FINAL The Structure of Scientific

2 | The Structure of Scientific Productivity in Islamic Civilization
Author Biography
Asadullah Ali has a Bachelors of Arts from Benedictine University in Western
Philosophy, a Masters from the International Islamic University of Malaysia in
Philosophy, and is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Islamic Studies at University of
Malaya.
Disclaimer: The views, opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in these

papers and articles are strictly those of the authors. Furthermore, Yaqeen does not
endorse any of the personal views of the authors on any platform. Our team is
diverse on all fronts, allowing for constant, enriching dialogue that helps us
produce high-quality research.
Copyright © 2017. Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research

Abstract: The popular analysis (promulgated by Orientalists) on the rise and

decline of scientific productivity in Islamic civilization dichotomizes the events of
Islamic history as a conflict between religion and reason. This analysis has since
come to be coined the ‘Classical Narrative,’ and suggests that the scientific
successes of Muslims throughout history were based solely on foreign influences,
whereas Islamic values and ideas were responsible for their decline. However,
recent studies have shown this narrative to be invalid due to its inconsistent
rendering of the historical data. On the contrary, a more coherent understanding
of the data shows that scientific productivity among Muslims was both actively and
passively bolstered by Islamic values through the rejection of Aristotelian natural
philosophy. Despite these developments, the reasons behind the decline have yet to
be fully ascertained. As such, this paper offers a summary and critique of the
Classical Narrative, as well as revisionary constructs towards understanding the
influences behind the rise and decline of scientific productivity in Islamic
civilization.
Introduction
Three months after the tragic events of September 11th, 2001, the renowned
Pakistani nuclear physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy penned an article for the Washington
Post titled “How Islam Lost Its Way: Yesterday’s Achievements Were Golden,”
attempting to explain the reasons behind the attacks on 9/11 as well as the
downtrodden state of the Muslim world in the contemporary period. Throughout
the article, he mentions the ‘Golden Age’ of Islamic civilization: a time when
rationality and science triumphed over religious conservatism. He concludes his
analysis by blaming religious orthodoxy for the end of this glorious era – more
specifically, placing the burden on the 11th – 12th centuries C.E. theologian Abū
Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (d. 1111):
But in the 12th century, Muslim orthodoxy reawakened, spearheaded by the

Arab cleric Imam Al-Ghazālī. Al-Ghazālī championed revelation over
reason, predestination over free will. He damned mathematics as being
against Islam, an intoxicant of the mind that weakened faith…Caught in the
viselike grip of orthodoxy, Islam choked. No longer would Muslim,

Christian and Jewish scholars gather and work together in the royal courts.
It was the end of tolerance, intellect and science in the Muslim world.1
Aside from the rather curious claim that Al-Ghazālī was an Arab (he was Persian),
Hoodbhoy doesn’t explain how one man was capable of destroying an entire
civilization – much less how said man’s supposed aversion to free will and
mathematics had anything do with 9/11 – but it’s clear that he believes this
illustrious scholar responsible for embedding a debilitating and everlasting
irrationality into the Muslim world which has resulted in extremism, terrorism,
political turmoil, and a lack of Nobel Prizes.
Over a decade later, at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the
American astrophysicist and popular science educator, Neil deGrasse Tyson,
would repeat this same tragic story about Islamic civilization’s once enlightened
past and its downfall by this Muslim version of Voldemort, who single-handedly
vanquished rationality through his apparent disregard for the utility of mathematics
and denial of the necessary relationship between cause and effect.2
But is it really the case that all of the problems facing the contemporary Muslim
world are the result of some anti-rationalist and anti-scientific spirit emanating
from the ideas of one man? And how is it that two scientists, from opposite sides of
the world and cultures, are not only in agreement regarding the rise and decline of
scientific productivity in Islamic civilization, but can air their opinions in such a
way as to be taken as authorities on the matter? Because their opinions certainly
have nothing to do with their credentials as historians of science. Rather, their
opinions seem to reflect a popular and long-entrenched view that has remained
unchallenged – at least until very recently.

1 Pervez Hoodbhoy, “How Islam Lost Its Way: Yesterday’s Achievements Were Golden,” The Washington Post,
December 30, 2001, accessed October 21, 2016,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2001/12/30/how-islam-lost-its-way-yesterdays-achievements-we
re-golden/d325ce2a-146f-4791-b5e7-8e662d991cbb/?utm_term=.08b85096dca1

2 Stephen Shankland, “Neil DeGrasse Tyson: US need not lose its edge in science,” CNET, June 20, 2014, accessed
October 21, 2016, http://www.cnet.com/news/neil-degrasse-tyson-the-us-doesnt-have-to-lose-its-edge-in-science/
For the past few decades, a number of historians of science have put this narrative
under the microscope, scrutinizing its foundational assumptions and its incoherent
rendering of the historical data: a projection inspired by the Occident’s own
ideological history (i.e., the Enlightenment vs. the Church).3
That said, how did the rise of scientific productivity in Islamic civilization occur?
What were its major influences? And was the subsequent decline a result of an
overt religious conservatism? In order to answer these questions, we will need to
analyze the historical data and the popular conceptions of those data, while
surveying the most recent alternative theories. Prior to this, however, we should
begin by defining many of the terms essential to this discourse so as to acquire a
better grasp of this topic.
Defining Terms
The initial question that should be asked regarding the discourse behind ‘the rise
and decline of scientific productivity in the Islamic civilization’ is how it should be
conducted; meaning, what are the primary terms and concepts that need to be
ascertained prior to examining the issue at hand? This same question applies to any
and all intellectual inquiry, whether it regards science, theology, philosophy, law,
or history. Thus, the first term that needs to be defined is ‘science’ itself. However,
despite what one might presume, this is not an easy feat given that the term can
encompass a variety of different meanings depending on the contexts in which it is
used. As a case in point, the philosopher of science, Osman Bakar states:
Science is not an entity that is obvious to everyone…To begin with, there

are disagreements on terminological usage itself, whether the domain of
knowledge to which the term ‘science’ is applied is to be confined to the
natural sciences, or to be extended to cover the humanities and social
sciences as well. Some people use the word in both senses.4
3
This is the formal term used to refer to ‘the West’ (i.e., Europe, the Americas, and their subsequent colonies,
territories, etc.).
4
Osman Bakar, preface to Tawhid and Science, 2nd ed. (Shah Alam: Arah Publications, 2008), xxx-xxxi.
Broadly speaking then, ‘science’ may simply be defined as a “body of knowledge.”

In this respect, another philosopher of science, Alparslan Açikgenç suggests that
anything worthy of being properly deemed a ‘science’ must have four essential
characteristics, the first of which is that it must have a ‘subject matter’ or an
“object of study” that “excludes all unrelated subjects of inquiry.”5 Following this,
it needs to have a ‘method’ or “the manner in which a scientific investigation is
carried out.”6 Afterwards, it must have a ‘theory’ or “a formulation given as a
provisional solution to a certain problem.”7 And finally, it must have a ‘tradition’
or the function of acquiring new information which can be named and organized,
leading to the formation of a scholarly community.8
However, although this definition may be useful in a broader analysis,

contemporary discussions revolving around the historical phenomena of the rise
and decline of science within any given civilization often stress a more specific
understanding of ‘science’ as “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing
the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural
world through observation and experiment”9 and its practical applicability (i.e.,
technology). That said, it is also relevant to note that embedded into this
specification is the popular conception that science is somehow a value-neutral and
objective enterprise, totally removed from the subjectivity of scientists themselves.
However, this is mistaken and will be expressly challenged throughout this
discussion. As the philosopher of science and polymath Ziauddin Sardar notes:
It can be argued that the ideological and political factors are external to
science. That within science, the scientic method ensures neutrality and
objectivity by following a strict logic – observation, experimentation,
deduction and value-free conclusion. But scientists do not make
observations in isolation. All observations take place within a well-dened
theory. The observations, and the data collection that goes with them, are
designed either to refute a theory or provide support for it. And theories
5
Alparslan Açikgenç, Islamic Scientific Tradition in History (Kuala Lumpur: IKIM, 2014), 12.
6
Ibid, 13.
7
Ibid, 45.
8
Ibid, 15.

