Dr. Bilal Masud The purpose of this article is to discuss if the Islamic beliefs are in their very nature so alien to the rest of humanity that they cannot be generally appreciated, or are they alien only due to some misunderstandings? The use of the word “humanity” needs a clarification. Of course, actually we gather opinions of the parts of the humanity like of different persons and cultures only. But in such opinions it is possible to select some consensus, namely opinions uttered by someone or some cultures but not opposed or disagreed by any other. Especially on the nature of the scientific reasoning, some basic statements have been made by the Greeks and not opposed by Muslims, made by Muslims and not opposed by the western thought, or made by the present west without other cultures finding anything wrong in them. These are the statements termed “humanity” in this article. Specifically, six views from the Muslim scholars, preachers and philosopher’s works have been analyzed for the possible human reaction to them. 1) Muslims infer from observation and examples to the unchangeable dogmas, whereas knowledge should always change and progress. Many human observations and scientific results can be used to justify the design in the universe indicating the Divine Existence and Action. These include the signs of Allah mentioned in Quran such as the alteration of day and night, the sun and the moon running with precision, the animals serving human beings, the delicious and healthy fruits, the water system on the earth, the winds and clouds bringing life to dead earth, mountains stabilizing the earth, the ships sailing on the sea, the fire and others. There are also examples of extraordinary precision in the design of the universe brought out by science and pointed out by Muslims1. These include the universe expanding precisely according to a required speed and the modern Big Bang theory of the start of the universe in astrophysics (telling that the universe started from a point long time ago), the precise balance of different forces in the universe to guarantee the emergence of stars and life, the precise arrangements for the formation of different elements in the universe, the precise cancellation of electrical charges in an atom, precise parameters like temperature, size, and magnetic field of the earth and of its atmosphere like the oxygen percentage and the Van Allen Belt, the precise equality of the wavelength of light emitted from sun and the wavelength suitable for life, photosynthesis and vision, the extraordinary thermal properties of the water including its resistance to flow ideal for respiration and the bigger mass density of 4 degree water than ice allowing fishes in extremely cold weathers to survive in the water beneath the thermally insulating ice layer, and the extraordinary properties of different elements such as carbon, oxygen and nitrogen necessary for life etc. From these observations Muslims infer the Divine Existence and, more frequently, Divine Unity (Tawheed). That these are unseen should not be strange; in natural sciences most of the concepts like atoms, protons, force and energy etc. are unseen. Possible question is if Muslim’s way of inferring from these observations is justified according to the normal human intellectual standards. To see that, it is perhaps best to compare the Muslim’s arguments with those in science. Till the 19th century, most of the philosophers of science had the view that the logic in science is basically what is termed induction, generalizations from particular facts. For example, the statement “unsupported stones fall down” is a generalization of whatever stone-falling events we have seen. Or, if we have seen sun rising from the east, it is induced that “the sun rises from the east,” implying that even in the future sun will rise from the east even though we have only seen it rising from the east in the past. It has been pointed not only by Western philosophers like David Hume but before him by Imam Ghazali as well that this generalization from past to always (including future) has no proof. (Imam Ghazali2 gave example that there is no proof that a person would die if his head is cut and David Hume3 said that it is only probable---but not proved----that the sun will rise tomorrow.) Strictly speaking, both of these philosophers are justified in asserting that the inductive logic is incomplete. But the problem is that without any kind of induction we have in principle no way of getting any information from the human observation or experiment, and are left with only deductive logic4 and mathematics5. Thus we have to accept and we already accept induction, not because of any logical proof but because of human judgments6 and wise decisions; human beings somehow know that the inductive generalization “all men are Pakistanis” is wrong but “the sun rises from the east” is right, even though the former is verified by millions of examples and later by a few thousand instances (once everyday) only. Thus these are the human wise decisions and metaphysical judgments, and not strictly mechanical logic, which are to check induction-like beliefs such as “sun rises from the east” and “all in the world is created.” (Please note the metaphysics accepted by the influential philosopher of science Karl Popper mentioned below.) In recent times there have been efforts to present the scientific method in a way that is not simply the inductive logic: Karl Popper and others have suggested revised versions of the scientific method7. This starts from considering the previous knowledge or tradition. Through