Can we be both, Godly and Rational?

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Can we be both, Godly and Rational?

In Islam, science and religion are not anti-thetical. In fact, they complement each other

Monday April 20, 2020 3:34 PM, Mohammad Mahdi, ummid.com

Islam and Science

God has given humans the ability of thinking and observation. Consciousness is also a very important aspect of human nature. The term consciousness is not well defined. It is said that a single cell is not conscious but when in a group (organ) it develops a very different nature also known as consciousness.

Humans have tried to solve many mysteries about the universe and are still doing it. The most important mystery that everyone wants to know is about nature of God. The early Greek philosophers tried to answer this. Is our universe created by a Creator? The universe is so complex that even the most intelligent mind is not very certain about how it came into existence.

How observation helps

If we are not getting the answer to a perplexed question, it is advisable to think in some other way. Here observation comes to our rescue. But this observation has to be genuine, full of curiosity.

Nathaniel Shaler, the famous American paleontologist and geologist, relates how once his teacher asked him to observe things intensely. Nathaniel tells us that one day when he entered his study room he saw that his teacher had kept a fish on a tray. He asked Nathaniel to come closer to the fish and observe very carefully. He told him that he would later ask him about his observation. After an hour Nathaniel realized that he had observed the fish completely.

However, his teacher did not ask him anything that day. Not even the next day. The days passed by. But his teacher would not ask him anything. Nathaniel was getting bored looking at the same fish for days. He thought that now it was not a single thing that he had left unobserved about the fish.

Finally, after several days, his teacher came to him. He asks him what he had seen since then in the fish. One by one Nathaniel described all the observations to his teacher. His teacher listened to him very carefully. When he stopped, the teacher asked him to conduct the observation again.

Nathaniel was at a loss. He believed that he had done the most. What new can he find further? However, he had no option but to obey the teacher. He again started observing the fish. Suddenly he realized that now there were many new things to add which he hadn’t observed before.

After one week his teacher came to him again. Nathaniel had many new things to tell. His teacher told him that if he continues practicing his observation one day he will come out with novel findings. Keep observing and you will find answers to all big questions.

Observing the Universe

The answers to the big questions are being given by our philosophers and scientist but it ultimately stops on considering the existence of divine power. The answers to these questions are already in the holy books. But atheists don’t believe in the books so what will the religious scholar do. Now let me tell you an incident so that we can understand the concept of God in holy books more deeply.

The story is about a man who was a sailor by profession. On his journey, he arrived at a place where the community of Muslim people lived. After several days of his stay, he acquired some information about the Muslim people and was astonished to know that they believed in some divine creator.

One day he met another person and sought more information from him about the Muslim religion. The man briefly described him some Islamic philosophy. After listening to the man the sailor asked him if he can give something or a book to understand his religion more precisely. The man gave him a copy of the Quran and told him that it was the book of God. The sailor asked him who had written it. The man told him that it was the word of God revealed to his messenger Mohammad (peace be upon him).

The sailor opened the book and fortunately, the chapter which opened was about the ocean. The sailor read the whole chapter and asked the man if Mohammad, on whom the book was revealed, was a sailor. The man told him that he lived in the deserts of Arabia. The sailor again read the chapter and asked the man if Mohammad had ever visited the oceans. The man answered that he had never even seen the oceans in his life.

The sailor once more read the chapter and closed the book. Then he turned his attention to the man and told him that the book must have been written by someone else because the descriptions were very deep and precise. A man who had not visited the ocean can’t give such details about the conditions which are written in this book. And even he learns many new things though his whole life had gone in sailing all over the world. Then the sailor told the man that if he was telling him the truth about Mohammad then indeed he must be a messenger of God.

The story reveals many things about the existence of the divine. The scholars can’t deny God by science because science only deals with the working and functioning of nature.

Now, we can ask a simple question to those who deny the existence of God. Majority of the people who are atheists are scientists. And not even a single one of them has ever studied all the fields of science. There are experts in evolutionary biology, quantum physics and other different fields of science. But do we have a scholar of science as a whole? We don’t. And it is proved that by studying all the fields of science, one will submit himself to God. We have a very good example from the medieval and ancient era. The polymaths of that period worshiped God because they understood science and philosophy like Avicenna, Jabir Ibn Hayyan, Aristotle, Socrates, etc. By not knowing the whole of science we cannot claim to be right on our research.

Does religiosity encourage negative attitudes towards science?

Atheism's main concept is denying the existence of God. It looks at religion as a path leading to complete aberrance. The concepts of religion have been misunderstood by those who believe that it is a mere set of rituals and ethics. Take for example the case of Richard Dawkins who believes that morality has nothing to do with religion and God. I think religion is like an ingredient that helps us focus on thinking and understanding the phenomenal world. Let’s take an example: if we want to make rice we want water and rice grains. The cooked rice is a product. Similarly, religion is an essential ingredient in our efforts to prepare the delicious recipe for science and technology. And all this is possible because the Islamic scripture exhorts us to think.

In the Quran, there are about 720 verses that urge believers to think about the signs of God in nature. It was because of this emphasis on studying nature that produced science among medieval Muslims. The search for truth was a religious obligation that led early Muslims to the road to inquiry and observation. Had Muslims not asked philosophical questions there had been no revival of Greek science and wisdom. In Islam, science and religion are not anti-thetical. In fact, they complement each other.

[The writer of this article, Mohammad Mahdi, is a student of Class XII, Shaheen Academy, Aligarh. He can be reached at mahdimohammad2002@gmail.com.]

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