Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam 189. Why Did the Scientific Revolution Not Take Place in the Islamic World? - 7
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA

 

Europe used its technological and scientific advantage to colonize much of Asia and Africa. India was the first great Asian civilization to fall to the West (1757-1947). By the end of the nineteenth century most of the Islamic world with the exception of the core Ottoman Empire and the Iranian heartland had been colonized. There was resistance to the European onslaught, for instance, from Tippu Sultan of Mysore, who built a navy to patrol the Arabian Sea and rockets to defend his kingdom. But these efforts were too little, too late. By the end of the eighteenth century, the resistance had ended and the scientific and technological sway of the west was unchallenged both on land and on sea.

The European powers dismantled the educational infrastructure of the colonized lands which had grown over many centuries, thereby injecting a discontinuity in the intellectual development of the colonized people. The zawiyas and madrassas which had provided the educational foundation of the Muslim world were either marginalized or disappeared. Their place was taken up by government schools run by the colonial authorities whose purpose was to educate the native population to man the lower echelons of administrative bureaucracies in the colonized lands. Science and technology, which at best were flickering in the old institutions, died out. The science and technology gap between a colonizing Europe and a colonized Afro-Asia increased.

 

A Challenging Future

It was only in the latter half of the nineteenth century that the Islamic world woke up to the need to learn the natural sciences from the West. In India, the Aligarh Muslim University was founded by Syed Ahmed Khan (d 1898). It was patterned after European schools and its intent was to educate Indian Muslims in the sciences, arts and technologies of the West. In the Ottoman Empire, a determined effort was made to cultivate science and technology through the Tanzeemat, and technical universities were established in Istanbul and other major cities. Some of the gifted students from these universities went on to study in Europe and acquire more advanced training in science and technology. The trend continues to this day; the few notable Muslim scientists and engineers have been primarily products of American and European universities.

However, in the global picture, the Islamic world continues to lag behind the West in science and technology. Not a single institution of higher learning in Muslim countries is listed among the top 100 science institutions of the world. Of the nine hundred Nobel Laureates since the Nobel Prize was established, only nine have been Muslim. Of these nine, six Noble prizes were awarded for promoting peace. There have been only three Muslim Noble Laureates in science, and all of them were educated and worked at universities in America or Europe. Less than one percent of the names that appear in the database of the United States Patents and Trademarks Office are Muslim and a similar trend is observable in the respectable scientific journals of the world.  Literacy in Muslim lands is among the lowest in the world. For instance, only 47 percent of women in Kashmir are literate which means more than half of them cannot even read and write their own name. What is more alarming is that the education gap between Muslim countries and the emerging economies such as those of China and India is increasing. War, physical dislocation, extremism and neglect have all taken their toll. Meanwhile, the Muslims continue to be bogged down with arguments over haram, bida’, shirk and kufr, hijab, beards and halal meat.

Education is valued only for its monetary benefits. Extremism has taken its toll. In Pakistan, women and girls are attacked for going to school.  Religion has been hijacked by professional mullahs. The term a’lim is reserved for one who has studied in a madrasa. Knowledge has been compartmentalized into religious and secular. Scholarship in the sciences is not valued. The ignorant mullahs look down upon the natural sciences as secular and debasing.

 

Is renewal possible?

A revival of natural sciences in the Islamic world requires, at the minimum, the following:

• Develop a framework to encourage the pursuit of the natural sciences in conformance with the Qur’an. This is within the reach of the current generation of intellectuals. An attempt in this direction has been made by this writer and it has been published in the Encyclopedia of Islamic History, historyofislam.com .

Natural Science is a part of the Shariah. Nature, history and the soul offer “Signs” from God. The Qur’an urges humankind, time and again, to observe, ponder over and learn from these Signs. This profound guidance offers the possibility of reconciliation between faith and reason. Accommodate the natural sciences (science and technology), historical sciences (sociology and history) and studies of the soul (tasawwuf) into basic Islamic education. As the Qur’an states: “Soon shall We show them Our Signs, on the horizon as well as within their own Selves, until they have certainty that it is the Truth”.

• Encourage a culture of reason and rational discourse. Use technology to diffuse this culture in society.
• Encourage science education in primary and secondary schools.
• Establish Centers of Excellence wherein scholars and seekers of knowledge meet and learn.
• Provide societal recognition and financial support for those who pursue science and technology.
• Train the religious establishment, the a’lims and the mullahs, in the basics of science and technology.
• Establish peace and stability in the land.

The current bleak situation is a challenge and an opportunity for Islamic civilization. Islam is a great civilization. It has faced many challenges in its long history and has renewed itself time and again to emerge stronger and more resilient. Our hope is that it will once again rise up to the current challenge, renew itself and will march forward with the light of knowledge.

“Indeed, with every difficulty there is relief”. (The Qur’an, 94:6)

(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)