Chapter One
Introduction
1.1. Islamic view on Science
Allah “God” (SWT) bestowed upon us the faculty of the
intellect “Aqil” and has commanded us to ponder over His
creation, observing profoundly the signs of His power and
His glory throughout the entire universe and within
ourselves. It is stated in Qur’an : “We shall show them our
signs on the horizons and in their own selves, until it
becomes manifest to them that this is the truth”. (Ch.
41:53).
Allah has shown his disapproval of those who blindly follow
the ways of their fathers and those who were before them :
“They say “NO”, but we will follow such things as we found
our fathers doing. “What”! even if their fathers had no
understanding of anything ?” (Ch. 2:170).
Allah has also shown his disapproval for those who follow
nothing but their own personnel whims : “They follow naught
but an opinion” (Ch. 6:117).
The Qur’an was revealed more than 1400 years ago to the
prophet Muhammed (Peace be upon him) as a guidance for all
humanity. Although the Qur’an is a religious book with a
total of some 6236 verses, dealing with many aspects of
human’s life, nevertheless 1200 verses are of a scientific
nature touching upon diverse scientific fields, such as
Cosmology, Geology, Biology, Embryology and Genetics. None
of these verses contradict any established scientific Fact.
The tremendous importance of acquisition of knowledge in
Islam is reflected in this eloquent exhortation of the
prophet (Pbuh) : “Acquire knowledge. It enables the
possessor to distinguish right from wrong. It lights the way
to heaven. It is our friend in the desert, our society in
solitude, and our companion when friendless. It guides us to
happiness. It sustains us in misery. It is an ornament among
friends and armour against enemies”.
The Holy Qur’an had awakened a spirit of inquiry among the
Arabs which was instrumental in their splendid achievements
in the field of science and according to a western critic,
led them to realise that science could not be advanced by
mere speculation as was the case in the time of Greek
civilisation. It’s only sure progress lay in the practical
interrogation of nature using the Qur’an as the vehicle of
cross-examination. It is interesting to note that the first
words revealed to prophet Muhammed (pbuh), by the Angel of
Revelation, Gabriel (pbuh), emphasises the importance of our
attaining knowledge : “Read in the name of your Lord, who
created. Creates man from a clot. Read, and your Lord is the
most bounteous. Who teaches by the pen. Teaches man that
which he knew not ...” Qur’an (Ch 96:1-5) :
The Qur’an encourages direct experimental observations of
all natural phenomena in order to acquire more knowledge or
understanding of it. This induced Muslim scientist to adopt
an empirical inductive method in their scientific research
from the closing years of the seventh century A.D. By the
middle of the 8th Century, an extraordinary Muslim scientist
Jabir ibin Haiyyan wrote a scientific procedure in Chemistry
“as we refer to nowadays” laying down the ten classical
rules for performing an experiment. These rules are as valid
today as they were in the dawn of the age of scientific
enquiry. In one of his letters, Jabir clearly laid down his
paradigm of knowledge acquisition, “… I have done it with my
hand after I had planned in advance in my mind, then I did
research and experiment until I approved it, then assessed
and never failed”, (Al Muoman, 1994).
This empirical inductive method in scientific enquiry
travelled to the west through the gate of Spain and Sicily.
The following testimonies are quotes from some western
intellects like John William Draper, who, in his book
“History of the Intellectual Development of Europe” says :
“… Injustice founded on religious rancour and national
conceit can not be perpetuated for ever,… (the) Muslim has
left his intellectual impress on Europe, when remembering
the contemporary barbarism of Europe.”
Stanley Lane-Poole in his book “The Story of the Moors in
Spain” said : “… For nearly eight centuries under the
Muhammadan rulers, Spain set out to all Europe a shining
example of a civilised and enlightened states…. Arts,
Literature and Science prospered as they prospered nowhere
in Europe. Students flocked from France, Germany and England
to drink from the Fountain of Learning, which flowed down in
the cities of Moors. The surgeons and doctors of Andalusia
were in the van of science, women were encouraged to serious
study and the lady doctor was not always unknown among the
people of Cordoba. Mathematics, Astronomy and Botany,
History, Philosophy and Jurisprudence were to be mastered in
Spain and Spain alone. The practical work of the field, the
scientific methods of irrigation, the arts of fortification
and shipbuilding, of the highest and most elaborate products
of the loom, the gavel and the hammer, the potter’s wheel
and mason’s trowel, were brought to perfection by the
Spanish Moors. Whatever makes a kingdom great and
prosperous, whatever tends to refinement and civilisation
was found in Muslim Spain”.
