Science & Faith (Archived)

Science & Faith 1:

Almost all scientists in the west agree that they are in consistent with the intellectual, psychological and spiritual revolution un-witnessed by the west from before, and where a lot of scientists realized that, although a little bit of science can lead to Atheism. However, increasing and deepening thoughts of science will only serve to strengthen your belief and faith in one creator of all, and with enough depth of insight in any science, the ability to recognize the magnitude of creation will strengthen beliefs.

And thus the right principles and ways to conduct scientific researches requires the researcher to reconsider everything one time after another, wish concludes him to reconstruct profs and deny past theories, and where the west started reaping the fruits of their scientific research. And after most of the scientists became Atheists, today we see western scientists believing the existence of only one creator to the universe.

In a new survey published in Newsweek on the 20^th of July 1998, found that 60% of western scientists believe in the existence of God, and that he should be worshipped, and more than 90% of the American public believes in God.

Although this constitutes an obvious case for Muslims, but it was not as so for western scientists, and that is due to what happened in Middle Ages from prosecuting scientists and considering their theories as challenging the church, such as what happen with Galileo’s prosecution in 1633 and other scientists, which made the west look on science and religion as two opposites, in order for one to progress the other needs to retreat.

Those sentiments still exists in the west to a large degree, although scientific research made western scientists call on believing in God, and returning the harmony between science and faith, and those indications of change has started to rise by the beginning of this century, which was expressed by ‘Einstein’ by saying: “science without faith is paralyzed, and faith without science is blind”.

At the time where the west was flip-flopping in and between the belief in God and science, which contradicts with the true human nature instincts, Muslim scientists never left an area or field of life that they would give a deep scientific eye in it in accordance to the ways and teachings of their religion that does not leave doubt and regulate it by making it as a characteristic and an attitude to believers of one creator, they took studies and research from deep perspective by practice and application, and one of the foundations of worshiping and one of the highest images of worshiping their creator, thus becoming geniuses in different sciences like medicine, pharmaceuticals, chemistry, physics, mathematics, astronomy and different other beneficial  sciences’.

Science and Faith 2:

We started the first episode in this subject discussing the intellectual, psychological and spiritual revolution the west is witnessing as a result of calls by scientists in the belief of God existence, and returning the harmony between science and faith after centuries of forced separation between them, which occurred due to natural reflection from the deviation of the church and its crusade against science, and trialing its scientists in Middle Ages.

We mentioned at the time were westerners were flip-flopping from within between the separation of science and faith, and how Muslim scientists never leave doubt in beneficial fields of life with deep thoughtful mindsets in research and study and apply it as a worshiping practice, which is considered the highest images of worshiping in Islam, thus who excelled from them from guru scientists who dedicated their knowledge to serve a means to an end in creations, that is why they were beacons and a beam of hope to humanity, and a gift for believers.

Here is, for example ‘Thabet Bin Qurra’ during the 3^rd century of Hijra Islamic calendar, wrote about gravity and its relations to the Mass, and establishing the path for calculations of integration and differentiation, which allowed scientists of our age to use them in taming nature laws and dedicate them for human goodness, alongside having effects on astronomy and medicine.

And here is ‘Abdurrahman Bin Ahmad Bin Younis’ famous during the 4^th Hijra century in sciences of astronomy and mathematics, even the Fatimid built him an observatory on cliffs of a mountain near Fustat, and equipped it with all required tools and machines, his manuscripts are still reserved in ‘leiden University’ in Holland, it has levels of accuracy and proficiency that made the Dutch government loan the scripts to the French institute and translate them.

It is believed that those manuscripts are one of the copies of Al Azhar which was separated during the blockade and storming of Cairo. In those manuscripts ‘Bin Younis’ collected all the verses related to matters of the skies, and has arranged them into accurate and beautiful rankings according to themes, as he used to see the best way to knowing God is to have deep thoughtful thinking about the creations of this earth we live in, its sky and wonder creations, and what this wisdom instilled in to generations to come.