observations and experiments, Popper says, scientists try to refute the existing theories. If theories are refuted in this way, scientists go back to modify them. With time, they try to refute the new theories as well. Our confidence in the theories not refused in this way gets developed, and this is the journey to laws etc. If the Popper’s description of the scientific method is sound at all, it is because Popper relies in his description of the scientific method on a specifically human characteristic of creativity, or “conjectures” in the Popper’s terminology. (Note the words “scientists go back to modify…” In elaborating this, Popper again and again says that scientists modify old scientific theories by conjecturing new ones; for example the name of a book summarizing his description of the scientific method is “Conjectures and Refutations.”) But on the other hand, Popper’s method is closer to the deductive logic; this method heavy relies on a principle of the deductive logic, namely that examples can only disprove and never prove rules. Thus it somewhat suffers from the problems accompanied by neglecting the inductive logic due to its logical incompleteness. In neglecting the inductive logic, we forgo all the knowledge obtained from the human observations and experiments. In accepting Popper’s standards of knowledge, we save much of it but still forgo the part of knowledge termed irrefutable by Popper. Popper himself only says that the scientific theories must be refutable. (Refutable means that the theory should tell at least one kind of observation or experiment-----a prediction-----which could not agree to it; it should not be of a nature to agree to every possible outcome of every possible experiment. A refutable theory of heat for example would agree to the fact of water boiling at 100 degree centigrade, but would be refuted if it boils at some other temperature or does not boil at all. In simple words, a refutable statement is a statement making at least one empirical prediction that can be tested. Such a statement is obviously changeable.) But it is common to come across peoples arguing from this that all the knowledge should be composed of only refutable and thus changeable statements. This demand seriously limits us genuinely learning from the human experience. Popper’s refutability or testability do not apply to for example historical analysis: Historical facts, such as “the second world war happened”, are not reproducible and hence not refutable, testable, falsifiable or changeable, but still a very important part of our knowledge! A slightly different example could be the statement “this persons is wise.” Like the probability statements it is not a refutable statement. The persons may behave in contradiction to what we predict about him considering him to be a wise, but he may still do something else that is also a wise action. But still statements like that form a very important part of our personal and social knowledge. (Keep in mind the meaning of the term “refutable” mentioned above in this paragraph.) The Popper’s condition of refutability (changeability) does apply but only to disciplines which progress by better summarizing the expanding human experience. But for the other subject matters, like logic, mathematics, metaphysics, historical analysis, interpretation of manuscripts, studying the perennial human feelings and values and evaluating religious knowledge etc., that are not bound to progress-through-experiments, we should keep open the possibility of learning from observations in ways that are not strictly mechanical like the deductive logic but are human like the “conjecturing” even Popper relies on, or the inductive judgments (like “sun rises from the east” or “everything is created”). Missing this point results in the objection on the Islamic arguments that appears as the first of our six questions, that is the heading of this portion of the present article. (How do they base their arguments on the observations and experiment without considering the Islamic Faith to be testable and hence revisable?) To answer this question, Muslims need not use any esoteric means and alienate from the rest of the humanity. Either the Islamic belief can be regarded as testable for the sake of arguments or, in harmony with the nature of faith, it can be explained that scientific theories are revisable because they get validity from the observation of the particular parts of the universe. As the new parts of the universe may be seen, a theory can be revised if it is not compatible with the new observations. Or, the theory may be based on many logically independent assumptions, and hence can be replaced with time by a theory with a lesser number of independent assumptions. (For example, this was basically what Newtonian theory achieved in the 17th century by showing that Kepler’s laws and Galileo’s work and host of other experimental rules can be logically inferred from just few independent assumptions, namely the Newton’s three laws of motion and the formula for the gravitational force.) But, in contrast to scientific theories, the explanation of the universe as created and designed depends upon the mere existence of the universe and general order in it, facts which are not revisable. Moreover, this explanation does not involve many logically independent assumptions replaceable by fewer ones. So this explanation is not changeable or revisable, differentiating it from a scientific theory, even though like the scientific theories it is also the best explanation of the certain aspects of the universe. (The difference between valid