Dare to Speak: Islam vs Free Democracy and Free Enterprise (I)
Islam overrides Science
At first glance, science does not appear to fit this book’s discussion of Free Democracy, Free Enterprise, and Islam. In fact, Muslims have always been very proud of their ancient contributions to science, particularly in math and chemistry. However, as we shall soon see, Islam’s constraints on free speech inhibit the advancement of science and have fettered scientific progress in the House of Submission.
To fully appreciate the extent to which Islam inhibits science, it is important to note that the Islamic concept of science is different from the Western concept:
In the West, the guiding light of science is the scientific method, which seeks to answer questions through a process of formulating hypotheses, testing them with real-world experiments, and then refining those hypotheses and testing them again.
In the Islamic world, the guiding light of science is Islamic holy scripture, which provides answers through Islamic scholarship, together with scriptural extrapolations.
Because of Islam’s approach to science, very few new ideas have come from the Islamic world, although early Muslims did a good job of assimilating innovations from conquered lands. Also, when absorbing the science of other lands, early Muslims were often able to combine concepts to produce advances, particularly in the fields of chemistry and algebra.
But this is not the impression one gets from Islamic propagandists. The West even plays along, giving credit where it is not due in a number of ways. The most familiar example of this undue credit is the “Arabic” number system we use. In truth, “Arabic” numbers came from India, and was absorbed by Islamic scholars as Muslims invaded it. Europe subsequently learned this system from the Islamic world.
Even a brief reading of the claims for Islam’s contributions to science is an assault of falsehoods and outright absurdities. For example:
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam lists the preservation of Greek science as an Islamic achievement. [1]
In reality, Europe’s loss of Greco-Roman science was largely due to Rome’s fall to invading “Barbarians,” in which Islam played a major role. Basically, Muslims acquired Greco-Roman science in the course of conquering Byzantine territory. As a testimony to Muslim “contributions,” The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam quotes a famous fourteenth-century Islamic historian named Ibn Khaldun, who, in his work, Al Muqaddimah, [2] described how Islam got the knowledge it “preserved”:
…the Muslims won their remarkable victories, conquering the Byzantines as well as all other nations. At first, the Muslims were simple, and did not cultivate learning, but as time went on, the Muslims…began to wish to study the various branches of philosophy, of whose existence they knew through their contact with bishops and priests among their Christian subjects.
The Caliph, al-Mansur, therefore sent an embassy to the Byzantine emperor, asking him to send translations of books on mathematics. The emperor sent him Euclid’s Elements and some works on physics. Muslim scholars studied these books, and their desire to obtain others was whetted. When al-Ma’mun…assumed the caliphate,… he sent out ambassadors…to the Byzantine Empire,…to search out works on Greek science and have them translated into Arabic…a great deal of material was gathered and preserved.
The strangest thing about this quote is that it is presented under the subtitle, Charting the Muslim Influence on Europe. A more appropriate title would have been Charting the European Influence on Islam.
It is also worth noting that Islam’s preservation of Greek science, and its absorption of Indian mathematics, were basically applications of Islamic science to a new set of books. That is, the scientific method used was scholarship rather than experimentation.
If we can credit Muslims with anything, it is with conquering the Eastern Roman Empire in ways that were less destructive of Greco-Roman thought than those of the barbarian tribes that overran Western Rome.
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam claims that a Muslim, Abu Raihan al-Biruni (d. 1048), was the first to accurately calculate the circumference of the Earth. [3]
Apparently, there is a bit of Greek science that Islam forgot to preserve – the widely recognized fact that the first person to accurately calculate the circumference of the Earth was a Greek named Eratosthenes, in 240 BC. By measuring the shadows of vertical rods at noon, on the Summer Solstice, at two different locations, Eratosthenes was able to calculate the earth’s circumference to be 39,690 km, which was accurate to better than 0.1% of the true diameter of 40,008 km.
The Koran for Dummies claims that a Muslim (unnamed) invented the astrolabe (necessarily after 600 AD). [4]
While there appears to be some debate over exactly who invented the astrolabe, the person was unquestionably Greek. The debate seems to revolve around the definition of “astrolabe,” because this tool evolved over time. Eratosthenes (276 – 194 BC), invented a spherical astrolabe. Hipparchus (c. 190 – c. 120 BC) has also been credited with inventing a type of astrolabe. Ptolemy (c. 90 – c. 168 AD) used an astrolabe in his astronomical studies. Theon of Alexandria (c. 335 – c. 405 AD) wrote a treatise on the astrolabe. Therefore, by the time of Muhammad’s reign, in the early 600s, the astrolabe was a highly refined tool that had been in use for hundreds of years.
