Hoodbhoy fight with Sabieh

Is Al-Ghazali really the Halagu of science in Islam?


By Muhammad Sabieh Anwar

The beaten track

According to most traditional accounts of the historiography of science in the Islamic civilisation,Muslim scientists transcended in all major fields of scientific inquiry during the Middle Ages, but their role remained, at best, one of an intelligent postman. They took the classic Greek sources and engaged in a massive translation and commentary enterprise, mostly under the patronage of the Abbasid Caliph Mamun Ibn Harun Ar-Rashid in his bait-ul-hikmah (House of Wisdom) around 830 C.E.




There are, however, serious problems with the classical approach. First, the narrative assumes that Muslims themselves were incapable of originating any new scientific ideas. The first Muslims were the desert-dwelling Arabs, the Bedouins, incapable of any scientific mode of thinking.






The second misgiving is the supposition that the Muslim scientific consciousness somehow woke up from the dark languishing slumber in the early Abbasid period (750-900 C.E.), all by itself, but there was nothing inherent in the Islamic belief system or in the uniquely Muslim culture that could instigate this reawakening. The impetus was all foreign. In his recent book 'Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance', George Saliba presents ample historical evidence indicating that the unique administrative and political requirements of the growing Islamic empire, in fact, provided the thrust to the development of the exact sciences. A major impetus also came from the juridical requirements of the Islamic fiqh. For example, the complicated inheritance laws of Islam gave birth to the discipline of algebra; advanced computations of the obligatory taxes, the zakat and the jizya resulted in the maturing of the numerical and fractional sciences; and the requirements for prayer direction and timings laid the foundations for theoretical and observational astronomy, paving the way for Copernicus's revolutionary works.







The spectre of Al-Ghazali and the shadow of the orthodoxy

The third most objectionable premise of the classical narrative is that it would have us believe that the Muslim ascendancy in science was the exception, rather than the rule. The scientists were outcasts living at the fringes of a society that was under the grip of the mullahs who shunned and resisted scientific thought, openly derided human reason, logic, deductive proof systems and philosophy, and were against all forms of art and music and the subtler delicacies of free inquiry. This line of thought has now become somewhat fashionable, blaming the obscurantist Islamic orthodoxy as the major cause behind the current state of intellectual and scientific atrophy in the Muslim world.







A central figure in all of these debates is the theologian and philosopher, Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (1058-1111). He is considered to be one bitter enemy of the sciences. Several writers of repute would have us believe that Al-Ghazali strangulated human reason and made it slavishly subservient to revealed knowledge, and that we are still reeling from the devastating blow he inflicted on human reason.






This claim seems tad juvenile. It is, maybe, as fantastical as the claim that Halagu's destruction of Baghdad, in one stroke, demolished the entire cultural edifice of Islam or Aurangzeb's death in 1707 heralded the downfall of the Mughal Empire. For example, the Nobel Laureate and one of the greatest living physicists, Steven Weinberg comfortably pronounced in the 'Times Literary Supplement' (January 17, 2007), "Alas, Islam turned against science in the twelfth century. The most influential figure was the philosopher Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, who argued in 'The Incoherence of the Philosophers' against the very idea of laws of nature, on the ground that any such laws would put God's hands in chains. According to Al-Ghazali, a piece of cotton placed in a flame does not darken and smoulder because of the heat, but because God wants it to darken and smoulder."


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Another well-respected and widely-read figure is the physicist, University Professor and activist Pervez Hoodbhoy who strongly claims in his book 'Islam and Science, Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality', "The most articulate and effective opponent of physical causality was Al-Ghazali. According to Al-Ghazali, it is futile to believe that the world runs according to physics laws (emphasis added)."

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Recently, in the February issue of the 'British History of Science newsletter', the historian of science, Jamil Ragep presented a detailed overview of the illustrious tradition in the sciences that flourished well nigh after Al-Ghazali. While researching on this subject and reverting to the primary sources, any serious reader will realise that far from strangulating the spirit of free, scientific inquiry, this great personality, in fact, promoted the scientific tradition.







As a public theologian, Al-Ghazali performed the task of placing Greek and Islamic thought in what he perceived to be their proper contexts. In numerous places sprinkled throughout his texts, he makes it very clear that his task is not to question the established truths in the natural order. Disputing these facts of nature, far from being a disservice to the scientific method, will be a disservice to religion itself. An instructive example is provided in the second introduction to his monumental Tahafat-ul-Falasifa ('Incoherence of the Philosophers'), where Al-Ghazali discusses the solar and lunar eclipses. After accurately describing that the eclipses result from the sun, moon and earth coming in line, he writes, "Whosoever thinks that to engage in a disputation for refuting such a theory is a religious duty harms religion and weakens it. For these matters rest on demonstrations, geometrical and arithmetical, that leave no room for doubt."








Al-Ghazali on mathematics

Hoodbhoy in his book would like us to believe that, "[Al-Ghazali] condemns mathematics with vigour and without reservation, rejecting the notion that anything good can be contained in it." According to Al-Ghazali, "exact" sciences have no connection with metaphysical or religious principles. Using mathematics to prove religious beliefs is, at best, absurd. For example, in his autobiography, the 'Deliverance from Error', he spells this out quite clearly, "A grievous crime indeed against religion has been committed by the man who imagines that Islam is defended by the denial of the mathematical sciences, seeing that there is nothing in revealed truth opposed to these sciences by way of either negation or affirmation, and nothing in these sciences opposed to the truth of religion."





