Islamic Science and Development history,In Quran View.

In the history of science, Islamic science refers to the science developed under Islamic civilization between the 8th and 15th centuries, during what is known as the Islamic Golden Age. It is also known as Arabic science since the majority of texts during this period were written in Arabic, the lingua franca of Islamic civilization. Despite these terms, not all scientists during this period were Muslim or Arab, as there were a number of notable non-Arab scientists (most notably Persians), as well as some non-Muslim scientists, who contributed to scientific studies in the Islamic world.

A number of modern scholars such as Fielding H. Garrison,Bertrand Russell, Abdus Salam and Hossein Nasr consider modern science and the scientific method to have been greatly influenced by Muslim scientists who introduced a modern empirical, experimental and quantitative approach to scientific inquiry. Some scholars, notably Donald Routledge Hill, Ahmad Y Hassan, Abdus Salam,and George Saliba, have referred to their achievements as a Muslim scientific revolution, though this does not contradict the traditional view of the Scientific Revolution which is still supported by most scholars

According to many historians, science in Islamic civilization flourished until the 14th century AD. At least some scholars blame this on the “rise of a clerical faction which froze this same science and withered its progress.” Examples of conflicts with prevailing interpretations of Islam and science - or at least the fruits of science - thereafter include the demolition of Taqi al-Din’s great Istanbul observatory of al-Din in Galata, “comparable in its technical equipment and its specialist personnel with that of his celebrated contemporary, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe.” But while Brahe’s observatory “opened the way to a vast new development of astronomical science,” Taqi al-Din’s was demolished by a squad of Janissaries, “by order of the sultan, on the recommendation of the Chief Mufti,” sometime after 1577 AD.

It is believed that it was the empirical attitude of the Qur’an and Sunnah which inspired medieval Muslim scientists, in particular Alhazen (965-1037),to develop the scientific method. It is also known that certain advances made by medieval Muslim astronomers and mathematicians was motivated by problems presented in Islamic scripture, such as Al-Khwarizmi’s (c. 780-850) development of algebra in order to solve the Islamic inheritance laws, and developments in astronomy, spherical geometry and spherical trigonometry in order to determine the direction of the Qibla, the times of Salah prayers, and the dates of the Islamic calendar.

Other such examples include Ibn al-Nafis (1213-1288), who discovered the pulmonary circulation in 1242 and used his discovery as evidence for the orthodox Islamic doctrine of bodily resurrection. Ibn al-Nafis also used Islamic scripture as justification for his rejection of wine as self-medication. Ali Kusçu’s (1403-1474) support for the Earth’s rotation and his rejection of Aristotelian cosmology (which advocates a stationery Earth) was also motivated by religious opposition to Aristotle by orthodox Islamic theologians such as Al-Ghazali.Criticisms against alchemy and astrology were also motivated by religion, such as the views of astrologers conflicting with orthodox Islam.

Some rejected modern science as corrupt foreign thought, considering it incompatible with Islamic teachings, and in their view, the only remedy for the stagnancy of Islamic societies would be the strict following of Islamic teachings.
Other thinkers in the Muslim world saw science as the only source of real enlightenment and advocated the complete adoption of modern science. In their view, the only remedy for the stagnation of Muslim societies would be the mastery of modern science and the replacement of the religious worldview by the scientific worldview.
The majority of faithful Muslim scientists tried to adapt Islam to the findings of modern science; they can be categorized in the following subgroups: (a) Some Muslim thinkers attempted to justify modern science on religious grounds. Their motivation was to encourage Muslim societies to acquire modern knowledge and to safeguard their societies from the criticism of Orientalists and Muslim intellectuals. (b) Others tried to show that all important scientific discoveries had been predicted in the Qur’an and Islamic tradition and appealed to modern science to explain various aspects of faith. (c) Yet other scholars advocated a re-interpretation of Islam. In their view, one must try to construct a new theology that can establish a viable relation between Islam and modern science. The Indian scholar, Sayyid Ahmad Khan, sought a theology of nature through which one could re-interpret the basic principles of Islam in the light of modern science. (d) Then there were some Muslim scholars who believed that empirical science had reached the same conclusions that prophets had been advocating several thousand years ago. The revelation had only the privilege of prophecy.
Finally, some Muslim philosophers separated the findings of modern science from its philosophical attachments. Thus, while they praised the attempts of Western scientists for the discovery of the secrets of nature, they warned against various empiricist and materialistic interpretations of scientific findings. Scientific knowledge can reveal certain aspects of the physical world, but it should not be identified with the alpha and omega of knowledge. Rather, it has to be integrated into a metaphysical framework—consistent with the Muslim worldview—in which higher levels of knowledge are recognized and the role of science in bringing us closer to God is fulfilled.

Islam and the development of science

Whether Islamic culture has promoted or hindered scientific advancement is disputed. Islamists such as Sayyid Qutb argue that since “Islam appointed” Muslims “as representatives of God and made them responsible for learning all the sciences,science cannot but prosper in a society of true Muslims. Many “classical and modern

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sources agree that the Qur’an condones, even encourages the acquisition of science and scientific knowledge, and urges humans to reflect on the natural phenomena as signs of God’s creation.” Some scientific instruments produced in classical times in the Islamic world were inscribed with Qur’anic citations. Many Muslims agree that doing science is an act of religious merit, even a collective duty of the Muslim community

Others say traditional interpretations of Islam are not compatible with the development of science. Author Rodney Stark, explains Islam’s lag behind the West in scientific advancement after (roughly) 1500 AD to opposition by traditional ulema to efforts to formulate systematic explanation of natural phenomenon with “natural laws.” They believed such laws were blasphemous because they limit “Allah’s freedom to act” as He wishes. This principle was enshired in aya 14:4: “Allah sendeth whom He will astray, and guideth whom He will,” which (they believed) applied to all of creation not just humanity.

In the early twentieth century ulema forbade the learning of foreign languages and dissection of human bodies in the medical school in Iran. The ulama at the Islamic university of Al-Azhar in Cairo taught the Ptolemaic astronomical system (in which the sun circles the earth) until compelled to adopt the Copernican system by the Egyptian government in 1961.

In recent years, the lagging of the Muslim world in science is manifest in the disproportionately small amount of scientific output as measured by citations of articles published in internationally circulating science journals, annual expenditures on research and development, and numbers of research scientists and engineers.[44] Skepticism of science among some Muslims is reflected in issues such as resistance in Muslim northern Nigeria to polio inoculation, which some believe is “an imaginary thing created in the West or it is a ploy to get us to submit to this evil agenda.

Qur’an and Science

The belief that Qur’an had prophesied scientific theories and discoveries has become a strong and wide-spread belief in the contemporary Islamic world; these prophecies are often provided as a proof of the divine origin of the Qur’an.

The scientific facts claimed to be in the Qur’an exist in different subjects, including creation, astronomy, the animal and vegetables kingdom, and human reproduction.

“a time is fixed for every prophecy; you will come to know in time” ([Qur'an 6:67]). Islamic scholar Zaghloul El-Naggar thinks that this verse refers to the scientific facts in the Qur’an that would be discovered by the world in modern time, centuries after the revelation.

This believe is, however, arguable in the Muslim world, while some support it, other Muslim scholars oppose the believe, claiming that the Qur’an is not a book of science; al-Biruni, one of the most celebrated Muslim scientists of the classical period, assigned to the Qur’an a separate and autonomous realm of its own and held that the Qur’an “does not interfere in the business of science nor does it infringe on the realm of science. These scholars argued for the possibility of multiple scientific explanation of the natural phenomena, and refused to subordinate the Qur’an to an ever-changing science.