natural sciences, social sciences and religious cosmology is not in putting completely different kind of conditions on knowledge but only in being less and less concerned with the details of the universe, with the particular and hard facts. Whatever is valid in natural sciences, social sciences, mathematics, logic, metaphysics and religious cosmology is valid because of being the best explanation, compatible with the human experience and logic, of the universe or its parts, though for different questions about the universe in accordingly different styles.) Put in another way, if we do not like to remain restricted by the principles the deductive logic like “examples do not prove” and want to justify through observations the soundness of the Islamic beliefs, this need not cut Muslims from the rest of humanity and make them esoteric and thus alien in any way. All the human beings in all the cultures share science, and, practically speaking, scientists do argue even positively---in favour of their theories----through the (scientific) observations and experiments. (Some metaphysical decisions are involved in such judgments of scientists even though they do not even like talking about metaphysics, much less admitting their metaphysical tendencies.) Scientists normally do not have much taste for philosophy. These are philosophers of science who warn scientists against proving through observations and examples etc. But that does not mean that Muslim preachers relying on examples alienate themselves from the philosophy. At the end of day, even philosophers do go beyond the constraints of deductive logic and learn from experience in non-mechanical ways. What philosophers say about the general nature of the universe is composed of the lessons that they learn from the human experience. These lessons are not always mechanical like the logical deductions or refutations-through-examples. For example, Popper considers6 the law of cause and effect, the law of uniformity of nature, the law of induction and probability (chance) statements as valid basically because these are the lessons he learns from the general human experience without being able to mechanically justify these. A simple way to understand this mode of thinking is to realize that particular scientific laws are refutable, changeable and testable, but the statement “there are laws in the universe”----meaning it is ordered enough----is irrefutable and unchangeable (dogmatic!) though still justified from the human observations and experiments. Even a statement can be made so that the examples of the natural phenomenon Muslims use for preaching are evidences refuting it. It is8 “there is available a completely natural explanation of the start of universe, design in it, and of life and consciousness in it.” So, we need not be that much afraid of refutability as well. Another misunderstanding that unnecessarily alienates Muslims from the normal human thinking is that Muslims perhaps do not accept human experience or science as an independent source of knowledge but still use scientific arguments in favour of the Islamic beliefs. Just like no court of the world would give much importance to an evidence of a servant for his master, it is a natural human demand that arguments in favour of a belief should be based on knowledge that is neither subordinate to this belief nor is logically derived from this belief. But during the last one-century or two, it is common to hear Muslims saying that all the science is either derived from Quran and Sunnah (“the whole science is a part of Islam!”) or is by definition subordinate to them. And interestingly these are the same Muslims who argue vehemently that not only scientific facts but also theories support the Islamic beliefs. It is essential to analyze if this inconsistent thinking is based on some essential Islamic teachings. That brings us to the second issue: Is the human observation a source of knowledge according to the Islamic teachings? Does the human reason has a right to pass judgments on the Islamic beliefs? Or it can work only as a subordinate. Is there a circle in which the human reason can independently work without the constraint of remaining confined to the logical inferences from the Quran and Sunnah? Is such a circle limited to the natural sciences or includes the social sciences as well? To find out the sources of the logical inconsistencies found in the Muslim literature, one is forced to admit some problems with the works of some of the greatest Muslim scholars: Imam Ghazali says9 that our sense perceptions may be erroneous and we correct them through reason. (He goes on to say that by the same token our reason may be erroneous, and we correct it through the mystic----sufi---- experience!) The examples chosen by Ghazali to point out misleading of the senses are of motion of shadows and size of stars. He says that our sight tells that a shadow is stationary, but the reason tells us that it is very slowly moving. An answer to possible objections to the human observations as a standard of knowledge arising out of such comments is that our sense perceptions may be wrong, but we correct them through other sense perceptions and through the explanations of the data thus collected. The flaw in the Ghazali’s argument becomes clear if we examine how do we know that a shadow is moving. Obviously this is because of later observations, as Ghazali himself says. (Precisely speaking, Ghazali says there that our observations and experiments tell us that our senses may mislead us. It is not clear how he differentiates observations and experiments from sense