Interviews

Interview with T.O.Shanavas: Islam and Science

Tue, 04 May 2010 11:01:00 GMT

DRC presents today an interview with Dr. T.O.Shanavas, an Indian-American pediatrician, member of the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo and vice-president of the Islamic Research Foundation.

For the last ten years, Dr. Shanavas has written many articles on Islam and controversial issues as for example the real age of Aisha, one of the wives of the Prophet Muhammad, and on Islam and Science. Current Muslim thought has made many beliefs, histories and opinions of Islamic thought into sacred dogma's and thus exclude the possibility of differing with these concepts. In the West, the idea of Aisha being 9 years old when marrying the Prophet, is considered as unacceptable and has created logically a bad image of the Prophet. Dr. Shanavas has researched the historical reports that discuss the age of Aisha and he shows that there is no conclusive historical record about her age. She could have been 9, 16, 17 or even 27. But at a point of Muslim history, the belief that Aisha was 9, was turned into sacred history and so the possibility of rejecting these historical reports became blasphemy. To defend against the critique of the West of Aisha being 9, the most heard apology is that the culture of the 7th century was different and women became mature at a much younger age. But any sane human can see the nonsense of this apology. And now Dr. Shanavas has given Muslims a real answer to this critique by showing that Aisha was probably much older when she married the Prophet, but this answer also creates a shift in current Muslim thought that the historical reports are not revelation, they are not sacred, they are human work and thus contain contradictions and falsehood. Sadly many in the Muslim world are not ready yet to look at their history in such a rational matter.

He is also the author of:

Evolution and/or Creation: An Islamic Perspective

This book focuses on the theory of evolution and how this concept can be found in the Qur'an, and several medieval Muslim scholars who also concieved a similair theory well before Darwin. We highly recommend this book to gain new ideas and a deeper insight in the diversity of thought among early Muslim scholars. A matter highly unknown today among Muslims.

When it comes to science and Islam, many Muslims will point proudly to the Golden Age of Islam when Muslim scientists were developing the foundation for modern science. But at the same time we have these same Muslims believing many irrational ideas and experience a wide gap between modern science and their own religion. Modern science is mostly developed today by non-Muslims, so how come the Muslims of the Golden Age were able to produce so much knowledge and innovating thought, while Muslims today can only copy the West? Dr. Shanavas again looks at several factors involved that explain this and concludes that freedom of thought is the most important factor. During the Golden Age, Muslim society was much more open to new ideas and were very keen on seeing how these new ideas can be reconciled with the Qur'an. Today, Muslims will see many modern scientific theories being portrayed in the Qur'an, but they do not dare to create new interpretations that are not in line with the medieval Qur'an commentaries that mostly used old traditions and medieval mythology to explain the Qur'an.

The interview will go into these matters:

1. Your writings are focused on how the framework of the universe/nature coincides with the Qur'anic worldview. Can you explain your approach and why you believe they are or should coincide?

Shanavas: I have written the following article that discusses this question:

Unlike Muslim Scientists, God Speaks Same Truth in and out of Mosques (PDF)

2. What are the main proofs in the Qur'anic message that show it coincides and wants our empirical rational view of nature?

Shanavas: Verses 21:30 Do not these unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were an integrated mass, then We split them and made every living thing from the water? Will they not believe even then?

The Quran further implies that the universe evolved from a gaseous state that is described as "smoke."

41:11 And He (it is who) applied His design to the skies, which were [yet but] smoke; and He [it is who] said to them and to the earth, "Come [into being], both of you, willingly or unwillingly!"—to which both responded, "We do come in obedience."

Creation and evolution is suggested by the following verses:

71:14 "He created (khalaqa) you in successive stages"

Creation of the modern human from earlier species is suggested by the following verse and by the explanation of the verse by Fakrudeen Al-Razi: 6:133 "Thy Lord is all Self-sufficient, Merciful. If He will, He can put you away, and leave after you, to succeed you, what He will, as He originally created (أَنشَأَ) you [as a species] from the seed of another people." Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149–1209), explains the verse similarly: "[God] said: 'As We created you from the seeds of a different people.' For a wise person, were he to contemplate on this statement . . . he would know that the Almighty created mankind from a sperm; a sperm that did not contain his picture in any form or way."

If we replace the word "picture" with our modern scientific terminology "genotype" in the above quote from Razi, his explanation of evolution of human from earlier species become more clear and evident: "[God] said: 'As We created you from the seeds of a different people.' For a wise person, were he to contemplate on this statement . . . he would know that the Almighty created mankind from a sperm; a sperm that did not contain his [genotype] in any form or way."

3. Evolution is the idea that everything in nature started out from simple matter, into organic matter, to one celled organisms to multi-celled organisms and so on. A concept of slow progress and adaptation that takes millions of years. How is this idea represented in the Qur'an? And what are the proofs that Muslim scientists supported this?