9 “Science,” Oxford Dictionaries, accessed December 6, 2016, http://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/science
themselves are not plucked out of the air. Theories exist within paradigms –
that is, a set of beliefs and dogmas.10
The implications of such a view may seem counterintuitive; contrary to being

“objective,” facts are entirely dependent on the theories scientists construct in order
to coherently comprehend their experiences of the external world. Indeed, the
concept of ‘paradigm’ has become integral to understanding the nature of science
today within academic circles and provides a foundation from which to ascertain
the motivations, scope, and research interests of a scientific community. In
explaining the reasoning behind the concept, the philosopher of science Thomas
Kuhn (d. 1996) – who coined the term in his magnum opus, The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions11 – explains that while human experiences are indeed
universal, our understanding of those experiences varies in accordance with our
background beliefs:
If two people stand at the same place and gaze in the same direction, we
must…conclude that they receive closely similar stimuli. (If both could put
their eyes at the same place, the stimuli would be identical.) But people do
not see stimuli; our knowledge of them is highly theoretical and abstract.
Instead they have sensations, and we are under no compulsion to suppose
that the sensations of our two viewers are the same. (Sceptics might
remember that color blindness was nowhere noticed until John Dalton's
description of it in 1794.)12
Thus, far from being neutral, the practice and application of any given science is
entirely dependent on the axiological and metaphysical motivations of scientists
themselves.13 For instance, the essence of scientific productivity within a secular
society may differ tremendously in its goals and output from a more religiously
inclined one, because the principal values and beliefs of the scientists within each
civilization will most certainly differ. While the former may focus on problems and
10
Ziauddin Sardar, How Do We Know? Reading Ziauddin Sardar on Islam, Science and Cultural Relations
(London: Pluto Press, 2006), 170.
11
As the reader may easily ascertain, Kuhn’s work was the primary influence behind this paper’s title.
12
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 192.
13
Axiology is the philosophical study of values. Values are generally considered the cherished beliefs of a people
that guide them in all their affairs (i.e., morals and ethics).
goals related exclusively to the preservation and functioning of a non-religious

state and its people, the latter will be motivated by an entirely different set of
beliefs and circumstances. In other words, culture, or “the ideas, customs, and
social behaviour of a particular people or society,”14 determine what constitutes
‘science,’ including the theories formed to interpret empirical data (i.e., ‘facts’).15
As such, what we understand as the dominant scientific tradition today is really
‘Western science,’ whereas this research paper discusses the rise and decline of
Islamic civilizations’ perception of science (i.e., ‘Islamic science’), as one which
takes place within the context of an Islamic cultural framework, projecting the
values and beliefs of Muslim scientists at work.16
But does our understanding of science also affect our analysis of a civilization’s
scientific history? Certainly. For instance, if we were to adopt the aforementioned
‘neutral view,’ the claim that science “rose” and “declined” within Islamic
civilization would really be nothing more than an anachronistic and projected
interpretation of our own experiences with science today. The result of such a view
would bring us to the absurd conclusion that science is either non-existent in the
contemporary Muslim world or is on the brink of extinction. Far from this being
the case, science is alive and well among Muslims – from iPhones to the latest in
medical technology – but is simply no longer being pioneered from the Islamic
perspective. As such, the ‘value-laden’ conception is far more in line with
historical and contemporary realities. This is why some historians of science, such
as George Saliba, define ‘decline’ within the scope of a civilization’s scientific
activity as “an age in which a civilization begins to be a consumer of scientific
ideas rather than a producer of them.”17
Despite the logic, the conception of science as neutral is still the most popular
among laypeople. As such, it may be helpful to reframe certain historical
categories to more properly reflect the cultural elements essential to their

14 “Culture,” Oxford Dictionaries, accessed December 6, 2016, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/culture
15
For a thorough understanding of science in this respect, please refer to Thomas Kuhn’s work The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions.
16
Alparslan Açikgenç, Islamic Scientific Tradition in History (Kuala Lumpur: IKIM, 2012), 27.
17
George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007),
248.
interpretation. Therefore, I propose that the categories of ‘rise’ and ‘decline’ be

reconceptualized as the ‘Age of Productivity’ and the ‘Age of Dependency’
respectively. Neither of these labels imply a neutral perspective of science
independent from their cultural influences nor do they place us in the conundrum
of having to explain how science somehow “declined” in Islamic civilization
despite contemporary Muslims possessing as many products of scientific activity
as their Western counterparts. Rather, they more accurately represent the current
status of Islamic science as a once productive enterprise now eclipsed and reliant
on foreign elements. That said, for the sake of conciseness, the terms ‘rise’ and
‘decline’ will still be referenced throughout, but should be viewed as
interchangeable with these proposed revised constructs.
Finally, it is necessary to know those terms representing the primary influences

behind the rise and decline of any given scientific tradition. These influences are
important in that they help us to not only comprehend the reasons behind the rise
and decline of Islamic science, but also provide us the means to measure when they
occurred. As such, the historian of science, Toby Huff divides these influences into
two categories: ‘internal influences’ and ‘external influences.’ The former
represents the “methods, theories, paradigms, and instrumentation of science,” and
the latter represents the “cultural and institutional structures that give scientific
inquiry a secure place in the intellectual life of a society and civilisation.”18 In
other words, internal influences are simply a particular civilization’s abstract
perceptions and practice of science, whereas external influences constitute more
material factors which facilitate the manifestation and application of those
perceptions (e.g., government funded research facilities, libraries, universities,
etc.). That said, I would also add to Huff’s definition of ‘external influences’ things
like war, economic boom and recession, natural disasters, plagues, etc., given that
these phenomena also play a major role in determining whether or not a society
will be focused on nurturing their scientific tradition and to what ends.
18
Toby Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003), 19.
Figure 1
The ‘rise’ and ‘decline’ of a scientific tradition re-conceptualized.
Following the above discussion, a cursory analysis of the history behind the Age of
Productivity in Islamic civilisation will be given. While it is not within the scope of
this paper to elucidate a full picture of the various opinions regarding this point in
history, a summary of the popular narrative – and the problems associated with it –
shall be given so as to provide a backdrop for explaining the major influences
behind the historical development of Islamic science.
The ‘Classical Narrative’ and Scholarly Dissent

During the advent of Islām in the 7th century C.E. Arabian Peninsula, the power of
the Byzantine and Sassanid (Persian) Empires was beginning to wane in the wake
of internal flaws in administration, military expansionism, economies, and
never-ending conflicts with one another.19 Muslims at that time took advantage of
David Deming, Science and Technology in World History, Volume 2: Early Christianity, the Rise of Islam and the
19
Middle Ages (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2010), 81-82.

these weaknesses and conquered both empires within a matter of a few decades.
With the balance of power having shifted, the new Islamic polity was allowed to
allocate its resources and time towards creating a world that would suit its own
interests. As Dimitri Gutas notes:
The historical significance of the Arab conquests can hardly be

overestimated. Egypt and the Fertile Crescent were reunited with Persia
and India politically, administratively, and most important, economically,
for the first time since Alexander the Great...The great economic and
cultural divide that separated the civilized world for a thousand years prior
to the rise of Islam, the frontier between the East and the West formed by
the two great rivers that created antagonistic powers on either side, ceased
to exist. This allowed for the free flow of raw materials and manufactured
goods, agricultural products and luxury items, people and services,
techniques and skills, and ideas, methods, and modes of thought.20
Despite this, Muslims would eventually be unable to sustain their dominance and
begin to resort to dependency on foreign ideas and inventions in order to compete
with their neighbors. As a result, the balance of power would again shift and
Muslims would no longer possess the autonomy and dominance they once had.
This is no better evidenced than in the status of Islamic civilization in the
contemporary period, which struggles to survive in the face of disunity and the
onslaught of Western militarization and its monopolization of the global economy
and technology.
However, when discussing the rise of scientific productivity in Islamic civilization,

historians have often projected a narrative that downplays the internal influence of
Islamic values, while exaggerating these external influences of geopolitics as the
primary motivating factors. On the other hand, these same researchers are not
hesitant to credit the former when explaining its decline. This Orientalist inspired
20
Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early
'Abbasid Society (2nd-4th/5th-10th c.) (New York: Routledge, 1998), 11.
version of events,21 otherwise referred to as the ‘Classical Narrative,’ has

