Consideraciones prácticas

From the foregoing it should be apparent that the three possibilities normally explored in contemporary religion and science discourse (conso- nance, dissonance, neutrality) are inapplicable to the case of the Islam and science nexus for the period under discussion. We have a very large num- ber of practicing scientists who are also religious scholars, or have enough grounding in religious sciences to know what was permissible under the Law and what was not. An Ibn Sina, an al-Biruni, or an Ibn Rushd could,

therefore, easily challenge any half-trained Mulla who might object to their science on religious grounds. The tone of authority and confidence displayed by these scientists when writing about the religious basis of their science provides an internal evidence against any “Islam against science” doctrine that attempts to show that religious orthodoxy had an upper hand in such matters. This is clearly not the case, as evident from what al-Biruni wrote in the introduction to his treatise on the shadows:

I say firstly, that the subject of this investigation can hardly be comprehended ex- cept after encompassing (knowledge of) the constitution of the universe according to what is shown by demonstration, excluding what the various groups of people apply to it of what they have heard from their ancestors, as well as recourse from the sects to their beliefs, and (also) after (attaining) the capability of dealing with its varying situations, in which one cannot dispense with arithmetic and deep investigation of it by geometry.

Verily, (even) he who has studied much in the sacred books may not be separated from the mass of the common people, nor from their conviction that this art is contradictory to religion, contrary to divine (Muslim) law; that it is a forbidden pursuit, and an abrogated and forsaken practise. Nothing impels him to this belief but his ignorance of what impugns religion so that he might (properly) support it, his revulsion from the unfamiliar which he inherits from [his likes] before him, and his inability to distinguish what is (truly impugning to religion) from what is not. (al-Biruni tr. 1976, 6)

It is, thus, safe to say that no so-called Islamic orthodoxy could have op- posed the practice of science by scientists who were themselves eminently qualified to discern what was their religion’s position on various aspects of their chosen fields of research. Not only were many Muslim scientists of the period deeply rooted in the religious tradition, they were qualified enough to write books on the same “Islamic sciences” that Goldziherism poses against their natural science.

Some contemporary projections of “Islam against science” doctrine con- found the issues entirely: philosophy is linked to natural philosophy and religion to theology and then, in one sentence, all of these distinct fields of study are uniformly applied to provide “examples” of Islam’s opposition to science. Most of these accounts are by authors who base their opinions on questionable translations and secondary sources that repeat a stock account first formulated in the nineteenth century. These works display little understanding of the specific nature of Islamic philosophy ( falsafah), which had various strands quite distinct from Greek philosophy, including the profound tradition of hikmah (wisdom) philosophy discussed in more detail in the following section. Another practice in these confused accounts is to use debates internal to the religious sciences—such as debates on the

The Mosque, the Laboratory, and the Market 75

role of reason in interpretation of revealed knowledge—to build a case for the “Islam against science” doctrine. These debates are often taken out of their proper context, and their carefully chosen terminology (specific to the disciplines in which these debates fall) is disregarded. As an example we will discuss a single case of this type.

“Persecution and harassment of those who advocated the use of reason to explicate revelation are unknown in the medieval Latin West after the mid-twelfth century,” we read in one such work:

How different it was in Islam, if we judge by a question that Ibn Rushd (Averroes) posed in the twelfth century in his treatise On the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy. In this treatise, Ibn Rushd sought to determine “whether the study of philosophy and logic is allowed by the [Islamic] Law, or prohibited, or commended—either by way of recommendation or as obligatory” (Averoes 1976, 44). In the thirteenth cen- tury, Ibn as-Salah ash-Shahrazuri, an expert on the tradition of Islam . . . issued a written reply (fatwa) to a question that asked, in Ignaz Goldziher’s words, “whether, from the point of view of religious law, it was permissible to study or teach philos- ophy and logic and further, whether it was permissible to employ the terminology of logic in the elaboration of religious law, and whether political authorities ought to move against a public teacher who used his position to discourse on philosophy and write about it.” (Goldziher 1981, 205)

What is remarkable in all this is the fact that, in the twelfth century, Ibn Rushd and, in the thirteenth century, Ibn as-Salah were grappling with the question of whether, from the standpoint of the religious law, it was legitimate to study science, logic, and natural philosophy, even though these disciplines had been readily available in Islam since the ninth century. Ibn Rushd felt compelled to justify their study, while Ibn as-Salah, astonishingly, denied their legitimacy (as we saw earlier in the chapter). I know of no analogous discussion in the late Latin Middle Ages in which any natural philosopher or theologian felt compelled to determine whether the Bible permitted the study of secular subjects. It was simply assumed that it did. (Grant 2004, 241–42, emphasis added)

