Is Islam Scientific? 

By Shafiya

April 2002

                 

We have all been listening slogans as to how Islam is a very scientific religion and anxious Islamists are eager to prove that many modern day scientific discoveries were actually predicted in the Quran. My article exposes this fallacy that Islam (for that matter any revealed religion) is scientific.

 

My argument as to why Islam is not scientific is that it never allows doubt. Doubt is one of the worst possible sins in Islam. But science is built on the foundations of doubt. A scientist is never a believer, for to believe in any thing means to accept facts without verification. A scientist is always a skeptic, always a doubter. Does this apply to Islam? NO, a big NO! Islam demands 100% faith with no room for any doubt. Islam demands that we accept what the koran says, what the hadiths say, 100%. There is no question for any doubt. No debate. No questioning accepted of the basic beliefs. Any one daring to do so is promptly silenced.

 

A true scientist does not follow this approach. For example if a scientific theory is propounded, it is rigorously scrutinized, experiments done, observations made and if all the results correspond to the theory, it is accepted, till it is denied by later observations and experiments.

 

Nothing is rigid! Nothing is fixed! Things are always in a state of flux in the world of science.

 

For example Newton’s theories were accepted by the scientific Fraternity for 300 years for they tallied with their experiments. Newton’s theories also tallied with the then observation of the planets. But science never demanded rigid belief in Newton’s theories. (People not believing in his Theories were not called unbelievers and persecuted.)

 

Along came the discovery of the atom and greater observation of the universe by more powerful telescopes. Newton’s theories didn't work well with the latest experiments, Until Einstein and Plank proposed the Quantum theory. Nowadays the quantum theory is the accepted theory in science, till newer observations turn up. Now Einstein is not called an apostate for questioning Newton, nor will the future scientists be if they challenge the quantum theory.

 

This is what we call the scientific approach...never believing in any thing 100%. This is science, and not believing in anything 100% and twisting facts and observations to correlate with some koranic verses. A religion that coerces blind belief in `revelations’ can never claim to be scientific, for the basis of science is doubt.

 

May be religions like Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism, Taoism and Hinduism, which allow and even encourage dissent & free thought can claim to be scientific but certainly not Islam, Christianity or Judaism which depend on revelations and blind belief, and especially Islam which stifles intellectual enquiry at the pain of death & punishment, is never scientific and can never claim to be one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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