Shanavas: Allah asked us to figure out his method and products creation in the following verse:

29:20 Say: Travel in the earth, then behold how Allah originated creation, then He produces a later creation: for Allah has power over all things…

What we found was that human came to existence by gradual change from earlier species. While Creation is a divine process and the human observed as evolution. In other words, if creation is genotype, evolution is phenotype.

Ibn Khaldun, the most famous Muslim historiographer and social scientist, who wrote his Muqaddimah [An Introduction to History] over 400 years before Charles Darwin, states:

"One should then look at the world of creation. It started out from the minerals and progressed, in an ingenious, gradual manner to plants and animals. The last stage of minerals is connected with the first stage of plants, such as herbs, and seedless plants. The last stage of plants such as palms and vines is connected with the first stage of animals, such as snails and shellfish which have only the power to touch. The word 'connection' with regard to these created things means that the last stage of each group is fully prepared to become the first stage of the next group. The animal world then widens, its species become numerous, and, in a gradual process of creation, it finally leads to man, who is able to think and reflect. The higher stage of man is reached from the world of monkeys, in which both sagacity and perception are found, but which has not reached the stage of actual reflection and thinking. At this point we come to the first stage of man (after the world of monkeys). This is as far as our (physical) observation extends."

4. The idea of Creationism (Instant creation by God instead of slow evolution) has been dominant among many Christians, and now also is gaining popularity among Muslims. The Creationism debate has sprung from contradictions between the Christian Bible and the theory of Evolution. But according to you, there is no contradiction between the Qur'anic view on nature and the theory of Evolution, how come this gaining popularity of Creationism among Muslims?

Shanavas: The answer to your first question explains it. Moreover, there are lot more funds available to spread the anti-evolution creationism.

5. What are for you the most interesting beliefs, observations and ideas among Muslim scientists of the past?

Shanavas:

1. The theory of Evolution of life and natural selection was described by Muslims centuries before Darwin.

2. Big bang origin was accepted by at least one Muslim scientist, i.e., Al-Biruni.

3. Flood was localized not universal

4. Muslims rejected Biblical young earth theory over thousand years ago.

6. Although the influence of Muslim scientists on Western scientists is slowly being acknowledged, it is still an ignored part of history. Yesterday I walked by a book that claimed Galileo was the first empirical scientist.

As there is still such confusion, what are according to you the major contributions of Muslim scientists, and from age can we say that Western scientists finally became original in their discoveries and ideas?

Shanavas: George Sarton, Professor of History of Science at Harvard University, most elegantly describes this miracle of transformation:

“Briefest enumeration of the Arabic contributions to knowledge would be too long to be inserted here…The creation of a new civilization of international and encyclopaedic magnitude within less than two centuries is something that we describe, but cannot explain…Indeed the superiority of Muslim culture, say in the eleventh century, was so great that we can understand their intellectual pride. It is easy to imagine their doctors speaking of western barbarians almost in the same spirit as ours do of the ‘Orientals.’ If there had been some ferocious eugenists among the Moslems they might have suggested some means breeding out all the western Christians and Greeks because of their hopeless backwardness. At that time Muslim pride would have been more conceivable because they almost reached their climax, and pride is never as great as when the fall is near. On the contrary only a few Christians were then aware of their inferiority; that awareness did not come upon them until much later—by the middle of thirteenth century.” [Ref: George Sarton: “The History of Science and The New Humanism.” Page 87-90].

7. What made the Muslim scientists of the past so special? Why did they advance so fast?

Shanavas: Freedom of speech available to them intermittently. Sarton states: “The creation of a new civilization of international and encyclopaedic magnitude within less than two centuries is something that we describe, but cannot explain.” It is explainable. Ordinary Arab life was transformed into a great civilization by Islam. No other significant event happened among Arabs before this amazing transformation took place.

8. What are to you, the most interesting Islamic scholars of the last centuries?

Shanavas: Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Sina, al-Haitham, al-Biruni and others.

9. Are you working on a new book or project? And if so, what does it entail?

Shanavas: I am working with Christian and Jewish theologians for a book that answers the following questions:

1. How will you convince the people of faith that theory of evolution is credible?

2. How will you tell your people that there is no conflict between our religious holy books?

Thank you dear Dr. Shanavas for this interview. His new book is:

And God Said, "Let There Be Evolution!": Reconciling the Book of Genesis, the Qur'an and the Theory of Evolution

Interview with Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid: "I am a Witness to the Changes in Islam"

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:05:00 GMT

Leading Islamic reformist and literary scholar, Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid, believes that individual freedom is an essential prerequisite to faith. Everyone, therefore, also has the right to convert to another faith. He talked to Erhard Brunn about some of his ideas

The relationship between the Muslim and the non-Muslim worlds is one that is deeper and more historical than we think, believes Abu Zaid

The question of what the Muslim attitude to violence is still one that very much preoccupies the West. You recently pointed out that recourse to the Koranic suras is totally misleading in today's context…

Abu Zaid: Of course, the Koran sometimes uses very strong language in its exhortations to fight. Researchers have to question why the Koran employs such strong, persuasive language in this case. The context is crucial here. The Arabs who believed in Mohammed were to be convinced of the need to fight against their own families and, in so doing, to gainsay the pre-Islamic tradition.

