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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant, unbiased and clear picture ever painted.,
By iasiddiq@austx.tandem.com (austin. TX) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality (Paperback)
The author has painted such a clear and crisp picture of the people of the Islamic world showing both our positive and negative points throughout the history and in the present days. I appreciate the easy flowing manner of the author commenting daringly on the History and speaking his mind out on the present conditions of the Muslims around the globe. It's like looking in the mirror. Thank you Hoodbhoy. It's about time somebody speak up the truth.
9 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Why the West Has Science and Islam Does Not,
By
This review is from: Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality (Paperback)
While I agree for the most part with the author's book, there are several troubling areas in which the author appears to have very simplistic historical ides or none at all. His review of The West and Christianity derive from a single outdated work from 1898. What the author fails to check is the 10 volume work by Pierre Duhem The System of the World which traces the history and rise of science in the West from the 1300's up to the present. The development of science from within the matrix of the medieval university system would be more enlightening than his chapter on various isolated conflicts between the church and individual scientists.The primary difference between Islam and Christianity, is that the Christian theologians emphasized God's rationality from the beginning while Islamic theologians over emphasized Allah's will to the extent of deny human free will and that laws could govern the universe. This led to the follies of Ghazzali that the author documents and those of other theologians trying to protect Allah's absolute freedom A while back, the Guardian published an odd commentary piece by Ajmal Masroor, the director of Communities in Action. It was odd because Masroor was openly proselytizing for Islam, wondering why former British Prime Minister Tony Blair didn't convert to Islam rather than to Catholicism. One doesn't usually see such open proselytizing in a major newspaper. In any case, in the course of his piece Masroor said this: According to Blair, Islam "extols science and knowledge and abhors superstition". I agree, but why has he embraced Catholicism with its history of hostility towards science and is embedded with superstition? Why indeed? I can't and won't speak for Blair, but the idea that Islam extols science while Christianity is hostile to it is historically and conceptually false. And it's an important question, not only for science, but also for the defense of the West in general against the civilizational challenge posed by the Islamic jihadists. In my book Religion of Peace?, therefore, I discuss it in detail, beginning with an explanation of the importance of the question from none other than Friedrich Nietzche, who once noted that "there is no such thing as science `without any presuppositions.'...a philosophy, a `faith,' must always be there first, so that science can acquire from it a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method, a right to exist." It may be jarring to those who are accustomed to believing that faith and reason are perpetually at odds with each other, and that religion is an eternal enemy to science, but it is nevertheless a matter of historical fact that modern science has derived a great deal of its direction, meaning, limit, method, and right to exist from Christianity. It is likewise true, and probably just as jarring to those who assume that all religions are essentially identical in character, that Islam has not provided, either historically or in the present day, the same kind of impetus to its development. At Regensburg, Pope Benedict XVI observed that "for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality." The one hundred Muslim authorities who wrote an Open Letter to the Pope replied that "To say that for Muslims `God's Will is not bound up in any of our categories' is also a simplification which may lead to a misunderstanding. God has many Names in Islam, including the Merciful, the Just, the Seeing, the Hearing, the Knowing, the Loving, and the Gentle....As this concerns His Will, to conclude that Muslims believe in a capricious God who might or might not command us to evil is to forget that God says in the Qur'an, Lo! God enjoins justice and kindness, and giving to kinsfolk, and forbids lewdness and abomination and wickedness. He exhorts you in order that ye may take heed (al-Nahl, 16:90). Equally, it is to forget that God says in the Qur'an that He has prescribed for Himself mercy (al-An'am, 6:12; see also 6:54), and that God says in the Qur'an, My Mercy encompasses everything (al-A`raf 7:156). The word for mercy, rahmah, can also be translated as love, kindness, and compassion. From this word rahmah comes the sacred formula Muslims use daily, In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Is it not self-evident that spilling innocent blood goes against mercy and compassion?" Fair enough, although we have often seen the limitations within an Islamic context of condemning the spilling of "innocent blood": who is innocent? Under what circumstances? But aside from that, the authors of the Open Letter seem to be contradicting the Pope's point about the Islamic view of God, but they do not actually do so. In attempting to refute the idea that Islam envisions "a capricious God who might or might not command us to evil," the writers