Living the Quran through Scientific Knowledge
Speech at the Trinidad Convention, August 2000
by Dr. Khaliel Ghafoerkhan, Suriname
The Light & Islamic Review (US), November/December 2000 Issue (Vol. 77, No. 6, pp. 7–9)
Modern society is rapidly changing due to scientific achievements and discoveries. Because of misunderstandings and bigotry, there has been conflict between religion and science. In Islam science and religion are not meant to be incompatible with each other. The Holy Quran stimulates mankind to study the natural phenomena and contemplate Allah’s Divinity:
اِنَّ فِیۡ خَلۡقِ السَّمٰوٰتِ وَ الۡاَرۡضِ وَ اخۡتِلَافِ الَّیۡلِ وَ النَّہَارِ لَاٰیٰتٍ لِّاُولِی الۡاَلۡبَابِ ﴿۱۹۰﴾ۚۙالَّذِیۡنَ یَذۡکُرُوۡنَ اللّٰہَ قِیٰمًا وَّ قُعُوۡدًا وَّ عَلٰی جُنُوۡبِہِمۡ وَ یَتَفَکَّرُوۡنَ فِیۡ خَلۡقِ السَّمٰوٰتِ وَ الۡاَرۡضِ ۚ
“In the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day, there are surely signs for men of understanding. Those who remember Allah, standing, sitting and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the creation of the heavens and the earth” (The Holy Quran, 3:190-191).
Muslim scholars contributed immensely to the various branches of natural and medical sciences. They laid down the foundation of modern scientific and technological developments which, because of stagnation in Muslim activities, were appropriated by Western nations. The Islamic approach recognizes both the physical, materialistic and the spiritual order of the universe and calls on mankind to pursue life in this togetherness as they interdepend on one another for existence.
When Allah commissioned man as His vicegerent on earth, He endowed him with the faculty of assimilating “knowledge”, for in knowledge lies the superiority of man over other creations in the world. The mandate which Allah gave man as His vicegerent is contained in the Holy Quran. That is why the Holy Quran enjoins man to pray to God to advance him in knowledge (20:114). This implies that the Holy Quran should not be read or recited merely as a religious ritual, it should be studied in depth as an exercise in the advancement of knowledge, for the Holy Quran is the fountainhead of all knowledge. Knowledge lies embedded in the Holy Quran, so we must strive to the utmost to understand the Holy Quran, with a view to applying its injunctions to everyday life. The Islamic way of life is not confined to a few religious rituals, it extends to the entire gamut of human life. We have thus to seek guidance of the Holy Quran not merely to be a good believer, but to be a good citizen as well.
Let us examine the nature of individual man and find out how Islam views this nature. We can define man as having two complementary natures, continually interacting upon each other. These are the inner and the outer nature. The internal nature of man refers to the ruh (soul or self or heart) and aql (mind or power of reasoning or intelligence). The rest of man’s activities are the external or outer nature.
The external nature of man is as complex, subtle and wide as his internal nature. Man’s inner and outer nature are interacting responsively, so any imbalance in the system of human nature may become destructive and fatal. To help ease out any such imbalance Allah has extended His Divine touch to both the internal and the external aspects of life.
True knowledge is based on clear proofs and indisputable evidence acquired by experience or experiment or by both. In this connection it is safe to say, beyond doubt, that the Quran is the first authority to enjoin zealous quest for knowledge through experience and experiment, meditation and observation. The Quran itself is an outstanding intellectual challenge; it challenges the human intellect to dispute any Quranic verse or produce anything similar to the Quran. Open any chapter of the Quran and you find the warmest appeal to search for knowledge through the infinite sources of nature.
There are, however, various types of knowledge inspired by Satan which Muslims are not permitted to learn or to engage in, such as magic and the black arts, fortune-telling, astrology and anything leading to immorality and wickedness.
But Muslims are assuredly permitted to acquire knowledge of science, technology and the like also from non-Muslim sources.
Over 900 verses in the Holy Quran deal with science and engineering and 1400 verses with economics. The Quran is not a textbook or a book on school subjects, or a book on how to perform surgery, or how to make a bridge, etc. But the Quran is a religious Book with scientific data to prove to the unbelievers that the Quran is a Divine revelation.
I will make use of only two verses to prove that the Holy Quran is a Divine Book that could not have been produced by our Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), who was illiterate and could neither read nor write.
وَ یَخۡلُقُ مَا لَا تَعۡلَمُوۡنَ ﴿۸﴾
“And He creates other things beyond your knowledge.” (The Holy Quran, 16:8)
یَخۡلُقُ اللّٰہُ مَا یَشَآءُ ؕ
“Allah creates what He wills.” (The Holy Quran, 24:45)
These two verses, among others indicate that Allah’s creation is not finished but is rather an ongoing process. This is very significant from a scientific point of view because we are gradually beginning to observe and understand certain natural phenomena which are still in a process of formation. One prime example is our observation of still-emerging galaxies from huge clouds of nebulae. Another is the evolution of species, with its associated evidence of strange and exotic “intermediate” life forms turned to fossils. These two examples are just the tip of the iceberg. The book by the physicist Paul Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint, underscores the growing awareness of continuous creation.
