Dr. Osman Bakar

Let me begin my address by congratulating ISTAC for having organized this international conference on the theme ‘Islamic science in contemporary education.’ In my view, this is a very important conference given the fact that the theme chosen for deliberation is itself a very significant one. Through my exposition of this theme, I hope I would be able to impress upon you how important it is to the whole Islamic world and the global Muslim ummah. I would even venture to say that the subject up for discussion is important to the present and future humanity as well.

Next thing, I would like to thank the Chairman of the Organizing Committee of this conference, Dr Baharuddin Ahmad, and his Committee for having kindly invited me to deliver a keynote address to this conference. I am fully aware that I am not the best person to perform this difficult task. But having reluctantly accepted the task I will try my level best to present something meaningful on my chosen topic of discussion.

The Organizing Committee has not assigned any particular topic for my deliberation in this address. They have left the topic to my choice. After some reflection on the matter, I decided I should share with you some of my thoughts on the theme of the conference itself, namely Islamic science in contemporary education.

                                                      
Islamic science: a contested term

In talking about the state of Islamic science in contemporary education, it is necessary first of all to explain what we mean by Islamic science. This is because the term Islamic science and what it signifies is very much disputed and contested. There are several Muslim views of Islamic science. Some Muslims oppose the use of the term. Others approve of it, accepting it as justifiable and meaningful. But even among those who agree with the term there is contention on the meaning of Islamic science and its scope and boundaries. Elements considered by one group as belonging to Islamic science may not be treated as such by another group. Quite obviously then, what and how one says about the place and role of Islamic science in contemporary education would depend very much on one’s perception of and attitudes toward Islamic science. Accordingly, it is only appropriate, even if only briefly, that we deal first with the subject of Islamic science. In this connection, I will talk a little more about the various views of Islamic science.

From Arabic science to Islamic science

But before I do just that, let me say a few words about the history of the usage of the term ‘Islamic science.’ The term is a modern creation. It was first used by the Iranian-American scholar of Islam, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, in his doctoral thesis on Islamic cosmology submitted to the Department of History of Science, Harvard University in 1958. The thesis was published by Harvard University Press in 1960. Nasr used the term ‘Islamic science’ then to refer to science in Islamic civilization. But he did not understand the term to just mean one of many sciences in the past, a reality that once was in the history of Islam, and a Muslim intellectual creation of a bygone era that has outlived its usefulness, deserving nothing more than to be counted as an intellectual antique good for occasional exhibitions to serve certain purposes or as an object of intellectual curiosity for historians of science.

For Nasr, Islamic science is a living tradition that has survived the onslaught of modern science and technology in some of its teachings and practices. While Islamic science possesses historical aspects, including those with profound significance for both Islam and the West, it has also perennial aspects in the form of its eternal principles that are relevant to the cultivation of science in every age. In other words, in principle, it is possible to create a new Islamic science now or in the future. And Nasr has consistently used the term ‘Islamic science’ in this broad sense ever since.

Prior to Nasr’s coinage of the term, a century of modern western study of science in Islamic civilization had passed. So what term did modern western scholars such as Ernest Renan, the French godfather of rationalism, the British philosopher, Bertrand Russell, and the influential historian of science, George Sarton, use when they wanted to refer to this science? They invariably used the term ‘Arabic science.’ Occasionally though, we do encounter the term ‘Muslim science.’ Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, the famous nineteenth- century Muslim intellectual-activist and pan-Islamist, is known to have used this term. But he had used it not with the view of contrasting it with European science, since he looked at the latter as a continuation of the classical Muslim science. Rather, he was criticizing the use of the term ‘Muslim science’ by Muslims of his time who sought to argue that this science was opposed to modern science.

Now, in the Arabic language, the expression al-‘ulum al-islamiyyah (Islamic sciences) has been used. But this expression is meant to designate the so-called religious sciences such as jurisprudence (fiqh), exegesis (‘ilm al-tafsir), and other Qur’anic sciences as well as the sciences of the hadith. It is meant to refer to the natural and mathematical sciences which in the traditional Islamic educational curricula have been placed under the category of al-‘ulum al-naqliyyah (the rational-intellectual sciences).  
        
