Claiming Allah in Science: Hijacking Mankind�s Real Glory??

Satya Sondhani

 

"Just as people came to understand that GOD does not cause lightning, gradually society will understand that consciousness and other things attributed to the Almighty arise naturally, too"

-James Larrick, Director of Palo Alto Institute of Molecular Medicine, Mountain

View, California

One of the very frequent and tricky sayings of Islamist as to what Allah really is or how He came (if at all!) into being is that this is something beyond the sphere of our understanding. We as ordinary human beings cannot perceive origin of Allah. You if then ask them "When you yourself are clearly admitting that Allah is beyond your perception then how come you say, He knows everything, He is the supreme power? How do you believe in something that is beyond your power of perception? Why do you then criticize people who believe in hilarious stories of fairy or Draccula? Isn�t it the same as your blind belief in Allah/Ishwar/God? ". No sensible answer at least so far I myself have come across! Nevertheless their dogma hypnotized them so much that they remain same whatever they study in real life or whoever they become when they grow up (physically only?). No wonder after becoming involved in science (but they never develop scientific attitudes despite studying science) they often face contradictions, their belief that is mostly based on their mythological scripture constantly encounter the scientific facts. They can neither quit their hereditary belief (irony is they will seek treatment and would try hard to get rid in case they inherit something that has potentials to harm them physically e.g. a defective gene that may make them susceptible to fatal diseases like cancer, sickle-cell anemia, diabetes, to name a few) NOR can they accept literally what science says. In their desperate bids to reconcile the dogma they harbor in mind and the real science many of them come up with bizarre hypothesis like the most common one that says-

1) Holy (!) Scripture like Quran has many scientific indications (note here the noun "indication" is a very cunning term coined by them as it does not require Quran to be a literal source of a scientific discovery!).

Another common propaganda is one mentioned below:

2) Many scientists believe in GOD (here Islamists do not mind to include many non-muslims as well whom otherwise they address as "Ihudi", "Kafir", "Nasara").

 

On above bizarre hypothesis-1: It is hypothesized by Islamists (equally there are Hindu, Christian bigots for similar claims with respect to their Scriptures) that Quran and Hadeeth have many scientific indications. If you examine any of the citations that is claimed to indicate a scientific fact in comparison with real science you apparently can not help laughing and asking following-

  • When did Islamist start their claim (i.e. a particular verse correlates with a modern scientific fact)? Trust me here, never could they dare to say that they have been claiming it even before that discovery came into picture. Why is this that the Islamists are incapable of discovering anything scientifically based on clues (?) mentioned in Quran? Why do they make claim only after a discovery is made? Is there a single significant discovery if ever in human history that is based on clues in Quran? Answer is No, No and No!!

 

 

On the contrary, most discoveries in science are a not a result of any single-step effort. Rather it requires/required years (sometimes hundreds) of ingenious and laborious thinking. Islamists know well that it will be a great joke to try to find out a literal scientific fact in Quran. Therefore in order to preserve their belief (also business?) from fading away they coin the verse even if it is far away and vague in sharp contrast to scientific meaning. Then they play the following trick!

  • Whenever questioned, they say the literal meaning does not apply here. It is the implied meaning (here is the chance to manipulate meaning and interpret different way!!) that correlates with science. To add some glamour often they hire some pseudo scientists with Ph.D. degree and get it certified (The writer personally communicated with one such often quoted pseudo-scientists more than once regarding a verse of a often quoted Hadeeth in support of an Embryological fact BUT no reply received so far even after more than 6 months!)
  • Interestingly they too occasionally say that Quran is not a book of science! That�s right but question is who started this propaganda regarding Quran? Do they mean Quran is not a book of science RATHER book of all kinds of knowledge? Isn�t that even a more dangerous dogma?

 

 

 

Of hundreds of such dishonest of examples where Quran/Hadeeth is quoted in support of modern science, I will briefly discuss just one.