Our present age is one of marvellous advancement of science and technology. And it is an undeniable fact that science and technology have created an amazing revolution in the physical life of man and has also changed the concepts of its protection and survival and its mode of action. In this age there have been changes in man’s mode of thought and the way his problems are to be solved and the ways he should live. And this is called the scientific way of living the Quran. Formerly, man used to base the human values on the concepts, which his surroundings had given him. But today his surroundings are entirely different and his concepts too cannot be those of the former days. The concepts were formerly based on ideas and ideals, but now they are based on realism. We now can calculate the sighting of the moon by technology instead of watching the crescent with the eyes. Electric sound-systems for the call of adhan [call to prayer] are now being used everywhere. Muslims also have absolutely no problem with open-heart surgery, kidney and heart transplants, blood transfusion, etc. This is because in Islam life is most precious and should be saved at all cost. Muslims are making use of information and communication via the internet, but as I have pointed out already we must keep away from pornography, satanism, etc., on the internet, which can lead to immorality or wickedness. As you might know Saudi Arabia has banned some days ago the access to the internet, for the users of the Yahoo-club.
The Quran and Hadith are silent about some new discoveries in the past few years in the scientific field and this makes it difficult for us to apply these achievements in our daily life. It is high time for us Muslims to find answers in compliance with our Shariah for questions like how to deal with anti-conception and how to deal with manipulating the genome (genetic code) to cure diseases, for producing babies according to the wish of the parents with special qualities or to supply new grafts or organs for the benefit of sick persons. And what would the Islamic viewpoint be on other questions like whether or not a government should have the right to clone strong soldiers in order to use these soldiers to defend the country.
The ethics of these discoveries have become a great issue in these past few years. Let us take into consideration for example the human cloning. The advocates for both sides of the issue have as many reasons to clone as they have not to clone. The many pros and cons of human cloning provide enough information on both sides of the argument to enable us to form our own opinion on whether human cloning is ethical or not. As you might know, cloning is the method to produce a baby that has the same genes as one of its parents.
There is a great number of possible medical benefits but also disadvantages to cloning and its technology. They include the following.
Potential Medical Benefits:
- The possibility that through cloning technology we will learn to renew activity of damaged cells by growing new cells and replacing them.
- The capability to create humans of identical genetic make up to act as organ donors for each other, i.e., kidney and bone transplants, etc., etc.
Potential Harms and Disadvantages:
- The possibility of compromising individualities.
- Loss of genetic variation.
- A “black market” of fetuses may arise from desirable donors that will want to be able to clone themselves, i.e., movie stars, athletes, geniuses and others.
- Clones may be treated as second-class citizens.
This state of affairs is difficult and extremely confusing. For the solution of this problem, we need the Ulama [learned Muslim scholars] and those equipped with modern education to sit together and take stock of the present situation and the demands of the times. After that, they should formulate a modern but Islamic way to deal with this problem. (There surely must be enough educated people with a direct approach to the Quran and the Sunnah teachings who may prove to be an asset in these deliberations.) In view of the delicacy of the issue, the Ulama or learned ones in modern sciences and arts should try their very best by means of ijtihad (exercise of judgment) to pronounce correctly the Islamic point of view of human cloning.
According to Maulana Muhammad Ali, ijtihad or ‘exercise of judgment’ is the third source from which the laws of Islam are drawn. The word itself is derived from the root jahd, which means exerting oneself to the utmost or to the best of one’s ability, and ijtihad, which literally conveys the same significance, is technically applicable to a lawyer’s exerting the faculties of mind to the utmost for the purpose of forming an opinion in a case of law regarding a doubtful and difficult point.
Finally, I will state my own personal opinion on this difficult point. In Chapter 41 verse 53 of the Holy Quran, we find:
سَنُرِیۡہِمۡ اٰیٰتِنَا فِی الۡاٰفَاقِ وَ فِیۡۤ اَنۡفُسِہِمۡ حَتّٰی یَتَبَیَّنَ لَہُمۡ اَنَّہُ الۡحَقُّ ؕ
“Soon will We show them Our Signs in the (farthest) horizons, and within themselves, until it becomes manifest to them that it is the Truth.”
An interpretation of this verse could be that it refers to the gradual discovery of greater and greater natural “evidence” of the Creator’s involvement in our world. Two of the most important and most fascinating goals of modern science are to peer farther and farther out to the edge of the universe, and to look deeper and deeper into the structure of the human body.
So, Allah is stimulating and encouraging us to continue to study and to ponder about all matters including human cloning as long as we use it for the benefit of mankind. As human life is God’s greatest gift that should be protected and cared for in the best manner, we should make good use of all available scientific knowledge so that we can apply Islam to our daily life to reach these goals.