Islamic Scholar: Imam Ghazali
Islamic Science, the Scholar and Ethics
Let us take a moment to ponder over a powerfully incisive
thought from one of the greatest Muslim scholars of all time, Al-Ghazali
God
has created the spirit of man out of a drop of his own light; its
destiny is to return to Him. Do not deceive yourself with the vain
imagination that it will die when the body dies. The form you had on
your entrance into this world, and your present form, are not the same;
hence there is no necessity of your perishing on account of the
perishing of your body. Your spirit came into this world a stranger; it
is only sojourning in a temporary home. From the trials and tempests of
this troublesome life, our refuge is in God. In reunion with Him we
shall find eternal rest – rest without sorrow, joy without pain,
strength without infirmity, knowledge without doubt, a tranquil and yet
an ecstatic vision of the source of life and light and glory, the source
from which we came.
Iqbal,
like his predecessors al-Ghazali and Ibn Khaldun, states that "total
reflection also includes inner reflection, and the pursuit of knowledge
should not be divorced from ethical and value criteria." Hence, one
could indeed argue that experimental and empirical efforts cannot be
completely divorced from one's heart, inner intuition, insight or
conscience
.
Reason and revelation go hand in hand, it would then seem, while
science and knowledge are at once personal and social. Sadar adds that,
Scientists
are accountable to God for their activities, they are required both to
serve the community and to protect and promote its ethical and moral
institutions. The way they use science, therefore, must reflect the
values of the society they seek to serve. Thus, the Quranic approach to
science is at once dynamic and static: it promotes reason, objectivity
and the pursuit of truth and excellence, but at the same time, it places
this endeavour firmly within the boundaries of Islamic ethics and
values.
The
pursuit of knowledge has a very important place in Islam, but it is
subservient to Quranic values and ethics. In the Qur'an, knowledge and
righteousness must go hand-in-hand
. The Qur'an promises good rewards and high rank for those who possess knowledge coupled with faith and practice
. According to Al-Faruqi
,
Islamic science is the `practical knowledge that produces results and
leads to virtue, the object of the Muslim's prayer: "Oh God grant us a
knowledge that is useful and beneficial."' Under Islam, science serves
the goals of society. The goals of an Islamic society are to increase
brotherhood and spiritual awareness and reduce consumption. A science
with these goals has to be different in nature and style from science as
it is practised today. Furthermore, these goals cannot be pursued by
any means. They can only be pursued by those means which are permitted
by Islam
.
Hence,
Islamic civilisation, unlike today's Western, secular civilisation,
does not differentiate between matters of `state' and matters of
religion. It is a religion, a way of life and a code of conduct for
individuals, families and societies simultaneously. Moreover, Islam does
not just preach good religious practice, but also, and above all, Islam
encourages good deeds, that are not to be done just occasionally but in
all acts and decisions, in all spheres and realms. The Qur'an, indeed,
repeatedly stresses the
`amal salih (good deed). Furthermore, in
Islam, there are no priests or intermediaries who can forgive a sinner
on behalf of God. No Prophet died for a nation's sins. Each and everyone
is responsible before God for their own deeds, good and bad. From the
layman to the man with great power or knowledge, all are accountable for
their acts. Thus the Muslim is literally commanded to do good and right
only.
Even a Muslim with a little faith, is nevertheless
required to act and implement this faith in his daily life. Thus,
whether he is in business or in war, the Muslim acts as well as he can,
which explains why, even in the heat of battle and amidst so much
brutality, Muslims should still adhered to the true, compassionate code
towards the vast majority, i.e. the innocents. The high moral ethics of
Islam, are thus second nature and permeate all human activity. These,
then, are the philosophical and sociological considerations and some of
the priorities which make Islamic science an entirely different
enterprise from science as it is practiced today
.
It can be seen that the motivational and governing forces of this
science were religious and cultural, and gave Islamic science a
direction that was different from that of contemporary Western science
.
A
broad spectrum of scientists in the Muslim world have discussed Islamic
and secular approaches to science. While science itself is neutral, it
is the scientist's approach that moulds science into an Islamic or
secular entity; 'science is Islamised by the way we practice it and
utilize it
.'