offer a number of Qur'an quotes that assert that "God enjoins justice and kindness," and is merciful and compassionate. Yet in noting that in Islam, Allah's "will is not bound up with any of our categories" and quoting Ibn Hazm saying "Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry," the Pope was not so much saying that in the Islamic view Allah would command his people to do evil, but that he might change the content of the concepts of good and evil. In other words, Allah would always enjoin "justice and kindness," but what constitutes "justice and kindness," just as what constitutes "innocent blood," might change. This idea has extraordinarily important implications for the development of science. There is an odd passage in the Qur'an that sums up this perspective, and how it differs from the Judeo-Christian view of God: "The Jews say: Allah's hand is fettered. Their hands are fettered and they are accursed for saying so." (5:64). The Jews, in their wickedness, claimed that "Allah's hand is fettered," but in fact Allah's hand is not fettered. It is unclear what Jewish concept the Qur'an is referring to in this case, but the indignant response to it is clear: Allah's hand being unfettered is a vivid image of divine freedom. Such a God can be bound by no laws. Muslim theologians argued during the long controversy with the Mu`tazilite sect, which exalted human reason beyond the point that the eventual victors were willing to tolerate, that Allah was free to act as he pleased. He was thus not bound to govern the universe according to consistent and observable laws. "He cannot be questioned concerning what He does" (Qur'an 21:23). Accordingly, there was no point to observing the workings of the physical world; there was no reason to expect that any pattern to its workings would be consistent, or even discernable. If Allah could not be counted on to be consistent, why waste time observing the order of things? It could change tomorrow. Stanley Jaki, a Catholic priest and physicist, explains that it was al-Ghazali, the philosopher that the authors of the Open Letter recommend to the Pope, who "denounced natural laws, the very objective of science, as a blasphemous constraint upon the free will of Allah." He adds that "Muslim mystics decried the notion of scientific law (as formulated by Aristotle) as blasphemous and irrational, depriving as it does the Creator of his freedom." Social scientist Rodney Stark adds that "it would seem that Islam has a conception of God appropriate to underwrite the rise of science. Not so. Allah is not presented as a lawful creator but is conceived of as an extremely active God who intrudes in the world as he deems it appropriate. This prompted the formation of a major theological bloc within Islam that condemns all efforts to formulate natural laws as blasphemy in that they deny Allah's freedom to act." The great Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) explained orthodox Islamic cosmology in these terms: Human intellect does not perceive any reason why a body should be in a certain place instead of being in another. In the same manner they say that reason admits the possibility that an existing being should be larger or smaller than it really is, or that it should be different in form and position from what it really is; e.g., a man might have the height of a mountain, might have several heads, and fly in the air; or an elephant might be as small as an insect, or an insect as huge as an elephant. This method of admitting possibilities is applied to the whole Universe. Whenever they affirm that a thing belongs to this class of admitted possibilities, they say that it can have this form and that it is also possible that it be found differently, and that the one form is not more possible than the other; but they do not ask whether the reality confirms their assumption. They say that the thing which exists with certain constant and permanent forms, dimensions, and properties, only follows the direction of habit, just as the king generally rides on horseback through the streets of the city, and is never found departing from this habit; but reason does not find it impossible that he should walk on foot through the place: there is no doubt that he may do so, and this possibility is fully admitted by the intellect. Similarly, earth moves towards the centre, fire turns away from the centre; fire causes heat, water causes cold, in accordance with a certain habit; but it is logically not impossible that a deviation from this habit should occur, namely, that fire should cause cold, move downward, and still be fire; that the water should cause heat, move upward, and still be water. On this foundation their whole fabric is constructed. This odd theory was derived entirely from the Islamic conviction of the absolute sovereignty of Allah. Relatively early in its history, therefore, science was deprived in the Islamic world of the philosophical foundation it... Read more ›
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
reducing the bitterness among muslims,
By Farooq Ali (woodside, ny USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality (Paperback)
After reading this book I have been able to understand a lot of confusion and seperation among the muslim ummah. This book is also great in referencing other classical and new works at the end of every chapter.I am actually using these ideas to enlighten my riligous friends in the community and i think Hoodboy needs to keep working on this type of material. The rift between "understanding" needs to be reduced and more work is required in setting goals. An excellent book.+
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