Science vs Islam

Discussion in 'Science and Technology' started by sherkhan, Nov 1, 2021.

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  1. abu Hasan

    abu Hasan Administrator

    since when is it a part of aqidah? while alahazrat presents verses of the qur'an and ahadith (which are NOT marfu') but he interprets it as implicitly marfu' and it is implied because of other hadith of manaqib.

    unfortunately, his fauz e mubin has remained incomplete; and the last portion in which he intended to explain the verses of the qur'an is either lost or was not completed.

    one of the aayats of the qur'an is interpreted as being proof that the earth is stationary. but this is not nass qaTyi. this is deemed the commonly held interpretation, but if there is evidence to the contrary, then obviously it has to be interpreted.

    one should not forget the context: the astronomy of alahazrat's time was mainly based on calculations and observations from the earth. it is not wise to take accept his conclusions at face-value in the face of evidence in our time. whether we like it or not, there have been leaps and bounds in terms of research, observational and experimental data available in our times.

    in my opinion, it is not.

    imam ghazali in his qanun al-ta'wil says that there are three kinds of approaches to interpret verses of the qur'an. for want of time, i have summarised his approach below. [link for a translation provided far below].

    1. purely based on narrations (manqul) reject anything that appears to contradict it

    2. the other extreme. purely rational and reject what has been narrated (manqul) to the point of even rejecting matters of faith if they couldn't comprehend it (or describe in rational terms)

    3. the third are those who do ta'wil; but the primary basis of their ta'wil is to satisfy rational thought. and they go to ends to satisfy a rational explanation. and if they cannot do it, they reject the nass or belie narrators.

    4. the fourth are those who do ta'wil: but their primary basis is naql / text and narration. they are well-versed in their knowledge of tradition and text; and they do ta'wil even if such ta'wil is not plausible.

    5. fifth is the moderate group: those who seek to balance manqul with ma'qul [narrated proofs, texts with rational explanations]. because we cannot deny or ignore the rational approach. after all, the proofs of prophethood and other issues are examined on a rational basis. they seek to find a balance without outraging or falling foul of either denial or rejection of texts; OR propound something that seems irrational.​

    imam ghazali also draws attention towards epistemology, albeit briefly - because what the mind deemed rational and scientific 500 years ago, was not rational 100 years ago. many things that sounded perfectly reasonable or 'commonly known and accepted by the scientific community' 100 years ago is rejected in our time as unscientific or irrational.

    the point is that one should not feel obliged to accept the research or theories prevalent in one's time and touted as THE truth. the truth according to a muslim is the qur'an and hadith. this is the major takeaway from alahazrat's rasail on this topic.


    =============
    qanun al-kulli in arabic: https://www.ghazali.org/books/qununtawail-bejou.pdf

    a good translation can be found here: http://suraj.lums.edu.pk/~ss182/common/GhazaliQanunTawil.html

    frank griffel's appraisal of 'qanun al-kulli' from the brill work: islam and rationality. vol.1 p.89 onwards is a good read.

    BRILL links here: vol.1 and vol.2 (brill series numbering #94 and #98). if you find a PDF link on the net, please don't post it here as it may not be authorised. just sayin'.


    ----------------------
    Allah ta'ala knows best.
     
  2. RazaRaza

    RazaRaza New Member



    Jalali sb says the aqida of the earth being stationary is proven from nass e qurani....is it really a clear cut issue in the quran?
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2020
  3. faqir

    faqir Veteran

  4. Juwayni

    Juwayni Veteran

    Addendum: which of the following categories does this issue come under?

    Originally translated by @Aqdas

    Look how lucidly #Alahazrat writes about primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary aqidah issues:

    ---

    1. Necessities of faith (đarūriyyāt al-dīn)

    These are proven from the Quran, mass transmitted hadith (mutawātir) or decisive (qatýī) ijma'a (so qatýī al-thubūt). The inferences of the text are definitive (qatýī al-dalālah) and what is deduced from them is clear which has no doubt or room for interpretation (ta'wīl). The denier of these or one who finds implausible interpretations is a kafir.