Disregarding the presence of Goldziher, two noteworthy aspects of this passage are (i) the author’s unstated aim to present a comparison between Christianity and Islam (the italicized portion of the quotation) in which he attempts to show two highly respected Muslim scholars (Ibn Rushd and Ibn as-Salah) mired in debate on an issue that had long been resolved in Christianity and (ii) his lack of understanding of the technical terms used in the original texts. Ibn Rushd’s celebrated treatise, Kitˆab faˇsl li’l-maqˆal wa

taqrˆır mˆa bayna al-sharˆı‘ah wa’l hikmah min’l ittiˇsˆal, mistranslated as On the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy, has nothing to do with science and re-

ligion debates whatsoever. Grant is apparently using George Hourani’s English translation (listed in his bibliography), and not the original

Arabic, but even this problematic translation with an incorrect title clearly indicates that the subject of the treatise is to determine, from an Islamic legal perspective, the nature, limits, and conditions of the use of falsafah (philosophy) and mantiq (logic). Ibn Rushd, let us recall, was born into a family of distinguished scholars and jurists who had held the office of Grand Qˆadi (Judge) for two generations before his birth; he himself was to become the preeminent Grand Qˆadi (Judge) of Cordoba and was duly trained in sharˆı‘ah (Islamic Law) as well as all branches of Islamic learn- ing of the time, including jurisprudence ( fiqh), medicine, and falsafah. His works include books on a wide range of topics, including philosophy, medicine, Islamic Law, astronomy, and music. The purpose of this par- ticular book, whose Arabic title can be translated as A Decisive Book and

Commentary on What Is Common in Islamic Law and Wisdom, is to ascer-

tain, as Ibn Rushd himself tells us, “from an Islamic Legal point of view (ala jahtan nazar al-shari’) the position of falsafah (philosophy) and mantiq (logic), whether they as branches of knowledge (‘ulum) are praiseworthy (mubah), prohibited (mahzur), or commanded (ma’mur)” (Ibn Rushd 1959, 1). To paraphrase it as “grappling with the question of whether, from the standpoint of the religious law, it was legitimate to study science, logic, and natural philosophy” is to read one’s own predetermined agenda into a medieval text that was concerned with categories strictly used in Islamic jurisprudence (mubah, mahzur, ma’mur, mandub, and wajib), categories that cannot be transplanted from their field without doing them gross injus- tice. Most important, there is no mention of science in the original text! Of course, one can stretch the argument to say that logic is a necessary prerequisite for scientific investigation, but we must remember we are dealing with a medieval text on Islamic Law. At the time Ibn Rushd wrote his treatise, science had been practiced in Islamic civilization for almost four centuries and various branches of science were well-known by their own names (astronomy, alchemy, geography, etc). Ibn Rushd’s treatise certainly does not refer to those sciences.

The very pointed indicator to the subject matter of The Decisive Trea-

tise (Fasl al-maqal) is included in its full title: ittiˇsal, from the root T-ˇS-L,

meaning junction and parentage. The purpose of the book has been clearly elucidated by Roger Arnaldez as follows:

What “parentage” (ittisal) is there between Islamic religious law (shariah) and wisdom (hikma)? That is the question discussed in The Decisive Treatise. Let us note the expressions used. Averroes is not speaking about the relationship between faith and reason, or between philosophical truth and dogmatic belief: those are general questions which should be examined under the purview of a single, specific form of research, since a relationship can only exist between works of the same kind. This is why Averroes uses the word “parentage”, which has a meaning that is more

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ontological than logical. For him it is actually not a case of bringing a rational view of things into harmony with a religious view, but of discovering whether or not there is a subjective parentage between the way of life according to the wisdom that philosophy has as its goal, and the way of life according to Religious Law, which is revealed. So it is not from the perspective of an abstract problem that Averroes views the issue, but from the concrete perspective of men who are to live and act in this world. They undoubtedly have a practical mind with which they are able to deliberate and to make decisions. But do they use it, and, we might add, are they capable of using it well. Averroes’s fundamental idea, which is undoubtedly based on daily experience, is that such is not the case. Religious law is thus in his eyes something that comes to men as an aid to their failing reasons. What remains to be shown is that in acting in accord with the law, they behave according to reason, even though it is not reason that inspires them. (Arnaldez 1998, 79–80)