unfortunately been the popular framework of analysis for centuries within Western
civilization, and now among Muslims as well, resulting in decades of unchallenged
biases and suppressed evidence. That said, there have been attempts in recent years
to provide alternative accounts. For instance, the historian of science George Saliba
has made great strides in deconstructing this theory and its biases, summarizing its
major assumptions in his monumental work, Islamic Science and the Making of the
European Renaissance:
The narrative seems to start with the assumption that Islamic civilization
was a desert civilization, far removed from urban life, that had little chance
to develop on its own any science that could be of interest to other cultures.
This civilization began to develop scientific thought only when it came into
contact with other more ancient civilizations, which are assumed to have
been more advanced…These surrounding civilizations are usually endowed
with considerable antiquity, with high degrees of scientific production (at
least at some time in their history), and with a degree of intellectual vitality
that could not have existed in the Islamic desert civilization.
This same narrative never fails to recount an enterprise that was indeed
carried out during Islamic times: the active appropriation of the sciences of
those civilizations through the wilful process of translation. And this
translation movement is said to have encompassed nearly all the scientific
and philosophical texts that those ancient civilizations had ever produced.
….
In this context, very few authors would go beyond the characterization of

this Islamic golden age as anything more than a re-enactment of the glories
of Ancient Greece…Some would at times venture to say that Islamic
scientific production did indeed add to the accumulated body of Greek
science a few features, but this addition is usually not depicted as anything
21
An Orientalist is broadly defined as “someone who studies the Orient [i.e., the East].” However, it is specifically
being used here to refer to those who do so through the lens of a Western bias, viewing other cultures and religions
as static, underdeveloped, and inferior.
the Greeks could not have done on their own had they been given enough
time.
….
The classical narrative, however persists in imagining that the Islamic

science that was spurred by these extensive translations was short-lived as
an enterprise because it soon came into conflict with the more traditional
forces within Islamic society, usually designated as religious orthodoxies of
one type or another. The anti-scientific attacks that those very orthodoxies
generated are supposed to have culminated in the famous work of the
eleventh-twelfth-century theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī.22
Saliba goes on to reject this narrative as a Western projection of its own history
with the Church (i.e., a war between rationalism and religious dogma and
institutions),23 the first indication of which was the double standard of assigning
zero credit to Islamic values for the rise of science in the Muslim world, while
proposing them as the main culprit in its demise.
The Islamic scholar Muzaffar Iqbal notes that this projection can be traced back to
the Orientalist Ignáz Goldziher (d. 1921) and his paper, “The Attitude of Orthodox
Islam towards the Ancient Sciences,” in which he suggests that the decline
ultimately occurred due to religious scholars’ negative attitudes towards the
so-called ‘foreign sciences’ of the Greeks and Persians, due to their seemingly
antithetical teachings to Islamic doctrine.24 His ‘conflict thesis’ would eventually
gain momentum, seeping into the works of many popular historians from the 20th
century to the contemporary period. For instance, Huff evinces this attitude when
he writes:
If in the long run scientific thought and intellectual creativity in general are
to keep themselves alive and advance into new domains of conquest and
creativity, multiple spheres of freedom – what we may call neutral zones –
22
Saliba, Islamic Science and European Renaissance, 1-2.
23
Ibid, 234.
24
Muzaffar Iqbal, The Making of Islamic Science (Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book Trust, 2009), 73.
must exist within which large groups of people can pursue genius free from
the censure of political and religious authorities. In addition, certain
metaphysical and philosophical assumptions must accompany this freedom.
Insofar as science is concerned, individuals must be conceived to be
endowed with reason, the world must be thought to be a rational and
consistent whole, and various levels of universal representation,
participation, and discourse must be available. It is precisely here that one
finds the great weaknesses of Arabic-Islamic civilization as an incubator of
modern science.25
Huff reflects an overt bias against the theological thought and institutions of
Islamic civilization, going so far as to use the phrase “Arabic sciences” so as to
focus on the linguistic/ethnic characteristics of the translation movement over any
perceived influences of religion. According to this view, the only positive
contribution by Muslims during this period was the unification of society through a
shared language and the appropriation of Greek philosophy – the hard-earned
efforts of which would later be paradoxically dismantled by an anti-scientific spirit
inherent to Islām itself. However, this raises the question as to how such a
movement would have been possible if anti-scientific sentiments existed prior to
and during its initiation. In other words, if ‘foreign sciences’ were already
unwelcome due to their contrary nature to Islamic doctrine, then it is difficult to
ascertain how they were tolerated to begin with and over such a long period of
time.
Despite the impact and popularity of the conflict thesis, numerous anomalies have
been found in Goldziher’s research, with some historians even suggesting that his
hypothesis could only be formed through deliberately mining decontextualized
quotations from Islamic scholarly texts.26 As a result, Sonja Brentjes,27 Dimitri
Guntas,28 Ahmad Dallal,29 and George Saliba have attempted to offer more
25
Huff, Rise of Early Modern Science, 219.
26
Sonja Brentjes, “Reviews: Oversimplifying the Islamic Scientific Tradition”, Metascience 13 (2004): 83-86,
accessed October 17, 2016, doi: 10.1023/B:MESC.0000023270.62689.51
27
See, Sonja Brentjes, “On the Location of the Ancient or ‘Rational’ Sciences in Muslim Educational Landscapes
(AH 500 – 1100),” Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Inter-Faith Studies 4 (2002): 47-71.
28
See, Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture.
29
See, Ahmad Dallal, Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).
nuanced and evidence-based perspectives regarding the history of Islamic science –

the last of whom I believe has provided the most salient deconstruction, positing
that the rise of science was less an accidental appropriation of Greek thought and
more the result of the pragmatic concerns of the early Muslim community itself.
Saliba begins his critique of the Classical Narrative by first addressing when the
rise actually began, as opposed to simply assuming that it was spurred by the
sudden genesis of translation during the reign of the Abbāsid caliph, Abū Jaʿfar
Abdullāh al-M’amūn ibn Hārūn al-Rashīd (d. 833) between 813-833 C.E.
According to legend, Al-M’amūn’s desire to translate Greek works originated from

a mystical experience in which he met Aristotle in a dream, who informed him that
he should begin acquiring knowledge of science.30 Despite this account being
largely unconfirmed – and most likely a myth formed as a post-hoc explanation –
this has not deterred supporters of the Classical Narrative from including it as
evidence of how scientific productivity miraculously arose within Islamic
civilization.
Acknowledging the tenuous nature of this origin story, Saliba discovers the period
of the rise to be much earlier, ironically through examining the source behind the
‘dream account’ itself – the 10th century C.E. Persian Muslim historian Muḥammad
ibn Abī Ya’qūb Isḥāq al-Nadīm (d. 940), who wrote an intellectual history of
Islamic civilization in 987/988 CE called Kitab al-Fihrist (Book of the Index).31
Therein, he not only finds the story of Al-M’amūn’s dream, but various other
apocrypha.
Shifting through the numerous accounts, Saliba concludes that Al-Nadīm was
simply recording popular stories of his time and did not intend for all of them to be
used as a means to derive an authentic historical narrative.32 Upon further scrutiny,
the Orientalists’ use of Al-M’amūn’s dream appears to be quite disingenuous, as
Al-Nadīm himself only saw it as having an impact on the spread of scientific
knowledge, not as its source. This is especially evidenced by the fact that he titles
30
Saliba, Islamic Science and European Renaissance, 13.
31
Ibid, 28.
32
Ibid, 40.
this particular account, “Mention of the Reason Why Books on Philosophy and
Other Ancient Sciences Became Plentiful…” and considers the story to be only
“one of the reasons” behind even this phenomenon.33
Similarly, Al-Nadīm contradicts the Classical Narrative by asserting that the

