The Revenge of Athena Science, Exploitation and the Third World The Revenge of Athena
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17 Islamic Science Current Thinking and Future Directions Munawar Ahmad Anees and Merryl Wyn Davies In less than a decade Islamic science has appeared from nowhere and become an intellectual movement which is now gaining rapid momentum. For the vast majority of scholars and scientists who have gained their intellectual awareness in a world dominated by western science and technology the whole debate appears truly vexing. Science, they think, is an objective, value free enterprise, it is universal and has nothing to do with cultures and values: so what is this talk of Islamic science? What has Islam, a religion, to do with science? A scientist may be a Muslim or a Buddhist, Chinese or American but neither religion nor nationality should affect their science which is judged by external, universal criteria. The heroic image of science as the rational, objective, value free universal system of knowledge has been subject to searching scrutiny in recent decades. The picture that emerges makes it clear that rather than being the science, the way of knowing and knowledge per se this heroic science is a very particular and characteristic product. The science in which all students are trained today is western science, and far from being an academic discipline it is an ideological tool. Its products, technological devices, are employed to infuse and inculcate a self perpetuating system that is built on metaphysical assumptions and abstractions about the nature of natural phenomena as well as human beings. It is destructive and wasteful, unmindful of its consequential growth and brutal in its practice. It is exploitative, for it employs any means possible without a hint of either hindsight or foresight. It is not universally verifiable for its selfimposed empirical limitations put it outside the pale of a unified system of knowledge. It is subjective rather than objective since it is coloured with the social, cultural and historical values of the society by which it is manufactured and distributed. Criticism of western science is no isolated activity for it has grown from within science itself. Even if the socio cultural criticism of science and technology discernible through the agenda of a host of alternative movements is discounted, there is an ever increasing number of working scientists and philosophers who have been prompted to re assess their own standing, while the ediface of heroic science is demolished before their eyes. Western science, along with its methodological apparati, is regarded as the paradigm of rationality, Therefore, faith in rational thought and practice alone is the modus operandi of western science, though the boundaries of rationalism have never been satisfactorily defined, and the proposition is self contradictory. As a corollary of 'crippled rationalism' anything that does not fit into the narrow peep hole of western science is labelled as non science and unworthy of intellectual pursuit. It is assumed that scientific rationalism is an immutable value; that instrumentalism is a vehicle for scientific validation; and that nature is best observed and manipulated under reductive strategies rather than an argumentative approach. Western science is a closed system, an impositional regimen by which any discipline can achieve the accolade 'scientific', while official science is made a useful tool of the Establishment. Human cognition is foreclosed in terms of its potential and possibilities. It is also isolated from external stimuli that may otherwise provide valid answers to some of the most pressing problems faced by humankind. The values inherent in the conduct of western science appear to be an odd mixture of an arrogant corporality, elitism, meaninglessness, artificiality, alienation, stubbornness, wastefulness and irrelevance. Critical assessment of western science clearly indicates that merely dismantling it is neither desirable nor beneficial. The inherent arrogance and isolationism of science, augmented by notions such as evolutionary reductionism, make any improvements practically impossible. Alternative movements have emphasized the social radicalization of issues, a search for different uses of science, but their criticism of science is as fragmented and reductive as official science itself. An analysis of the philosophy of the alternative movements indicates they have not yet formulated any clear and specific mode of intellectual thought compatible with the contemporary situation. In the quest for social responsibility in science they remain nervous and nebulous in the discussion of specific value parameters for science, trapped by the dominant paradigm. Their 4 alternative' is therefore a political agenda rather than a search for new epistemological dimensions. They are perceived by the Establishment as political rivals, aspects of whose programme can be accommodated and co opted within the conduct of official science and science policy. Yet sanity demands that corrective acts must be undertaken immediately, measures that will generate a system of science and technology that is organically linked to all other creatures on earth, instead of destroying and torturing them in the cause of science; whose pursuits are governed by ethics and not greed; a science that is subject to normative guidelines and not totalitarian ideology. Such a new science would