Islam and Science

[Ahmed Waheed]

:salams :start:

:dogrun: I think we should go and see this topic: Islam and Science (http://www.islamicboard.com/showthread.php?t=2227) and consider why still the only reason for the downfall of the Muslim ummah is that of leaving what we're given . . .

:wswrwb:

[spes]

A society cannot develop Science if it does not believe that "cause and effect" exist.

Cause and Effect was rejected by al-Ghazali and the Asharites, and their view is still the prevailing view in Sunni Islam to this day.

See: http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21977

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[Ahmed Waheed]

A society cannot develop Science if it does not believe that "cause and effect" exist.

Cause and Effect was rejected by al-Ghazali and the Asharites, and their view is still the prevailing view in Sunni Islam to this day.

See: http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21977

.

:salams

:bangbang:You're not too accurate there; al-ghazali wrote a book of 30 volumes "Tafseer ul-Kalam" I'm sure you must have heard of it, he backed up the stuff about cause and effect. In one of his chapters, people now take bits to use as the cosmological and ontological arguments for the existence of God. In one place he said that everything that comes into existence has a cause for its existence; the universe came into existence, so the universe has a cause for its existence; the Cause itself is the un-caused cause, because if the un-Caused Cause had a cause, then nothing would exist.

:wswrwb:

[spes]

The UnCaused Cause argument is nothing new, even the pagan greeks put forth that argument for the existence of God.

But here we are not talking about arguments for God, we are talking about cause-and-effect and whether secondary causes exist, or is every single micro-event in the universe directly caused and managed by God?

For example, if I place a flame in contact with some cotton, is the flame the cause of the cotton burning, or is the cotton burning only because God makes it burn, and it has nothing to do with the flame?

Read al-Ghazali's Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-Falasifa) if you want to read his arguments against cause-and-effect.

He specifically uses the flame and cotton example.

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[Ahmed Waheed]

The UnCaused Cause argument is nothing new, even the pagan greeks put forth that argument for the existence of God.

But here we are not talking about arguments for God, we are talking about cause-and-effect and whether secondary causes exist, or is every single micro-event in the universe directly caused and managed by God?

For example, if I place a flame in contact with some cotton, is the flame the cause of the cotton burning, or is the cotton burning only because God makes it burn, and it has nothing to do with the flame?

Read al-Ghazali's Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-Falasifa) if you want to read his arguments against cause-and-effect.

He specifically uses the flame and cotton example.

.

:salams

:wacko: I think you mean "Tahfatul-Falsafiyyah" . . .

It's a little book; hardly a book compared to his 30 volumes of tafseer ul-kalam (the Tafseer of Surah al-Ikhlas) . . .

Anyway; Islam is not determined by scholars; nor do the scholars influence the contents of the Quran . . . And nor philosophers . . .

Do you reject the established facts of science: i.e. the World is round (a bit like a sphere although the equator belt has the highest circumference)

:wswrwb:

[spes]

I don't dispute the facts of reality.

But I argue that if a society cannot accept cause-and-effect as real, then that society will never develop science.

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[Ahmed Waheed]

:salams

:dogrun: Please refer to the link I also provided at the beginning of this thread, and it's right here also: Islam and Science (http://www.islamicboard.com/showthread.php?t=2227)

:wswrwb:

[Saifullah]

I don't dispute the facts of reality.

But I argue that if a society cannot accept cause-and-effect as real, then that society will never develop science.

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What inferencing of reason, makes you come out with that kind of statement?

Im sure your well aware of the fact that the muslims did repair, transmit and pioneer the sciences as we know them today, and that is living proof, which stands against your baseless theories.

[spes]

:salams

:dogrun: Please refer to the link I also provided at the beginning of this thread, and it's right here also: Islam and Science (http://www.islamicboard.com/showthread.php?t=2227)

:wswrwb:

What good is a link to another discussion board that requires someone to sign up before they can read?

.

[spes]

What inferencing of reason, makes you come out with that kind of statement?

Im sure your well aware of the fact that the muslims did repair, transmit and pioneer the sciences as we know them today, and that is living proof, which stands against your baseless theories.

Which statement are you questioning?

That Islam rejected cause-and-effect? This is obvious from the writings of al-Ghazali (aka "the Proof of Islam").

Or do you object to the statement that any civilization that rejects cause and effect can never develop science?

If you look at the timeline of Islamic society, after al-Ghazali the decline in knowledge begins.

Ibn Rushd tried to refute al-Ghazali but his thought was rejected and all of his works burned, and teh downfall for Islam began.

In contrast in Christian society, faith and reason were reconciled through Aquinas around the same period, laying the groundwork for the Enlightenment and the flourishing of Science.

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[mansio]

The downfall of the Muslim ummah is the result of the Jewish-Christian Conspiracy.

[Saifullah]

Which statement are you questioning?

That Islam rejected cause-and-effect? This is obvious from the writings of al-Ghazali (aka "the Proof of Islam").

Or do you object to the statement that any civilization that rejects cause and effect can never develop science?

If you look at the timeline of Islamic society, after al-Ghazali the decline in knowledge begins.

Ibn Rushd tried to refute al-Ghazali but his thought was rejected and all of his works burned, and teh downfall for Islam began.

In contrast in Christian society, faith and reason were reconciled through Aquinas around the same period, laying the groundwork for the Enlightenment and the flourishing of Science.

.

