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Now Available!
Signs in the Heavens:
A
Muslim Astronomer's
Perspective on
Religion and Science
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2nd
edition
revised
and
expanded
"This book offers
information and insights into ...
topics too rarely confronted in Western academic
circles,
particularly the spiritual foundations of modern
science."
--Kamran Memon, Islamic Horizons
"... A beautiful
book!"
--Ajieb Bilal,
educator
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by Imad -ad-Dean Ahmad
![Signs in the
Heavens - front](signs-front.jpg)
"... must reading
for all
Muslims."
--Dr.
Robert
D. Crane, Muslim author and
former White House
policy advisor
"Essential
historical and
scienific knowledge
made accessible to the common person ... An
excellent book."
--Imam Yusuf Saleem, Masjid Muhammad,
Washington, DC
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Dr. Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad explodes the myth of a
contradiction
between religion and science.
The Table of Contents and the preface to the volume are
reproduced
below.
TO GET YOUR COPY send $19.95 with a request
for
Signs in the Heavens: A Muslim Astronomer's Perspective
on Religion and
Science to:
Minaret of Freedom Institute
4323 Rosedale Avenue
Bethesda, MD 20814
Bookstores, foundations, mosques, schools and other
retailers call us at 301-907-0947 for wholesale pricing.
Contents
Illustrations
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vii
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Acknowledgements
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xi
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Notes on Transliteration and
Qur'anic Quotes
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xii
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Preface
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xiii
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Chapter 1. Introduction
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1
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Chapter 2. Science and Religion
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11
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Chapter 3. The Signs of God
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48
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Chapter 4. What Muhammad Saw
in the Sky
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66
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Chapter 5. Missing Years in
the History of Science:
622-1492 C.E.
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70
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Chapter 6. Impact of Islamic
Astronomy on the West
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128
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Chapter 7. The Lunar Calendar
Problem
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141
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Chapter 8. The Incoherence of
Muslim Pseudoscience
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154
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Chapter 9. Prospects for an
Islamic Renaissance
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162
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Bibliography
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184
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Index
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194
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Preface
A popular subject of discussion in the
modern West is the relationship between religion and
science. Are
they inherently incompatible or can they be reconciled? In
the
classical Islamic civilization science and religion were
considered
allies against paganism and superstition. Reconciliation
was not an
issue between two subjects that, to borrow a phrase from
Thoreau, had
never quarreled. This book advances the thesis that the
myth of an
incompatibility between religion and science is a myth of
Western
civilization, born out of its unique history.
The first edition of this book was written for the layman
in
non-technical popular language about Islam and astronomy,
but it was
more fundamentally about the perspective of one modern
Muslim
astronomer on religion and science, since only God is
completely
objective. This second edition is the product of a
research grant
from the Templeton Foundation, and has benefited from the
recommendations of three distinguished scientists who have
been
involved in the study of the history of science. In the
fourteen years
intervening between the two editions the quality of the
discussion of
the relationship between religion and science in Islamic
civilization
has risen to a more sophisticated plane. Ignorant
dissertations based
on the false premise that the Muslim world shared in the
Dark Ages of
Western Civilization are less prevalent. They have been
replaced by
thoughtful, though sometimes polemical, queries as to why
Islamic
science stagnated or declined while Western science
blossomed into the
Industrial Revolution and exponentially accelerated into
the marvelous
breakthroughs in research and technology that we witness
on a regulars
basis today. Substantial new historical research has taken
place
supporting the thesis of this book so that it is now less
novel than
before, but, given recent world events, more important
than ever.
Responding to both the changing environment and to the
recommendations
of my colleagues, this new edition has become somewhat
more academic
than the first, yet still aims to be accessible to the lay
reader.
In this book I present the attitudes towards science put
forward in the
Qur'an and the Prophetic traditions and by the great
Muslim scholars of
the classical era. I shall briefly review some of the
scientific
achievements of the golden era of Islamic civilization and
in more
detail discuss some important achievements in astronomy. I
shall also
try to show how the methodology of modern science was
developed in the
Islamic classical era and how advancements in science by
the Muslims
were the natural outgrowth of the Qur'anic foundations of
Islam.