Until quite recently, Arabic science is the most popular term used by modern historians of science to denote the sciences Muslims have cultivated in the past. Quoting one of its most prolific members, George Saliba, the justification for this usage goes like this: “Arabic was for a long time the scientific language of the Islamic civilization, from the eighth and ninth centuries to our own times, in much the same way as it was the language of the religious sciences as well, irrespective of the geographic area where those sciences were written or studied. These conditions, which prevailed throughout most of Islamic history, opened various avenues for people of various races and religious backgrounds to participate in the production of this civilization. Those same people may have spoken Persian, Syriac, or even later Turkish and Urdu at home. And yet they mostly expressed their intellectual production, and especially the scientific part of it in Arabic..”(1)     
 
To a great extent the justification is acceptable and indeed a sound one. And as long as modern and especially western scholarship of science in Islamic civilization continues to be confined to Arabic texts and the early Islamic centuries, the above justification continues to be defensible and hold its intellectual appeal. But there was also the ideological factor that helped to bind together this modern scholarship of Arabic science. Secularism, positivism, and Arab nationalism all interplayed in this scholarship in defense of the thesis of an Arabic science that would serve both the modern discipline of history of science and the interests of these modern ideologies to which it is so much tied up. Whatever its inherent limitations were, the expression Arabic science was welcome by historians of science impregnated with these ideologies as it is a religiously neutral term.

The fierce opposition of many believers in the ‘Arabic science’ thesis toward the new ‘Islamic science’ thesis proposed by Nasr goes to show at great length that the choice of the former term was not simply influenced by the consideration George Saliba has mentioned in the quotation I have just produced. There was also the ideological consideration that tried as far as possible not to entertain any attempt to characterize science in Islamic civilization as religious and especially Islamic.

But various intellectual developments in both the Islamic world and the West, not to mention other kinds of developments, have helped the term Islamic science to gain wider currency and the term Arabic science to lose its appeal. After the twelfth century, Arabic no longer became the sole scientific language of the non-Arab Islamic world. From Ottoman Turkey to the Malay-speaking world, Muslim scholars and scientists wrote in both Arabic and their own mother tongues. Ottoman science is an important phase in the later history of Islamic science, but we could hardly claim to know much about Ottoman science without a sound knowledge of Ottoman Turkish.

In short, the characterization of science in Islamic civilization as an Arabic science finds less justification as our knowledge of this science expands and concurrently as our knowledge of Islamic civilization itself expands. Students of the history and philosophy of science in Islamic civilization would not have failed to notice by now that the Arabic science thesis is gradually giving way to the Islamic science thesis. The early understanding and sympathy shown to Nasr’s Islamic science thesis by such Western scholars as Sir Hamilton Gibb and Georgio de Santillana provided an intellectual boost to the thesis. As more and more Muslim intellectuals turn to Islam in search for a veritable relationship between religion and science in the Islamic perspectives, the Islamic science thesis begins to look more attractive than ever. Very recently, George Saliba, a long-time believer in Arabic science, wrote a work entitled Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance. Although Saliba tries to explain that his usage of the term ‘Islamic’ does not carry any religious connotation, which is indeed a surprising thing, his departure from Arabic science to Islamic science even if only at the terminological and not at the conceptual level as he claims is further proof that the current intellectual momentum is in favor of the Islamic science thesis.

Muslim views of Islamic science

Among Muslims there are still many who either oppose the expression ‘Islamic science’ or are indifferent toward it. Included in this group are the Muslim scientists who have been trained within the philosophical ambience of secularism reductionism and scientism even though, intellectually, they may not be aware of such an ambience. Muslim opposition to the Islamic science thesis is justified on two grounds. First, science is value-free or culturally neutral. Science is science. There is no such thing as ‘Islamic science’ or ‘Christian science’ or ‘Hindu science’ or for that matter any science to which we can add an adjective with a religious connotation. Second, Muslims in the past had never used the term ‘Islamic science.’ This shows there is no necessity for characterizing science as Islamic.