operate within an objective framework but be constrained by considerations of values and cultural and social needs. Such a science is not a utopian dream it is the dictate of our time. Islamic science has been offered as a different science, one that by definition of its origin and sources Islam and its world view must answer the needs of our time. It is a function of the dominance of the western paradigm that the introduction of Islamic science should be surrounded by questions: what has religion got to do with science?; is it really a science?; can it effectively replace western science?; in what respects does it differ from contemporary science? The questions are posed in this way because of the existence of western science, nevertheless, they are a valid starting point for questioning current thinking about Islamic science, most especially whether the ranks of this growing movement demonstrate a consistent and thorough allegiance to the espistemological and methodological peculiarities that make Islamic science distinct from science as it is practised today. Arguably the ablest attempt in the English language to introduce Islamic science has been that of Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Beginning with his doctoral thesis, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, Nasr heralded a refreshingly novel image of Islamic science.' Having demolished the arguments for considering modern science as value free in The Encounter of Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man, he proceeded to demonstrate how the value structure of Islam led to the emergence of a distinctly Muslim science .2 However, due to Nasr's deep attachment to Sufism, his equation of all religions as one, and his ready acceptance of Greek thought and hellenic imagery, he presented too utopian an image of Islamic science. This seriously limited his audience in the Muslim world and amongst interested westerners. Nevertheless, this body of work has brought the endeavours of Muslim scientists, their philosophy and methodology of operation to the forefront of modern knowledge. Nasr's personal interests have led him to give undue significance to minor diversions in the historical pattern of Islamic science. He dwells on things Islamic science is not: alchemy, astrology, occult, gnosis, metaphysics, validated by obscure Persian manuscripts. In the classical literature on science and technology in Muslim lands there is insufficient historical evidence to support these claims. Muslim lands have remained a complex mosaic of cultural patterns, true to the unity in diversity emanating from Islam. There is a necessary distinction to be made between folk practices that linger and are enmeshed in Muslim activity, and the particular nature of the folk practices that preponderate in Iranian culture due to its Zoroastrian ancestry, and the mainstream of the thought of the ummah, the international community of Muslim civilization. Muslim scholars provided the right perspective on these practices: Imam al Ghazali, for example, instead of condoning them considered them 'blameworthy'. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the Muslim masters in science and technology either used or encouraged these practices by lay persons. The case of gnosis and metaphysics is slightly different. In practice, gnostic pursuits, totally oblivious of corporal existence, have always been looked upon with suspicion in Muslim culture. This reaction may be attributed to the fact that the dictates of gnostic extremism contradict the integrative view of life in Islam. As to metaphysics, similar Muslim reactions are on record. Scholars like Ibn Rushd, Ibr) Baja, Ibn Sina and Imam al Ghazali are known to have made investigative studies of Greek and other metaphysical systems and produced an able defence of metaphysical studies from a Muslim perspective. It is, therefore, erroneous to insist that Islamic science was shaped either through the proliferation of folk practices or by perusal of gnosis and metaphysics. The source of Islamic science is Islam itself, its cosmology and world view. A potent factor in the modern resuscitation of Islamic science is its history which has had to be laboriously reclaimed by contemporary Muslims. Western historians of science have regarded it as intellectually dishonest, as nothing more than a holding pattern on a conveyor belt that linked the scientific originality of the Greeks to the scientific originality of the West. It has been necessary for Muslim writers to redress the misconception of the intervening period, during which Islam prompted a spectacular upsurge of intellectual activity amongst Muslims, as devoid of scientific originality. It has also been their task to, consider whether the delinking of scientific information from the cosmology, epistemology and value constraints within which it existed for Muslim scientists, and the assimilation of this information devoid of constraints within the particular context of western civilization, is not the very foundation of the nature of western science. The argument from history serves a dual function: it establishes the inappropriateness of western science for Muslim society while showing there has been a science attendant upon the attuned to the essential orientation of Muslim civilization, Islam. The role of modern science in creating the predicament of the Muslim world is a dimension explored in two major works and a series of related essays in leading