Madina Archives

Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board

How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science
se7en
01/20/02 at 23:07:26
How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science By DENNIS OVERBYE [i]http://college3.nytimes.com/guests/articles/2001/10/30/877062.xml[/i]   Nasir al-Din al-Tusi was still a young man when the Assassins made him an offer he couldn't refuse. His hometown had been devastated by Mongol armies, and so, early in the 13th century, al-Tusi, a promising astronomer and philosopher, came to dwell in the legendary fortress city of Alamut in the mountains of northern Persia. He lived among a heretical and secretive sect of Shiite Muslims, whose members practiced political murder as a tactic and were dubbed hashishinn, legend has it, because of their use of hashish. Although al-Tusi later said he had been held in Alamut against his will, the library there was renowned for its excellence, and al-Tusi thrived there, publishing works on astronomy, ethics, mathematics and philosophy that marked him as one of the great intellectuals of his age. But when the armies of Halagu, the grandson of Genghis Khan, massed outside the city in 1256, al-Tusi had little trouble deciding where his loyalties lay. He joined Halagu and accompanied him to Baghdad, which fell in 1258. The grateful Halagu built him an observatory at Maragha, in what is now northwestern Iran. Al-Tusi's deftness and ideological flexibility in pursuit of the resources to do science paid off. The road to modern astronomy, scholars say, leads through the work that he and his followers performed at Maragha and Alamut in the 13th and 14th centuries. It is a road that winds from Athens to Alexandria, Baghdad, Damascus and Córdoba, through the palaces of caliphs and the basement laboratories of alchemists, and it was traveled not just by astronomy but by all science. Commanded by the Koran to seek knowledge and read nature for signs of the Creator, and inspired by a treasure trove of ancient Greek learning, Muslims created a society that in the Middle Ages was the scientific center of the world. The Arabic language was synonymous with learning and science for 500 hundred years, a golden age that can count among its credits the precursors to modern universities, algebra, the names of the stars and even the notion of science as an empirical inquiry. "Nothing in Europe could hold a candle to what was going on in the Islamic world until about 1600," said Dr. Jamil Ragep, a professor of the history of science at the University of Oklahoma. It was the infusion of this knowledge into Western Europe, historians say, that fueled the Renaissance and the scientific revolution. "Civilizations don't just clash," said Dr. Abdelhamid Sabra, a retired professor of the history of Arabic science who taught at Harvard. "They can learn from each other. Islam is a good example of that." The intellectual meeting of Arabia and Greece was one of the greatest events in history, he said. "Its scale and consequences are enormous, not just for Islam but for Europe and the world." But historians say they still know very little about this golden age. Few of the major scientific works from that era have been translated from Arabic, and thousands of manuscripts have never even been read by modern scholars. Dr. Sabra characterizes the history of Islamic science as a field that "hasn't even begun yet." Islam's rich intellectual history, scholars are at pains and seem saddened and embarrassed to point out, belies the image cast by recent world events. Traditionally, Islam has encouraged science and learning. "There is no conflict between Islam and science," said Dr. Osman Bakar of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown. "Knowledge is part of the creed," added Dr. Farouk El-Baz, a geologist at Boston University, who was science adviser to President Anwar el- Sadat of Egypt. "When you know more, you see more evidence of God." So the notion that modern Islamic science is now considered "abysmal," as Abdus Salam, the first Muslim to win a Nobel Prize in Physics, once put it, haunts Eastern scholars. "Muslims have a kind of nostalgia for the past, when they could contend that they were the dominant cultivators of science," Dr. Bakar said. The relation between science and religion has generated much debate in the Islamic world, he and other scholars said. Some scientists and historians call for an "Islamic science" informed by spiritual values they say Western science ignores, but others argue that a religious conservatism in the East has dampened the skeptical