DNA (Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid) is known as hereditary unit of life. Ever since it�s structural elucidation in 1953 this �master molecule of life� alone has given rise to several modern disciplines of Biology such as Molecular Biology, Molecular Genetics, Molecular Medicine, Biotechnology, Genetic Engineering and Gene Therapy. However it took scientists nearly hundred years to unravel the basic compositions and structural organizations of DNA. Although Jim Watson and Francis Crick scientists are most well known for their 1953 double-helix model, any Biologist/Biochemist knows that several earlier observations paved the way to 1953 breakthrough (termed as "The greatest achievement of science in the twentieth century by Sir Peter Medawar). Some of the important events around DNA are-

  • 1869-First isolated
  • 1879-Mitosis (cell division) observed
  • 1900-Re-discovery of Mandel�s work
  • 1902-Chromoseme theory of hereditary
  • 1909-The word gene coined
  • 1911- Fruit flies illuminate the chromosome theory
  • 1941 One gene-One enzyme Theory
  • 1943-X-ray Diffraction of DNA
  • 1944-DNA, transforming principle
  • 1952-Genes are made of DNA
  • 1953-Double-Helix Model put forward by Jim Watson, Francis Crick and Wilkins (awarded Nobel prize in 1963)

Dear readers, I am not here to teach you DNA. My purpose is to tell that like above DNA discovery, almost all great discoveries had proceeded through sequential events and there is no room for Quran or Bible in that! Now how would you react if one claims that Quran provides clue about DNA?? This is what indeed is claimed by some Islamist! According to Islamic scientists, following verse of Quran denotes to DNA.

"And in your nature and in (that of) all the animals which He scatters (over the earth) there are messages for people of assured faith" (45:4)

(Reference:" Scientific Indications in The Holy Quran, 3rd cover page, written by a board of researchers of which Dr. Shamser Ali of Dhaka University is the Chairman and published by Islamic Foundation Bangladesh. This book is full of hundreds of such ambiguous examples!)

 

Now if you ask any of the following questions what probably Islamist will say in reply is you are suffering from lack of belief in Allah.

  1. How did the Islamist interpret the above version before they became aware of DNA?
  2. Why could no Islamist explain the mystery behind DNA if it was already mentioned in their Quran UNTILL 1953 when it was done by �Nasara� scientists?
  3. Is there single scientist in the world (including those whom Islamists often use as a reference) who used Quran/Hadeeth under reference in their scientific research publications like those in �Nature�, �Science�, �Cell� etc? Why do we see Islamic scientists appreciate Quranic verses in books that are published most of the time by Saudi fund ??

 

Bizarre hypothesis-2: Islamists often say there are many Muslim scientists OR some great scientists too believe in God. Both are true! But what is not true is among prominent scientists who are Muslim, none (yes I repeat, none!!) of them have ever said that they made discovery based on clues in Quarn! On the contrary, to all of them, being Muslim has nothing to do with them being a creative scientist. This applies to all famous Muslim scientists. Coming to second claim that some scientists believe in God, yes, some do indeed! But note here kind of God they believe most often is absent in the descriptions of Scriptures like Quran, Bible or Geeta. Rather often they identify themselves as "Spiritualistic"(i.e. they are not atheist and believe in kind of super natural force which is far away being Allah, God (Father of Jesus), etc of Quran, Bible. One such example is Albert Einstein, who once commented,

"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."
[Albert Einstein, "The World as I See It"]

 

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
[Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930]

 

"The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exist as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with the natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine, which is able, to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress.... If it is one of the goals of religions to liberate mankind as far as possible from the bondage of egocentric cravings, desires, and fears, scientific reasoning can aid religion in another sense. Although it is true that it is the goal of science to discover (the) rules, which permit the association and foretelling of facts, this is not its only aim. It also seeks to reduce the connections discovered to the smallest possible number of mutually independent conceptual elements. It is in this striving after the rational unification of the manifold that it encounters its greatest successes, even though it is precisely this attempt, which causes it to run the greatest risk of falling a prey to illusion. But whoever has undergone the intense experience of successful advances made in this domain, is moved by the profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence. By way of the understanding he achieves a far-reaching emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and desires, and thereby attains that humble attitude of mind toward the grandeur of reason, incarnate in existence, and which, in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man. This attitude, however, appears to me to be religious in the highest sense of the word. And so it seems to me that science not only purifies the religious impulse of the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to a religious spiritualization of our understanding of life."
[Albert Einstein, "Science, Philosophy, and Religion, A Symposium", published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941]

 

Therefore it is true that Einstein was not an atheist BUT no body can claim he was a Jews or Christian while defending the type of belief he had. Most of the scientists who believe in God today fall into above category. Their concept of God by no way supports the bizarre notion that Holy (?) scripture contains scientific facts.

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