journals by Ziauddin Sardar. His first book, Science, Technology and Development in the Muslim World, did much to shape the emerging face of Islamic science.' Beginning with the explication of Islamic epistemology, Sardar examined the status of science and technology in the context of the Muslim world today and concluded that replicating western systems was counter productive. Apart from socio cultural dislocations brought about by unmindful transfer of technology, he claimed that western science was imposing an alien political ideology that exploited science and technology as tools of tyranny. Effectively an argument was being advanced that derived its strength from a moral and value laden structure and sought to integrate science within a larger world view. Sardar's second work, The Future of Muslim Civilization, was an attempt to present an agenda for the Muslim world on a civilizational scale, and to reassess its status in the contemporary world.4 He rebuked the false pride of those who bolster the historic image of Muslim civilization to produce merely the inertia of nostalgia. The historic achievements were genuine but a study of them should underline rather than obscure the fact that Muslim civilization has been in decline for four centuries. This decline, which includes the disappearance of Islamic science in any operational form, has been induced as much by attitudes and actions of Muslims themselves as it has coincided with and been compounded by impositions from outside. This comprehensive survey of history and contemporary predicament forms the basis of an attempt to construct a vision of the future. The future begins with the eternally valid concepts and values of Islam and consists of putting into operation its holistic, unified and universal world view by recovery of its distinctive epistemology and methodology and their application to the resolution of contemporary problems. This and works by other emerging authors are beginning to create a cohesive picture of Islamic science. It is a science at once in consonance with the fundamental Islamic values and the many demands of contemporary situations. Above all it clarifies what religion has to do with science. The crux of the argument advanced by Muslim scientists is that the epistemology and methodology of a knowledge system must rest on enduring values and not transient factors. Islamic science as it is emerging is neither a re orientation of western science nor its unmindful imitator, though both tendencies can be found in subtexts of the literature on Islamic science. The mainstream of argument is that Islamic science is an entity on its own, not defined in comparison with and amendment of an already existing science. Islamic science is an integral part of Islam as a complete way of life, the only framework within which it can be defined; it cannot be inculcated in isolation from the mainstream of the Islamic intellectual and moral landscape. Islamic science is a sub species of Islam (and not of science) that generates a world view within the overall framework of Islamic values. It is an open ended system without a built in experimental bias. As Sardar has pointed out, in the past the particular type of methodological technique employed has varied according to the nature of the questions posed by Muslim scientists. For Islamic science a diversity of approaches is valid and necessary, reliance on just one methodology of verification is a reductive limitation. It does not lose its accountability however; it is characterized by self regulation. Scientific activity is regulated by an open debate on the issues related to means and ends with no secret, underground, ultra sensitive research and development fad; its conduct is motivated not by financial catches, group loyalties or strategic interest, but by concern for the ultimate use of knowledge. A shift towards Islamic science is not to be equated with re inventing the wheel. There is no subtle attempt to undermine or sabotage the cumulative human labour in amassing wisdom that has generated tools for human betterment as well as for understanding natural phenomena. However, Islamic science is part of, and incorporates, a means of discernment that questions and evaluates what constitutes wisdom based on its own holistic definition of the ultimate end of human betterment. The shift to Islamic science must entail a radical re orientation of the norms and values under which knowledge is pursued, utilized and assessed. There has been a steady development of thought on how the ethico moral guidelines of Islam can be incorporated into shaping the structure of Islamic science. It was in 1981 that, under the auspices of the International Federation of Institutes for Advanced Study (IFIAS), Sardar co ordinated an international conference on a comparative study of science and values in Islamic and western societies. The Stockholm seminar identified at least ten Islamic concepts namely tawhid, unity; khilafah, trusteeship; ibadah, worship; i1m, knowledge; halal, praiseworthy; haram, blameworthy; adl, social justice; zu1m, tyranny; ististah, public interest; and dhiya, waste which could be used to develop value parameters around science. 