The Islamic approach recognises the limitations of the human mind and
acknowledges that all knowledge is the property of God. Humility,
recognising the limits of scientific method, and respect for the object
of study are primary lessons that can be adopted at the very start of
the journey to rediscover the heritage and contemporary meaning of
Islamic science
.
This is in essence, the message of Islamic science to the world. The
scientific tradition of Islam is based on the profound intuition of the
interdependence and interrelation of all things in the universe,
including of course our planetary environment
.
Consideration for higher ethics under Islam is expressed in many ways. As early as the 9
th century, the physician Ishaq bin Ali Rahawi wrote the first treatise on
`adab al-tabib, i.e. medical ethics
.
In this treatise, Rahawi labels physicians as "guardians of souls and
bodies" and in this treatise he spells out all the deeds and acts a
Muslim physician must observe. Al-Razi, too, in his medical work did so
much to `humanise' medicine by taking into consideration the patient's
problems and attitudes
.
"The doctor's aim is to do good, even to our enemies, so much more to
our friends, and my profession forbids us to do harm to our kindred, as
it is instituted for the benefit and welfare of the human race, and God
imposed on physicians the oath not to compose mortiferous remedies
."
The
distinguishing feature that made Islamic medicine quite remarkable was
its unsurpassed ethics. Muslim hospitals served people irrespective of
religion, colour or background, by staff that operated on a completely
equal footing, whether Christians, Jews, or other minorities. A Muslim
doctor was also identified as 'Hakim', which in Arabic translates as
'wise'. Muslim physicians practiced with the guidance of God present in
their minds. Hence, unlike secular medicine today, Muslim practitioners
did not perform abortions or sex change operations. Nor did wealth
decide who to treat and how. Muslim physicians also had obligations to
their patients, community and colleagues that are difficult to imagine
in practice today.
In Rahawi's book there are twenty chapters, which include
:
- What the physician must avoid and beware of,
- The manners of visitors,
- The care of remedies by the physician,
- The dignity of the medical profession,
- The examination of physicians, and
- The removal of corruption among physicians.
This same attitude was observed towards the wider world. Al-Faruqi
points out that the natural world and all its splendour is for the Muslim a '
ni'mah,
a blessed gift of God's bounty, granted to man to use and to enjoy
[...] not man's to possess or to destroy, or to use in any way
detrimental to himself and to humanity, or to itself as God's creation."
Further "since nature is God's work, His
ayah or sign, and the
instrument of His purpose which is the absolute good [...] the Muslim
treats nature with respect and demonstrates deep gratitude to its
beneficial Creator and Bestower. Any transformation of it must have a
purpose clearly beneficial to all before it can be declared legitimate
."
Muslim scientists, whether Ibn al-Haytham in his optics, or Al-Biruni
in his study of India, sought to understand nature, their respect for
which was almost reverential
,
not to dominate the object of their study. Sardar notes that Bacon's
dictum that "nature yields her secrets under torture" would have sent
shudders down al-Biruni's spine
.
Indeed, Al-Faruqi had made a remarkable comparative exercise between
Islamic science, that of its predecessors, the Greeks, and that of the
contemporary West. 'Greek science,' they explain, was too intoxicated
with the beauty of nature per se and regarded the tragic outcome of
naturalism itself as natural. Since the Renaissance, modern Western
civilisation has had the highest regard for tragedy. Its zeal for
naturalism took it to the extreme of accepting nature without morality,
as a supernatural condition. Since the struggle of Western man has been
against the Church and all that it represents, the progress of man in
science was conceived as liberation from its clutches. Hence, it was
extremely hard even to contemplate a world affirmation or naturalism
that was attached to normative threads stretching from a priori,
noumenal, absolute source. Without such threads, naturalism is bound to
end up in a state of self-contradiction, with internal conflicts that
are
ex hypothesi insoluble. The Olympian community could not live
in harmony with itself and had to destroy itself. Its world affirmation
was in vain
.