What Muslims can be credited with is using the astrolabe religiously, as a means for locating the qibla wherever they lived. To aid their practice, some refinements were made, most notably by the 11th century astronomer, Al-Zarqall, whose astrolabe could be used at any latitude.
Subsequently, other inventions in the West replaced the astrolabe, such as the cross staff, the back staff, the octant, and finally, the sextant, which was invented independently by John Hadley and Thomas Godfrey around 1730. This device proved to be so accurate, portable, and useful that it is still used today as a back-up to modern electrical devices.
Therefore, while Muslims may have refined a tool for navigation, they did not invent it. They simply added a few ideas and then stopped contributing, leaving the West to continue the tool’s development.
The Koran for Dummies claims that Chinese Muslims invented paper. [5]
It is widely acknowledged that paper was invented in China, by a man named Cai Lun, [6] (ca. AD 50—121) in about 105 AD. What Muslims can claim for themselves is the refinement of paper, by substituting linen fibers for bamboo in the 10th century.
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam declares that “Like many other scientists in the Muslim world, [abu Abdullah] Al-Battani knew the world was round.” [7]
The implication, that European scientists did not know this fact, is untrue. In fact, as we have already seen, Eratosthenes calculation of the Earth’s circumference in 240 BC presumed that the world is round. While the uneducated people of Europe may have thought that the world was flat, the educated knew otherwise. This same dichotomy existed in the Islamic world.
To verify this claim, recall that the Catholic Church was infamous for endorsing Ptolemy’s geocentric theory of the solar system, and imprisoned Galileo for claiming that the Earth moved around the Sun. As flawed as Ptolemy’s theory was, it presumed a round Earth. On this, the Church and Galileo were in complete agreement.
Both The Koran for Dummies and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran make grand claims about the Koran’s advanced scientific knowledge, but then provide examples that are scientifically inaccurate. [8][9]
For example, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran contains the following strange passage on Koranic botany: [10]
The science of botany was in no way advanced enough at the time of the Prophet to have concluded that plants have gender traits. But in the Koran we are told: He made a pair of every fruit and made the night cover the day…(13.3)
The most glaring error in this bit of Koranic “science” is its claim that all plants (or fruits?) have gender traits. Plants typically do not have the gender traits implied by verse 13.3 of the Koran. While flowers may have male and female parts, there are very few plants with male and female individuals (such plants are called dioecious). Most fruit-bearing plants are perfectly capable of reproducing from a single individual whose flowers have stamens (male) and pistils (female). Examples of such plants are apples, pears, cherries, peaches, oranges, grapefruits, lemons, pineapples, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, melons, squash, and zucchini.
However, there is a fruit-bearing dioecious plant, the date palm, which was very important in Muhammad’s world and may have inspired this verse. But the date palm is widely known to have been cultivated as long ago as 4000 BC. It is also known that, even in ancient times, cultivators frequently fertilized female plants manually to improve yields and reduce the number of male plants that had to be cared for. [11] In other words, the dioecious nature of date palms was well-understood in the ancient world. In fact, the following hadith shows that Muhammad and his companions were familiar with this trait:
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 54, Number 490: Narrated ‘Aisha: Magic was worked on the Prophet so that he began to fancy that he was doing a thing which he was not actually doing. One day he…said, “I feel that Allah has inspired me as how to cure myself. Two persons came to me (in my dream)…One of them asked the other, ‘What is the ailment of this man?’ The other replied, ‘He has been bewitched’ The first asked, ‘Who has bewitched him?’ The other replied, ‘Lubaid bin Al-A’sam.’ The first one asked, ‘What material has he used?’ The other replied, ‘A comb, the hair gathered on it, and the outer skin of the pollen of the male date-palm.’ …”
Therefore, the “Idiot’s” second glaring error was the claim that “the science of botany was in no way advanced enough at the time of the Prophet to have concluded that plants have gender traits.” In truth, the Koran was making a reference to knowledge that its Arab listeners were as familiar with as “the night cover[s] the day.”
Another strange bit of Koranic “science” comes from The Koran for Dummies:[12]
The Koran describes the divine structure of the mountain as firmly rooted in the earth, “standing firm” so that the mountain does not shake with the rest of the earth (31:10). Today, geologists have also come to the conclusion that mountains are rooted in the earth with hard sediments, like the roots of trees, which play an essential role in securing the earth.