'When translated into values, this system of concepts embraces the nature of scientific enquiry in its totality: it integrates facts and values and institutionalizes a system of knowing that is based on accountability and social responsibility'.' In his keynote address to the seminar on 'Quest for New Science' organized by the Centre for Studies on Science, Aligarh, India, Sardar elaborated further some of these concepts .6 Based on a conceptual analysis of these Islamic values a contemporary model of Islamic science has been put forward: the concepts tawhid, khilafah and ibadah are the paradigms of Islamic science. These paradigms are the overall framework in which the advancement of knowledge, i1m, is pursued for the promotion of public interest and social justice. All knowledge and man's inherent ability for its quest are to be regarded as tokens of trusteeship. The concept of ibadah bridges the realms of the so called sacred and profane. By discharging the obligation for the pursuit of knowledge, ibadah is performed. Clear guidelines for such a pursuit are provided by the values embodied in the concepts of halal and haram. The pursuit of knowledge leading to blameworthy ends is not permitted, while knowledge aimed at public interest is encouraged and rewarded. The emergence of Islamic science has occurred in conjunction with the call for the Islamization of knowledge. It is necessary to consider the distinctions between these two movements to understand what Islamic science is not, as well as to see the way in which the Islamization approach is used by some who claim to be advancing Islamic science, but are creating confusion and following seductive blind alleys. The action plan for the Islamization of knowledge excludes natural sciences and concentrates on education and behavioural. sciences alone.' The proponents of Islamization justify the exclusion of natural sciences on the premises of exactness, and hence they assume the integrity of their position to be unquestionable. It is of course erroneous to believe that behavioural sciences and education have remained unaffected by the dominant paradigms of western science. The acceptance of psychology and parapsychology as soft core disciplines of science has been contingent upon their adoption of the official methodology, while acceptance of the superiority of official methodology is the foundation of the social sciences and has determined the course of their growth and content. In this respect these disciplines are no exception to the lopsided world view of 'exact' sciences. The first step towards Islamization proposed by the work plan is mastery of modern that is western, disciplines followed by a mastery of the Islamic legacy. It is assumed that mastery at these two levels would lead to the establishment of the social relevance of modern disciplines and open new avenues to synthesize modern knowledge and the Islamic legacy, a synthesis that would maintain the broad outlines of modern knowledge yet incorporate amended Islamic values while preserving respect for the historic and value laden legacy of Muslim identity. This simplistic trilogy is misleading and fraught with dangers. It shows that the work plan accepts the epigenetic and contextual relevance of modern disciplines without question. It fails to recognize that the genesis of the so called Islamic legacy took place in an essentially different epistemological and cultural milieu that is irreducible to contemporary disciplinary approaches. The Islamization plan lacks a genuine critical assessment of western epistemology as well as an appreciation of its contemporary social critiques. A surface critique of the social manifestations of secular materialism in the West is substituted for linking the appearance to its epistemological roots. Furthermore, it fails to demarcate a distinct Islamic theory of knowledge that may be exploited for the proposed synthesis; without such a theory Islamisation is nothing but a modern day alchemist's brew whose objectives must remain as illusory as those of the original alchemists. Islamic knowledge, the concept of i1m, does not exist outside the boundaries of the Islamic world view. Indeed to translate ilm simply as knowledge does violence to its import and meaning as a multi dimensional, integrative concept.' Theories of knowledge and classifications of ilm are essential and characteristic products of the Islamic legacy and the history of Islamic science. The essence of these schema is that knowledge is a whole entity, an organic unity derived from the all encompassing, all pervasive concept of tawhid. Fragmentation of knowledge is therefore unacceptable, ilm must be pursued in its entirety and one kind of knowledge must not be advanced at the expense of others. The nature of ilm presumes an on going interaction and integration of revelation and reason as necessary aspects of real knowledge. The world view of Islamic science is neither axiomatically rationalist nor dogmatically metaphysical. On the contrary, it is due to the inherent balance of these two aspects of its world view that the unnecessary and wasteful conflicts between 'religion' and 'science' have been and are alien to the spirit of Islamic civilization. Revitalization of the concept of ilm is a cornerstone of the Islamic science movement. Prompted by the concept of ilm and the value parameters of Islam, an integrative epistemological approach is the foundation of Islamic science. In history polymathy was the characteristic response of Muslim scientists: it was not uncommon for a Muslim scholar to master religious law, yet also be an astronomer, a medical practitioner and a philosopher. It is often argued that the development of rigid, compartmentalized modern disciplines