Science & Islam - reply to Mu'een Ud Deen

Submitted by faqi (United States), Mar 9, 2006 at 21:49

Maybe religions such as Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism, Taoism and Hinduism, which allow and even encourage dissent & free thought can claim to be scientific but certainly not Islam, Especially Islam which believes on revelations and blind belief, which stifles intellectual inquiry on pain of death & punishment, is never scientific and can never claim to be one.

This is what we call the scientific approach...never believing in any thing 100%. This is science, and not believing in anything 100% and twisting facts and observations to correlate with some Koranic verses. A religion that coerces blind belief in `revelations' can never claim to be scientific, for the basis of science is doubt.

As for the heaven and earth being one block; no, the Qur'an is clearly in error. The earth was never part of "one block" as the heavens. The earth is just one planet, orbiting a star in this vast Universe and was formed a very long time after the "heavens"
The Islamic version:
"When he reached the setting place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring and found a people thereabout. We said: ‘O Dhul-Qarneyn! Either punish or show them kindness"' (Surah 18:86).
On Thunder,"Ibn 'Abbas asked the apostle of God about the thunder. He told him, ‘It is an angel who is in charge of the cloud, who (carries) with him swindles of fire by which he drives the clouds."'
In the commentary of the Jalalan (p. 206), we read about this verse:
"The thunder is an angel in charge of the clouds to drive them."
In chapter 88:17,20, it is recorded,
"Will they not regard the camels how they are created...and the Earth how it is spread?"
In page 509, the Jalalan says,
"In his phrase, ‘how it is spread', he denotes that the earth is flat. All the scholars of Islamic law agree upon this. It is not round as the physicists claim." On page 429, al-Baydawi says,"God has made firm mountains on earth lest it sway people and quake. He also made heaven as a ceiling and kept it from falling down!" This is accompanied by the same comment by the above Muslim scholars (refer to Jalalan, p. 437; Baydawi, p. 686, Tabari, p. 589, and Zamakhshari, part 4, p. 381). All of them assure us that "if it were not for these unshakable mountains, the earth would slip away."Zamakhshari, Baydawi and the Jalalan say: "God has built heaven without pillars but He placed unshakable mountains on Earth lest it tilts with people." Concerning chapter 50:7, the Suyuti says that scholars indicate that "Qaf is a mountain which encompasses the entire earth" (refer to Itqan, part 3, p. 29). Qaf is an Arabic L like K.

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