    2. Necessities of Ahlu's Sunnah (đarūriyyāt madh'hab Ahlu's Sunnah wa'l Jamāáh)

    These too are proven from texts whose inference is definitive (dalīl qatýī) but there is one reason for doubt and chance of interpretation in the establishment of the text being definitive (so not qatýī al-thubūt). Therefore, its denier is not a kafir but rather misguided, deviant and not on the religion.

    3. Established decisively (thābitāt muhkamah)

    Speculative evidence (dalīl żannī) is enough to establish these as long as what is deduced from them is a majority opinion which renders the opposing opinion to be disregarded, defunct and unworthy of being heard. Proofs for these are hadith ahād, sahih or hasan, and they are enough. The opinions of the greater group (sawād al-aáżam) and the majority of scholars is evidence for these.

    The denier of these, after learning the truth, is mistaken, sinful and a wrongdoer but not away from the religion or misguided or a kafir or out of Islam.

    4. Speculatively probable (żanniyyāt muhtamalah)

    Even that speculative evidence (dalīl żannī) is proof for these which has the possibility of being interpreted differently. Denying these will only render a person mistaken and blameworthy but not sinful, never mind being a deviant or kafir.

    ---

    Each issue requires proof according to the category it belongs to. One who does not differentiate in them and asks for proof of a higher level for an issue of a lower level is an silly ignoramus or a deceptive philosopher.

    ہر سخن وقتے ہر نکتہ مقامے وارد
    Each word has a time and each point has a place;

    گر فرق مراتب نہ کنی زندیقی
    If you do not differentiate ranks, you will be a heretic
     
    Unbeknown likes this.
  5. Juwayni

    Juwayni Veteran

    "This is just a small segment of one of the simpler arguments put forward by A’la Hazrat (Radiallahu Ta’ala Anh). In fact he even went on to refute, with numerous proofs, the assumption of scientists that the atmosphere also rotates with the earth, i.e. the bird will also move together with the branch due to the earth’s motion. However, it is too complicated to discuss here.

    We can therefore see that without doubt the earth is stationary. It does not rotate on its axis nor does it rotate around the sun. It is the sun, moon and stars that rotate in orbits and it is obligatory on us to believe in this, since refutation of even a single verse of the Holy Qur’an throws us out of the fold of Islam."

    Source: http://raza-e-khushtar.org/articles/concerning-the-creation/the-earth-is-stationary

    Mawlana @abu Hasan , is believing the Earth:
    • Rotates on its axis, and/or
    • Orbits the sun
    a takfirable offence? If not, is it something that takes one out of Ahlus Sunnah?
     
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2020
  6. Juwayni

    Juwayni Veteran

    If you take a look at the journal's (IJAS) website, it looks rather ... empty. No links to papers, or abstracts. Hardly any information about contributors. Three conferences a year, and up top in big bold letters they're advertising what free educational tours are available for attendees (who pay the $295 fee). Quoting the site:

    "As one University of Cincinnati professor put it upon attending the IJAS conference in Prague, if a delegate presents a paper and leaves, the experience is no different than if one did the same thing at a bigger conference such as the American Psychological Association's. She then described what it was like to listen to a wide variety of presentations at the IJAS conference:

    The American presenters [were] highly energetic and data driven about helping low income NYC students... The Polish presenter had highly multicolored slides about how the sounds of poetry make us happy. The German presenter and the Romanian presenter [spoke] about theology. The grad student in English studies read a paper full of whimsical self disclosure about reading Mrs. Dalloway in the tub. An Israeli Buddhist gave a moving account of his moment of enlightenment in the Judean desert. Having such variety in culture, kinds of questions being asked, and styles of presentations is an experience of widening the world that would not occur in discipline specific situations. This pulls you out of your silo if you let it."​

