Islamic attitudes towards science

Muslim scholars have developed a spectrum of viewpoints on science within the context of Islam.

Quotes

• "And it is We who have constructed the heaven with might, and verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it."
  • (The Qur'an, 51:47)

• He created the heavens and the Earth with truth. He wraps the night around the day and wraps the day around the night, and has made the Sun and Moon subservient, each one running for a specified term. Is He not indeed the Almighty, the Endlessly Forgiving?
  • Qur'an, Surah Al-Zumar, 5

• And the Sun runs to its resting place. That is the decree of the Almighty, the All-Knowing. "It is He Who created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon. They swim along, each in an orbit. "

(The Qur'an, 21:33)

• • Qur'an, Surah Yasin 38, Surah Yasin 39, Surah Yasin 40

• Do not the Unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of creation), before We clove them asunder, and We made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe?"

(The Qur'an, 21:30)

• "We made the sky a preserved and protected roof yet still they turn away from Our Signs.."

(The Qur'an, 21:32)

• "…And We sent down iron in which there lies great force and which has many uses for mankind...."

(The Qur'an, 57:25)

• The above observation makes the hypothesis advanced by those who see Muhammad as the author of the Qur'an untenable. How could a man, from being illiterate, become the most important author, in terms of literary merits, in the whole of Arabic literature? How could he then pronounce truths of a scientific nature that no other human being could possibly have developed at that time, and all this without once making the slightest error in his pronouncement on the subject?"
  • Maurice Bucaille, The Bible, the Quran and Science, 1978, p. 125.

• A totally objective examination of it [the Qur'an] in the light of modern knowledge, leads us to recognize the agreement between the two, as has been already noted on repeated occasions. It makes us deem it quite unthinkable for a man of Muhammad's time to have been the author of such statements on account of the state of knowledge in his day. Such considerations are part of what gives the Qur'anic Revelation its unique place, and forces the impartial scientist to admit his inability to provide an explanation which calls solely upon materialistic reasoning."
  • Maurice Bucaille, The Quran and Modern Science, 1981, p. 18

• Islam, from among all religions, best suits the science discoveries and is the most ready to edify souls and force them to abide by justice, kindness and toleration.
  • Gustave Le Bon, The World of Islamic Civilization (La Civilisation des Arabes, 1884).

• Every person I met believes if there is any disagreement between the Koran and science, then the Koran wins. It's just utterly deplorable. These are now British children who are having their minds stuffed with alien rubbish. Occasionally, my colleagues lecturing in universities lament having undergraduate students walk out of their classes when they talk about evolution. This is almost entirely Muslims.
  • Richard Dawkins. Telegraph R. Dawkins: Hugo Gye -

• From a new angle and with a fresh vigour, Islam took up that systematic development of positive knowledge which the Greeks had begun and relinquished. If the Greek was the father, then the Arab was the foster-father of the scientific method of dealing with reality, that is to say, by absolute frankness, the utmost simplicity of statement and explanation, exact record and exhaustive criticism. Through the Arabs it was, and not by the Latin route, that the modem world received that gift of light and power.
  • H. G. Wells, The Outline of History, London, 1920.
• If America owned the future, the Islamic fundamentalists laid claim to the past. They were not rejecting technology or science; indeed, many of the leaders of al-Qaeda, such as Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Hajer, were men of science themselves. But they were ambivalent about the way in which technology weakened the spirit. This was reflected in bin Laden's interest in earth-moving machinery and genetic engineering of plants, on one hand, and his rejection of chilled water on the other.
  • Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (2006), p. 196