I am not a biologist, nor a biochemist: hard-core scientists able to dissect life into genomes, epigenomes, proteins and finally look down to basic building blocks of life, the amino acids etc and etc. I am just a 'soft scientist', a chap who uses science in my daily life. Actually I am just a 'plumber'. A 'plumber' deeply involved in science as science forms the very basis of my day-to-day work.
I believe Islam is a very 'scientific' religion, able to bring the world from pre-Islamic, 7th century darkness and pestilence. Within the first 100 years of Islam in Arabia , it was able to bring dark and plague-ridden Spain into progressive Cordoba and Servile through scientific inquiries and the 'right reading' of the 'other book'......until we Muslims somehow got deeply immersed and stuckin this 'mumbo-jumbo' which I term as the ' ablution phase' of Islam. We have been stuck in this 'ablution phase' much too long!..... Thinking and thinking aloud is not allowed. Already seven centuries to be exact. Some bright sparks decided at the end of the 14th century, in a grand way, that all the thinking that need to be done for the ummah had been done, from then on no more thinking required. No ijtihad as well.
Islam does not need modern science to validate it. I have no problem with that. If there is a hiatus between science and Islam, I will keep science on the 'backburner' and wait for better science. 'Evolution' is one of the hiatus and I will wait for 'better science'. And oftentimes I will also have to wait for the 'traditional scholars' to grow out of their shells and 'kopiah'. Scholars who are steeped in both the Qur'anic understanding as well as bludgeoning knowledge of science are a rarity or probably non-existent at present. Scholars who can 'decipher' with confidence the ayats in the Qur'an that are 'muthashabihat' and explain the cosmic intricacies surrounding our universe. And that is like waiting for a cat with horns!
Easier to wait for 'better science', even from non-Muslims!
In the mean time I too get excited when young Muslims in Europe and America do take the lead to discuss some watershed issues that seem to boggle us , this current ummah.
I find Yasir Qadhi's parallel theory about 'evolution' and that of man quite interesting, and I have been thinking about this as well for years, reconciling myself to the fact that science and Islam are perfectly compatible,and why not !?
In a nutshell, man is 'extraterrestrial'. Prophet Adam is extraterrestrial. If his genetic template bear some distant resemblance to some simple multicellular 'algae' in the sea, so what is the big deal? Both come from Allah. Allah is a 'scientific' God. There is 'order' in all his creations, inanimate and animate. He chooses whatever 'genetic' template He chooses. That there appear some degree of conguence in all the genetic templates in His animate creations shows simply that He, and only He, is a God of ORDER.
And it is not difficult to imagine this. The universe we live in is infinitely more complex than man. Without ORDER, this expanding universe could either disappear in oblivion or end up in a big gigantic crush.
Is not He Who created the heavens and the earth Able to create the like of them? Aye, that He is! for He is the All-Wise Creator, But His command, when He intendeth a thing, is only that he saith unto it: Be! and it is. Therefor glory be to Him in Whose hand is the dominion over all things! Unto Him ye will be brought back. ( Yaseen : 81-83)
It remain for us, present day Muslims ,to fill in the dots!
Dr Nik Howk
PS : Let us listen to Shaykh Yasir Qadhi for some 20 minutes, and if you still have the stamina carry on from there....
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGdXKLipHfY ]..[.45 minutes ]
The Full Conference on Evolution [ a long one , more than 4 hours, but worth it! Especially for young people in science........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbynBJVTWKI
Backstage with the speakers !...30 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24-4AX6jYSQ
............................................................................
from Pearls & Gem :
An Aidil Azha Letter To An Agnostic Friend:
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2010/11/z-i-feel-humbled-by-your-frank.html
some food for thot on science.....:
top biochemists see life just as a 'sea of chemical reactions'
the world of richard dawkins think life only in terms of evolution, evolution and evolution.
theologians, the world over, ponder about the soul, its journey before time, now and hereafter.
the 'arrived scientific- muslim' tops them all:
life is a sea of chemical reactions, separated by a complex labyrinth of cell-membranes,
clothed in the body of man, divinely gifted with the soul, and
Unto Allah is the journeying
No comments:
Post a Comment