Typical! ... You have failed to understand my question, and my question was what makes the principle/concept of cause and effect to be so great as to be one of the major factors of sucess and advancement ?

[spes]

Without an acceptance of cause-and-effect as real, there can be no development of science.

See the thread I linked to earlier for a full discussion.

http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21977

[...]

THE PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS A CULTURE MUST AVOID TO DEVELOP SCIENCE

So now, according to Duhem and Jaki, what ideas are necessary to have (or, to be more precise generally, not have) in the intellectual climate of a civilization to keep science self-sustaining, instead of dying out after a few centuries of progress? First, a linear, potentially quantifiable conception of time that clearly distinguishes past, present, and future promotes a scientific view of nature and its cause-effect relationships is necessary for a scientific outlook. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, this idea comes from the act of God in creating the universe from nothing at some specific point of time in the past, and then time is seen as progressing through the present on to the future with the second coming and the day of judgment. The alternative view of time, the concept of the "Great Year," maintains centuries-long time cycles exist in which the future repeats the past exactly or almost exactly, making progress of any kind theoretically impossible. This idea of time breeds a sense of complacency ("we know it all already") and/or hopelessness, hindering the development of science in a given culture. Second, if science is to exist, explanations of natural phenomena must avoid a priori, pseudo-scientific "explanations" that really do not describe the causes of events, such as astrology. Third, science is hindered by the organismic view of nature. This idea conceives all of the universe as alive, as if it was one huge organism which goes through the above mentioned cyclical process from birth, to maturity, then death, to be born again. The tie to pantheism--believing EVERYTHING is God, a standard Hindu view--is obvious here. This outlook sees what we moderns consider inanimate (and non-divine) objects, like rocks, the planets, the stars, the oceans, and other natural objects to have wills of their own, or intelligence of their own. Fourth, science is hindered if the reality of the basic orderliness of the universe ("the external real world") is denied. Humans will not often investigate carefully what is considered not to really exist, or that which will be changed at whim by the God(s), or nature herself. Fifth, the heavens (outer space) must not be considered alive, or divine, if a scientific astronomy is to exist. Sixth, a balance between reason and faith is necessary, without the religious people totally rejecting science or natural laws, and without the philosophers/scientists totally rejecting the claims of religious truth. Seventh, man needs to be seen as fundamentally different from the rest of nature, as having a mind that makes him qualitatively different from the animals, etc., not just quantitatively different. The foundations for this view are laid in the Judeo-Christian world view in Genesis where man and woman were made in God's likeness and image, and were told they had dominion over the animals (Gen. 1:26-29). So long as all or most of false ideas in these areas are believed by a great majority of the intellectuals/"wise men" of a given culture, a self-sustaining science will not comes to exist in a given civilization, especially any true science of bodies moving in the external real world (i.e., physics, unlike math).

Now, the tie between the acceptance or rejection of such ideas and the rise of modern science may not be altogether obvious. Hence, a lot of explanation is needed to prove such connections, and this essay is only scratching the surface. Readers seeking more evidence should read Jaki's works in particular. Also, it should be noted that some civilizations had all or most of these false ideas, such as Hindu India, while other(s) had fewer of them (China), and other(s) still fewer (Islam). Correspondingly, the last progressed in science further as compared to the other two correspondingly to the acceptance of such ideas, and the second more than the first. For instance, the Chinese lacked the delusion the heavens were divine and/or living. Such an idea was found in On the Heavens, a very influential work by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B. C..), which hindered indigenous Islamic science permanently, and Christian science for many centuries before being finally cast off. On the other hand, Hindu science concerning the material world was crushed by almost all these faulty intellectual ideas: the external real world and its orderliness were denied, eternal cycles and the organismic view of nature were espoused, and the heavens were seen as divine. Islamic science would have become self-sustaining possibly, if its holy book the Quran (Koran) had not emphasized God's will and power so much as against His reason, and if Muslim philosophers and scientists had not become so mesmerized by Aristotle's physics and philosophy. Let's briefly consider each of these great civilizations in turn, and see how these faulty metaphysical concepts held their science back from continual development.

[...]

Continued here... (http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21977)

[Saifullah]

This is misleading representation, and clear display of your own reasoning by your own premisses which are flawed.

The decline of muslim science is not related to those factors, you are in effect trying to say muslims are limited by themselves, which may be true, but not in the ideological beliefs outlined in the Qur'an and Sunnah, maybe an interpretation of such ideas have led to an academic lathargi, but thats another problem and another issue.

If it was the case, that Islamic Beliefs hindered progress and and intellectual thought, then civilisation and the world as we know it today would have been very different, even at the height of the golden age of Islam, there was complete relieance in Allah, and no doubt about his Decree, infact it was strongest, yet they progressed the furthest, since phenomena has only been observed once under Islamic Rule, which cultivated the greatest muslims scientists and thinkers whom where leaders in there respective fields for not therelife time, but beyond.

These ideas are weak and the will only appeal to the uninformed persons.

[Ahmed Waheed]

:salams

:dogrun: I also got a huge article on Islam & Science (http://www.freewebs.com/esiraat/islamscience.htm) in my website, just follow the link . . .

:wswrwb:

[champion]

Useful to note that two of the intellectual fathers of western society Hume and Mill also rejected cause and effect. Additionally, it should have been rejected by Locke and Berkeley as well but they went against their own rules in accepting it.