spirit necessary for good science. The Golden Age When Muhammad's armies swept out from the Arabian peninsula in the seventh and eighth centuries, annexing territory from Spain to Persia, they also annexed the works of Plato, Aristotle, Democritus, Pythagoras, Archimedes, Hippocrates and other Greek thinkers. Hellenistic culture had been spread eastward by the armies of Alexander the Great and by religious minorities, including various Christian sects, according to Dr. David Lindberg, a medieval science historian at the University of Wisconsin. The largely illiterate Muslim conquerors turned to the local intelligentsia to help them govern, Dr. Lindberg said. In the process, he said, they absorbed Greek learning that had yet to be transmitted to the West in a serious way, or even translated into Latin. "The West had a thin version of Greek knowledge," Dr. Lindberg said. "The East had it all." In ninth-century Baghdad the Caliph Abu al-Abbas al-Mamun set up an institute, the House of Wisdom, to translate manuscripts. Among the first works rendered into Arabic was the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy's "Great Work," which described a universe in which the Sun, Moon, planets and stars revolved around Earth; Al-Magest, as the work was known to Arabic scholars, became the basis for cosmology for the next 500 years. Jews, Christians and Muslims all participated in this flowering of science, art, medicine and philosophy, which endured for at least 500 years and spread from Spain to Persia. Its height, historians say, was in the 10th and 11th centuries when three great thinkers strode the East: Abu Ali al- Hasan ibn al-Haytham, also known as Alhazen; Abu Rayham Muhammad al-Biruni; and Abu Ali al-Hussein Ibn Sina, also known as Avicenna. Al-Haytham, born in Iraq in 965, experimented with light and vision, laying the foundation for modern optics and for the notion that science should be based on experiment as well as on philosophical arguments. "He ranks with Archimedes, Kepler and Newton as a great mathematical scientist," said Dr. Lindberg. The mathematician, astronomer and geographer al-Biruni, born in what is now part of Uzbekistan in 973, wrote some 146 works totaling 13,000 pages, including a vast sociological and geographical study of India. Ibn Sina was a physician and philosopher born near Bukhara (now in Uzbekistan) in 981. He compiled a million-word medical encyclopedia, the Canons of Medicine, that was used as a textbook in parts of the West until the 17th century. Scholars say science found such favor in medieval Islam for several reasons. Part of the allure was mystical; it was another way to experience the unity of creation that was the central message of Islam. "Anyone who studies anatomy will increase his faith in the omnipotence and oneness of God the Almighty," goes a saying often attributed to Abul-Walid Muhammad Ibn Rushd, also known as Averroes, a 13th-century anatomist and philosopher. Knocking on Heaven's Door Another reason is that Islam is one of the few religions in human history in which scientific procedures are necessary for religious ritual, Dr. David King, a historian of science at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, pointed out in his book "Astronomy in the Service of Islam," published in 1993. Arabs had always been knowledgeable about the stars and used them to navigate the desert, but Islam raised the stakes for astronomy. The requirement that Muslims face in the direction of Mecca when they pray, for example, required knowledge of the size and shape of the Earth. The best astronomical minds of the Muslim world tackled the job of producing tables or diagrams by which the qibla, or sacred directions, could be found from any point in the Islamic world. Their efforts rose to a precision far beyond the needs of the peasants who would use them, noted Dr. King. Astronomers at the Samarkand observatory, which was founded about 1420 by the ruler Ulugh Beg, measured star positions to a fraction of a degree, said Dr. El-Baz. Islamic astronomy reached its zenith, at least from the Western perspective, in the 13th and 14th centuries, when al-Tusi and his successors pushed against the limits of the Ptolemaic world view that had ruled for a millennium. According to the philosophers, celestial bodies were supposed to move in circles at uniform speeds. But the beauty of Ptolemy's attempt to explain the very ununiform motions of planets and the Sun as seen from Earth was marred by corrections like orbits within orbits, known as epicycles, and geometrical modifications. Al-Tusi found a way to restore most of the