Byzantines considered their own ancient works impermissible to learn, as they
were “opposed to the prophetic [Christian] doctrine,” and retained this sentiment
up until the rise of the Islamic Empire.34 In other words, Muslims did not desire to
translate these texts based on their sudden encounter with Byzantine culture, rather
they were already scientifically inclined to a degree prior. How else could they
have known about the Greek texts and sought them out had they not already been
aware of their value? As Dallal states:
This translation movement provided the knowledge base of the emergent

sciences. But while this explains part of the picture, and admittedly one of
its most important parts, it does not provide a full explanation of the
beginnings. To start with, what are the socio-political conditions and the
cultural aptitudes that triggered interests in the translation and science in
the first place? Second, what were the cultural conditions and the cultural
aptitudes that enabled a significant community of interest to know how to
translate complex scientific texts, to develop the technical terminology
needed for the transfer of scientific knowledge between two languages, to
understand scientific texts once they were translated, and to constructively
engage the knowledge derived from them? Seen in this light, translation is
not a mechanical process but part of a complex historical process that is
not reducible to the transfer of external knowledge; rather, it involves
forces intrinsic to the receiving culture – most important, the
epistemological conditions internal to Islamic culture at the time of the
translations.35
33
Muhammad al-Nadīm, The Fihrist of Al-Nadīm: A Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture, V.2, trans. Bayard
Dodge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 583.
34
Ibid, 579 - 581.
35
Dallal, Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History, 10-11.
However, it is unsurprising that scholars supportive of the Classical Narrative

would be selective in their reading of these accounts – preferring to mold them in
accordance with their preconceived biases rather than attempt a critical
examination. As noted previously by Saliba, the projection of the Western
experience with religious dogma and institutions has largely served as the
backdrop through which other historical events and cultures have been interpreted.
As a consequence, Orientalists have actively searched out only those pieces of
evidence which appear to conform to this understanding. In line with this, the
account of Al-M’amūn’s dream also serves as a convenient means through which
to tie in additional historical data which bolsters the Classical Narrative – as it was
during his reign (813-833 C.E.) that one of the greatest theological controversies
within Islamic civilization occurred: the rise of the Mu’tazilah.
According to the Muslim philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the Mu’tazilah were a
group of theologians who “dominated the theological scene in Iraq for more than a
century and developed an imposing theological edice based on emphasis on the
use of reason in matters pertaining to religion and the importance of human free
will.”36 Their ‘rational approach’ towards basic doctrines of the faith led them to
espouse views considered heretical, such as the complete obscurement of Allāh to
a mere abstract concept completely incomprehensible to the human intellect. This
was opposed to the more orthodox view that while the Divine Essence cannot be
comprehended in total, His Attributes – as mentioned in the Islamic source texts –
had a reality that was at least relatively comprehensible to the lay Muslim.
However, the Mu’tazilah acquired their infamy from a far more controversial view:
that the Qur’ān was created and not the eternal Word of Allāh.37
But why was such a theological controversy so important to Orientalists? Because

it was Al-Ma’mūn, so convinced of the veracity of Mu‘tazilism during his reign,
who sanctioned the imposition of its doctrines on the wider Muslim community –
even going so far as to implement it as a litmus test for judging the authenticity of
36
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Philosophy from its Origin to its Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy
(New York: State University of New York Press, 2006), 121.
37
Ibid, 122.
an individual’s faith.38 Thus, those looking for an obvious example of the “war”
between rationalism and religion can trace a convenient linearity between
Al-Ma’mūn’s dream account, the establishment of the Mu’tazilah, and the
subsequent rise of scientific productivity in Islamic civilization. However, aside
from the obvious misinterpretation of Al-Nadīm’s records, this sentiment relies on
the short-lived influence (34 years) of a group counteracted and eventually
overthrown by the more religiously conservative elements of society through the
ascension of Caliph Abu’ Faḍl Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Muʿtaṣim bi’llāh
al-Mutawakkil (d. 861).39 In other words, it is doubtful that the so-called
‘rationalists’ – governing for such a meager span of time – could be precursors to
the subsequent seven centuries of Muslim scientific progress and ingenuity, which
fell under the control of their theological and intellectual opponents.
Alternatively then, Saliba finds a more plausible account whereby al-Nadīm recalls
a story regarding how the second Umayyad caliph, Khālid ibn Yazīd ibn Mu’āwiya
(d. 704) had ordered some philosophers to translate Greek works on alchemy into
Arabic for an unknown purpose. He seemingly connects this event to the later
translation of government records (dīwāns) during the reign of the fifth Umayyad
caliph, ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (d. 705), who ruled from 685 – 705 C.E., along
with his governor in Iraq, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf (d. 714):
Khalid ibn Yazid ibn Mu’awiyah was called the “Wise Man of the Family of
Marwan.” He was inherently virtuous, with an interest in and fondness for
the sciences. As the Art [alchemy] attracted his attention, he ordered a
group of Greek philosophers who were living in a city in Egypt to come to
him. Because he was concerned with literary Arabic, he commanded them
to translate the books about the Art from the Greek and Coptic languages
into Arabic. This was the first translation in Islam from one language into
another.
….
38
Ibid, 124.
39
Then, at the time of al-Hajjaj [Ibn Yusuf] the registers, which were in
Persian, were translated into Arabic.
….
The records in Damascus were in Greek…The records were translated

during the time of Hishām ‘Abd al-Malik…It has [also] been said that the
records were translated during the time of ‘Abd al-Malik [ibn Marwan].40
The first part of the story is not precisely explained by Al-Nadīm, other than the
mention of Khālid’s “love of science.” This short tale – for which there is little
explanation beyond what is mentioned above – is considered by him to be the very
first attempt at translation. However, when we examine additional sources of this
story, they indicate that Khālid had a part in motivating ‘Abd al-Malik to translate
these works based on the latter’s desire to mint coinage exclusive to the Islamic
polity. Prior to this, Muslims had depended on Byzantine and Persian currencies.
This indicates that the primary motivation behind the desire to translate and learn
works on alchemy was simply a matter of the newly formed Islamic empire
aspiring to become independent of its neighbors and self-sustaining.41
Likewise, government records were similarly translated for pragmatic goals, given
that they constituted the foundation of the state’s operational fortitude. As for the
reasons why these records were originally recorded in Persian and Greek? This had
to do with the simple fact that the Persians and Byzantines were renowned at that
time for their aptitude at “handling arithmetical operations carried over fractions
and the like,” a necessary talent in order to produce such records to begin with.42
As such, ‘Abd al-Malik felt the need to ‘Arabize’ the dīwāns so as to provide better
access to these records among his officials, as well as produce greater efficiency in
the management of the state and the flow of wealth therein.
As a result, these practical concerns for transparency and the efficient management
of the state’s coffers led to unintended – albeit fruitful – consequences. Since the
40
Al-Nadīm, Fihrist, 581-583.
41
42
Ibid, 53.
recording of the dīwāns not only required skills in arithmetic, but also of
astronomy (for being able to know the times for tax collection), geometry (for land
surveying), and the knowledge of weights and measures (for commerce), this led to
a desire to translate scientific works related to these tasks, as well as the
subsequent education of native Arab speakers who wanted to qualify for
government positions.43 In other words, a civil office within the newly formed
Islamic empire became the springboard by which other scientific texts were sought
out, translated, and learned. This domino effect would eventually facilitate
practicalities related to religious practice (ībadah) as well. For example, astronomy
was also necessary for calculating the specific times for obligatory acts of worship
such as prayer (ṣalāt), the month of fasting (Ramaḍān), and holidays (‘Īd), thereby
effectively organising and administrating the most essential activities of the
Muslim community.
Islām as Values – Science as a Tool

Summarizing the above discussion, the translation movement did not occur
suddenly with the Abbāsids, but was set in motion during the Umayyad dynasty;
for practical reasons related to the Islamic polity at that time. In other words, the
internal influence of Islamic values was the principal motivating factor behind the
initial acquisition and utilization of science. Although never explicitly propagated
in the Qur’ān or sayings and actions of the Prophet Muḥammad ‫ﷺ‬, a form of
scientific intellectualism was already being cultivated among Muslims during the
classical period, guided by the desire to implement their values based in the Islamic
tradition itself. For example, the Qur’ān provides a clear practical motivation for
scientific study:
He has subjected all that is in the heavens and the earth for your benefit, as a gift
from Him. There truly are signs in this for those who reflect. (Al-Qur’ān, 45:13)
Furthermore, the Prophet Muḥammad ‫ ﷺ‬encouraged seeking knowledge to the

same effect, focusing principally on its utility:
43
Ibid, 54-55.
"A servant of Allāh will remain standing on the Day of Judgment until he is
questioned about his (time on earth) and…about his knowledge and how he utilized
it…" (Al-Tirmidhī, #148)
"Knowledge from which no benefit is derived is like a treasure out of which

nothing is spent in the cause of Allāh." (Al-Tirmidhī, #108)
“Allāh, His angels and all those in Heavens and on Earth, even ants in their hills
and fish in the water, call down blessings on those who instruct others in beneficial
knowledge." (Al-Tirmidhī, #422)
These a ḥadīth enjoin Muslims to acquire knowledge that is “beneficial” and to