    Key takeaways:
    • It does not appear as though these are subject matter specialists discussing the scientific rigor of an idea that is within their domain. On the contrary it is a multidisciplinary conference that may or may not double as a vacation opportunity.
    • Being hosted by Harvard does not necessitate that the university acknowledges the validity/falsity of the ideas discussed. The Dr. Naseeb's paper might have been seen as an attempt to document the history of science in the Indian subcontinent. It remains to be seen what he wrote because the full paper isn't up.
    • Granted, many of the secular clique are blind-following alleged evidence for many of the theories they ascribe to but that doesn't mean we should presume our scholars to be completely mistake free. Moreover, it may well be a matter of not seeing certain measurements or experiments that led some of our aimmah to reach the conclusions they did.
    If we choose to defend AlaHazrat because we want to defend Alahazrat in a partisan sense without understanding:
    • what he said and what current measurements say (or omit),
    • where that opinion is in the scope of acceptable difference of opinion, and
    • where we are as Sunnis in the timeline,
    then what that will do is make us look like we don't understand our current context, the Imam we claim to represent, or the Orthodoxy he stood for. We should think seriously about how we present ourselves in this situation and how we're representing the Ulama we attribute ourselves to and their credibility.
     
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  7. AMQadiri

    AMQadiri Seeker

    One of our brothers, Dr. Naseeb Ahmed Siddiqui, has written a research paper on the issue of the Earth's motion through the lens of Sayyidi AlaHazrat Azeemul Barakat radhi Allah anh. This should be sufficient in shutting up those ignoramuses who make accusations on AlaHazrat's research.

    This research was presented at Harvard University!

    (If someone can get permission to post the full PDF here, please do so)

    https://www.researchgate.net/public...OMER_OF_MARAGHA_MOVEMENT_IMAM_AHMED_RAZA_KHAN
     
  8. AbdalQadir

    AbdalQadir time to move along! will check pm's.

  9. abu Hasan

    abu Hasan Administrator

  10. abu Hasan

    abu Hasan Administrator

    Last edited: May 31, 2020
  11. abu Hasan

    abu Hasan Administrator

    there are millions of things scientists get wrong and are not sure about. but no! let us find a religious scholar/speaker who says something contrary to popular scientific opinion and berate him - as if dawat e islami is a space agency competing with NASA.

    liberals, secular folk, atheists etc are the most narrow-minded, closed-minded and are entirely unreasonable when they talk to religious muslims.
     
    Aqdas likes this.
  12. abu Hasan

    abu Hasan Administrator

    this is a question for fawad whoever: "can you observe from the space station that the earth is revolving around the sun and NOT the other way?" explain in four lines WHY it is possible or not possible to do so. look how misleading science writers are.

    ----
    i found this random link (appearing on a search):
    https://www.ck12.org/book/ck-12-fifth-grade-science/section/2.9/

    "So how do we know that the Earth rotates on its axis? Before this century, all evidence collected about Earth's motion came from Earth-bound observations."
    the above opening statement gives the impression that in this century, we have evidence from earth's motion that comes from out-of-earth observations. and one would expect that the lesson would mention it somewhere. go ahead and find it for me in that article. the examples given there, such as focaults pendulum ARE evidence from earth-bound observations.


    ---
    let us assume you are talking about lagrangian point of observation. a little dig will illuminate you that it is also

    https://www.space.com/33503-earth-full-year-video-from-space-dscovr-time-lapse.html

    ---
    https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/ContentMedia/lagrange.pdf

    https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8093&context=etd_theses

    http://pi.math.cornell.edu/~templie...as_Greenspan-Stability_of_Lagrange_points.pdf

    http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Mechanics/lagpt.html

    these are all theoretical proofs. i am not against them, but i am annoyed by laymen who argue as if these are empirical proofs.

    ---
     
    Last edited: May 31, 2020
  13. Tālib ul-Haq

    Tālib ul-Haq New Member

  14. Tālib ul-Haq

    Tālib ul-Haq New Member

    1266872032437972994 is not a valid tweet id


    1266872355793625089 is not a valid tweet id
     

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