was necessitated by the sheer increase in the volume of information in a given discipline. This is only partly true. Islamic science certainly does not accept the argument of necessity at face value. The contemporary emergence of cross disciplinary and multi disciplinary approaches that are breaking down disciplinary boundaries in the pursuit of knowledge, as well as being employed as more appropriate ways of practical problem solving, strongly indicates a belated recognition of the unity of knowledge by western science and society. Islamic science is not islamized science. Similarly the characterization of science that is based on given knowledge groups is rejected. There cannot be a Muslim endocrinology or a Muslim astrophysics. This is a crude fragmentation of a whole body of knowledge whose essential nature is its integration and unifying force. The mainstream of the movement sees Islamic science as an entity on its own. But the Islamization of knowledge debate has had its impact. The limitations of the Islamization approach, its lack of attention to an Islamic theory of knowledge, holds out the prospect of an easy accommodation leading to a synthesis between western 'scientific' knowledge and Islamic sentiment and belief, the primrose path to mental inertia. Based upon uncritical acceptance of the epistemological status quo, the dominance of and dependence upon western science, it suggests things can change while essentially staying the same. It is a very short and seductive step from this easy synthesis based upon the status quo to the notion that no synthesis at all is needed, because in the realm of 'science' it already exists. This is the appeal of Bucaillism. The popular attraction of Maurice Bucaille's The Bible, The Quran and Science9 is the way it feeds the apologist Muslim's self esteem by purporting to give scientific proof of the modernity of Muslim belief by employing scientific data to uphold the truth of revelation. This is then taken as demonstration of the Muslim truism that there can be no conflict between science and religion, both of which are construed in an entirely western, not Islamic, sense. Sardar has explained how Bucaillism: elevates science to the realm of the sacred and makes Divine Revelation subject to the verification of western science. Apart from the fact that the Qur'an needs no justification from modern science, Bucaillism opens the Qur'an to the counter argument of Popper's criteria of refutation: would the Qur'an be proved false and written off, just as Bucaille writes off the Bible, if a particular fact mentioned in the Qur'an does not tally with it or if a particular fact mentioned in the Qur'an is refuted by modern science. And what if a particular theory, which is 'confirmed' by the Qur'an and is in vogue today is abandoned tomorrow for another theory that presents an opposite picture? Does that mean that the Qur'an is valid today but will not be valid tomorrow? 10 Bucaillism manages to unite a mythic image of both science and religion. The reductive literalism applied to the Qur'an, the interpretation of its meaning as encompassing concrete 'scientific' matters, strips both Qur'an and religion of conceptual meaning, allegorical and metaphysical import. Science is accepted as the final word on truth, in complete ignorance of science as a socially constructed, limited system of knowing. It would be pleasing to report that Bucaillism is only an opiate of the scientifically illiterate; sadly this is not the case. Nobel Laureate M. Abdus Salam warmly endorses Bucaillism as the foundation of his argument for Islamic science. I I For Salam the matter is very simple, and simplistic: science is Islamic by virtue of its operation by Muslims. Yet as Muslims who believe in Islam, these Islamic scientists draw nothing, except a generalized and totally uncritical validation of the quest for knowledge from Islam to organize the science they do. There are two discrete world views, no hierarchy, and they carry on doing the only science there is, which is nothing but western science. The only problem Salarn can define is that Muslims do not do very much western science, as demonstrated by a series of statistics on education, numbers and distribution of scientists and spending on science in Muslim countries. Apart from misplaced faith in an unanalysed heroic science, he also maintains misplaced faith in what constitutes the identity of the Muslim. Islam is not an innate function of the person of the Muslim, rather by virtue of the innate nature of his or her person the Muslim acknowledges allegiance to Islam as a world view that must be activated and operationalized in all spheres of life. Salam's conception of Muslim identity makes Islam a passive state of being, with vague, unspecified and certainly unanalysed limits. It is in this sense that Salam's Bucaillism and the approach of Islamization of knowledge merge, wittingly and unwittingly. Without an Islamic theory of knowledge Islam cannot be fulfilled by the Muslim, it cannot be a constructive force in achieving human betterment, and thereby must deny itself. Islam is admitted by all to define the goal of human betterment. It does so by insisting on the integration of means and ends under the same value framework that defines the substance of human betterment and relating these to particular social and cultural milieux. The value framework of Islam is unequivocally universal; Islamic science therefore must thrive on values to