“utilize it,” implying that its value is beyond mere acquisition. As a case in point,
many people know the difference between what is considered morally virtuous and
morally abhorrent, but this knowledge has zero value if it isn’t utilized to
encourage virtue and refrain from vice. Likewise, knowing how to perform open
heart surgery has absolutely no benefit unless one is willing to actually perform it
or teach it to others. As such, according to Islām, just knowing something is not
enough for it to be considered “beneficial.” Sardar notes that it was this pragmatic
view of knowledge – and of science and technology more specifically – that the
early Muslims practiced and implemented:
The classical scholars of Islam were concerned that in the pursuit of

knowledge the needs of the community should not be lost sight of, that ilm
[knowledge] should not create undesirable social effects, that it should not
tend to such a level of abstraction that it leads to the estrangement of man
from his world and his fellow men, or to confusion rather [than]
enlightenment. In this framework science is guided towards a middle path.
While it should be socially relevant, the idea of a purely utilitarian science
is rejected. Moreover, there is no such thing as science for science’s sake;
yet the pursuit of pure knowledge for the perfection of man is encouraged.
Science, far from being enjoyed as an end in itself, must be instrumental to

the attainment of a higher goal.44
This perception would eventually result in the establishment of a scientific

tradition quintessentially Islamic (i.e., motivated by the awareness and practice of
Islamic values). But in what way was this new science different from any other? In
this regard, the historian of science Jamil Regep – commenting on the practice of
astronomy during the medieval period – notes the following two approaches
generally adopted by Muslim scientists up until this time:
Broadly speaking, one can identify two distinct ways in which religious
influence manifested itself in medieval Islamic astronomy. First, there was
the attempt to give religious value to astronomy…The second general way
in which religious influence shows up is in the attempt to make astronomy
as metaphysically neutral as possible, in order to ensure that it did not
directly challenge Islamic doctrine.45
The first way mentioned is what might be considered an ‘active’ approach towards
the study of the natural world, in that Muslim scientists attempted to directly
associate their values with a particular scientific practice. One such example was
ʿAlāʾ al Dīn ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm Ibn al-Shatir (d. 1375), a simple muwaqqit
(timekeeper) in the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus. Despite having no other career
than to simply make sure that everyone knew the correct times for obligatory
prayers, this did not stop him from having greater ambitions surrounding his own
task. During his off time – which he most likely had plenty of – Al-Shatir
constructed more accurate instruments (e.g., sundials) and performed theoretical
studies on celestial motion so as to better perform his duties. Consequently, due to
his supplementary activities, Al-Shatir was able to formulate a model for the upper
planets that was conspicuously also used by Copernicus in his development of the
44
Sardar, How Do You Know?, 137.
45
F. Jamil Ragep and Alī al-Qūshjī. “Freeing Astronomy from Philosophy: An Aspect of Islamic Influence on
Science,” Osiris V. 16, Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions (2001), 50.
heliocentric theory nearly two centuries later. This has led researchers to speculate
that the former may have played a role in the latter’s thinking.46
The other way in which Muslim scientists approached their subjects might be seen
as more ‘passive’; rather than associate their values directly with their research and
observations, they would often evade any questions or ideas seen as contrary to
those values. This is not surprising as the very perception of science as a tool
supported by, and in support of, those values would be undermined if any enquiry
collided with the fundamental tenets of Islām. Even so, the practice of such
passivity appears to contradict earlier claims that Islām encouraged the acquisition
of knowledge. However, this sentiment is misplaced in that it reflects the outmoded
view of science as a “neutral” enterprise – for the types of knowledge acquired are
determined by a culture’s values to begin with. As such, these self-imposed limits
are not necessarily detrimental. As a case in point, Muslim scientists eventually
were able to develop the field of astronomy in new, more progressive directions
through abandoning the old paradigm of their predecessors (i.e., Aristotelian
natural philosophy) which supported many concepts that ran contrary to Islamic
doctrine, such as astrology. Saliba summarizes this scientific revolution in the
following way:
As for the intersection between religion and astronomy, and through it the
intersection between science and religion…the new astronomy of hay’a
was developed in tandem with the religious requirements of early Islam. In
a sense this new astronomy could be defined as religiously guided away
from astrology. With the pressure from the anti-astrological quarter,
usually religious in nature or allied with religious forces, astronomy had to
re-orient itself to become more of a discipline that aimed at a
phenomenological description of the behavior of the physical world, and
steer away from investigating the influences its spheres exert on the
sublunary region as astrology would require.47
46
47
Ibid, 186.
One notable example of a successful manifestation of this passive approach may be

found in ‘Ala al-Dīn ‘Alī bin Muḥammad al-Qūshjī (d. 1474), the 15th century C.E.
astronomer who grew up in the courts of Samarkand – one of the scientific centers
of the world at that time – and eventually assumed a chair in teaching astronomy
and mathematics at the Aya Sofia madrassa in Istanbul during the latter years of
his life.48 Commenting on the theological opposition to astronomy during this
period, Ragep notes Al-Qūshjī’s attempts at appeasing the theologians while
simultaneously defending his scientific practice:
Qūshjī is clearly sensitive to the Ash’arite [theologians’] position on

causality, and he makes the interesting observation that part of their
objection to it, at least as regards astronomy, has to do with the
astrological contention of a causal link between the positions of the orbs
and terrestrial events (especially “unusual circumstances”). To get around
such objections, Qūshjī insists that astronomy does not need philosophy,
since one could build the entire edifice of orbs necessary for the
astronomical enterprise using only geometry, reasonable supposition,
appropriate judgments, and provisional hypotheses. These premises allow
astronomers [in the words of Qūshjī]: “to conceive {takhayyalū} from
among the possible approaches the one by which the circumstances of the
planets and their manifold irregularities may be put in order in such a way
as to facilitate their determination of the positions and conjunctions of these
planets for any time they might wish and so as to conform with perception
{ḥiss} and sight {‘iyān}.
....
What makes Qūshjī’s position especially fascinating are some of the

repercussions it had for his astronomical work. Since he claims to be no
longer tied to the principles of Aristotelian physics, he feels free to explore
other possibilities, including the Earth’s rotation.49
48
Ragep, “Freeing Astronomy”, 61.
49
Ibid, 61-63.
As a result of Al-Qūshjī abandoning the ‘old order’ of Aristotelianism for the sake
of his own values, he was not only able to challenge the conventional astronomy of
his time through better substantiated astronomical models, but was also led to
argue that the Earth’s rotation was a possibility, thereby paving the way towards
the construction of the heliocentric paradigm by Copernicus less than a century
later.50 In other words, those boundaries imposed on the Muslim mindset, when
inquiring into the workings of the natural world, also served as liberating
alternatives to outmoded paradigms and helped to advance the sciences in
significant and revolutionary ways.
However, simply knowing why Muslims approached the sciences the way they did
doesn’t exactly inform us as to how these alternatives were constructed – it’s only
one part of the equation. Knowing the form is significantly different from knowing
its substance. As such, we also need to know what were the specific values that
defined the essence of the Islamic scientific enterprise and what motivated Muslim
scientists to explore the natural world in the ways they did. In this regard, many
contemporary scholars have attempted to offer specific criteria for what constitutes
‘Islamic scientific values.’ As a case in point, Sardar mentions that in 1981 a
seminar was held in Stockholm, Sweden where Muslim scientists from around the
world attempted to construct a list of those very values. What was agreed upon at
that conference consisted of a total of ten concepts.51 The first four are considered
self-contained and foundational to the rest:
1) Tawḥīd (Divine Unity):
“Say, ‘He is Allāh the One, Allāh the eternal. He begot no one, nor was He
begotten. No one is comparable to Him.’” (Al-Qur’ān, 112: 1-4)
The concept of Allāh’s Oneness, or unity, is central to Islamic doctrine; even an