symmetry to Ptolemy's model by adding pairs of cleverly designed epicycles to each orbit. Following in al-Tusi's footsteps, the 14th-century astronomer Ala al-Din Abul-Hasan ibn al-Shatir had managed to go further and construct a completely symmetrical model. Copernicus, who overturned the Ptolemaic universe in 1530 by proposing that the planets revolved around the Sun, expressed ideas similar to the Muslim astronomers in his early writings. This has led some historians to suggest that there is a previously unknown link between Copernicus and the Islamic astronomers, even though neither ibn al- Shatir's nor al-Tusi's work is known to have ever been translated into Latin, and therefore was presumably unknown in the West. Dr. Owen Gingerich, an astronomer and historian of astronomy at Harvard, said he believed that Copernicus could have developed the ideas independently, but wrote in Scientific American that the whole idea of criticizing Ptolemy and reforming his model was part of "the climate of opinion inherited by the Latin West from Islam." The Decline of the East Despite their awareness of Ptolemy's flaws, Islamic astronomers were a long ways from throwing out his model: dismissing it would have required a philosophical as well as cosmological revolution. "In some ways it was beginning to happen," said Dr. Ragep of the University of Oklahoma. But the East had no need of heliocentric models of the universe, said Dr. King of Frankfurt. All motion being relative, he said, it was irrelevant for the purposes of Muslim rituals whether the sun went around the Earth or vice versa. From the 10th to the 13th century Europeans, especially in Spain, were translating Arabic works into Hebrew and Latin "as fast as they could," said Dr. King. The result was a rebirth of learning that ultimately transformed Western civilization. Why didn't Eastern science go forward as well? "Nobody has answered that question satisfactorily," said Dr. Sabra of Harvard. Pressed, historians offer up a constellation of reasons. Among other things, the Islamic empire began to be whittled away in the 13th century by Crusaders from the West and Mongols from the East. Christians reconquered Spain and its magnificent libraries in Córdoba and Toledo, full of Arab learning. As a result, Islamic centers of learning began to lose touch with one another and with the West, leading to a gradual erosion in two of the main pillars of science ? communication and financial support. In the West, science was able to pay for itself in new technology like the steam engine and to attract financing from industry, but in the East it remained dependent on the patronage and curiosity of sultans and caliphs. Further, the Ottomans, who took over the Arabic lands in the 16th century, were builders and conquerors, not thinkers, said Dr. El- Baz of Boston University, and support waned. "You cannot expect the science to be excellent while the society is not," he said. Others argue, however, that Islamic science seems to decline only when viewed through Western, secular eyes. "It's possible to live without an industrial revolution if you have enough camels and food," Dr. King said. "Why did Muslim science decline?" he said. "That's a very Western question. It flourished for a thousand years ? no civilization on Earth has flourished that long in that way." Islamic Science Wars Humiliating encounters with Western colonial powers in the 19th century produced a hunger for Western science and technology, or at least the economic and military power they could produce, scholars say. Reformers bent on modernizing Eastern educational systems to include Western science could argue that Muslims would only be reclaiming their own, since the West had inherited science from the Islamic world to begin with. In some ways these efforts have been very successful. "In particular countries the science syllabus is quite modern," said Dr. Bakar of Georgetown, citing Malaysia, Jordan and Pakistan, in particular. Even in Saudi Arabia, one of the most conservative Muslim states, science classes are conducted in English, Dr. Sabra said. Nevertheless, science still lags in the Muslim world, according to Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani physicist and professor at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, who has written on Islam and science. According to his own informal survey, included in his 1991 book "Islam and Science, Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality," Muslims are seriously underrepresented in science, accounting for fewer than 1 percent of the world's scientists while they account for