Among the titles given to Cordoba were the “bride of Cities”
and the “Jewel of the tenth century”. It was a city of
factories, workshops and libraries, where students from all
over the world travelled to for study. It was the first city
with streetlights in Europe (Gharafi, 1998). It was the
torch of learning and civilisation at a time when England
had been savaged by the Vikings and France had been
ransacked by the Normans and all Europe was living in total
darkness of ignorance and barbarism. It was estimated that
more than 200,000 people were living in Cordoba at a time
when the population of Paris was about 10,000 (Usher, 2001).
Many other scholars refer clearly to the intellectual
impress of Muslim on Europe. For more than 1000 years
Muslims remained the most advanced and civilised nation in
the world.
Muslim civilisation was based on faith and dedication toward
the teaching of Islam and the universality of the divine, as
(Iqbal, 1982) said : “The first important point to note
about the spirit of Muslim civilisation is that for purposes
of knowledge, it fixes its gaze on the concrete, the
finite”. Therefore Allah (SWT) helped them with victory and
mastering the world.
It was with the demise of the Islamic civilisation that
Muslims lost their lead in science. Muslims started to
distant themselves from the spirit of Islam, and Islamic
teachings became merely a system of rules and laws, like a
hollow shell without any vital core or meaning. These were
signs of the weakness of the defence mechanisms of the
Muslim body and hence they became susceptible to all kind of
diseases that started to invade that weakened body towards
the end of Ottoman Empire. Once these diseases metastasised
throughout the whole body, its inner vitality slowly, but
surely, ebbed away, and this once powerful civilisation’s
grand structure became known as the “sick man of Europe” a
common reference to the defunct Ottoman Empire. This led to
widening the technological gap between the west and the
Muslim world (Ahmed, 1999 b).
1.2. Western Science and the Church
During the Sixteenth century another civilisation started
which is referred to as European Renaissance. This
civilisation started in Florence, Italy and was influenced,
to great extent, by the Islamic civilisation in Cordoba.
Western civilisation owes most, if not all, its existence to
the intellectual achievements of Muslims and the enlightened
treatment of those from other religious persuasions who also
contributed to the process. Islam created the environment in
which Jews, Muslims, and Christians lived in peace for close
to 600 years. A period referred to by Jewish historians as
“Their Golden Age.” However, this new “European Renaissance”
or civilisation was based “on secular philosophy, which
distanced itself from religion”. This alienation of science
from religion was mainly due to the position the church
adopted in regard to science and scientific facts. The
church was seen to be an obstacle to scientific advancement
as can be seen from Galileo’s trail. He was prosecuted and
kept under house arrest because he proved that the earth
moves round the sun and not the other way round which
contradicted the church’s teaching. Bruno, who publicly
espoused this idea was punished by being burnt to death at
the stake. The results of this persecution and repression by
the church, of scientists, helped to widen the split between
these two bodies.
By the late Middle Ages, when the scientific discoveries of
the “European Renaissance” and the “Age of Enlightenment”
had overturned many of the church’s “infallible” doctrines
and the moral authority of the church had become so
seriously undermined, by this science, which based on
evidence, rational thinking, observation, and
experimentation. It was finally declared victorious for
having triumphed over an “irrational” and “superstitious”
church. Which helps to explain why it became difficult to
bring any religious meaning to European science.
1.3. Implications of Advancement in
Technology
When science distances itself from any guidelines or codes
of ethical practice, under the notion of scientific freedom;
then major calamities are inflicted on the natural
environment and its inhabitants. Every aspect of life has
been devastated by the holocaust of modernity, selfishness
and greed. The new technological developments: quick
transport, quick profits, cheap food, increasing
urbanisation, along with selfish materialistic lifestyles,
have led to gradual alienation from the natural world. The
speed and the scale of new developments were no less than
the transformation of the society. A transformation that led
one of the prominent scientists (Richard Dawkins) whom I
consider an out product of this civilisation to say in his
book, the Selfish Gene: “We are survival machines – Robot
vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfishness
molecules known as genes. This is a truth that fills me with
astonishment” (Dawkins, 1989). Another mechanism’s leading
proponents, the noted French scientist Julien Offray de La
Mettrie, called Human “perpendicularly crawling machines”.
As Kimbrell mentioned, “In place of the religious awe of
prior cultures towards the body, we commonly speak of our
heart as ticker, our brains as computer, our thought as
feedback, and our digestive and sexual organs as plumbing.