entire surah in the Qur’ān is dedicated to its explication. As such, Muslims are
obligated to not only believe in this tenet – and all of Allāh’s specific Attributes –
50
In fact, it has been argued that Qushjī may have been directly responsible for the later findings of Copernicus. For
more on this see, F. Jamil Ragep, “‘Alī Qushjī and Regiomontanus: Eccentric Transformations and Copernican
Revolutions,” Journal for the History of Astronomy 36/4 (2005): 359-371.
51
Sardar, How Do You Know?, 184.
but also to not believe in anything that would contradict it in the slightest. The
implication of this is that Islām reigns supreme in all matters concerning one’s
understanding of reality, along with their perception of science. That said, this
concept also motivates one to infer unity in all other aspects of reality, such as with
humanity (i.e., anti-racism, anti-xenophobia, etc.) and the connection between
knowledge and values.
2) Khilāfah (Trusteeship):
“[Prophet], when your Lord told the angels, ‘I am putting a successor on earth,’
they said, ‘How can You put someone there who will cause damage and bloodshed,
when we celebrate Your praise and proclaim Your holiness?’ but He said, ‘I know
things you do not.’” (Al-Qur’ān, 2:30)
“‘David, We have given you mastery over the land. Judge fairly between people.
Do not follow your desires, lest they divert you from Allāh’s path: those who
wander from His path will have a painful torment because they ignore the Day of
Reckoning.’” (Al-Qur’ān, 38:26)
The concept of human trusteeship on earth is important in that it dictates the way in
which humanity should understand their place in existence: as a responsibility and
duty towards the rest of creation entrusted to them by their Creator. Because Allāh
has put humans on Earth for this task, we must take this status seriously. The
implications of this concept manifest themselves in humanity’s concern for the
environment, their impact on the planet’s health, animals, and other human beings,
and what science and technology should be used for.
3) Ībadah (Worship):
“I created jinn and mankind only to worship Me.” (Al-Qur’ān, 51:56)
Following the concept of trusteeship, Muslims have also been informed by the
Creator that their purpose in life is to worship Him. In line with this, the obligation
to nurture and preserve the earth, and all living and nonliving things, is explicitly
seen as an act of worship itself. Thus, understanding the natural world and
applying that knowledge in an ethical manner, whether it be through biology,

chemistry, physics, engineering, medicine, etc. are all acts that fulfill a Muslim’s
purpose in life in accordance with Islām.
4) ‘Ilm (Knowledge):
“Surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth and in the alternation of the
night and the day there are signs for men possessed of minds who remember Allāh,
standing and sitting and on their side, and reflect upon the creation of the heavens
and the earth…” (Al-Qur’ān, 3:190-191).
As mentioned earlier, the acquisition of beneficial knowledge is one of Islamic

teachings’ most prominent traits. Muslims are constantly asked through the Qur’ān
to “reflect” on the signs of creation and to use their reasoning towards ascertaining
the wonders of the world and the wisdom behind their existence.
Although considered equally important, the subsequent six values depend on the
four aforementioned and function as three contrasting pairs:
5-6) Ḥalāl (Permissible) v. Ḥarām (Impermissible):
“You who believe, intoxicants and gambling, idolatrous practices, and [divining
with] arrows are repugnant acts – Satan’s doing – shun them so that you may
prosper.” (Al-Qur’ān, 5:90)
What Islām considers ‘praiseworthy’ and ‘blameworthy’ are essential to how

Muslim scientists approach their fields. For example, Muslims are obligated to
develop medicines that do not involve intoxicants nor certain animals determined
as ‘unclean’ (e.g., pigs). As a result, physicians coming from the Islamic tradition
will more likely search for alternative ingredients that may have more beneficial
effects on their patients. Furthermore, impractical and unsubstantiated practices
involving divination (e.g., astrology) are prohibited, allowing for Muslims to
concentrate on more realistic and effective means of experimentation and its
subsequent applications.
7-8) ‘Adl (Justice) v. Ẓulm (Tyranny):
“You who believe, uphold justice and bear witness to Allāh, even if it is against
yourselves, your parents, or your close relatives. Whether the person is rich or
poor, Allāh can best take care of both. Refrain from following your own desire, so
that you can act justly – if you distort or neglect justice, Allāh is fully aware of
what you do.” (Al-Qur’ān, 4:135)
The establishment of justice against tyranny is another essential aspect of a Muslim

scientist’s worldview and leads to the development of only beneficial and
non-harmful scientific practices. For example, any approach to the natural world
that leads to injustices against people or the environment must be immediately
shunned; and any science performed for strictly personal benefit at the expense of
others is also prohibited.
9-10) Istislah/Maslahah (Public Interest) v. ‘Isrāf/Tabdhīr (Waste):52
Give relatives their due, and the needy, and travelers — but do not squander your
wealth wastefully: those who squander are the brothers of Satan, and Satan is most
ungrateful to his Lord – but if, while seeking some bounty that you expect from
your Lord, you turn them down, then at least speak some word of comfort to them.
(Al-Qur’ān, 17: 26-28)
This last pair of concepts continues to establish a humanitarian and

environmentalist ethic in Muslim scientists by limiting their goals to the betterment
of humanity and restricting them from excesses that would cause unnecessary
harm. For example, the production of a particular energy or fuel, food source, or
construction material, should be for the sake of facilitating human survival and
welfare, but should not be overproduced to the extent that they create unnecessary
pollutants that eventually damage the very people they were made to benefit nor
the environment from which they were cultivated.
52
Sardar mistranslated the word for ‘waste’ here as ‘dhiya’. Thus, I have changed it to reflect the correct
terminology.
Although this list may not be considered exhaustive by some, it has been one of the
only attempts at constructing a list of definitive Islamic scientific values. These
constructs also help to exemplify the essence of the Islamic scientific enterprise,
reflecting the historical realities of the early Muslim community and its approach
towards the natural world. In many ways then, Muslim scientists’ attempts at
understanding reality and benefiting from it were the manifestation of strictly
following their own ethos. So while Islam itself is not explicit in constructing a
particular understanding of science, it may certainly be credited as the central
paradigm which motivated Muslims to form the scientific practices and theories
that they did – both actively and passively– and facilitated genuine scientific
discoveries outside of Greek thought, which had been dominant for many centuries
prior.
How Muslim scientists practiced their fields and perceived the world through their
own values is not a novel phenomenon in the history of science, nor is it
anomalous to how contemporary science is practiced today. On the contrary, many
influential thinkers have subscribed to this perception. One such philosopher, by
the name of John Dewey (d. 1952), even coined the term ‘Instrumentalism’ to
describe this historically normative scientific praxis:
The office of physical science is to discover those properties and relations

of things in virtue of which they are capable of being used as
instrumentalities; physical science makes claim to disclose not the inner
nature of things but only those connections of things with one another that
determine outcomes and hence can be used as means.53
Dewey was among the forerunners who challenged the notion of scientific realism,
or the idea that theories and their subaltern facts correspond entirely to reality.54 As
an anti-realist, he believed that science was not an approximate measure of truth,
but was goal-oriented and limited by the intentions and desires of scientists
themselves. No one can possibly have a full account of the physical world because
53
John Dewey, preface to Experience and Nature (London: George Allen & Unwin, LTD., 1929), v.
54
Michael Liston, “Scientific Realism and Antirealism”, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed January 12,
2017, http://www.iep.utm.edu/sci-real/
no one has a full account of the data, nor can they perceive beyond the cultural
contexts by which they meaningfully define and organize their experiences. Thus,
the construction of theories is an entirely subjective enterprise where ‘truth’ is not
defined in an absolute sense, but in accordance with what works towards an
aspired end; the best theories are those which produce the best results.
Dewey’s views would go on to inspire other philosophers of science, including

Willard Quine (d. 2000) and the aforementioned Thomas Kuhn, forming the
philosophical tradition known today as ‘Pragmatism.’ And despite this
understanding of science being considered relatively new – as it was in response to
a set of problems emanating from the 20th century C.E. – philosophers drawing
from this tradition have promoted their ideas as the most coherent and workable
understanding of the normative historical scientific praxis. Unfortunately, the view
of science as being “neutral” and “objective” is still the dominant paradigm among
the lay community. This raises the question as to why and how such an alien
relationship exists between these two groups (an analysis that is beyond the scope
of this paper). That aside, the Pragmatists’ conception appears to more accurately
represent the historical realities of early Muslim scientific practice, if only because
the Classical Narrative – which is based on scientific realism – is so obviously
wrong in its central assumption that Islamic values were irrelevant or averse to
scientific productivity.
Thus, it would be appropriate to summarize Islamic science as an enterprise which

adopts an instrumentalist approach with regard to Islamic values. In the same way,
we may define contemporary science as one which adopts a form of secular
instrumentalism, given that the Western ethos is the dominant and most influential
in the contemporary period.
However, now knowing the internal influences in the rise of scientific productivity,
how did this correlate with those influences external to Islamic civilization?
Working in symbiosis with Islamic values, the environment Muslims lived in at the
time also played a major factor. In other words, the desire to efficiently function as
a community through the unification of language and administrative protocols was
also motivated by the need to survive and compete with other hostile empires (i.e.,
the Byzantine and Sassanid) which surrounded the Islamic polity. Thus, the
acquisition of the sciences and their subsequent translation were spurred not only
by the shared values of the Muslim community, but by the conditions that
provoked those values to be expressed and protected.
Al-Ghazālī: Villain or Scapegoat?