Al-Ghazali warns his readers that every discipline of study has its experts, an expert in mathematics may not be an expert in grammar and an expert in geometry may fail miserably when it comes to matters of religion. In short, Al-Ghazali's truck is not with mathematics, but with philosophers who could potentially lead people astray in matters of pure religion. Al-Ghazali makes this very clear in the introduction to the Tahafat-al-falasifa. He does not contradict philosophers on issues that have no religious significance. His major disagreements pertain to questions with three fundamental theological implications: (a) has the universe existed forever, (b) does God know all particulars, and (c) is bodily resurrection possible! "It is in this topic and its likes, not any other, that one must show the falsity of their doctrine."









Science as a community obligation

Far from all the dogmatic statements alleging Al-Ghazali of unscientific irrationality and religious dogma, he considers mathematics and arithmetic to belong to the category of the praiseworthy (mamduh) sciences. In the first chapter of his famous book 'Revival of the Religious Sciences' he declares "Sciences whose knowledge is deemed fard kifayah comprise [all] sciences which are indispensable for the welfare of this world such as medicine which is necessary for the life of the body, arithmetic for daily transactions and the divisions of legacies and inheritances, as well as others besides. These are the sciences which, because of their absence, the community would be reduced to narrow straits."






In the same book, Al-Ghazali laments the Muslims preference of study of Islamic law over medicine making it hard to find Muslim physicians, yet jurisprudents abound. For example, according to him, an individual deciding to take up study of fiqh when there is a population in dire need of health care is someone "who neglects to give attention to the calamity which has befallen a group of thirsty Muslims [and] is like the person who devotes his time to debate while several fard kifayah duties remain neglected in town."





Here is another example that can help us appreciate Al-Ghazali's revivalist and 'progressive' approach. A major problem of his time was that all forms of knowledge had acquired religious significance making intellectual dispute slip into bitter religious disagreements leading to brandings of unbelief, ex-communication and heresy. Al-Ghazali addressed this situation by placing Islamic jurisprudence, one of the major sources of contention, at the level of 'worldly disciplines.' Hence in his ranking, fiqh would not be superior to mathematics and medicine, all of them being faraid kifayah.








The rationalist Mu'tazilites and irrational Ash'arites?


Al-Ghazali was a strong supporter of the Ash'arites. Present-day literature, particularly secularist literature, presents Ash'arites as backward dogmatists providing little or no latitude for the rational thought necessary for science. On the other hand, the Mu'tazilites are conceived as the rationalists and the upholders of Greek logic, abstract thought and hence the scientific method.







However, one must remember the rationalists' dependency on tradition and traditionalists' dependency on rationality. The distinction between the two groups is that of degree rather than one of form. Sherman Jackson in his introduction to Al-Ghazali's text 'The Decisive Criterion of Distinction Between Unbelief and Masked Infidelity' writes "Meanwhile, Rationalist writings reflect a clear and sustained recognition of the authority of the Aristotelian-Neoplatonic tradition, including the propriety of following it by way of taqlid. Traditionalists, on the other hand, use reason -- even aspects of Aristotelian reason -- but they do not recognize the tradition of Aritotelian reason as an ultimate authority."






As far as I see it, one factor in how we perceive the Mut'tazilite and the Ash'arite schools of thought is actually based on the Hellenophilic glorification of Aristotelian rationality. One of the most respected historians David Pingree writes about this attitude rather unequivocally, "Hellenophiles, it might be observed, are overwhelmingly Westerners, displaying the cultural myopia common in all cultures of the world but, as well, the arrogance that characterized the medieval Christian's recognition of his own infallibility and that has now been inherited by our modern priests of science."






Where does the problem then lie with our interpretation of Al-Ghazali? It in fact lies nowhere but in the pre-conceived notions we harbour and hold dear to our heart. It is some ideological framework we make for ourselves, based on aversion to anything religious, and then fitting all our mental chips into the same block.





One case example is the compatibility of scientific work-habits and the demands of religious practice or belief. These days, a mentioning of 'God' in western-style academic meetings is likely to arouse surprise, murmur and sometimes disgust. Dawkins, Weinberg, Shermer and their followers are also highly uncomfortable with a deity who interferes in our lives, a belief they would consider to be toxic to the promotion of science. The same line is towed, more or less, by Hoodbhoy. In his latest article published in the distinguished periodical, the 'Physics Today,' he shares with us his observation that veiled students in Pakistani universities are more likely to be 'silent note-takers' and 'timid,' less expressive than their unveiled comrades. In the same article, he also preaches: "The faithful must participate in five daily congregational prayers, endure a month of fasting that taxes the body, recite daily from the Quran, and more. Although such duties orient believers admirably towards success in the life hereafter, they make worldly success less likely. A more balanced approach will be needed."





It will be highly useful for many working Muslim and Pakistani scientists to discover what a 'more balanced approach' means with regards to the five daily congregational prayers and the month of Ramzan. But this sermon is also a strict piece of advice to all practising Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Jews who desire success in their scientific careers.






After all, what do we glean from all this? The gain is not only Al-Ghazali's image. It is to understand whether our society could catch up with the scientific tradition, now spearheaded by the west, while not losing the excellence of its scholarly traditions and religious ideals. A study of Al-Ghazali's work shows that this is not only possible, but in fact fard or obligatory. Secondly, it is agreed that for 'worldly success,' it is ultimately the statistics and concrete realities that count: how many top-notch papers we produce, how many quality Ph.D.'s we have per capita, how we react to and prepare for natural calamities, how we nourish and provide health care, energy and safety to our millions; but at the same time, it is also important to present accurate, holistic and unbiased historical accounts to our readers. This may help give our people the confidence in their cultural, civilisational and religious heritage and motivate them into a life of intellectual quest and scientific discovery.




(Dr. Sabieh Anwar is a physicist based at the School of Science and Engineering, LUMS. He is also founder member of the Khwarizmi Science Society aimed at science popularisation.)