almost a fifth of the world's population. Israel, he reports, has almost twice as many scientists as the Muslim countries put together. Among other sociological and economic factors, like the lack of a middle class, Dr. Hoodbhoy attributes the malaise of Muslim science to an increasing emphasis over the last millennium on rote learning based on the Koran. "The notion that all knowledge is in the Great Text is a great disincentive to learning," he said. "It's destructive if we want to create a thinking person, someone who can analyze, question and create." Dr. Bruno Guideroni, a Muslim who is an astrophysicist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, said, "The fundamentalists criticize science simply because it is Western." Other scholars said the attitude of conservative Muslims to science was not so much hostile as schizophrenic, wanting its benefits but not its world view. "They may use modern technology, but they don't deal with issues of religion and science." said Dr. Bakar. One response to the invasion of Western science, said the scientists, has been an effort to "Islamicize" science by portraying the Koran as a source of scientific knowledge. Dr. Hoodbhoy said such groups had criticized the concept of cause and effect. Educational guidelines once issued by the Institute for Policy Studies in Pakistan, for example, included the recommendation that physical effects not be related to causes. For example, it was not Islamic to say that combining hydrogen and oxygen makes water. "You were supposed to say," Dr. Hoodbhoy recounted, "that when you bring hydrogen and oxygen together then by the will of Allah water was created." Even Muslims who reject fundamentalism, however, have expressed doubts about the desirability of following the Western style of science, saying that it subverts traditional spiritual values and promotes materialism and alienation. "No science is created in a vacuum," said Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a science historian, author, philosopher and professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University, during a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a few years ago. "Science arose under particular circumstances in the West with certain philosophical presumptions about the nature of reality." Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal, a chemist and the president and founder of the Center for Islam and Science in Alberta, Canada, explained: "Modern science doesn't claim to address the purpose of life; that is outside the domain. In the Islamic world, purpose is integral, part of that life." Most working scientists tend to scoff at the notion that science can be divided into ethnic, religious or any other kind of flavor. There is only one universe. The process of asking and answering questions about nature, they say, eventually erases the particular circumstances from which those questions arise. In his book, Dr. Hoodbhoy recounts how Dr. Salam, Dr. Steven Weinberg, now at the University of Texas, and Dr. Sheldon Glashow at Harvard, shared the Nobel Prize for showing that electromagnetism and the so- called weak nuclear force are different manifestations of a single force. Dr. Salam and Dr. Weinberg had devised the same contribution to that theory independently, he wrote, despite the fact that Dr. Weinberg is an atheist while Dr. Salam was a Muslim who prayed regularly and quoted from the Koran. Dr. Salam confirmed the account in his introduction to the book, describing himself as "geographically and ideologically remote" from Dr. Weinberg. "Science is international," said Dr. El-Baz. "There is no such thing as Islamic science. Science is like building a big building, a pyramid. Each person puts up a block. These blocks have never had a religion. It's irrelevant, the color of the guy who put up the block."
NS

Re: How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science
kareema
01/21/02 at 02:59:07
I'm thinking of majoring in biology to become a research scientist for some of the same reasons mentioned in the article. I loved learning about all the ribosomes and stuff in my intro bio class. I think I'm also going to like the intro chem class I have, though it will be hard. Due to my math skills and the general atmosphere of it here, I'm leaning away from it. I would have to agree that'Western science" tends to abstract things, while Islam provides an perspective. 'Everything means nothing' could be its slogan.

Re: How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science
humble_muslim
01/21/02 at 07:25:16
AA FYI, Dr. Salam is a Qadiani, not a muslim.