perceptions.) Thus our observations may err, but the correction to them also comes from observations10. So, our observations as a whole remain a standard (source) of knowledge. The other example Ghazali mentions is that the observations tell us that stars are small but “reason” tells us that they are huge. What Ghazali means by reason here is science, and science is an explanation of observations-----its criterion and source of knowledge is observations and experiments. Likewise, all the explanations of the observations are based on considering the human observations as a source (or criterion, to be precise) of knowledge. Reading Quran and Sunnah, one finds nothing against the common human belief that observations give knowledge. In the surah Al-takasur (number 102) of Quran two stages of surety are mentioned: ilm-ul-yaqeen and ain-ul-yaqeen. Referring to ain-ul-yaqeen (belief-through-sight) is a description-without-objection in Quran of the simple state of affairs that a normal person becomes confident of the existence of an object if he or she observes it. Reservations about this simple conclusions are mostly based on forgetting the basic principle of Islam that all what is not forbidden by some Islamic injunction in halal or mubah (permitted); one can not look for a complete list of all halal things in Islam. Since the common human habit of taking experience as a source of knowledge is not even discouraged in the Islamic teachings, it is obviously a criterion and hence source of knowledge for a Muslim as it is a source of knowledge for any human being, Muslim or non-Muslim alike. If needed, this conclusion can be supported (or illustrated) by the famous hadith (in the Sahih Muslim) in which the Prophet Muhammad (sallal-lahu-alaihe-wa-sallam) said to some Medinian farmers about some agriculture problem related to the palm tree growing that “It is up to you to decide what is right and what is wrong. You can better decide in these matters.” (Since experienced people knew better what was to be obtained from the human experience.) In the Islamic teachings, the human experience is mentioned as a source of knowledge in two kinds of contexts. First, to show that human experience supports the Islamic beliefs and teachings and indicates that the Islamic family, social, political, educational and economic systems are more wise and just. (The examples of this are many ayat of Quran inviting humans to look around and see the Divine plan in the universe.) And second, to tell that Islam leaves many details of the worldly knowledge to human experience if they have no bearing upon the Islamic message and training. Many needs of even the Muslim ummah such as most of the natural sciences and the technical side of the social sciences like data analysis and traffic management, accounting, vote counting, map making and reading, surveying techniques, students examination methods, manuscript reading etc. are not in the Quran and Sunnah. The scientific method and philosophy of (natural or social) science are not the topics Quran and Sunnah directly address. Obviously, these are left to analysis of the human experience. Accepting the two sources of knowledge (Divine revelation and the human experience), question of the relations of the two sources faces us. This includes what we should do if an experiential (e.g. an empirical) statement about the world contradicts a religious statement about it. A good answer to this question is the position of Ibn-e-Taymiya’ summarized10 as follows: There cannot be such a contradiction if the two statements are certain (qat’i). (This claim of Islam, made in the desert of Arabia in an extremely uncivilized part of its history, and the validity of this claim is a strong argument in favour of the Islamic beliefs.) There may be contradiction between one certain and one probable (zan-ni) statement or between two probable statements. In such a case, we should prefer the one having stronger evidence behind it, irrespective of whether it is religious, rational or empirical evidence. The empirical evidence should be based on human experience including the natural or physical world, our internal states, human beings as physical objects or informants, dreams and minds. This means we should regard science as something independently progressing but still not contradicting the Islamic beliefs and teachings. So, adopting the Islamic view on these issues does not disturb the freedom of the doing the scientific research based on observations, experiments and calculations. Many Muslims think that such a freely progressing science has harmed the Islamic teachings. Recent history does convey such an impression. But it should not be forgotten that it was not science but comments by scientists and exaggerations disallowed by the nature of science that have troubled us. Present Muslims are generally unable to separate such personal opinions and culture-based comments by scientists from the bona fide science. As long as they have this handicap they can face the challenge any way. But at least in principle the proper way is that we should regard science as independent knowledge, feel comfortable with the freedom of research etc., and if a problem arises through the false claims made in the name of science we should be able to separate such claims and the science-based false exaggerations from the proper science. It is only such a proper science that we can confidently take in the way (mentioned in the above paragraph) suggested by Ibne-e-Taymiya. A clarification is must before ending this particular discussion: It is not claimed that the human reason