INTRODUCTION 

 

Bismillāhir Rahmānir Rahīm, As-salāmu ʿAlaykum wa rahmatullāhi wa barakātuh. Peace be upon you brothers and sisters. 

 

Welcome back to the Muslim Converts Channel! 

 

In this lesson, we will overview science as a rational enterprise and its relation to Islam, and particularly the Islamic way of viewing the world. Here we will argue that there is, in fact, no tension between what we call science today and the Islamic faith.  

 

BODY OF TEXT 

 

The Prophet Muhammad (s) once said: “Seeking knowledge is incumbent upon every Muslim, male and female.” 

 

Science vs. Faith, Reason vs. Faith? 

 

Before we get into the nitty gritty of Islam and science, there is an important philosophical discussion that we first need to get out of the way.  

 

There is a prevalent idea going around nowadays, especially in the modern atheist crowd, claiming that science is incompatible with religion. The argument goes something like this: faith is belief without evidence, whereas science is belief with evidence. Since religion is all about faith, it is incompatible with science. 

 

The argument is obviously fallacious. Whether in Islam or other Abrahamic religions like Christianity, faith does not mean “belief without evidence.” 

 

The atheist definition of faith assumes that Muslims or Christians believe that faith is an epistemological category. Epistemology has to do with “knowledge” and “how you know things”  

 

But that’s not how Islam defines faith. Faith, or īmān in Islam means having deep trust in God in all things. This includes having faith that He will give you what is best for you, and it also means having faith that everything He has revealed to us is true. Faith is therefore a moral category in Islam, it has something to do with having a right attitude, character and disposition towards Allah.  

 

Belief in the truth of Islam, or the existence of God, is somewhat different. The Prophet Muhammad (s), nor the Ahl al-Bayt (as) or any decent Muslim scholar ever asked people to believe in God or Islam without evidence.  

 

In fact, the Qur’an is full of rational arguments for the truth of the Qur’an, Allah and the Prophet Muhammad (s). If faith was “belief without evidence” why would the Qur’an bring arguments to convince its audience? Why would the Messenger of Allah throughout his lifetime cite rational arguments and use miracles to prove his claim to divine prophethood? 

 

So faith is a moral virtue in Islam and not “belief without evidence” as some erroneously believe. 

 

Islam and the Scientific Method 

 

The oxford dictionary defines the scientific method as thus: "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses" 

 

In short, the scientific method is a method whereby we obtain a certain theory or view about material reality based on a specific set of experiments, measurements and texts. This view or theory may affirm, modify or reject our hypothesis.  

 

There is nothing in Islam that prohibits or frowns upon the scientific method. In fact, plenty of Muslim scholars in the premodern era conducted experiments to test their hypotheses about the created world.  

 

There are plenty of religious Muslim scientists today who work with the scientific method in all fields whether it is chemistry, biology or physics. None of these are incompatible with Islam or the Qur’an. In fact, the Qur’an always encourages us to observe and contemplate on the world of creation and to use our abilities to reason. 

 

What Islam is incompatible with, however, is something called materialism. Materialism, also sometimes called naturalism or physicalism, is a worldview that assumes that all that exists is ultimately material. Only matter is real, anything beyond that is untrue and not real.  

 

Muslim philosophers reject this view of the world as fallacious and incoherent. This is because conflating all of existence with physical reality is itself a metaphysical worldview and an unprovable assumption. It is a metaphysical worldview as it is making a claim about things beyond physical reality, namely that there isn’t such a thing as something beyond physical reality!  

 

Closely related to materialism is something called scientism. Scientism holds that the scientific method is the only way to understand existence, or at the very least, that the empirical sciences are the most “authoritative” worldviews and have the most legitimate claim on truth and knowledge.  

 

Muslim philosophers also reject this. They argue that there are plenty of truths that we, including advocates of scientism, believe in without using science. These include logical truths (for example: law of causality), mathematical truths, aesthetical truths (that is, statements about beauty), moral truths (for example: killing babies is morally bad) or even metaphysical truths (for example: the material world that I experience is real and not an illusion).  

 

In fact, science itself presupposes logical and mathematical truths without which it cannot function. As such, scientism itself is also fallacious and something that Islam rejects.  

 

Science and the Religious Life 

 

Islam believes that observing and studying nature is a way to grow closer to God. In this way, science is a good way to strengthening one’s belief in God for it reveals to us the complex but beautiful way Allah’s created world works.  

 

From this vantage point, Islam therefore encourages scientific research. It also encourages us to even make a living out of it for it is an honorable profession as long as we don’t use science as a means for sin and immoral actions. For example, Islam doesn’t allow you to create weapons of mass destruction. 

 

How can science be used for immoral purposes? Well, as science has given us a lot of good, like curing diseases or bringing sanitary water to people’s homes, it has also given us the atomic bomb or the creation of deadly diseases which was used in biological weapons. 

 

Science is a tool, it can either be used for good or bad. Islam supports science when it is a means for good, but opposes it when it becomes a means for evil. 

 

In our pursuit of science and knowledge, we must always keep in mind that our pursuit must always be for the sake of God. Imam Ali (as) once said: 

 

 “Do not seek knowledge for four aims: (1) Self-glorification in front of people of knowledge(2) Quarrelling with the ignorant(3) Showing off in gatherings of people (4) Attracting attention of people in order to secure an office of authority.”

 

Until Next Time, Thank you for watching. As-salāmu ʿAlaykum wa rahmatullāhi wa barakātuh