NS

Re: How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science
akbalkhan
01/21/02 at 08:56:31
Wa Lakum as Salam, On the contrary, I think that science at this point is a preoccupation of a class of people who wish to blur the periphery of poor, dying, corrupted masses both in the Muslim, and secular world.  There is no advancement along the lines of research on disease, food production, and resource sustainability, when only the rich can truly enjoy these things.  We know the cures are going to go to the highest bidder, food will lead into genetic development and manipulation- a clear breach of Islamic law, and resources will be used to control and demolish any semblance of Shariah, in the Mid East, and mor recently, Central Asia. Aside from those blaring facts, the education system at large is rampant with haram, and indoctrination. I don't get how we can say in one thread, and agree it seems, that the  in order to establish Shariah and khilafah we need to get closer to Allah SWT, yet here we are thinking that science and education are the key- Well which one is it? Unless the environment of unviersities, and Muslims ability to control where the research goes that they are producing, we could end up distracted and lost in the education system, or worse yet, helping to develop better weapons, biological or mechanical, for kaffir to use against Muslims.  Without having a guided Islamic system for applying what is discovered in science, the kaffir rulers are going to use it for their own devious and haram applications- is everyone comfortable with that? Regards, Qamar Akbal Kaan

Re: How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science
Sonny
01/21/02 at 14:02:37
On a very practical level, how far behind in creature comforts of the material universe can the muslim nations care to be, while technology and science press forward in the west? How long will camels and food be completely satisfacory, while even middle classes in America can enjoy mercedes, and soon, even energy efficient cars? I'm no expert on history, but the existent gap between the average and even the standard of living for the poor in America as compared to the third world is huge. I believe we should drive to close the gap, not stand by and do nothing as it widens irreparably. In a prior discussion of the 'kalifah' I beleive, one man made the remark that in a move back to the homeland, there would be so many treasured comforts he would have to live without. But why live without, when, with adequate education, the muslims can find a way to blend science, technology, and religion in a way acceptable and livable for them?! I think Seven's article is outstanding, but does overlook a major catalyst that occured in the west, which was the extraordinary drive of Francis Bacon to instate and redifine education in the west, and in so doing he was instrumental in redefining the emphasis in Christianity to a shift towards subduing and conquering the natural world. He did this by lifting a verse or two out of genisis, and giving it a priority in his some what visionary reports of what the world could become. Educational shifts occured all over Europe due to his efforts--remarkable as the man is largely forgotten today, although his work produced a major shift in educational values.     Nowadays, the country of America, one of the worlds leaders in technology and science, not the only one, but they are on the cusp of new technologies and innovation which I believe will raise their standard of living even higher. Unless something is done to bring along the third world countries, the gap between the rich and poor nations will grow even wider. For those muslims now living in America or England, the situation of the poor in the Arab nations may have been forgotten?  When I was in Turkey--fifteen years ago, (long time, but has it changed?) I saw a poor old man, a begger, left to die on the street with his penny can beside him, and he was in rags, literally. Not what we call rags here--this was no similie, the man was in rags. People carried heavy loads on their heads--not that they wouldn't prefere to, but if they had a wagon or wheelbarrow or, heaven help us, a flatbed, would they refuse to use it because it is western? I met men with masters degree's sitting around all day in a rug shop because there was nothing for them to do--the organizations which might use their skills do not exist. The mosque, the Santa Sophia had rocks and tiles falling out of it in chunks--tileworkers, masons? Perhaps they don't exist there! Do people want to live this way? I mean do they WANT to live like that--because camels and food are enough for them? I couldn'teven tell you how many imported cars are there, because some do not want to walk or ride animals. So I just think education, and most specifically, education geared towards generating a societal structure, is the most practical and nessesary solution. So that men who do have degrees have a place to put their skills to work, as opposed to selling rugs and socks.  Realistically, in what would be such a massive educational reform program, by the time the third world nations brought their economies up to the present world standard of living, the first world nations will have moved on. So the gap would still exist, unless individuals embraced the innovation and drive nessesary to keep their nations competitive, and brought them abreast of new changes. To say that Islam was a leader in science and technology a thousand years ago is true, but does not change where they are today. And true also, that leadership shifts, and border conflicts do occur. But while this explains, in a historical context, where the nation has been, it is not a justification for continued opposition to change. Change it will, because life is all about change, you can't prevent change.  At best you can control the direction of the change and influence it's outcome, but change is inevitable. The changes facing the Arab nations are either a change into a greater disparity of poverty and affluence, a continued economic decline, or a radical choice to take the bull by the horns, and swing your countries into the economic prosperity possible in the twentyfirst century, through a viable educational system.  And many individual choices apply along the way. Science, technology, education, and politics and religion are all inter-related, as I see it, as man is a social animal. And spiritual as well.  And can you be sure that the idea of reform that you are as a group confronted with, can you be sure it's not Allah's way of telling you which direction to go? So. There are lot's of new and good idea's going around. Hopefully sooner or later they will really fire up somebodies imagination as to what is possible for the Arab nations of today, given that the past is past, tomorrow isn't here yet, and today is all we have. Aye, cliche! What with all the problems in educations, as you can see, I'm still for it, all the way! Sincerely, Patti.