Several different topics will be addressed in this book:
Prophet
Muhammad's own experiences with astronomical phenomena;
medieval Muslim
scientific achievements; the current state of science in
the Muslim
world as demonstrated by confusion over the lunar calendar
and the
growth of Muslim pseudoscience; the harmony of faith and
science in the
Islamic tradition and the origin of the Western notion
that these two
concepts do conflict; the mounting dissatisfaction with
the Ptolemaic
system that led up to what we know as “the Copernican
Revolution.”
Even in so dispassionate a field as physics, every
scientist harbors
affection for his own theories. He has a concern about
what effect
disproving his own previously published articles may have
on future
funding. Such emotions impede objectivity. Yet,
objectivity still has
some meaning even in the human realm.
Recently, a trend has emerged to transcend the Eurocentric
bias of the
Western educational establishment. To overcome that bias
without
replacing it with some new one is a worthwhile challenge.
As a man
raised with each foot in a different culture, I may be at
an advantage
in daring to rise to that challenge. In any case, I can
think of no
better project to try to bridge the gap of the European
and Islamic
cultures than a study of Islamic civilization's attitudes
towards and
contributions to science.
There are at least two themes in this book, each of which
deserves a
book of its own. For me, however, these themes are so
closely related,
that I think both deserve to be discussed together before
attempting
separate books to treat each in detail. Let the reader
approach this
book as a kind of overture to either or both of these
themes or as an
exploratory description of the relationship between them.
The themes
are: that the view that there is such a conflict between
science and
religion is a myth that arose from the West's unique
history, and that
in the classical Islamic era (when religion and science
worked
hand-in-hand) much progress was made in scientific
research and
techniques. The second of these supports the first (and
main theme) by
showing how a very religious culture was at the same time
scientifically progressive. It is only fitting for a
Muslim author to
choose Islamic civilization to demonstrate this point. At
the same
time, candor requires a third theme, a counterpoint
perhaps, that the
modern Muslim world has fallen far from the golden era
because Muslims
have abandoned those principles and standards that made
scientific
progress possible. Which theme is in the fore varies as
the reader
progresses through the book. Perhaps, then, it will be
helpful for me
to outline what each chapter seeks to achieve in
connection with the
broader objectives of this book.
The first chapter notes that the perceived incompatibility
between art
and science is paralleled by the myth of an even deeper
and fiercer
opposition between (religious) faith and reason and that
neither of
these views is part of Islamic thought. An alternative
view that the
same God who revealed His message to the prophets gave us
reason to be
able to recognize His message and distinguish truth from
error is put
forth.
The second chapter puts forward the view that monotheism
and reason are
allies against pagan superstition. The demise of classical
European
science coincident with the incorporation of pagan
elements into
Western European Christianity is noted, as well as the
coincidence of
the rise of science in the Arabic language with the spread
of Islam.
The revitalization of European science at the time of its
contacts with
Islam is noted.
The third chapter enumerates the factors in Islam that
were conducive
to scientific development.
In the fourth chapter, three incidents in the life of the
Prophet which
may be related to the observation of astronomical events
are examined
to show that, despite his lack of scientific knowledge,
his attitude
was free from superstition and that he saw each incident
as a sign of
God's greatness rather than omens about mundane human
affairs.
In the fifth chapter, we review some of the scientific
accomplishments
of the Islamic classical era with special emphasis (as
befits an author
who is an astronomer) on astronomy. We note that the most
innovative
scholars (like al-Biruni) were also the most pious.
In the sixth chapter we make some observations on the
impact of Islamic
science on the West. In particular, the “Great Chain of
Being” and its
authoritarian implications are explained. We show how
Muslim astronomy
eroded the foundations of the Great Chain of being and
paved the way
for a scientific model in which all creation is equal
under God. We
contrast the persecution of Galileo and Bruno with the
Muslims'
attitude towards scientific scholarship in the classical
era. Part of
the European revolt against the anti-science of the
authoritarian
Church splintered off into an anti-religion movement that
has left its
mark on modern attitudes towards the relationship between
religion and
science.
In the seventh chapter, we look at the issue of the
Islamic calendar
and note the unscientific attitude with which modern
Muslims have dealt
with this problem. This is considered evidence of the
decline of
respect for science in recent Muslim history.
In the eighth chapter, we look at the rise of modern
Muslim
pseudoscience that treats the Qur’an, a book of guidance,
as if it were
a scientific textbook. Misleadingly called “Islamic
science” this
phenomenon has provoked a vehement reaction that has given
the term
“Islamic science” such a bad reputation that some are even
denying that
such a thing existed in the classical era, thus obscuring
the very real
contributions to scientific methodology that came out of
the Islamic
civilization.
