Seadet-i Ebediyye - Endless Bliss First Fascicle

with Islam, their wording is wrong. For instance, they say, ‘Nothing
can move by itself. There is a power which makes everything
move. This power is a natural force. Everything is made by nature.’
Islam, however, says, ‘Nothing can move by itself. There is a power
that makes every object move. This power is Allah’s power.
Everything is made by Allâhu ta’âlâ.’ It can be understood that
Islam and science agree on the same thing; there is only one
difference: appellations. We do not object to these words of theirs.
Only, we admit them only after altering the names. Their words of
the second type are about things which Islam does not explain, but
commands: ‘Research and find out!’ Whether we believe their
words of this type or not, it does not cause the îmân to be lost. For
example, they say that a lunar eclipse is a result of our earth
coming between the sun and the moon, and they can predict its
time, for the moon looks very bright when it is facing the sun.
When the earth’s shadow is cast on the moon, it becomes obscure
and indistinct, being unable to receive any light from the sun. And
a solar eclipse is caused by the moon coming in between the earth
and the sun, and thereby obstructing the sun from being seen from
the earth. They say that a lunar eclipse takes place in the middle of
the Arabic months, and a solar eclipse happens on the first or the
last night of a month. [The sun, earth and moon are sphericalshaped,
like a water melon, and they all move in the first heaven.
Ancient physicists said that each of the seven planets was in one
heaven. On the other hand, it is declared in Sûrat-ul-Mulk that all
the stars are in the first heaven, which contains the earth, too.] We
will not contradict the scientists in this second group of their views,
either. A person who objects to them by saying that Muslims
should not believe such words as these will have striven to harm
the religion and to demolish Islam. If a person says that they do not
agree with Islam, while the rules and experiments of arithmetics,
physics and chemistry prove that these words are correct, scientists
will doubt the correctness of Islam, thinking that Islam disagrees
with science, instead of doubting that person’s words. It has been
experienced that the harm done by an ignorant person who
attempts to support Islam by way of silly argumentation is worse
than the harm done by those who attack Islam systematically.”
[Also, Muhammad ’Uthmân Efendi of Medina, in his book
Basîrat-us-sâlikîn, printed in 1341 (1923 A.D.) in Istanbul, rejected
the rotation of the earth by rejecting some sahîh hadîths on the
surmise that they were mawdû’. He misguided younger
generations. In contrast, in many books, Islamic scholars, for
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