Abstract: The understanding of the relationship between Islam and science is intimately connected with many foundational issues. In this wide-ranging conversation Seyyed Hossein Nasr shares his ideas, hopes and aspirations for the polity. How can the Muslim world successfully come to terms with challenges posed by a science and technology-driven era without losing the characteristics of its civilization? What are the ways to revive the tradition of learning? How can Muslims living in the West contribute toward this revival? Keywords: intellectual tradition; spiritual ambience; civilization; critique of modern science and technology; authentic madrasah system; revival of tradition of learning; cosmology; Faustian science; origins. Iqbal: For more than two centuries, Muslims have faced a dilemma which seems to be insurmountable: in a world driven by science and technology produced by the West, how can the Muslim world cope with numerous problems requiring scientific and technological expertise without destroying the characteristics of its civilization? The answer suggested by the nineteenth century reformers was to import Western science and technology, without importing the value-system and the worldview that characterizes the modern West. Their premise was based on the notion that science and technology are value-free. On the other hand, you have always emphasized the need to ensure the preservation of the Islamic space--that unique aspect of civilization that is reflected in its relationship with the Transcendent. But this formulation has been severely criticized for lacking practicality. What is your response to this criticism? Nasr: In the Name of Allah, the Infinitely Good, the All-Merciful. This is a vast question that has many dimensions. There is a practical aspect and a theoretical aspect. As far as the practical is concerned, I accept that if, let us say, someone has malaria in Bangladesh, we should try to find the best vaccine against malaria. As for the various forms of Western science--whether it is in the form of medicine or electronics or other things that are mostly technology rather than science but nevertheless applied science--that are coming to the Muslim world, they are on a certain level, impossible to avoid by governments. No government can say we will not have telephone or something like that--there is no doubt about that. However, there is a much more profound issue that is involved. Most of the centers of power only concentrate on this question, with the idea that more science means more power and hence the Muslim world should try to follow as much as possible the developments of technology and match Western technology and science and outdo the West, like the Japanese who make better cars than those made in Detroit. This mentality, which is very prevalent in the Muslim World, is extremely dangerous, especially now that a part of the human family--that is the West which has already developed a technology on the basis of modern science--is already facing insurmountable difficulties and problems such as the questions pertaining to the destruction of the environment, those related to defining the human person and ethics and a thousand other questions. If the Muslim world also tries to join the camp of confusion and the destruction of the environment in the name of being in the twenty-first century, I believe, it will be suicidal. So on the practical level, while the Muslim World opens up to the application of modern science and acquires pure science itself, it has to learn this science and its applications with a certain amount of constraint and restraint in their application in the sense that it should not necessarily jump into every development and not try to emulate everything that is going on in the West. But as far as the theoretical aspect is concerned, Muslims must try to master the Western sciences, there is no doubt about that, but this mastery must be combined with a critical perspective based on the intellectual tradition. …
Publication Year: 2003
Publication Date: 2003-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
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