The idea that the Muslims' willingness or unwillingness to
resolve the
confusion over the Islamic calendar in a scientific rather
than
authoritarian manner and that modern Muslims are more
enamored of
pseudoscientific claims about allusions to the natural
world in the
Qur’an leads directly to the ninth and final chapter, in
which we
enumerate the impediments to Muslim scientific growth:
oppressive
Muslim governments, colonial remnants of the faith versus
reason
dichotomy, and the absence of ijtihâd (individual struggle
for
understanding). God does not change the condition of a
people until
they change themselves.
I should mention that there is a ghost that haunts this
book. His name
is well known to Muslims but will be unfamiliar to most
non-Muslims who
read this book. Yet even those who know his name are not
generally
familiar with the real essence of his teachings. He is Abu
Hamid
Muhammad ibn Muhammad at-Tusi al-Ghazali, and I wonder if
ever so
influential a man was so thoroughly misunderstood. He was
the man who
reconciled orthodox Islam and Sufism and who first
understood advanced
a truly modern theory of knowledge in which reason,
experience, and
authority were given balanced roles. Yet his teachings
were so
thoroughly misunderstood that instead of validating the
rise of Islamic
science they have been misread by non-Muslims as
precipitating its
decline and fall and misread by Muslims in a way that may
have
contributed to its decline and fall.
Al-Ghazali had been a rationalist and a popular
teacher of the
philosophical school that thought that reason alone could
lead to
truth. Yet, his own keen intellect led him to the
realization that this
was simply not true. The realization that he was a
hypocrite to teach
his students that unaided reason could lead to truth when
in his own
heart it had lead him only to skepticism caused a
psychological crisis
and one day he stood before his class incapable of speech.
He retired
from teaching and from public life. His spiritual journey,
described in
his book The Deliverance from Error led him to the
realization that
while correct reasoning from correct premises could lead
to truth,
reason by itself could not ascertain which premises were
valid and
which were not. Experience and transmitted knowledge from
reliable
sources were required in order to know which premises were
sound and
which were suspect. He saw that the rationalistic
philosophers in
antiquity and in the Muslim world had accepted
metaphysical speculation
as axioms and he debunked them in his iconoclastic book
The Incoherence
of the Philosophers. Similarly, he saw that the
authoritarian religious
establishment had fallen prey to a similar error in
accepting authority
as the sole source of knowledge. And the radical Sufis,
too, had made
the error of relying on their mystical experience alone.
One could be
delivered from these errors by using reason, experience,
and
transmission from reliable sources as checks upon one
another in
arriving at the truth. The evolution of Islamic science
was the gradual
pragmatic development of this balance in the study of
nature until what
had been “natural philosophy” became modern science.
By training and by profession I am an astronomer. By
ancestry and by
choice I am a Muslim. I believe in Islam not because it
happened to
have been the religion of my ancestors, but because I have
read the
sacred Text, considered the arguments, and I am convinced.
This book is
written for the general reader, yet it reflects the
vantage point of a
man who is a Muslim and an astronomer for, after all, such
a man wrote
it. The limitations that the human condition places on
objectivity,
however, should never prejudice one's analyses. I am
always open to
refutation. I always want to hear the sincere and
knowledgeable
arguments on the other side, whether from other religious
views or from
critics of certain scientific theories that I have found
persuasive.
That is the best mechanism by which human beings, fallible
as we are,
may correct our errors. The other path, that of learning
by experience,
is also effective, but more painful.
The same God who revealed His Message to the prophets gave
us reason in
order to be able to recognize His Message and to
distinguish it from
fraudulent and foolish claims to divine guidance. As a
Muslim scholar,
commanded to engage in holy struggle (jihâd) using my
particular
learning and skills, I must share my knowledge and
understanding with
others. By the grace of the one God (the God of Abraham
and Jacob,
Moses and Jesus, and Adam and Muhammad, peace be upon them
all, and Who
is called Allah in the Arabic tongue) and with the support
of such of
His servants as have led me to write the words contained
herein, I
offer this book to that end.
Imad A. Ahmad, Ph.D.
Bethesda, MD
October, 2003
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