Bin Younis also found mathematical relationships between the movement of pendulum and time, and used this information to invent the clocks pendulum, which is wrongly attributed to the Italian scientists Galileo, as commonly known.

But ‘Abu AlRayhan Mohammad Bin Ahmad AL-Bairouni’ has brought attention, in the 4^th Hijri century, about the earth spinning around its center, and has put theories of extraction from the Earth’s circumference, he excelled in sciences of Angles and mathematical tables, he also discovered a way to assign specific weights, and defined 18 kinds of chemical elements based on mass, and wrote his well-known astronomical book ‘Altafhim’.

‘Al-razi’ became famous in medical science and chemistry, historians consider him one of the greatest physicians of the Middle Ages, and he has a lot of Books, the most important one of them is called ‘Al-hawi’ in medicine, he also divided minerals into types depending their nature and feature, his ways are still followed in preparations till this day.

He considered the mind to be the greatest gift graced from God to raise human status amongst living creatures. One of his saying we translated from Arabic was this “do not make it ruled when it governs you, do not let it be a follower when affiliated, we reference from it and consider them with it, and rely on things from it, do not shed it in fancy, which is its curse, unpleasantness and a deviation from its course, purpose and integrity. But taming, humiliating, transforming, and compelling it to stand at his command, and prohibitions”.

Science and Faith 3:

Today, we continue what we started in our studies and research for the east and west journeys towards realizing the relations between science and faith, connecting or separating from each other and what was the outcomes of all that.

We mentioned, at the time where the west detached between science and faith, Muslim scientists embraced this relation in many aspects of life, leaving no doubt with deep considerate thinking, researching and studying, while practicing it like they practice any worshiping acts toward their creator, and how science is considered, to them, as the highest levels of worshiping in Islam, becoming wise in many different sciences.

We started out journey by missing the remains of Muslim scientists, mind and soul, through more than a thousand years, and today we will mention 3 of them, they are; AL-khazzan, Ibn al Nafees, and Ibn Al-Haitham..

‘Al-khazzan’ came from the 17^th Hijri Century to define air and water pressure, he invented a special scale that weighs objects in air and water, and another scale to weigh creatures, his inventions paved the road to “Galileo’ to make the thermometer.

Ibn al-nafees’ was famous for medical science in the 17^th Hijri Century as well, has a lot of work, some which proved that he was the one who discovered the Micro-circulation (pulmonary circulation) centuries before the European renaissance, which go against what is known in medicine as (Harvey) who discovered this circulation in 1628 AD, which later was proven that ‘Ibn al-nafees’ was the first, after finding his book explaining of Anatomy of the law of Ibn Sina, which was later confirmed by an oriental’s such as (Mayorhuff) in 1922, and Alfred Binet in Paris in 1948, and other recognizable scientists.

‘Al-Hassan bin al-Haitham’ was the most famous physics scientists in the middle ages, where he wrote over 200 books, and translated many of his work to Latin, his most important accomplishment was the Anatomy of the eye in full and describing the full functions of each section of the eye, which was adopted by European Ophthalmology scientists, and established naming sectors of the eyes from the results of his work, such as the Cornea and Retina, and as such.

Explaining in his famous book ‘Perspectives’ the nature of light, his writings were a resource to study and research up until the middle of 16^th century for the likes of ‘Roger Bacon’ in the year 1220 AD, which introduced experimental science as a method to conduct scientific research in Europe based on “Ibn al-Haitham”.

It is not hard to find the likes of a famous astrologist as (Kepler) taking  what was discovered by Ibn al-haitham  in the optics science and what was related to breaking light rays in the atmosphere, as confirmed by the French scientist (Lutier Feardo) .

Science and Faith 4:

Today we continue our journey with science and faith between the east and west. We have mentioned in the earlier episode that, at the time were westerners separate between science and faith, Muslim scientists never left an area of life without consideration and deep thoughts to reflect on, research and study, while practicing it as a higher image of worshiping their creator, and have excelled in many sciences.