Given the Classical Narrative’s inability to adequately represent the historical data
on the rise of scientific productivity in Islamic civilization, it is also likely
inadequate in representing its decline. In other words, to suggest that the values
which spurred scientific inquiry and ingenuity were simultaneously responsible for
their stagnation is nothing less than an archetypal example of incoherency.
However, as simple as it may be to dismiss the Classical Narrative on the basis of
logic alone, I still find it necessary to address some of its finer points regarding the
decline, if only for the sake of accentuating the efficacy of an alternative theory.
It is generally agreed upon that the inauguration of the Age of Dependency began
roughly around the 16th century C.E. as scientific productivity in the Muslim world
noticeably started to wane. The initial phases of the decline coincided with an
increased reliance on the scientific institutions, technologies, and theories
emanating from Europe. Gradually, this dependency became an enduring feature of
Islamic civilization, culminating in its utter intellectual subservience to foreign
powers by the 19th and 20th centuries C.E. – a reality most apparent to Muslims
today.55 How this all occurred is still undetermined by historians of science, largely
due to an only very recent skepticism towards the definitive conclusions offered by
the Classical Narrative. This scrutiny has not been without its merits, the most
prominent example of such being towards the Orientalists’ portrayal of the
aforementioned Al-Ghazālī, as the archetypical antagonist in the historical drama
between ‘rationality’ and ‘religion.’
Though it has not been made clear to why this eminent scholar is always singled
out as the primary culprit, promoters of the Classical Narrative suggests it has
something to do with his now (in)famous refutation of Aristotelian philosophy
55
Saliba, Islamic Science and the European Renaissance, 247.
titled Tahāfut al-Falāsifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers). As the story goes,
Muslims were scientifically productive due to having adopted the rational
framework of Greek philosophical thought (read ‘Western’), and then suddenly
one scholar came along, expressed his ideas, and that was the end of reasonable
thinking as we know it. Aside from the curious circumstance of a supremely
rational society succumbing to one man’s supposed irrationality, there are a
number of issues with this perspective; the first being Al-Ghazālī’s openly stated
intentions behind his treatise.
In the very introduction of the Tahāfut, Al-Ghazālī makes a detailed list of the
views he wishes to refute, while going out of his way to clarify those ideas he has
no problem with. In particular, he mentions astronomy and mathematics as
examples of the latter, even going so far as to denounce anyone who tries to argue
against them:
Another example [of what I agree with] is their statement: "The solar
eclipse means the presence of the lunar orb between the observer and the
sun. This occurs when the sun and the moon are both at the two nodes at
one degree." This topic is also one into the refutation of which we shall not
plunge, since this serves no purpose. Whoever thinks that to engage in a
disputation for refuting such a theory is a religious duty harms religion and
weakens it. For these matters rest on demonstrations—geometrical and
arithmetical—that leave no room for doubt. Thus, when one who studies
these demonstrations and ascertains their proofs, deriving thereby
information about the time of the two eclipses [and] their extent and
duration, is told that this is contrary to religion, [such an individual] will
not suspect this [science, but] only religion. The harm inflicted on religion
by those who defend it in a way not proper to it is greater than [the harm
caused by] those who attack it in the way proper to it. As it has been said:
"A rational foe is better than an ignorant friend.”56
56
Muhammad al-Ghazālī, second introduction to The Incoherence of the Philosophers, trans. Michael E. Marmura
(Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2000), 5-6.
So, if Al-Ghazālī was not opposed to our conventional understanding of science,

then what was he arguing against and how was he responsible for bringing about
the Age of Dependency? To answer the first question, Al-Ghazālī makes it very
clear that his criticisms of the philosophers are in regards to nothing more than
their abstract non-empirically verifiable beliefs that run contrary to Islām:
When I perceived this vein of folly throbbing within these dimwits, I took it
upon myself to write this book in refutation of the ancient philosophers, to
show the incoherence of their belief and the contradiction of their word in
matters relating to metaphysics; to uncover the dangers of their doctrine
and its shortcomings, which in truth ascertainable are objects of laughter
for the rational and a lesson for the intelligent—I mean the kinds of diverse
beliefs and opinions they particularly hold that set them aside from the
populace and the common run of men. [I will do this] relating at the same
time their doctrine as it actually is, so as to make it clear to those who
embrace unbelief through imitation that all significant thinkers, past and
present, agree in believing in God and the last day; that their differences
reduce to matters of detail extraneous to those two pivotal points (for the
sake of which the prophets, supported by miracles, have been sent); that no
one has denied these two [beliefs] other than a remnant of perverse minds
who hold lopsided opinions, who are neither noticed nor taken into account
in the deliberations of the speculative thinkers, [but who are instead]
counted only among the company of evil devils and in the throng of the
dim-witted and inexperienced. [I will do this] so that whoever believes that
adorning oneself with imitated unbelief shows good judgment and induces
awareness of one's quick wit and intelligence would desist from his
extravagance, as it will become verified for him that those prominent and
leading philosophers he emulates are innocent of the imputation that they
deny the religious laws; that [on the contrary] they believe in God and His
messengers; but that they have fallen into confusion in certain details
beyond these principles, erring in this, straying from the correct path, and
leading others astray. We will reveal the kinds of imaginings and vanities in
which they have been deceived, showing all this to be unproductive
extravagance. God, may He be exalted, is the patron of success in the

endeavor to show what we intend to verify.57
This statement alone should already attract suspicion towards the Classical
Narrative’s accusations against Al-Ghazālī. Regarding the second question then, it
is claimed by critics that his metaphysical views were what ultimately altered
Muslims’ perceptions of rationality and science for the worse. More specifically,
their ire is often focused on three positions he adopted in opposition to the
Aristotelian philosophers at the time. Those positions are as follows: 1) There is no
necessary connection between causes and their effects; 2) The study of
mathematics can be detrimental to one’s beliefs; and 3) Knowledge should only be
acquired and practiced if it possesses utility (i.e., instrumentalism).
1) Al-Ghazālī and Causality
In order to examine Al-Ghazālī’s views on cause and effect, we should begin by

peering through the eyes of his critics – one such being the aforementioned
advocate of the Classical Narrative, Pervez Hoodbhoy.
In his book, Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality,
Hoodbhoy attempts to explain the decline by simply echoing the Classical
Narrative in full form; his entire argument rests on vilifying Islamic religious
orthodoxy (the established scholarly tradition) by targeting Al-Ghazālī as its
apparent archetype. In a chapter solely dedicated to the scholar, Hoodbhoy begins
by both summarizing and chastising Al-Ghazālī’s views on causality:
Fire causes burning, lightning causes thunder, winds cause waves, and
gravity causes bodies to fall. Such connections between an effect and its
cause form the cornerstone of scientific thinking, both modern and
classical. But this notion of causality is one which is specifically rejected by
Asharite doctrine, and the most articulate and effective opponent of
physical causality was AI-Ghazzali. According to AI-Ghazzali, it is futile to
believe that the world runs according to physical laws. God destroys, and
57
Ibid, religious preface, 3.
then recreates, the world after every instant of time. Hence there cannot be
continuity between one moment and the next, and one cannot suppose that a
given action will definitely lead to a particular consequence. Conversely, it
is false to assign a physical cause to any occurrence. In AI-Ghazzali's
theology, God is directly the cause of all physical events and phenomena,
and constantly intervenes in the world.58
Hoodbhoy subsequently concludes that the acceptance of Al-Ghazālī’s perspective