can find out or know all the details of the Creation /or Creator, and is able to answer each of the wild questions about the Creator that the human speculative thought can provide like “who created the Creator?” Saying that the human reason has a right to pass judgments on the Islamic beliefs means only that the human reason can appreciate (not invent) the general soundness of the Islamic beliefs if these are properly presented. The clarification in this paragraph is not a refusal to satisfy any demand that is normally satisfied in the human intellectual discourses: In physics we cannot experience or logically infer from experience the elementary particles like the electron, nor are we able to answer all the questions about them. (For example one cannot tell if a photon was inside an electron before an electron emitted the photon11, and how it is that an electron can be detected in any one of the two boxes even if it is not possible for it to be at the boundary between the boxes etc.) But still we believe in their existence. As a simpler example, the same can be said about the concept of force and energy etc. We cannot see them, understand each and every aspect of them or answer all the questions about them. But we still believe in them because these help us in understanding many phenomena or we know enough about these. 3) Causality and Divine Action: Has the Divine Action finished after the creation of the universe because of being bound by the unchangeable scientific laws, and is replaced by the blind scientific causality or randomness? Are Divine-ordered miracles also impossible? In modern times, the humanity generally takes science as showing that we can describe the universe causally without mentioning any supernatural influence. As far as scientific calculations and experiments are concerned, it is very difficult to avoid this conclusion. In the working of science there is only a scientific causality and apparently no Divine action. Thus the Divine action is normally not to be found in the working of science. But, there is no argument for confining the Divine action to the creation of science only. To see where the Divine action is, in addition to the creation of science, one has to realize the limits of science12. To understand the Divine action without clashing with the (apparent) scientific causality, one has to understand the following: a) the scientific laws do not have a power in themselves unless sustained by the One responsible for the very existence of science, and b) these rules do not keep the Creator of science within any limits even while all the events caught by the scientific predictions and observations remain normally obeying the rules of science through an arrangement unknown to us. (Exceptions to this norm are the Divine ordered miracles.) But by the human reason we also cannot deny the possibility that the events not caught by scientific predictions or observations happen according to the Divine-Special-Will-in-reply-to-prayers, and not according to what the blind science would have told us. The Islamic belief makes this mere possibility as something to look forward to. Hence in challenging the present dominant ‘atheistic science’ without denying its universally recognized merits, Muslims need to point out the limits of science, in addition of course to emphasizing the creation of the wonderful science; we need to show that science, be as it is, is not a complete description of the world; we need to clarify that science (as defined by Popper or others) is a human activity directed only towards noting the regularities (termed ‘uniformities of nature’) in human experience and understand them in terms of the summaries expressed in form of law-like statements. So, if there are violations to the ‘law of uniformity of nature’, science is by definition unable to deal with them. Similarly, science is by definition unable to answer the question that how this very law of uniformity of nature and hence science originated at all; to answer this question you have to compare the situation without science and with science, and science can obviously describe only the situation with science. And religion is basically concerned with the aspects of the world beyond science. So many clashes and competitions, if not comparisons as well, of religion and science are unnecessary. 4) Causality and Divine Action: Masal-a-e-Jabr-o-Qadr (if we human beings are the cause of our actions----Qadr, or Allah is totally responsible for all what we do----Jabr). During most of the time in the last fourteen hundred years, if Muslim philosophers have addressed any issue related to the question of causality and Divine action, perhaps it was this Masa’la-e-Jabr-o-Qadr and not the above mentioned apparent clash with the scientific causality or randomness. Perhaps modern thinking cannot add too much to what Ashari (Muslim) Ilm-ul-Kalam explained through the concept of Irada-e-Juzwiya (partial freedom/free will). But for completeness it is necessary to mention this issue. Moreover, the human development till present perhaps may provide us with further examples helping in being able to feel comfortable with the dual aspects of any properly Islamic explanation. (Please note that both Jabr and Qadr are mentioned in Quran.) These may be modern management practices where a prime minister or president is head of government and is eventually responsible for each decision made in his or her country, but in practice many decisions only he eventually approves are actually initiated by some ministers or officers working under him. Another thing to be noted that