It is not surprising that we then patent animals and body
parts as manufacturers develop a new car mentality about
screening and selecting which of the unborn will survive,
and attempt to make Xerox copies of living forms through
cloning”, (Kimbrell, 1997)
The calamities being inflicted on the ecosystem have
resulted from “advancements” in technology, but technology
devoid of moral considerations or ethical codes of
practices. As the Qur’an points out (Ch.30:41) : “And
pollution/corruption has appeared on land and sea as the
result of what man’s own hands have done”. This can be seen
in the following examples :
1.3.1. Environmental disasters
Millions of tones of toxic waste are circulating in the
oceans or hovering in the atmospheres. Polymers, which are
the precursor for oestrogen hormones, pollute Britain
Rivers, resulting in gender changes for many indigenous fish
and have also contributed to a drop in Human fertility of
50% compared to 1950s. According to a study carried by Bath
University, if the level of pollution continues on the same
basis, by 2040 British fertility will be close to zero. This
alarming possibility, among others, caused the British
authorities to legislate with a number of specific
environmental Acts :
-
Control of Pollution Act 1974
-
Environmental and safety Information Act 1988
-
Control of Pollution (amendment) Act 1989
-
Control of Smoke Pollution Act 1989
-
Environmental Protection Act 1990
One other environmental disaster, which continues to plague
Human life, happened on April 26, 1986 when one of the 15
nuclear plants in Chernobyl, exploded in Prypyat, a
Ukrainian city. It was the world’s worst nuclear accident
contaminating thousands of square miles of land, and forcing
more than 150, 000 people to abandon their towns and
villages. After 15 years Ukrainians are still haunted by the
spectre of early death and disability, including those who
were still in their mother’s wombs at the time of the
catastrophe. In Kiev youngsters are regularly examined for
caesium 137, a long-lived (and carcinogenic) radioisotope
which continues to contaminate the soil and the food chain.
The radioactive fall-out from the Chernobyl disaster was
also detected in most European countries, including England,
and also on the West Coast of America (Edward, 1994).
According to a recent report produced by the BBC, it is
estimated that, as a result, probably more than one million
people are now affected with various genetic diseases.
The explosion of the insecticide factory in Bhopal, an
Indian city, in 1984, caused the death of 2000 and injured
200,000, more who are still suffering from a multitude of
diseases. The Three Mile Island, Saveso, Challenger,
Tuskegee, the idea of Human cloning clinic for the very rich
and infertile, and the genocidal wars, to mention only few.
All these recent catastrophes and controversies made
possible by the abuses of science and technology, which are
built on a series of flawed economical models and false
assumptions and driven by a system of political expediency
devoid of either moral or ethical considerations. All of
which have contributed to the building of this monstrous
machine of indiscriminate death and destruction, which
engulfed the world in 1914 and 1939, and led on inexorably
to the first and second Wars in the Gulf, Rwanda, Bosnia,
and those, which, continue unabated elsewhere.
The recurring Foot & Mouth epidemics, and those of BSE, and
the many other unnatural disasters (which will continue to
confront us until we change our ways), are all traceable to
a perennial scarcity of purchasing power. In other words the
‘artificial’ scarcity of money, which inevitably creates, as
history shows, a desire within its victims to try and seek
security by monopolising trade, and is, without doubt,
responsible for the recent campaign to get (GM) Genetically
Modified crops adopted with their “Terminator Genes” (Ahmed,
1995 b &1999 a) (GenEthics, 26, 1998). All such attempts
like GATT, - are the result of interest and
compound-interest - which demands continuous, unsustainable
“growth” in spite of the fact that all growth based on
interest and compound interest (regardless of its percentage
rate) is demonstrably, and irrefutably malignant. Some of
its manifestations are as follows. At the height of the 1937
foot and mouth crisis in the U.K., Lt.-Colonel J. Creagh
Scott D.S.O., O.B.E, included the following in an address to
the Bon-Accord Congregational Church, in Aberdeen which
accurately sums up the present situation :
“If a father withholds from his children food and clothing
which he either possessed or may acquire, and allows them to
suffer from the diseases which may result from
under-nutrition and neglect, he is treated as a criminal;
but when this is done on a national scale, when millions are
deprived of the food and raiment which we either possess or
can produce, and when our men are reduced to the nullity of
dole-existence, and our women to the nullity of illegal
practices, we flatter ourselves upon our moral and economic
sanity…If we were sane, we should never rest till we
discovered why consumption is never permitted to consume
production; until, in short, we finance consumption…For the
ONLY effective service that can be given is to clear the
road between production and consumption of the thieves and
fools that now infest it. In the present position of things,
social service may well become a cloak to hide our moral
cowardice…” (Scott, 1937)
George Monbiot in his elegant book “Captive State”
illustrate how the corporate takeover of Britain and Europe
details the institutional corruption of a nation which has
long enjoyed a reputation for integrity (Monbiot, 2000).