Both justifications presented have been criticized. The myth of a culturally and philosophically neutral or value-free science has been shattered by so many scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim. As to why Muslim men of learning in the pre-modern past did not use the word ‘Islamic science’ when referring to science in their own civilization, the reason for this that the need for it did not then arise. The definitive term ‘Islamic’ is needed when we have to precisely distinguish between things considered as ‘Islamic’ and those deemed as ‘un-Islamic.’ In the past, Muslim scientists did not encounter challenges from ‘un-Islamic’ sources, of such a nature and to such an extent that compelled them to make the distinction in question. There was no challenge and rivalry to their science. In their times they were the intellectual leaders and producers of science. They knew very well that their ‘Islamic science’ was the universal and global science of the time. But today, the need for the definitive term ‘Islamic’ seems too obvious to anyone sufficiently acquainted with both ‘Islamic science’ and modern western science. The two sciences are not of the same nature and philosophical character although similarities between them also abound.

Then there are those Muslims who believe that there exist profound epistemological and ethical relationships between Islam and science, and consequently, the term ‘Islamic science’ becomes meaningful. Within this group, however, we could discern several distinct interpretations of Islamic science. There are differences in their views with regard such issues as that of the relationship between the Qur’an and science, the nature and characteristics of scientific methodology within an Islamic epistemological framework, the relation between facts and symbols, and indeed the issue of the philosophical foundation of Islamic science itself. Despite their differences on these various issues, they are united in maintaining that the religion of Islam and its comprehensive teachings, both epistemological and ethical, have a deep relevance to contemporary science.

Islamic science in contemporary education

In various parts of the Islamic world different aspects of Islamic science are being taught and different degrees of emphasis of their importance are being made in schools, colleges, and universities. Courses on the history and philosophy of Islamic science are available in a number of universities. Also available are courses in the different schools and faculties dealing with the specific branches of Islamic science such as Islamic medicine, Islamic astronomy and Islamic mathematics as well as those dealing with the application of Islamic ethics in contemporary science and technology.

A detailed study of the state of Islamic science in contemporary education is yet to be undertaken. Such a study requires the collaborative efforts of many individuals and groups. It needs to be done before we can have a more complete picture of Islamic science in contemporary education to serve as a reliable guide for our future plan and action in advancing the cause of Islamic science. In this respect, an Islamic educational institution like the IIUM can play a great and influential role in undertaking the task at hand.

Defining the place and role of Islamic science

On the assumption that Islamic science is important to the well-being of the ummah and that we need to create an authentic Islamic science that is both contemporary and traditional in nature, we need to take steps to properly define the place and role of Islamic science in our educational institutions. Clearly, we need to have an institutionalized mechanism that would enable seminars, conferences, forums and discourses on Islamic science to take place more regularly. There are numerous outstanding issues that need to be sorted out – intellectual, political, economic, etc. – before we could hope to secure a more worthy place and role for Islamic science in our educational institutions. Our ultimate goal is clear: we would like to see an Islamic science that would serve the general interests of the Muslim ummah and humanity at large. 
   
Endnote

1. George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2007), p. viii.

Osman Bakar, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and former Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Malaya, is currently Deputy CEO at the International Institute of Advance Islamic Studies (Malaysia) and Professor of Islamic Thought and Civilization at the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization in Malaysia. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, Washington DC. He was educated at the London University where he obtained his B.Sc and M.Sc in Mathematics. He earned his doctorate in Islamic philosophy from Temple University, Philadelphia. A Fullbright Visiting Scholar, he has published 15 books and more than 250 articles on Islamic thought and civilization, particularly Islamic philosophy and science, and on contemporary Islam, inter-religious and inter-civilizational dialogues. The founder of the Center for Civilizational Dialogue at the University of Malaya, he has also served as advisor and consultant to various international academic and professional organizations and institutions, including UNESCO and The Qatar Foundation. He is a member of The West-Islamic World Initiative for Dialogue established by the World Economic Forum based in Switzerland.
 
Dr. Bakar is also very active in community based organization where he is currently President of MUAFAKAT, a Malaysian based Non Governmental Organization focusing on the spiritual and intellectual development of the Malay Muslim community in Malaysia