As anyone living in the vicinity of the San Andreas fault, or the mountains of Pakistan or Iran knows, mountain ranges are among the places most likely to be affected by earthquakes. Mountains are never “standing firm,” because the continental plates they reside on slowly but constantly drift over the face of the planet, floating on top of the Earth’s molten core. In fact, mountains are frequently the jumbled results of continental plates crashing into each other. The entire concept of mountains described by the Koran and its interpreters is fundamentally incorrect.
Both The Koran for Dummies and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran have other claims about the Koran’s “scientific knowledge” that turn out to be either observations that one could make with the naked eye, broad generalizations that do not indicate advanced knowledge, or outright falsehoods. If one were to investigate each of these claims, one would become convinced of Muhammad’s scientific ignorance rather than the Koran’s scientific knowledge.
Most strangely, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam states that “Muslims developed the scientific method of formulating a hypothesis and testing it to see whether it is correct.” [13]
Actually, an early form of the scientific method came to the Islamic world through its conquests in India, along with the Indian number system and mathematics. This can be seen most notably in the works of a remarkable Indian mathematician and astronomer named Aryabhata (476 AD – 550 AD).
It is possible that the scientific method was refined in the Islamic world, but I have found no evidence of this. However, it is known that the scientific method was refined by William of Ockham, an Englishman and Catholic theologian from the early 1300s, who stated a valuable research criterion that has become known as Ockham’s Razor: If there are competing theories that explain a given set of data, choose the simplest theory.
Meanwhile, the Islamic world became infected with a virulent case of excess piety, similar to what caused the Church to imprison Galileo. However, in the House of Islam, this infection thrives even today. One can see it at work in The Koran for Dummies,[14] which states:
The Koran shows an innate knowledge of astronomy in pointing out that the sun and moon alternate by day and night in a “rounded course” (21:33), which alludes to the fact that both the sun and moon rotate around the earth, a “scientific” discovery that was made well after the Koran’s revelation.
This is not a typographical error. According to the Koran, the sun does rotate around the earth. In both authoritative translations to English, the cited verse declares:
[21.33] PICKTHAL: And He it is Who created…the sun and the moon. They float, each in an orbit.
[21.33] YUSUF ALI: It is He Who created…the sun and the moon: all (the celestial bodies) swim along, each in its rounded course.
This view of astrophysics is affirmed in many other Koranic verses, [15] as well as the Hadith, which explicitly tells devout Muslims how to interpret the Koran’s words:
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 54, Number 421:…The Prophet asked me at sunset, “Do you know where the sun goes (at the time of sunset)?” I replied, “Allah and His Apostle know better.” He said, “It goes (i.e. travels) till it prostrates Itself underneath the Throne and takes the permission to rise again, and it is permitted and then (a time will come when) it will be about to prostrate itself but its prostration will not be accepted, and it will ask permission to go on its course but it will not be permitted, but it will be ordered to return whence it has come and so it will rise in the west. And that is the interpretation of the Statement of Allah: ‘And the sun Runs its fixed course For a term (decreed). that is The Decree of (Allah) The Exalted in Might, The All-Knowing.’” (36.38)
Pickthal’s version of the verse cited above is:
[36.38] PICKTHAL: And the sun runneth on unto a resting-place for him. That is the measuring of the Mighty, the Wise.
Even more disconcerting than these bizarre explanations of the sun’s motion is the “Dummies” assertion that these Koranic “revelation(s)” have been confirmed by “‘scientific’ discovery”!
While it is understandable that people from the Dark Ages might have believed that the sun rotates around the earth, the Koran makes this belief permanent. It would be an act of Apostasy for a devout Muslim to disagree with verse 21.33 and verse 36.38, as well as their many corroborating verses.
While some Muslims may try to wiggle around the “Dummies” viewpoint, by claiming that these verses refer to the Sun’s orbit in the Milky Way, or to the Sun’s rotation on its own axis, the fact remains that a mainstream writer for the “For Dummies” series interpreted this verse to mean that the Sun rotates around the Earth. Moreover, this view is what any Muslim would have concluded from the Koran before being informed by Western Science that the Sun rotates around its own axis, and also orbits around the center of the Milky Way.
In researching the above claims, I found so many exaggerations and outright falsehoods that I have come to doubt all of these books’ claims about Muslim achievements and the Koran’s scientific knowledge. None of this “knowledge” rises to the standard of a useful scientific theory, and none of it has contributed to mankind’s store of useful information.
In fact, the Koran has several “scientific” concepts that actually detract from mankind’s store of useful knowledge, and are so wild that the authors of these beginners’ books preferred to stay silent on them. For example, there is the story of a man named Dhu’l-Qarneyn, whom Muslims commonly believe to have been Alexander the Great, who followed the sun until he found it setting in a muddy spring with people living nearby:
[31.29] PICKTHAL: They will ask thee of Dhu’l-Qarneyn. Say: I shall recite unto you a remembrance of him.
