FROM MAULANA’S DESK
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, born in 1925, in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, is an Islamic spiritual scholar who is well-versed in both classical Islamic learning and modern disciplines. The mission of his life has been the establishment of worldwide peace. He has received the Padma Bhushan, the Demiurgus Peace International Award and Sayyidina Imam Al Hassan Peace award for promoting peace in Muslim societies. He has been called ’Islam’s spiritual ambassador to the world’ and is recognized as one of its most influential Muslims. His books have been translated into sixteen languages and are part of university curricula in six countries. He is the founder of the Centre for Peace and Spirituality based in New Delhi.
SCIENCE: A MEANS OF REINFORCING FAITH
WITH the splitting of the atom, all of man’s conceptions of matter have been drastically altered. In fact, the advance of science in the past century has culminated in a knowledge explosion, the like of which has never before been experienced in human history, and in the wake of which all ancient ideas about God and religion have had to be re-examined. This, as Julian Huxley puts it, is the challenge of modern knowledge. The articles selected for this issue present and propose an answer to this challenge with the conviction that far from having a damaging effect on religion, modern knowledge has served to corroborate and consolidate its truths. Many modern discoveries support Islamic claims made 1400 years ago in the Quran. The contents of the Quran are not at odds with scientific facts, and future knowledge shall keep bearing out this fact, as it has done so far.
The Quran says:
We shall show them Our signs in the universe and within themselves, until it becomes clear to them that this is the Truth. (41: 53)
Modern atheistic thinkers dismiss religion as being unfounded in fact. They maintain that it springs from man’s desire to find meaning in the universe. While the urge to find an explanation is not in itself wrong, they hold that the inadequacy of our predecessors’ knowledge led them to wrong conclusions, namely, the existence of a God, the notions that creation and destruction were a function of the godhead, that man’s fate was of concern to God, that there was a life after death in Heaven or Hell, as warranted by the morality of man’s life on Earth, and that all thinking on these matters must necessarily be regulated by religion. They feel that, in the light of advanced learning, man is now in a position to make a reappraisal of traditional ways of thinking and to rectify errors of interpretation, just as in secular matters he has already exploded myths and overturned false hypotheses whenever facts and experience have forced the truth upon him.
According to Auguste Comte, a well-known French philosopher of the first half of the nineteenth century, the history of man’s intellectual development can be divided into three stages–the theological stage, when events of the universe are explained in terms of divine powers; the metaphysical stage, in which we find no mention of specific gods (although external factors are still referred to in order to explain events); and the stage of positivism, where events are explained in terms of common laws deduced from observation and calculation without having recourse of spirit, God or absolute power. We are now passing through the third intellectual stage which, in philosophical terms, is known as Logical Positivism.
Through the articles of this issue, we attempt not only to address the third intellectual stage of Logical Positivism but also to chronicle the revolution brought about by the emergence of Islamic ideology. Science, which once, was expected to bring religion to an ignominious end, has now guided humankind to a momentous intellectual revolution. This was the direct result of the revolution brought about by the Prophet of Islam. Instead of negating God, science has fortified faith in God. Latest scientific developments have razed the walls of atheism and science stands ready to bear testimony to the word of God.
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
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