Online Vol. 06.2007 

Can Science and Religion Reunite in Islam?

By Frank Brown

As a professor of physics in the United Arab Emirates, Nidhal Guessoum has a deep appreciation for the goals of the Science and Religion in Islam project. That is largely because, unlike his Muslim counterparts in the West, Guessoum is reminded daily of the dual identity that a serious scientist living in a Muslim society is forced to maintain.

"Too many Muslims, including and perhaps especially the educated elite, live schizophrenic lives, thinking one way during the day, and believing and behaving in a different way at night and on weekends," says Guessoum, who teaches at the American University of Sharjah.

The Science and Religion in Islam project, funded through a three-year, $1.7-million grant from the John Templeton Foundation, is aimed at promoting a better understanding of how modern science can fit within Islamic thinking. With an internet presence, mostly in Arabic and French and two staff people in Paris working out of an office at the Universite Interdisciplinaire de Paris, the project not only provides a forum for scientists seeking to engage the Koran with a new research synthesis but also commissioned short scholarly works set to be published in a book later this year.

Guessoum says the project has proven a superb venue for networking by, in his case, connecting him directly with the Foundation. "I submitted a proposal to the JTF to fund a book writing project of mine. The grant was approved, and I am now in the process of writing a book on Science and Islam."

To understand the import of the Science and Religion in Islam, it is necessary first to grasp just how barren the field is in most Muslim societies, according to one of the project’s principal investigators, professor Jean Staune. "We are the only group in the Arab world dealing with the debate between religion and science," says Staune, a French philospher and academic. "In the Arab world, some people think there is no crisis between religion and science, because everything is in the Koran. That’s what they will tell you. The only way to approach this is something called 'Koranic science,' which is roughly equivalent to the literal fundamentalism in the Christian world."

One of the more striking examples of the degree to which literal readings of Koranic teaching are increasingly set at odds with basic science comes in the form of the exhaustive "Atlas of Creation" book which is being distributed this year free of charge to educational institutions across Europe. Published in Turkey by a controversial Muslim preacher, the book debunks the theory of evolution and goes on to make a connection between Darwin’s theory and 20th century totalitarianism.

One long-term aim of the Science and Religion in Islam project is to develop research literature and cultivate a pool of articulate scientists who can publicly explain why this kind of reading simply doesn’t work, and offer an alternative approach. Such resources, even if coordinated only informally, would allow for the rebuttal of a literal point of view.

Currently, the study of science and Islam is confined to two lines of inquiry - literal readings and the examination of historical Islam, says French professor Bruno Guiderdoni, a principal investigator on the Science and Religion in Islam project. "We would like to create a third stream by putting together the research materials that will allow the study of this religion and science question, and explore the nature of reality and the quest for knowledge. This is one way to have dialogue between full science and full religion," says Guiderdoni, the director of research at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics. "There is always a political context to what you are saying. Sometimes, too much science is identified as too much West. Sometimes, people oppose science because they identify science with materialism."

Guiderdoni is the editor of a collection of research papers that explore this third stream. Published as a book in French, and perhaps later in English and Arabic, the collection will include a contribution on complexity in the Koran from Reda Benkirane, a Geneva-based sociologist who sees a fundamental need for a realignment in the way that the Koran is interpreted away from the overly political. "A political interpretation was something logical to happen and it helped Muslims develop citizenship. But it has also resulted in overemphasizing the political aspects. I am interested in working at the epistemological level on how to produce a new body of knowledge based on a new and creative interpretation of the Koran in phase with challenges and science of our time. We tend to forget the spiritual and cultural dimensions of religion," Benkirane says. Such an implicit challenge to existing political and religion power structures may well result in controversy but that is something that Benkirane is not courting. "I avoid appearing in big media," he says. "I am not interested in creating a polemic or creating noise."

As the Science and Religion in Islam project winds down late this year, Staune is looking at new ways to fund it. One obvious potential source would be governmental educational ministries in Muslim societies. Staune says top-level bureaucrats are often sympathetic to the project but, typically, are extremely guarded in their praise of it for fear of antagonizing politically powerful Muslim religious leaders. "The reaction is that the Islamic world needs something like this but it is very new, too new," he says. "Before we began, there was nothing in most of the Arab word."

Frank Brown , is a writer based in New Haven, Connecticut who has published in Newsweek, the Washington Post and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Project Website:
www.science-islam.net

Marby Sparkman, Editor
milestoneseditor@templeton.org

Pamela Thompson, Vice President of Communications
pthompson@templeton.org

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