[31.31] Lo! We made him strong in the land and gave him unto every thing a road.
[31.32] And he followed a road
[31.33] Till, when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring, and found a people thereabout.
Another illuminating bit of Koranic “science” explains that the heavens in the sky have different levels, with the lowest level hung with lamps. It also explains that shooting stars, otherwise known as meteors, are actually lamps flung at evil spirits:
[67.5] YUSUF ALI: And we have, (from of old), adorned the lowest heaven with Lamps, and We have made such (Lamps) (as) missiles to drive away the Evil Ones, and have prepared for them the Penalty of the Blazing Fire.
[15.16] YUSUF ALI: It is We Who have set out the zodiacal signs in the heavens, and made them fair-seeming to (all) beholders;
[15.17] And (moreover) We have guarded them from every cursed devil:
[15.18] But any that gains a hearing by stealth, is pursued by a flaming fire, bright (to see).
[37.6] YUSUF ALI: We have indeed decked the lower heaven with beauty (in) the stars,-
[37.7] (For beauty) and for guard against all obstinate rebellious evil spirits,
[37.8] (So) they should not strain their ears in the direction of the Exalted Assembly but be cast away from every side,
[37.9] Repulsed, for they are under a perpetual penalty,
[37.10] Except such as snatch away something by stealth, and they are pursued by a flaming fire, of piercing brightness.
After the Koran pronounces, three times, that meteors are lamps flung at evil spirits, what devout Muslim could accept the notion that they are interplanetary rocks that happen to collide with the earth’s atmosphere?
To be fair, it is important to also note that the Bible has its own strange “science” at times. It joins the Koran in portraying angels as real, and has spawned a legion of creationists who adamantly revolt against the theory of evolution.
A key difference between the Bible and the Koran is that only the Koran claims to have been written by Allah himself. As previously discussed in the chapter entitled A personal realization, this fact gives the Koran unquestionable and iron-clad authority in the eyes of devout Muslims. Another important difference is that Christians are called upon to resolve disputes through peaceful methods, while Muslims are called upon to resolve disputes through jihad. Despite this, Christians have had their own rebellions against science, as they reluctantly learned to listen to the Bible spiritually while letting nature speak for itself. While this change in viewpoint may be difficult for Christians, it is impossible for Muslims, who can only make this change by acknowledging that the Koran is not perfect, an act tantamount to Apostasy.
Another major difference between Western Science and Islamic Science is that Western Science does not care about truth per se. Instead, it focuses on useful and accurate approximations, because it humbly acknowledges that the ultimate truths of reality still lay beyond our crude comprehension. As a result, Western scientists are quick to discard one theory in favor of another if the new theory is more useful and accurate than the old one.
Islamic Science, on the other hand, defines the Koran to be The Truth, and then seeks to read the observable world into its pages. In fact, the authority of the Koran is greater than that of personal observation. If a Muslim sees something that disagrees with the Koran, he or she will claim that the Koran is still true, but we simply do not understand its truth with regard to the thing observed.
While the Islamic world may have made some contributions to science, the fact that these beginners’ books had to stretch the truth and tell falsehoods gives sad testimony to the scarcity of worthy Islamic achievements. In comparison, the achievements of Western science, through giants like Huygens, Newton, Laplace, Bernoulli, Gauss, Mach, Faraday, and Einstein, make exaggeration unnecessary.
One final point: While there may be Koranic verses that thwart science directly, the ways in which Muslims interpret the Koran amplify the damage. Consider the following verse:
[22.18] YUSUF ALI: Seest thou not that to Allah bow down in worship all things that are in the heavens and on earth, – the sun, the moon, the stars; the hills, the trees, the animals; and a great number among mankind?
This passage could easily be interpreted in a poetic sense. Unfortunately, Muslims choose to take it literally. For example, The Koran for Dummies states: [16]
The Koran teaches that all creations on earth and in the universe submit to God [Allah] in worship by following His laws. So, the sun and the moon, the plants and the trees, and the animals bow down in praise of God for sustaining them…
In light of the fact that neither animals, nor the moon, sun, or stars bow down and worship Allah in any observable sense, the author goes on to explain that animals and physical objects “bow down in praise of God for sustaining them” by simply adhering to the laws of nature.
The subtle pathology of this explanation is that it transmutes the laws of nature into the word of Allah, just as Muslims believe that the Koran is the word of Allah. Thus, Muslims believe that the Koran, as the word of Allah, can speak authoritatively on the physical laws of nature, and should be considered a source of answers to scientific questions.
