Book Review Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality By Pervez Hoodbhoy. London: Zed Books, Ltd., 1991, 158 pp. One may wonder why the author wrote this book. In his own words: The germ of the idea grew from a lecture which the Lahore Edu­ cation Society invited me to deliver in May 1984 on the subject of Islam and Science. Those were bad times for the country in general, and academics in particular ... numerous charlatans and sycophants, responding to the regime's rhetoric of Islamization, had seized the reins of society and set for themselves the task of "Islamizing" everything in sight, including science. (p. xiii) and, on his own secular and anti-Islamic attitudes: Indeed the last section of this book is a reprint entitled "They Call It lslamic Science." This is an exposition and critique that was inspired by the First International Conference of Scientific Miracles of the Holy Qur'an and Sunnah, organized in Islamabad by the International Islamic University during the time of General Zia. Originally published as an article in the Pakistani monthly magazine "Herald" (January 1988), it drew vituperation and abuse from proponents of the new so-called "Islamic Science." (p. xiv) Thus the question: Can the author deal competently with such an in- terdisciplinary subject? According to Hoodbhoy: I wish to state wiequivocally that I have no illusions and make no claims to mastery over the subject of this book, Islam and sci­ ence, or even of the philosophy of science. It was quite un­ willingly, and with considerable trepidation, that I embarked on a project so far removed from my field of professional concern-particle and nuclear physics ... I would have preferred someone with a professional interest to have done this job instead, but it seemed llllwise to wait indefinitely for it to happen. Book Reviews 409 Thus we encounter a biased writer far from his specialization As a tesult, the issues raised and discussed are inevitably less objective and credible. First of all, Hoodbhoy uses inaccwte quotes to prove his points. On page 11 1, he writes: "It was not h a d for the ulema to con- vince the ruler (the orthodox Sunni Caliph Al-Mutawakkil) that the philo- sopher (Al-Kindi) had very dangerous beliefs." The exact quotation is: "The sixty-year-old al-Kin& suffered more when two competitos con- vinced the caliph that the philosopher was dangerous and unttustworthy" (J. B. Hayes, ed. The Genius of Arab Civivlization). There are other ex- amples, particularly in the appendix "They Call It Islamic Science" (pp. 1W54). When faced with some of these mistakes, he carelessly replied on the pages of the Herald magazine: I plead guilty to a mmstrous e m r and humbly beseech the reader of this magazine for his forgiveness. In t ~ t h , the word "universe" was inadvertently substituted for the wotd "soul." If any m d e r was misled by this, then I apologize. By confusing one absurdity for anotha, I made a mistake fully as serious as forgetting to c m a t or dot an i. (p. 152) Moteover, he selects only examples and information that fit his ideo- logical viewpoint. Thus he folIows a reductionist approach to Islam. When explaining the scientific underdevelopment of contemporary Mus- lim countries, he presents several singular cases and infers from them the general impression that Muslim society is analagous to medieval Europe, where the Christian c h m h fought violently against science. He points to The Motion of the Sun and the Moon and the Stationary Nature of the Earfh, authored by Shaykh Ibn Baz of Saudi Arabia. To be fair, one must prdest this unseemly opinion, made by another religirm scholar, which is nded in the same publication. Furthennore, such an opinion does not prevent Saudi Arabia from sending the first Muslim astronaut into space. In the case of a1 G k l i ' s views on rational sciences (pp. 104-7), Hoodhhoy ignores, either c d o u s l y or otherwise, pl G h a d i ' s positive views tawards methtmatics and natural sciences in particular. To be fair, one must argue that such a man, wtiting around 1100 CE, d d say that "a grievous crime indeed against religion has been committed by a man who imagincS that Islarn is defended by the denial of the mathematical sciences," seeing that there isnothing in these sciences opposed the ttuth of religion. One must also acknowledge that this scholar sttessed in his :@ti' 'Ultim a1 Din the acquisition and creation of those sciences ne- cessary for the development of Islamic society: medical sciences, farming, and arithmetic. He pmmoted their active cultivation and advancement by 410 The American J d of Islamic Social Scie.nces 103 the ummah as an obligation vurd kfiyuh) that could be discharged on its behalf by certain individuals. Hoodbhoy dethes "Xslamic science" by limiting it to the practice of scientific miracles in the Qur'an and the S d . This approach is based on his anti-Islamic slant. His identification of the main trends in this area is pnsented ambiguously, and several points ate obscure. In fact, most of the relevant literature advocates the view that the w a n , while inviting us to cultivate science, contains many observations on natural phenomena arid includes explanatory signs that are in tdal agreement with scientific facts. It is true that there are warnings to unqualified Muslims who in- dulge in Qur'anic and hadith exegesis, but this does not represent a total Epudiation of such a practice. Unfortunately, this highly intensting and seriously objective point of the subject is completely absent in the book. In this connection, Hoadbhoy, as a materialistic physicist, could not understand the moral philosophy behind the graph indicating the increase of divine reward (thaw&) predicated on the increase of the number of persons attending the congregational prayer (p. 147). In fact, it simply shows the importance and significance of gmup interaction for imple- menting and developing further Islamic concepts. Such studies could show how practicing and pmpagating Islam could help ptoduce such people as the sixty men with W i d Ibn al Walid who overcame sixty thousand, the unarmed 313 at Badr who overcame one thousand armed opponents, and the galaxy of classical Muslim scientists. Furthermore, the graph meals the Significance of collaboration, which is so important in modem scientific work. Objectives m achieved by projecting a proper philosophy of knowledge and science and reinter- preting the moral and social implications of science and technology in their proper perspective. The result is a unified whole in which faith, de- voted religious observance, practical morality, and science and technology with economic growth all find their proper places. Of course, these impli- cations are hard to meet with a materialistic dogmatist saying that "indi- vidual scientists, like a toiling worker ant, ate but minions helping in the construction of a giant repository of human knowledge. That some, or all, of them may be notoriously immoral characters who drink heavily and beat their wives is beside the point" (pp. 8,ll). At one point, Hoodbhoy contradicts himself. On page 47, a1 Afghh- is an opponent of scientific discoveries, while later on he is an advocate of westem science and a pmtotype of pragmatic thought in Muslim coun- tries (pp. 59-62). And, speaking of "determinism" on the basis of quan- tum physics, he reports that "quantum mechanics has indeed led to profoundly disturbing new ideas, some of which a p p r to be the direct negation of commons sense" (p. 16). Book Reviews 411 Hoodbhoy justifies his ideological views by citing constantly such anti-Islamic figures as Sullivan (p.7), Renan (p. 61), Marx (p. 126), and Weber (p. 127). He mentions repeatedly his mentors, Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Sayyid Amir Ali, followers of the so-called "reconstructionist line," who reject polygamy and purdah as unsuited to the modem age, interpret jihad as intellectual war, assert that the Prophet fought purely in self-defense, state that amputating a hand for theft or stoning to death for adultery were suitable only for tribal societies lacking prisons, and believe that the Qur'an was written in a language suitable for the common desert folk (p. 59). So what can Islamic thinkers and scientists expect from such anti-Islamic forces? Ahmad F. Basha Professor of Physics Faculty of Science Cairo University Cairo, Egypt