perpetuate these immutable values. Islamic science cannot itself be a sub species of Islam. The unified framework can be achieved and sustained only by the essential attribute of the Islamic world view that Bucaillism and the Islamization of knowledge ignore a critical, questioning outlook that includes self criticism. Sardar has pointed out that despite the increasingly cohesive definition of Islamic science that has emerged many Muslim scientists still hold onto two impossible notions at once." Bucaillism and the Islamization of knowledge are merely particular labels representing a more widespread tendency of Muslim scientists to talk of Islamic science and yet understand science as objective, value free and universal. The consequence of this confusion is that, in their desire for the betterment of Muslim society, they can come up with nothing more wide ranging than appropriate intermediate technology. Sardar makes a further distinction between Islamic science and science in Islamic policy. Science in Islamic polity is the chimera so many Muslim scientists think can happen automatically: Muslim society, by institutionalizing certain Islamic referents of unspecified and unanalysed character and implication, can ensure that when science is operated by Muslims it will produce the kind of products and enquiry that should exist in Muslim society. This not only obviates the need for revitalization of ilm, Islamic knowledge, but violates the integrative Islamic conception of society that unifies the accountability and social responsibility of both the individual here the scientist and the collective society through its communal institutions of policy making. Rightly, Sardar emphasizes that what makes Islamic science different are the different institutional arrangements required to determine and operate its science policy in society, where science and the society it serves are sub species of Islam so that the epistemology and methodology of both is an expression and activation of the same value framework. Islamic science requires the scientist to understand his or her role, as well as the doing of science, differently. From the difference of goals characteristic of Islamic science and society must come the devising of different means. Islamic scientists are not called upon to speculate upon some uniform methodology in abstraction but to participate actively in the determination of social priorities for the formation of science policies. These science policies will require both basic and problem solving research, the nature of the questions will call for originality in activating Islamic science methodology through a series of available and potential techniques: in this process of devising and doing Islamic science will bear its distinctive fruits. A cohesive picture of Islamic science exists in the contemporary literature. It is possible to point to what Islamic science is and what Islamic science is not. Indeed a concise list of what Islamic science is not has already been drawn up:
Confusion and timidity, a fearfulness to dare to be distinctive, also exists. The task for the future is to resolve the confusion and sweep away the timidity. it can be seen that the model for Islamic science emerging through the works of Muslim scientists is a viable option out of the present chaos caused by western science. This model is an all inclusive approach to epistemological problems, methodology of science and its application for social problem solving. This science does not exist for self perpetuation. The value framework does not make it parochial but offers a universal platform for its expression. Kirmani has complained that the epistemology and general methodology advocated for Islamic science is exemplary, what is lacking is a definite blueprint for the working scientist. 14 It would indeed be simple if Islamic scientists could be told what to do, routinized within an off the peg paradigm of operative Islamic science that demands no thoughtful exertion on their part. He confuses paradigm as methodology of relating epistemological bases to relevant questions with methodology as techniques of routine investigation for obtaining specific problem solutions. Even so, Kirmani touches upon a sensitive point. The success of the western paradigm of science is that it cocoons working scientists, provides them with objectives they neither shape nor have to question since 'outside' forces of politics, power and money take care of all that, and most of all envelops their activity within an heroic mythology to obscure what is actually happening. Today, Muslim scientists think they know what they are doing because they are told what to do, that is the problematique of western science, Tomorrow, Islamic science will require them to think for themselves, to uncover what they should be doing. The paradigm of Islamic science is before us, how it is made into a routine technique of specific problem solving is the future task of Muslim scientists. There can be no blueprint for what can exist and be defined only by the activity of scientists within their society. The future direction for Islamic science is clear, it is to work out solutions to present day predicaments on the basis of accountability, social justice and responsibility, to exercise the universal option of its value framework to bring about desirable global change. Yüklə 1,92 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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