modern tafasir of Quran have put more emphasis on the context dependence (shan-e-nazool) of even the Quranic ayat and instructions. Or in modern period it is easier for us to collect together all the Quranic ayat about an issue and only then conclude something. This may suggest that in Quran the teaching of Jabr was emphasized while addressing to arrogant peoples and Qadr while addressing the peoples blaming Allah for their own bad deeds. But the full picture Quran teaches us has both aspects of Jabr and Qadr. 5) Infinity is impossible. Universe cannot be infinitely old and thus had a start. Here the question is if the universe had a start or not. With reference to the science, the question may mean either do we know if the universe had a start or can we know if the universe had a start? The first question is about what the present science says about the issue. The answer of the present science, especially the Big Bang theory, is discussed in for example ref. 13 along with the Islamic view. In the present article the topic is if it is possible for science in its very nature to describe a universe that had no start. If what science can describe has to be of finite age, the universe must be of the finite age as it is well described by science. The analysis is the following: All what is happening in the world is the result of some process. We do not know all the processes that have resulted in the present world, but surely the processes must have completed in time intervals in a way that the time interval of a process and the double of this time interval are not the same, even though both the time interval and its double may be unknown to us. If the time of a process were infinite, its double would be the same because the double of infinity is also infinity. So, every event of the world is a result of a process completed in a finite time. Carefully summing all these processes (avoiding duplications etc.) we can in principle find out the total finite time in which the whole universe has developed into the present form. This age of the universe is thus in principle a knowable finite time interval. Even if we are unable to calculate this age, the simple conclusion that it is not infinite is sufficient to tell that there was a start and creation of the universe. The only way universe can have an ‘infinite age’ is for it have to have no change, or have no change for infinite time followed by changes, or have every change followed by an exact counter change. The first option is against every experience we have; there are always changes in the world. The second choice cannot answer what would be special about the moment when the changes started. The function of (scientific) knowledge is to determine the significance of different moments of time with respect to the start of the universe. For example, to tell what will happen after one second of the start of the universe, after one year, after a thousand years, etc. If the universe had no start, the role of different moments in the history of universe would not be determined ones. So, for any particular change in the state of the universe there would be no explanation through (scientific) knowledge why it happened at the moment it happened and not before or after it. This means that there would be no basis for any scientific explanation of the events in universe. As far as the third choice (every change followed by an exact counter change in a period), a scientific argument against this very idea of a periodic universe is that in the later part of a period order must increase if this later part has to exactly compensate for all the loss of order in the first part and make the situation at the end of a period exactly same as at the start, and that is impossible. (This scientific argument is further explained in the paragraph below.) But perhaps this reply can be subject of some scientific discussion. So, it must be noted that even if future science somehow strangely allows such an exactly repeating and hence self-ordering phase of the history of the universe, these kind of periods cannot be an arguments for an eternal universe either: A period must have a start, and how can a period take start in a universe that itself has no start? There must be something special about the starting moment of a period that makes it different to so many other moments before and after it! The period-starting (or change-starting) moments must have a special relationship to the universe-starting moment; there is no other way that the period-starting or change-starting moment can be special. When we draw pictures of a periodic motion in our books, we decide where to start a period in that drawing. But in a universe with no start and no Active Agent, how can there be such decisions? Another way to see this conclusion is that any process or change heading in one direction indefinitely would make the world not sustaining life etc. In the language of science, this is the ever-present consensus in science that the total disorder in the universe goes on increasing. This general observation of the nature of the universe has found a technical version in the form of the second law of thermodynamics (or the law of ‘entropy’). Thus if the universe were infinite old, the disorder in it would have increased without limit leaving no order in the universe and making everything in the universe in the same state of disorder at the same temperature (the Big Chill). But we see lot of order, life and variety in the universe. Thus there must have been a lot of order (fine tuning) in the early universe, and this order and variety has been decreasing for only a finite time i.e. for a finite age of the universe. 