The dark side of this viewpoint is that it makes any scientist or inventor an Apostate if his or her work violates the Koran. We see this dark side in the diatribes of Islamic scholars against photography, movies, television, and even organ transplants. Islam stifles science by suppressing free speech and, consequently, free thought and invention.
Islam does more than hinder science with its strictures on free speech; it also does so with its strictures on Free Enterprise. Research projects often need large amounts of money, for which researchers often resort to interest-bearing loans. Many realms of research are risky, such as the deep sea, air, and space, and will only be ventured into if insurance can provide a safety net. Islam’s prohibitions against usury and gambling make the hurdles of such research even more challenging.
In summary, Islam attacks science on multiple fronts. Its holy scriptures provide false answers to important scientific questions. It prohibits research and product development in a broad range of areas. It lashes out against scientists whose discoveries violate its tenets. It makes money for research difficult to raise. It also discourages risk-taking behavior.
After considering the many hurdles that Islam places before science, it is no wonder that that science has progressed much faster in the West. This blaring fact has led Muslims themselves to realize that something is wrong, but they cannot bring themselves to consider that their own belief system might be the cause. Instead, they have desperately sought other causes, which have led to misguided solutions. The resulting confusion has combined with a sense of crisis to produce the violence and rage seen in the House of Islam today.
Go to Chapter 6, Section 1:
REFERENCES FOR SECTION 1:
[1] The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam, by Yahiya Emerick, Alpha Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2002, Chapter 26, section entitled Charting the Muslim Influence on Europe, page 323.
[2] Ibid, Chapter 26, section entitled Charting the Muslim Influence on Europe, page 322.
[3] The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam, by Yahiya Emerick, Alpha Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2002, Chapter 26, section entitled Illuminating the Science Hall of Fame, page 325.
[4] The Koran for Dummies, by Sohaib Sultan, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2004, Chapter 20, section entitled Advancing society through science, page 297.
[5] The Koran for Dummies, by Sohaib Sultan, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2004, Chapter 20, section entitled Advancing society through science, page 297.
[6] Alternative spellings: Cài Lún, Ts’ai Lun
[7] The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam, by Yahiya Emerick, Alpha Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2002, Chapter 26, section entitled Illuminating the Science Hall of Fame, page 325.
[8] The Koran for Dummies, by Sohaib Sultan, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2004, Chapter 9, section entitled Earthly Creations, pages 136-139.
[9] The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran, by Shaykh Muhammad Sarwar and Brandon Toropov, Alpha Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Chapter 8, section entitled Scientific and Historical Information, pages 87-89.
[10] Ibid, page 89.
[11] Source: The official website of the city of Nizwa, Oman: www.nizwa.net/agr/dates/datefarm/datefarm.html.
[12] The Koran for Dummies, by Sohaib Sultan, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2004, Chapter 9, section entitled Earthly Creations, page 137.
[13] The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam, by Yahiya Emerick, Alpha Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2002, Chapter 26, section entitled Charting the Muslim Influence on Europe, page 323.
[14] The Koran for Dummies, by Sohaib Sultan, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2004, Chapter 9, section entitled The sun and moon, page 135.
[15] Additional verses from the Koran that imply the Sun moves around the Earth:
[13.2] YUSUF ALI: Allah is He Who raised the heavens without any pillars that ye can see; is firmly established on the throne (of authority); He has subjected the sun and the moon (to his Law)!
Each one runs (its course) for a term appointed.
[13.2] PICKTHAL: Allah it is Who raised up the heavens without visible supports, then mounted the Throne, and compelled the sun and the moon to be of service, each runneth unto an appointed term;
[22.18] YUSUF ALI: And the sun runs his course for a period determined for him: that is the decree of (Him), the Exalted in Might, the All-Knowing.
[22.18] PICKTHAL: And the sun runneth on unto a resting-place for him.
[31.29] YUSUF ALI: Seest thou not that Allah merges Night into Day and he merges Day into Night; that He has subjected the sun, and the moon (to his Law), each running its course for a term appointed;
[31.29] PICKTHAL: Hast thou not seen how Allah…hath subdued the sun and the moon (to do their work), each running unto an appointed term;
[39.5] YUSUF ALI: He created the heavens and the earth in true (proportions):…He has subjected the sun and the moon (to His law): Each one follows a course for a time appointed.
[39.5] PICKTHAL: He…constraineth the sun and the moon to give service, each running on for an appointed term. Is not He the Mighty, the Forgiver?
[16] The Koran for Dummies, by Sohaib Sultan, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2004, Chapter 1, section entitled Worship and service to God, page 11.
Recent Comments