Re: How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science
se7en
01/21/02 at 14:46:26
as salaamu alaykum wa rahmatAllah, [quote]I don't get how we can say in one thread, and agree it seems, that the  in order to establish Shariah and khilafah we need to get closer to Allah SWT, yet here we are thinking that science and education are the key- Well which one is it? [/quote] I think traditionally education and science *brought about* closeness to Allah.  I think the Golden Age of Islam came into fruition because people sought knowledge with their ultimate goal in mind - ubudiyyah.  Seeking knowledge was literally a *means* by which to attain taqwaa, through understanding more of the nature of reality and therefore affirming eman. And I think our decline came about from moving away from this purpose.  Losing focus on our goal - and thus getting lost and deluded on our journey there.   I heard a speaker liken it to a train - one the Muslims were once conducting - but now hijacked by those who will use it for their own misdeeds. I understand your points brother QAK, but I do not think the solution is to isolate ourselves from the education process.  Insulate, yes :)  but not isolate.  I think we should, to the best of our ability, use these resources to be a means by which to attain our ultimate goal. I think Sulayman Nyang's [url=http://www.as.ysu.edu/~islamst/sample2.htm]article on the Myth of Return[/url] is relevant here.  There is the myth of returning to a home country, but also to a utopian time of our past. wAllahu a'lam. wasalaamu alaykum wa rahmatAllah.

Re: How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science
akbalkhan
01/21/02 at 15:29:29
Wa Lakum as Salam, Sr. Se7en, you wrote: "I think traditionally education and science *brought about* closeness to Allah.  I think the Golden Age of Islam came into fruition because people sought knowledge with their ultimate goal in mind -ubudiyyah. Seeking knowledge was literally a *means* by which to attain taqwaa, through understanding more of the nature of reality and therefore affirming eman." Education and science of the QURAN brings about nearness and fear of Allah SWT.  The Golden Age of Islam came about as a result of the discipline and razor-sharp focus honed by ibadah and study of Islamic sciences of the Arab language, ahadith, fiqh, etc being turned away from Islam towards the world and its manipulation and classification. Actually, as can be proven by just looking at them, students of Western universities, in general, come to develop a certain indepedent thought process whereby they look at their environment and their destiny as something to be grabbed by the ears and bended to a suitable direction according to their desires.  There is no way of studying Western science without first thinking and applying it according to the kaffir demands.  The problem is not with studying and becoming more knowledgeable of the world and the universe, but rather to do so in the place of traditional Islamic learning and at the risk of contributing to the stranglehold that the kaffir has on the world's learning institutions.  Not only does learning in today's universities stress a living environment opposed to an Islamic standard, but also an application of its learned material in ways opposed to Allah SWT's laws and guidance.  Again, as I posted earlier, how will you stop medical science from using your ideas to better facilitate pig organ transplants to humans, or gene therapy and manipulation, or the increased production of nuclear energy and therefore waste material, or newer and better paradigms for increased profitability- fueling an increasing wealth to poverty gap, or faster more efficient engineering to produce machines that churn out pornographic videos, plastic Jesus', fake Christmas trees, alcohol.  How will you be able to stop your 'advancements' and 'contributions' to science and technology from becoming a menace to Muslims and the din of al-Islam? We had control over the application of science, medicine, and technology and therefore were capable of making sure that our direct discoveries led to a better understanding of the world, and our ability to use those discoveries to benefit humankind.  Science and technology today are used by the kaffir to advance their own views of the world and how they would like to make it, and it is used far more often to benefit themselves then the rest of humanity. I think to frame the issue such that on one side is a group of people in favor of Western education and improved level of wealth for everyone, and on the other side is a group of people in favor of obeying only sunnah of living in poverty and eschewing all forms of wealth and modern science and technology is unrepresentative of what's being disputed here.  