We traced the image trails of Muslim scientists, mind and soul, through more than a thousand years, choosing some of the guru scientists from Islamic history. We spoke about ‘Thabet Bin Qurra’ and ‘Abdurrahman bin Ahmad bin Younis’, ‘Al-baironi’,Al-razzi, Ibn al-nafees and Ibn al-haitham.

And today we conclude this trace discussing a scientist, who excelled in many sciences rarely combined into one scientist throughout the centuries, and for many after his death. He left many books that included different fields of knowledge, his most famous book was ‘Al-qanoon’ which means ‘The Law’, and has many descriptions and explanations as well as abbreviations that were printed in Rome in 1593 AD, and in Cairo in 1290 Hijri, and was translated into Latin in the 12^th century, and to Hebrew as well.

What indicated the widespread of his book “The Law in Medicine’ is its published print in Latin during the 15^th century, for 16 times and re-published again during the 16^th century, and was studied in curriculums of European Universities up until the end of 19^th century, in other words, it was studied in medical Universities of the west from more than 500 years after his death, noting that he finished with his writings, editing and reviewing before reaching his 20 years of age, his knowledge was not only in medicine, with the importance of his books and writings in medicine and its volume, but it was only the tip of the iceberg of his work and writings; having many books to which he called science mechanism that included books in logic and what’s affiliated with it from books in language and poetry, and sciences he named as, the science of theory, including books in total science, Devine science, mathematical science and natural science, and other he called practical science that included books on ethics, housekeeping, management of the city and legislatives.

What was known about him is that he used to attend to the mosque when faced with an intellectual dilemma or a practical matter, worshiping and praying and reflecting on the kingdom and greatness of his creator, while giving deep thought to his matters, sometimes by staying up all night at the same matter, to which, many times the answer would come to him by the rise of dawn on that day, going back to his house and his library, to continue what he stared, and that was him until the day he died.

Science & Faith 5:

Today, we continue our journey with science and faith between each of the east and west, which we have also trialed through images of Muslim scientists, mind and soul, through hundreds of years, selecting biographies from guru’s of science in Islamic history, such as ‘Thabet Bin Qurra’ ‘Abdurrahman Bin Ahmad Bin Younis’ ‘Al-bairouni’ ‘Al-razi’ ‘Al-khazen’ ‘Ibn al-nafees’ and ‘Ibn al-haitham’, and those are only few of hundreds of Muslim scientists that practiced the higher images of worshiping for their creator, by understanding the texts of ‘Quran’ and the prophets guidance that called for science and reflection, search and observing, which raises science above all matters of the people.

Centuries passed by, Muslim nations lost their way in finding correct understanding of the full and complete towards all humanity. And so, they forgot their role in building the Earth and leading humankind in different fields of life, religion was limited to understanding devotional rites without any reflections on the reality of their lives, thus descending, and others were influenced with their beneficial sciences, and leading nations went by others as a cause of that.

Muslims reached an era where they had no sufficient proceeds or depth in sciences to embrace meanings of faith. They never understood their religion right and practiced it as it should be practiced, reflected, researched and consider so they can advance in beneficial sciences to humanity, and thus losing science with faith, and became at the back of the boat, after it was the leader, creator, producer nation, it became the imitator, the follower, and the consumer.

What happened in the west was the opposite of all that, their human nature called upon its scientists to research, reflect, consider and study, but the Christian religion, represented by the church, prevented them from practicing what their nature is bound to follow, and thus the separation between science and religion, after which, science has advanced a great distance, reaching space, and producing all what surrounds us from inventions, creations and discoveries. But all those magnanimous amounts of financial advancement didn’t have the spiritual and psychological quality to it, upsetting the balance, only then where the west started to be infected with psychiatric and congenital disorders, where western scientists thought at the beginning that they were fine without the fundamentals of faith and religion together, and as a reaction for the church’s challenges against science, and thus, the division between science and faith. But in today’s world, western scientists reached a level of knowledge that makes them stand with amazement and tribute against the creativity and ability of what they see between their hands from verses of creation not made by coincidences.