Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

Islam and Modern Science: The Colonial Era • 177those sciences that are ascribed to Aristotle with the greatestdelight, as if Aristotle were one of the pillars of the Muslims.However, if the discussion relates to Galileo, Newton, andKepler, they consider them infidels. The father and mother ofscience is proof, and proof is neither Aristotle nor Galileo. Thetruth is where there is proof, and those who forbid science andknowledge in the belief that they are safeguarding the Islamicreligion are really the enemies of that religion. The Islamicreligion is the closest of religions to science and knowledge, andthere is no incompatibility between science and knowledge andthe foundation of Islamic faith. (Keddie 1972, 104–5)It is interesting to note that in his defense, al-Afghani soughtrecourse with the man most accused of “destroying science” inIslam: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. He quoted al-Ghazali in a lecture “OnTeaching and Learning” as having said that “Islam is not incompatiblewith geometric proofs, philosophical demonstrations, and the laws ofnature” and “anyone who claimed so was an ignorant friend of Islam.The harm of this ignorant friend to Islam is greater than the harm ofthe heretics and enemies of Islam” (Keddie 1972, 107–8).Al-Afghani’s contemporary Turkish nationalist leader andpoet Namik Kemal (1840–1888) also wrote a response to Renan.His defense was, however, quite weak. He defended the thesis that“nothing in Islamic doctrine forbade the study of the exact sciencesand mathematics,” but he used an anti-utilitarian and stronglymoralistic–religious” approach and failed to grasp Renan’s attack(Mardin 2000, 324). He wanted Renan to explicitly state that by“science” he meant mathematics and natural sciences and, if he wereto do so, then Kemal would agree that “Islamic culture had thwartedthe growth of science” (Mardin 2000, 325).Among those who played a major role in the making of thenew discourse on Islam and science in the generation following al-Afghani, Namik Kemal, and Ahmad Khan, the most importantTurkish scholar is Badiuzzeman Said Nursi (1877–1960). Unlike hiscountryman Namik Kemal, Said Nursi opposed the secular ideas ofMustafa Kemal. He was exiled to western Anatolia in 1925, along withthousands of other Muslims, when the new nationalist regime startedto use brute force to curb opposition. He spent twenty-five years inexile and imprisonment. During these long years, he changed into