceived with the five senses and deducted through reason. For believers, the scientific method proves God.

The students who refused to attend lectures at UCL last year under the pretext that Islam rejects evolution were acting against both the spirit and letter of their faith.

They are isolated and ignorant. At a recent discussion of what might constitute an Islamic philosophy of education, when their actions were raised by a non-Muslim as perhaps giving an indication of anti-scientific attitudes in Islam their ignorance was ridiculed and condemned by all the Muslims present, who were of many different nationalities and cultures. Walking out on science is not an option for Muslims.

What the action of the UCL Muslim students and those who publicised it reveals, is that the primitive idea of religion is increasingly powerful today, in both camps. A number of believers of all faiths declare that certain parts of science are irreligious, and refuse to look inside the tree in case they don’t find the spirit within it. In the opposite camp, militant atheists seize on their actions to declare faith incompatible with science!

The true Islamic approach is not to walk out on science. It is the duty of Muslims not only to bring knowledge back into Islam but to once again to a wider Western culture where anti-scientific views are gaining ground.

Rania Hafez is Director of Muslim Women in Education