1.3.2. Global Warming :
It was revealed in Rio earth summit in 1992 and proved
without any shadow of doubt that the world is heating up.
Dr. Harries and his team have come up with the first direct
evidence confirming an increase in the greenhouse effect
over the past three decades, and their results were
published (at the time of writing this introduction
23/3/2001) in the highly respected magazine – Nature
(Science and Technology, in Economist, 2001). These
findings, among others, are sounding an alarm bell for the
world’s leaders, the message they convey is that they should
act upon the Kyoto Protocol, which was “agreed” and
proclaimed so sanctimoniously by them all in 1997. This
protocol commits industrial countries to cutting greenhouse
gas emissions by 5.2% from their 1990 levels by 2010. But
the world’s nations failed to agree on how to achieve this
when they met in Amsterdam on December 2000. In addition
American president George W. Bush announced on 17/03/001,
that he is pulling back of his commitment to control
emission of greenhouse gases as mentioned in the editorial
comments of the New Scientists (Kleiher, 2001). Somewhat
like his father who said : “Read my lips, no new taxes”, and
(like so many others before him) having been elected to
office (on a particular slogan) immediately reneged on his
promise.
According to a prediction produced by European union and UK
Department of the environmental report that the rise in
average temperature between 1990-2050 will be 1.5 degree
centigrade, which might be considered insignificant. But
knowing that a temperature increase of 2 degrees centigrade
was responsible for ending the last ice age 4000 years ago,
make this 1.5 increase serious.
Researchers are already observing, and currently proving
that, the polar ice caps are beginning to melt, the
following data are produced by (Carrel, 1997) :
1- Arctic Warming : Alaskan soils have grown 4-9 degrees
warmer in this century, while arctic surface temperatures
have risen about 10 degrees since 1968.
2- Antarctic Ice shelves : Five of the Antarctic Peninsula’s
nine ice shelves have disintegrated in the last half century
(three in the last five years) as Antarctic surface
temperature have risen 4-5 degrees Fahrenheit.
3- Glacial Retreat : The world’s mountain glaciers are
retreating at an accelerating pace, and average temperatures
in high tropical mountains are higher now than at any time
in 2000-3000 years. Over the past 150 years, large ice
fields in Canada have shrunk by nearly 25%.
4- Rising Seas : Sea levels have risen between four and ten
inches in the last century - more than in the previous 1000
years. Researchers discovered that average waves in the
North Atlantic were 50 % higher in 1993 than they were
during 1960s, with the storm waves averaging 10% higher
5- Food chain : In 1995, Scripps biologist John McGowan
reported that Pacific Zooplankon -a key food source for
fish- had declined by 70% in 20 years, because of a 2-3
degree increase in surface water temperatures.
1.4. Status of Current Civilisation and
Possible Alternative
These disasters, which are a direct consequence of
advancements in technology, along with the associated social
disintegration, led prominent scientists and philosophers to
predict that the decline of the western civilisation is
imminent (Al-Gadier, 1992).
American philosopher John Dewi said that : “the civilisation
that allowed science to kill moral and ethical values of the
societies and do not have faith in that science to offer the
alternative is a civilisation that harbours the seed of
disaster to its self”.
Dubos (1998) in his book “So Human an Animal” describes
modern technology as a “God and that the Human has become a
slave to that God”.
The German philosopher Hegel, whose example was followed by
many western philosophers, who pioneered the idea that each
nation, is a member in the history cycle of Human societies.
Therefor he is subject as any member in the society to the
laws and cycles of growth, development, prosperity and
ultimate decline. Hegel himself thought that western
civilisation is at the apex now and the next phase would be
its decline and death.
Bertrand Russell, the English philosopher mentioned that the
time for the white-man who represent the western
civilisation is coming to an end. The dominance of the white
race is not a constant natural law and when his civilisation
reaches its limits, the phase of disintegration will start.
From another angel, Hutington (1998) refer clearly to an
inevitable clash of civilisation and remaking of the
world.
All these scholars, and a lot more besides, reached their
conclusions by referring to the following phenomenal
symptoms of devastating diseases that is engulfing the body
of the western civilisation. Among these symptoms, which are
documented statistically, are the following :
1- Significant increase in number of crimes
2- Significant increase in acts of suicide
3- Significant increase in family disintegration
4- Significant increase in psychological diseases
5- Significant increase in drugs abuse
6- Significant increase in child abuse
All the above-mentioned symptoms and many more served as
indicators for the beginning of the next phase, the phase of
decline and death.