So it was forbidden for an individual to fight against his own tribe. But the arrival of Mohammed as prophet drew so many members of various tribes to him. When the time came for them to defend their new community, the threat came from their own tribes. The uncompromising tone of the Koran is understandable here.

Islam was not born out of a world empire; it arose from a world of tribal tradition, tribal laws and pagan rules. Blood bonds and tribal ties did not hold the new community together. They came, after all, from many different tribes. They came together into a new kind of tribe, one that from the beginning was locked in conflict with other tribes. They had to defend themselves. All of this formed the Koran. The Koran is very much a product of its formative influences.

Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid: "We cannot understand the Koran without knowledge of the historical background."

This is why we cannot understand the Koran without knowledge of the historical background. These people did not follow a new spiritual leader in order to fight. They had somehow fallen out of the tribal system. But in the end they had to fight.

You have referred several times to the interpretation of the Koran by John of Damascus. This important churchman in the early Islamic period pointed to a number of things in Islam that he regarded as contradictory. What does this 8th century Christian theologian have to say to us today with regard to the Koran exegesis?

Abu Zaid: The first lesson as I understood it from my first reading of his provocative analysis of the Koran was this: this is an 8th century polemical debate, but one which was nevertheless very productive, because the early Islamic theologists saw the questions raised by John as a challenge, not as a threat.

The relevance for me of all these provocative challenges within the anti-Islamic discourse today, such as the Mohammed cartoons or films like "Fitna" or "Submission", is that I always try to get other Muslims to see them as a challenge also. After all, nothing can really threaten great civilisations which have survived for centuries during which they have developed very differing political systems – from the tribal to the imperial, from nation state to global order.

John of Damascus wasn't trying to spur Islamic theologians on to greater things. All he did was to show the relationship between the Muslim and the non-Muslim world, a relationship that was deeper and more historical than we realise. The idea of two separate worlds divided from one another is wrong. Such worlds have never existed.

What was it that made Islam a great civilisation?

Abu Zaid: It was the way in which it interacted with other cultures, the worldwide cultural exchange which was already well established by the end of the 7th and beginning of the 8th centuries and which was carried on via Spain and Sicily. Just think of the Islamic philosophy and scholarship that was translated into Latin.

"The famous Arab-Spanish philosopher Averroes was condemned. Nevertheless, despite that, his ideas have spread through the West."

Civilisations are like waves – always in movement: coming from Africa or the old Iraq, to Greece and from there to the Middle East. There was the Hellenistic period, when Alexander the Great tried to spread his rule through the entire region. Then came the Islamic civilisation. And finally the Renaissance and the modern Western civilisation. This type of exchange, which emphasises the importance of dialogue between the civilisations and religions, began in the 7th century.

In saying that you are contradicting the current claims of critics of Islam who maintain that there was no serious exchange or dialogue and that Islam and individualism are incompatible…

Abu Zaid: Exactly. That is also an important argument against the idea that, from a Muslim point of view, conversion to a different faith is not possible. Once a Muslim – says the prevailing opinion among Islamic scholars – always a Muslim. Or you have to make yourself scarce.

I believe that the prophet's invitation to the people to follow him in their faith is based upon the assumption of their freedom to choose. People who do not have a free choice do not need to be invited, after all. The basic right of every person to follow a new spiritual leader should be ensured by his also having the opportunity to change his mind again.

You mentioned the wave-like movements in the global historical process, the at times very creative and dynamic periods of the Muslim world. But at some point around the 14th or 15th century this vitality seems to have disappeared. Why do you think this happened?

Abu Zaid: I do not agree entirely with what you are saying. If you compare Islamic thought of the 15th, 16th or 17th centuries with the developments in Islamic thought in the 18th and 19th centuries you will discover a great diversity of ideas. The problem is that some people tend to have rather fixed ideas about Arabs. They cannot even distinguish between places as different as Tunisia and Saudi Arabia. They see Islam as fixed, unchanging, which just is not the case. There is a change underway in the Muslim world, a reformation. It began at the end of the 19th century and continued through the 20th. It has gone through highs and lows.

But you see yourself as a victim of these changes?

Abu Zaid: Yes, I am a victim. But I am also a witness to the changes that are taking place, in spite – as in my own case – of all the terrible things that have happened. The famous Arab-Spanish philosopher Averroes was condemned. Nevertheless, despite that, his ideas have spread through the West, they went via Syria, were translated into Latin and formed the foundation of the church at that time. We must always pay attention to context – both local and international. We mustn't forget that the Christian world, too, has condemned many thinkers. Nevertheless, there, too, an internal dynamism was set in motion.

Interview: Erhard Brunn

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