6) Mumkin-ul-Wajud and the Wajib-ul-Wajud (Allah). Can the human reason consistently think of a universe that is not created? This may well be technical note included here for completeness, and need not concern a normal reader. Peoples have always thought that the chain-of-creation in this world must stop somewhere, in a way that the First Creator, is essentially different to all the other members of the chain. Someone having the supernatural quality of not needing a further creator can be the only way for stopping the chain of natural causes; any natural cause or creator or factor cannot have a supernatural quality, must have its own cause or creator and thus can never be a termination of the chain of beings. Even uneducated simple persons, whether agreeing or disagreeing to it, have always felt the weight of this argument. To put all this is in philosophical language, the Muslim philosopher Ibne-e-Sina introduced the terms Mumkin-ul-Wajud and the Wajib-ul-Wajud that were later translated in English as the contingent and the Necessary Being. Mumkin-ul-Wajud (contingent) is something that is not essential to understand the world; it could well be absent without making the process of the understanding of the world impossible. Although Imam Ghazali was very much against the philosophy of Ibn-e-Sina, but we may take help of Ghazali’s examples to understand Mumkin-ul-Wajud: Ghazali said that it is not necessary that the fire burn cotton. Thus, as far as logic and the process of understanding the world are concerned, the burning ability of fire could well be absent. It is only due to our observations and experiments that we believe fire burns. In the modern terminology this means that had fire did not burn, science was still possible. (Though in that case we had to accept some scientific theories different to what we presently believe.) But the Necessary Being (the Creator) is the One whose absence causes problems for the reason as well, not only for the observations; the human reason cannot consistently think of a universe that was not created, of a universe that has no explanation having the supernatural quality of not needing a further explanation. (A natural/scientific ultimate explanation would demand a further explanation, leading to a contradiction.) Here it is to be pointed out the distinction between the problems for reason and problems for observations only is not alien to the humanity at large. The particular scientific theories scientists we believe in are the ones whose absence would cause problems for the observations only. But the absence of mathematics, deductive logic and generally accepted metaphysics (like the law of cause and effect, the law of uniformity of nature, the law of induction and chance statements) would cause problems for the human reason as well. Put in terms of another example, had some of our observations been different we would have come up with a different science. But if there were no pattern or order in our observations at all, no science would be possible. Notes and References:For example, Haroon Yahya “The Creation Of The Universe” (Canada: Al-Ateeq, 2000). Al-Ghazali “Tahafa-ul-Filasifah”. (See for example the Urdu translation by the same name done by Hanif Nadvi and published by the Institute of Islamic Culture, Lahore, 1974.) David Hume “Theory of Knowledge” (N/P: Nelson and Sons, 1951) p.43. For example, from the statements that “all men are mortal” and “X is a man”, deductive logic tells that “X is mortal.” In its logical nature, mathematics is also deductive logic though in the symbolic and not verbal form. It is to be noted that these human judgments are objective human judgments, meaning that all the human beings tend to make the same or similar judgments. These should not be confused with the (subjective) human emotions and personal likes and dislikes that have no such universal trends that can be described in clear words. For the meaning of the terms “objectivity” and “subjectivity” and its status in the Islamic thought, the reader may read for example the article “Objectivity: An Epistemological Value” by Bilal Masud in the Journal Al-Hikmat of the Department of Philosophy, University of the Punjab, 2002 issue. Karl Popper “Logic of Scientific Discovery” (New Yourk Basic Books INC, 1959) p. 36. Bilal Masud “Causality and Divine Action” Science Religion Dialogue, Vol.1 No.1 (Mansehra: HSSRD 2002). In his “al-munqaz min-al- dhalal”. (See, for example, the Urdu translation by Hanif Nadvi entitled “Sargazisht-e-Ghazali,” published by the Institute of Islamic Culture, Lahore, 1959, pages 6,7 and 114.) See for example the article “the Islamization of the Sciences” by J. S. Idris, then professor of aqida in a Saudi university, in the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1987. Read for example on page 84 of I. J. R. Aitchison and A. J. G. Hey “Introduction to Gauge Field Theories,” published by Adam Hilger, second edition, 1989 the incidence of (the Nobel laureate) Feynman not being able to answer this simple question about the emission of light particles from excited atoms. The reason is that science cannot answer the sort of questions put to Feynman. (The report here is in turn taken from R. P. Feynman, The Physics Teacher, vol. 7, No. 6, September 1969.) Peter Medawar “The Limits of Science” (London: Oxford University Press, 1989). Bilal Masud “The Big Bang and Creation of the Universe in Religious Perspective” Science Religion Dialogue, (Mansehra: HSSRD, 2003).
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