But this decline will not necessarily lead, as some have
predicted, to an Islamic civilisation coming to rule the
world. Allah (“SWT” - All Praise be unto Him) set down norms
and rules, which applied to all humanity regardless of their
religion, race, colour or creed. This reflects the fairness
of Allah “SWT”. Among these norms is that the victory of a
nation depends entirely on that nation and whether it
prepares or posses the requirement for that victory or not?
Whether it plans, prepares, and works hard or not? Whether
it gets a determined vision as a crucial preliminary
requirement for victory or not ? Muslims, therefore, need to
work hard to be able to master the world as real trustees of
Allah “SWT” and stop looking sentimentally into the past
glories. Muslims should not be under any illusion that the
falling of western civilisation will inevitably lead to
their succession, this is the dream of inefficient and
irresponsible nation. As a close friend, and convert to
Islam remarked : “Muslims must remain rooted in the past but
stop living in it”.
Among the many verses in Qura’n that reflect these norms and
laws are described by Allah in His glorious book :
“And if you turn away (from Islam and the obedience to
Allah), he will exchange you for some other people and they
will not be your likes (Ch.47. 38). “And if the people of
the towns had believed and had the Taqwa “piety”, certainly,
we should have opened for them blessings from the heaven and
the earth, but belied “the message”, so we took them (with
punishment) for what they used to earn (polytheism and
crimes) (Ch.7: 96). “Have they not seen how many a
generation before them we have destroyed whom we had
established on the earth such as we have not established you
? And we poured out on them rain from the sky in abundance,
and made the rivers flow under them. Yet we have destroyed
for their sins, and we created after them other generations
…” (Ch.6:6).
In order for Muslims to retain their role as trustees for
God, they have to work hard and find their path among other
nations. Since the current civilisation is based on science
and technology and the western countries listen only to the
voice of science, and empirical evidence, Muslims have to
invest in science and be able to solve the current problems
resulting from the implications of the new technology. We
Muslims have to participate in solving the problems of
Greenhouse effect, Global warming and pollution. Which, as
the Qur’an points out : “Pollution has appeared on land and
sea as a result of what man’s own hands have produced”
(Ch.30:41). Muslims have to participate in finding solutions
for the adverse implications of Biotechnology, and identify
desirable applications of Genetic engineering in animals,
plants, Human, IVP and finally the Human Genome and its
ethical, legal, and social implications. We should, as
Muslims, indulge and participate effectively in the current
scientific research on the one hand, and be in a position to
offer a moral, ethical code of practice based on wisdom,
faith and shariah on the other hand (Ahmed, 1997 a & b).
Muhammad Iqbal (1982) said: “The idealism of Europe never
became a living factor in her life, and the result is a
perverted ego seeking itself through mutually intolerant
democracies whose sole function is to exploit the poor in
the interest of the rich. Believe me, Europe today is the
greatest hindrance in the way of man’s ethical advancement.
The Muslim, on the other hand, is in possession of these
ultimate ideas on the basis of a revelation, which, speaking
from the inmost depths of life, internalises it’s own
apparent externality. With him the spiritual basis of life
is a matter of conviction for which even the least
enlightened man among us can easily lay down his life; and
in view of the basic idea of Islam that there can be no
further revelation binding on man, we ought to be
spiritually one of the most emancipated peoples on the
earth”.
There is a general lack of awareness within the Muslim world
about the enormous importance of the Human Genome Project.
This observation is supported by the simple fact that within
the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) there are only four
Islamic countries represented with a total membership of
fourteen scientists. Similarly the dismal state of Science
and Technology within the Muslim countries is also well
known and clearly reflected in the observation that the
entire Muslim world (20% of the entire world population)
contribute 1.033% to the international literature as opposed
to 1.059% and 1.64% by small European countries like Belgium
and Switzerland (Nasim, 1997).
In Muslim world our Scholars have taken very little interest
in the Human genome Project, which undoubtedly is the most
ambitious project in the history of the Biological science.
This project will certainly raise serious questions, which
certainly merit critical evaluation. The need for the Muslim
religious scholars, research scientists, and policy makers
to collectively and continually ponder over these questions
and take steps to effectively deal with the situation (Nasim,
1997).
Hence this humble effort is an addition to the Islamic
library and to raise awareness among Muslims to this new
genomic era and its ethical, legal, social and religious
implications.
May Allah guide us on the right path ? The path of those
upon whom Thou have bestowed favours.