The real issues discussed by Ibn Rushd in this treatise have nothing to do with Islam and science discourse. What he is interested in doing is to examine whether it is permitted, forbidden, commanded, recommended, or, finally, necessary, to look at the Law with a philosophical or logical eye. Setting the necessary aside, since it belongs to the domain of the rational faculty, the prescribed, the forbidden, the recommended (with its counterpart, the discouraged) and the licit are juridical categories (akhˆam), in the name of which Muslim jurists seek the nature of laws and qualify the acts that depend on them. Consequently, Averroes is not going to ex- amine the Law on the basis of reason, but reason on the basis of what characterizes laws. (Arnaldez 2000, 80)

Before closing this section, let us note that the tension that existed in the Islamic tradition as a result of the arrival of Greek philosophy needs to be examined in its proper context in a work on philosophy and religion, for the debates that originated from this tension were philosophical debates and had little impact on the natural sciences. It is also important to under- stand that certain philosophers had political ambitions, were appointed to ministerial posts, and were, therefore, part of palace intrigues that some- times led to their persecution. These instances have to be examined within the social and political context of the Abbasid Empire (or the specific Sul- tanate where the incident took place); these cannot rightfully be cited as persecution of philosophers because of their philosophy, as is often done. In one such work a rather dramatic account of the persecution of al-Kindi is made out to be a general situation prevailing in Islamic civilization: As we have already mentioned, al-Kindi, al-Razi, Ibn Sina, and Ibn Rushd were among the greatest philosophers. All were persecuted to some extent.

Al-Kindi’s case reveals important aspects of intellectual life in Islam. The first of the Islamic commentators on Aristotle, al-Kindi was at first favorably received by two caliphs (al-Mamun and al-Mutassim), but his luck ran out with al-Mutawaakil, the Sunni caliph mentioned earlier. According to Pervez Hoodbhoy, “It was not

hard for the ulema [religious scholars] to convince the ruler that the philosopher had very dangerous beliefs. Mutawwakil soon ordered the confiscation of the scholar’s personal library. . . . But that was not enough. The sixty-year-old Muslim philosopher also received fifty lashes before a large crowd which had assembled. Observers who recorded the event say the crowd roared approval with each stroke” (Hoodbhoy 1991, 111). The other four [sic] scholars were also subjected to some degree of persecution, and a number of them had to flee for their safety. (Grant 2004, 239–40)

This highly inaccurate account of intellectual life in Islam is based on a book written by Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani physicist who wrote his work of questionable accuracy as a reaction to a superficial movement of Islamization patronized by a military general who had usurped power in a midnight coup. Hoodbhoy based his account on another secondary work,

The Genius of Arab Civilization (Hoodbhoy 1991, 111). None of these lead us

to any primary source that can testify to the public flogging. Grant adds certain details not found in Hoodbhoy.

What we actually know, from the four classical primary sources (Ibn Nadim, al-Qifti, Ibn Nabatah, Ibn Abi Usaibiah) that provide the bulk of known information about Muslim scholars, is rather different. While in Baghdad, al-Kindi was appointed tutor to Ahmad, the son of the Caliph al-Mu‘tasim, and was highly respected. Ibn Abi Usaibiah’s important work

Tabaqat al-Atibba’ tells us of al-Kindi’s great fame, his advanced knowledge,

his famous library, and also about the favors he received from the caliphs (including al-Mutawakkil, the “Sunni” caliph—the other caliphs were also Sunni—made out as the villain of the case). The full account of the “pub- lic beating” narrated by Ibn Abi Usaibiah does not mention ulema at all, instead he names two contemporary rivals: Muhammad and Ahmad, the sons of Musa ibn Shakir, who lived during the reign of al-Mutawakkil, were conspiring against everyone who was advanced in knowledge. They sent a certain Sanad ibn Ali to Baghdad so that he might get al-Kindi away from al-Mutawakkil. Their conspiracies succeeded to the point that al-Mutawakkil ordered al-Kindi to be beaten. His whole library was confis- cated and put in a separate place, labeled as the “Kindian Library” (Sharif 1963, vol. 1, 422).

In short, it is safe to say that secondary literature on Islam and science is full of numerous inaccuracies that beget more inaccuracies in a vicious cycle. It is time, however, to turn to one of the most important issues in the discourse: beginnings.