Increasing the wealth and education of any given person today, poses a real threat to the amount of time spent protecting that wealth, and furthering the education such that money never makes it to the poor, and the education only benefits the kaffir interests in applying the contributions to science and technology. We must have control first before learning and engaging in modern scientific paradigms will benefit the Muslims as an Ummah. And tell me how many of you Muslims out there with degrees are headed for a life long committment to a Muslim community or learning center, or working for the administration of a Muslim country?  How many of you are willing to take your degree and get paid next to nothing, contributing back to the Ummah what you have learned?  How many of you could actually take your degree and go into an average, poor, Muslim village or town, and do something to help out? Regards, Qamar Akbal Kaan

Re: How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science
se7en
01/21/02 at 16:19:56
as salaamu alaykum, [quote]We must have control first before learning and engaging in modern scientific paradigms will benefit the Muslims as an Ummah.[/quote] And how are we to attain this control?  We're not gonna shift *any* paradigms if all we do is sit on our backsides and talk trash about the big bad west.     Let me clarify something here.  I'm not in anyway defending attaining a degree so that you can live large and work at Lockheed Martin and build bombs that kill babies.  I'm not in anyway arguing with your assertions that it's dangerous for a Muslim to be in an academic environment that molds a secular humanistic world view.  And I'm not in anyway defending people who directly contribute to the suffering of Muslims by using their degree and their knowledge to work for companies and organizations that have bling bling as their god. I think we're talking about two extremes here.  On the one hand is immersing ourselves in lives of consumerism, forgetting our purpose, oblivious to the consequences of our actions.  On the other hand is isolation, hating the way things are now, but thinking that contributing anything to society would be a sin, and living our lives having no impact on the world around us. I think we need to strike a balance here.  Finding the balance that makes our efforts for Islam the most effective is *a lot* more challenging than screaming for khilafa of complaining about the way the world is. This is just me venting, not directed at anyone in particular. wasalaamu alaykum wa rahmatAllah.

Re: How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science
akbalkhan
01/21/02 at 16:45:38
Sr. Se7en, I agree with what you are saying in your last post. What I think is important to keep in mind however, is that it can very easily sound like the path to studying and implementing the din is just as important as studying and implementing modern education, and this just is not true.   How many people must take out loans to go to the universities(RIBA)? How many universities are directly involved in military research, investments overseas, and contracts with businesses of haram specifically recruiting from them?  There is a myriad of ways that attending a Western education institution can rob you both of din, money, success in the akhira, and more importantly valuable years of youth and peak memorizing-ability years. There is no way of regaining control of schooling and education without taking it back.  The West and their standards of what is education is not going to just grant the Muslims the ability to decide curriculums, and disciplines, and then take the frontiers of research to a pro bono status. I definitely believe that khilafah is the answer to all the Muslim ills, and is the only way to guarantee a safe and conducive learning environment as well.  Until then its 'Attend at our own risk.' Regards, Qamar Akbal Kaan

Re: How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science
alzinjibar
01/22/02 at 06:16:55
Salam alaykum brother and sister, ----> walking in with a tray --> - Brother since it's a bit cold up there,a little moka cafe ? tea ? sugar & cream ..mm yes.. - Sister Cafe or Chai ? na .. mmm how about some hot herbal Apple with Cinnamon ? ... sorry no pakora's.. just some home muffins.. carrots and these ones are oat and raisins.. Jazak'Allah khayr Please keep on .. sorry to have interupt .. ----> walk away --->

Re: How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science
MentallectCom
01/23/02 at 02:33:14
man why do i always make a thread and then realize i could've put it in another already made? although my thread is perhaps a bit skewed but its under the same umbrella...hmmm...
Individual posts do not necessarily reflect the views of Jannah.org, Islam, or all Muslims. All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the poster and may not be used without consent of the author. The rest © Jannah.Org