Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

Islam and Modern Science: Contemporary Issues • 213The denial of the reality and existence of God is alreadyimplied in this philosophy. Its methods are chiefly philosophicrationalism… rationalism, both the philosophic and the secularkind, and empiricism tends to deny authority and intuition aslegitimate sources and methods of knowledge. Not that theydeny the existence of authority and of intuition, but that theyreduce authority and intuition to reason and experience. (al-Attas 1989, 6)The denial or reduction of “the reality and existence of God”is recognized by a large number of Muslim scholars to be the mainproblem as far as Islam and modern science are concerned. It is notthat individual scientists practicing modern science are conceived asnot having faith in God; rather, the issue here is the foundationalstructure of modern science, which leaves out the Creator. All otherissues are seen as following this one initial divergence.Islam and the Brave New World of BiogeneticsPerhaps nothing makes the need for a thorough, comprehensive,and creative interaction between religions and modern science asapparent and urgent as certain recent developments in biogeneticsand reproductive technologies. After all, we can now have a childcome into this world from the womb of a mother where the wouldbebaby was implanted as an embryo created from the ova of adonor (paid to produce a number of ova following the use of hyperovulationmedication) and sperm obtained from a sperm bank. Themother of the baby in this actual case was, however, only providinggestational services to a couple who could not have children formedical reasons. Who would be considered the child’s real parents?What rights would the donor have over the child? What if one daythe donor of the sperm claimed his rights over the child? Whatwould this child inherit? From whom? What if the couple who hadpaid for the services of the surrogate mother and all other expensesdivorced after the child was born—who would have legal rights overthe child? What if both of them wanted to keep the child? Whatif neither wanted the child anymore? What if the sperm donorsuddenly changed his mind and decided that the use of his sperm