Modern
science, which is primarily Western, unlike Islamic science, has
endless preoccupations that have very little consideration with regards
to ethics. Nature, for instance, has only recently begun to receive its
due after centuries of savage 'development'. Even if there is an
awareness of the effects of global warming, there is still barely any
shift in Western consumer behaviour towards reducing the use of fuel.
Furthermore, to the modern scientists, what is scientific supersedes
everything else. Thus, in this respect, anything goes: the scientific
and that which is defined as such. Furthermore, for the sake of
'science' so much pollution and destruction – devastation, in fact –
occurs on a daily basis; whole species have become extinct in the name
of progress. Entire peoples, regions, oceans, and animals of all sorts
have also been sacrificed for the sake of science. The natural world is
used for, or exposed to atomic tests, while horrendously depraved
weapons have been tested in wars, while torturous new devices are
trailed on prisoners of war. Scientists also develop poisonous gases
that were used to exterminate millions of young men already in horrific
conditions on the battlefields of Europe in the First World War, to
Vietnam, and beyond.
There is also, of course, the issue of
money. Under Islam, science was developed with the Godly injunction of
doing good for humanity and nature. In our times however, the sponsor
calls the shots. Sometimes the interests of humanity and finance meet,
often they don't. Money, then, takes precedence. Moreover, as the
financier provides direction, the morality of science is not longer in
the hands of the scientist. In a world dominated by monopolies, greed,
and the absence of morality, it is impossible for science and ethics to
work together in harmony. Solzhenitsyn summarised this in his inaugural
address at Harvard University in 1978, stating that "the most impressive
scientific and technological achievements could not redeem the moral
poverty so prevalent in the Western world
."
Freedom is indeed, one such concept that has its limits in Islam. Freedom of expression has a divine sanction in Islam
.
No one, nor any man-made law, can take this birthright away from
someone else. Freedom of expression is not only a right in Islam but an
obligation, and one who tries to deny criticism and counter-criticism is
openly at war with Islam
. This is why criticism has been institutionalised in the Islamic concept of
muhasabah,
which embraces both criticism and self-criticism, including
intellectual, political and social, correction of errors, being prepared
to accept corrections, trial, giving account, and taking disciplinary
measures or actions
.
The Prophet explained the obligation to criticise by asking his
followers to imagine a ship at sea which was carrying passengers. Some
of them were seated on the deck while others were seated below. One of
those below started drilling a hole where he was sitting. If the other
passengers were to stop him (and this would be a duty on the passengers
below and on deck), his life would be saved, along with the lives of the
other passengers and crew; if they let him carry on, they would all
drown
.
Like
all freedoms, however, Islam couples freedom of expression with social
responsibility. In the West, the book has become an icon; its contents
are irrelevant; freedom of expression is equated with the book itself.
In Islam, the book is symbolic, but its contents are important too. It
can be used to offer any criticism, question anything including even the
notion of the divine itself, focus discussion on any aspect of the
entire spectrum of human experience and ideas. But, because it is held
in such high esteem, it cannot be allowed to be used as a vehicle for
abuse or the dishonour of individuals in society in the name of
criticism. Criticise as much as you wish, tear arguments or ideas limb
from limb, but do not attack the honour or the person by abuse, ridicule
or mockery. This is the responsibility that Islam places on the freedom
of expression
.
Under
Islam, authors always began with the formula 'In the name of God, the
Merciful, the Compassionate', and with salutation to the Prophet. Any
Muslim author begs God to grant him the grace and strength to carry
through his enterprise and for the very best of results. Muslim scholars
quoted on every suitable occasion verses from the Qur'an, as well as
hadith, in support of their arguments. Under Islam, Bucaille states,
men
were more steeped in the religious spirit than they are today; but in
the Islamic world, this did not prevent them from being both believers
and scientists. Science was the twin of religion and it should never
have ceased to be so.
Image Sources:
Image 1 (Earth) source: www.3dtrue.com
Image 2 (Al Ghazali) source: www.famousmuslims.com
by: FSTC LImited, Fri 24 February, 2006
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