leads to a “fatalistic attitude” that denies the possibility of making predictions and
demotivates people to enquire into the workings of the natural world.59 However,
while it is certainly the case that Al-Ghazālī believed the connection between
causes and their effects was not a necessary or permanent feature of such
relationships – as all things were ultimately determined by Allāh – the notion that
such a belief leads to intellectual lethargy is a questionable one. Hoodbhoy’s
conclusion are especially dubious when one notices his failure to address
Al-Ghazālī’s response to his objections. In other words, Al-Ghazālī had already
played his own devil’s advocate and anticipated this criticism well in advance in
the Tahāfut:
[To this] it may be said [by our detractors]: This leads to the commission of
repugnant contradictions. For if one denies that the effects follow
necessarily from their causes and relates them to the will of their Creator,
the will having no specific designated course but [a course that] can vary
and change in kind, then let each of us allow the possibility of there being in
front of him ferocious beasts, raging fires, high mountains, or enemies
ready with their weapons [to kill him], but [also the possibility] that he
does not see them because God does not create for him [vision of them].
And if someone leaves a book in the house, let him allow as possible its
change on his returning home into a beardless slave boy—intelligent, busy
with his tasks—or into an animal; or if he leaves a boy in his house, let him
allow the possibility of his changing into a dog; or [again] if he leaves
58
Pervez Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality (London: Zed Books
Ltd., 1991), 105.
59
Ibid, 120-121.
ashes, [let him allow] the possibility of its change into musk; and let him
allow the possibility of stone changing into gold and gold into
stone…Indeed, if [such a person] looks at a human being he has seen only
now and is asked whether such a human is a creature that was born, let him
hesitate and let him say that it is not impossible that some fruit in the
marketplace has changed into a human—namely, this human—for God has
power over every possible thing, and this thing is possible; hence, one must
hesitate in [this matter]. This is a mode wide open in scope for [numerous]
illustrations, but this much is sufficient.
[Our] answer [to this] is to say: If it is established that the possible is such
that there cannot be created for man knowledge of its nonbeing, these
impossibilities would necessarily follow. We are not, however, rendered
skeptical by the illustrations you have given because God created for us the
knowledge that He did not enact these possibilities. We did not claim that
these things are necessary. On the contrary, they are possibilities that may
or may not occur. But the continuous habit of their occurrence repeatedly,
one time after another, fixes unshakably in our minds the belief in their
occurrence according to past habit.
….
If, then, God disrupts the habitual [course of nature] by making [the
miracle] occur at the time in which disruptions of habitual [events] take
place, these cognitions [of the nonoccurrence of such unusual possibilities]
slip away from [people's] hearts, and [God] does not create them. There is,
therefore, nothing to prevent a thing being possible, within the capabilities
of God, [but] that by His prior knowledge He knew that He would not do it
at certain times, despite its possibility, and that He creates for us the
knowledge that He will not create it at that time. Hence, in [all] this talk [of
theirs], there is nothing but sheer vilification.60
60
Ibid, 169-171.
Al-Ghazālī’s rendition of his critics’ ridicule includes a number of absurdities that

could be derived from misunderstanding his position: from dramatic changes in
perception to fruit spontaneously morphing into a human being. Apparently, given
that such possibilities are endless, this makes it infeasible to expect any sort of
consistency from the observable world.
However, Al-Ghazālī answers his fictional opponents by emphasizing the fact that
possibilities are not actualities; just because something could be does not
necessitate that it will be. He bolsters his point by stating that there is a habitual
nature to things that Allāh has created, allowing for the uninhibited acquisition of
knowledge and any potential anomalies that may or may not take place. In other
words, regardless if one thinks there is no necessary link between causes and their
effects, their perception of those habitual relationships will still remain the same.
He goes even further to appeal to Allāh’s Omniscience, suggesting that His
Foreknowledge limits the occurrence of every possibility, preventing mankind
from anticipating and subsequently being paralyzed by them.
But even if one doesn’t find Al-Ghazālī’s reasoning valid, it takes little common
sense effort to demonstrate that this accusation against him is incorrect. We need
only recall the number of known possibilities that could happen to us in any given
day; from the moment we wake up to the moment we sleep, the various ways in
which we could be harmed or killed are immeasurable. Whether it be choking on
your food, tripping and breaking your neck, experiencing a heart attack, being
struck by a moving vehicle, being struck by lightning, being mauled by a wild or
domestic animal, having a heavy object fall on you, drowning, dehydration,
poisoning, contracting a fatal disease, being murdered, etc. – and the various ways
all of these can manifest – the majority of people still manage to live their lives
without much reservation, despite knowing all of these things could happen to
them at any given moment. Thus, the claim that such a perspective nurtures a
“fatalistic attitude” is completely unwarranted, because human beings are just too
stubborn to care otherwise. Perhaps had Hoodbhoy and his cohorts taken the time
to read the Tahāfut beyond a cursory level confirmation bias,61 and used a bit of
common sense, Al-Ghazālī’s fictional opponents may have likewise remained in
the realm of possibility.
Even more incriminating evidence against advocates of the Classical Narrative is

their hypocrisy with regards to Ghazalian causality. While repudiating him for
being “irrational,” they simultaneously lionize their own intellectual figures who
held quite similar views. For example, Hoodbhoy lauds the French philosopher
Renè Descartes (d. 1650) as being the “most important” thinker behind modern
science; for whom we apparently still owe a great deal in terms of our
understanding of science today.62 What’s ironic about this is that while Descartes
believed there was a necessary connection between causes and their effects, he did
not believe that such a relationship existed between perception and knowledge –
arguably a far more essential component to the flourishing of science.
In order to showcase Descartes’ position on this epistemic relationship, we need

only look at a few passages from his seminal work Meditationes de Prima
Philosophia (Meditations on First Philosophy) where he argues that the
indefeasibility of one’s observations and abstract deductions can only be
established by first believing in God:
The fact that an atheist can be ‘clearly aware that the three angles of a
triangle are equal to two right angles’ is something I do not dispute. But I
maintain that this awareness of his is not true knowledge, since no act of
awareness that can be rendered doubtful seems fit to be called knowledge.
Now since we are supposed that this individual is an atheist, he cannot be
certain that he is not being deceived on matters which seem to him to be
very evident…And although this doubt may not occur to him, it can still
crop up if someone else raises the point or if he looks into the matter
61
“The tendency to look for evidence in favor of one's controversial hypothesis and not to look for disconfirming
evidence, or to pay insufficient attention to it.” – Bradley Dowden, “Fallacies,” Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, accessed February 21, 2017, http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#ConfirmationBias
62
Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, 11.
himself. So he will never be free of doubt until he acknowledges that God

exists.63
Here, Descartes is quite clear in saying that atheists are incapable of acquiring “real
knowledge” because they don’t believe in God. Although he provides many
reasons for this conclusion, we need only focus on how it reveals a profound irony
emanating from Hoodbhoy’s nomination of the philosopher as a central figure
behind modern science; the idea that atheists are scientifically impotent doesn’t
quite coincide with a narrative that suggests the inherent rationality of
anti-religious thinking.
More importantly however, even if one were to accept Descartes’ reasoning as

valid, his epistemology suffers from a glaring incoherency that actually makes
knowledge virtually unobtainable. This is most evident in his chapter titled the
“Fourth Meditation,” where he suggests that only after having ‘clearly and
distinctly’ ascertained God’s existence can other knowledge be possible:
During the past few days I have accustomed myself to leading my mind
away from the sense; and I have taken careful note of the fact that there is
very little about corporeal things that is truly perceived, whereas much
more is known about the human mind, and still more about God. The result
is that I now have no difficulty in turning my mind away from imaginable
things and towards things which are objects of the intellect alone and are
totally separate from matter…And when I consider the fact that I have
doubts, or that I am a thing that is incomplete and dependent, then there
arises in me a clear and distinct idea of a being who is independent and
complete, that is, an idea of God. And from the mere fact that there is such
an idea within me, or that I who possess this idea exist, I clearly infer that
God also exists, and that every single moment of my entire existence
depends on him. So clear is this conclusion that I am confident that the
human intellect cannot know anything that is more evident or more certain.
And now, from this contemplation of the true God, in whom all the
René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy with Selections from the Objections and Replies, ed. John
63
Cottingham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 103.

treasures of wisdom and the sciences lie hidden, I think I can see a way
forward to the knowledge of other things.64
A careful examination of this passage showcases a very obvious logical

inconsistency that renders Descartes’ entire argumentation suspect: If one requires
a belief in God in order to have certainty, how is it possible to believe in God with
certainty?
This conundrum, now referred to as the “Cartesian Circle,” did not escape
Descartes and he did attempt to treat the problem.65 Despite this, however, his
critics did not find his solutions convincing and his epistemology would eventually
be eclipsed by more tenable explanations. All this considered, it seems remarkably
nonsensical for Hoodbhoy to accuse Al-Ghazālī of promoting “fatalism” when he
simultaneously champions a thinker who argued himself into intellectual paralysis.
In other words, if the latter can so credulously be regarded as an exemplar of
modern scientific thinking, then it is quite ludicrous to see the former as its
opposite.
2) Al-Ghazālī and Mathematics
After a questionable exposé of Ghazalian causality, Hoodbhoy quickly shifts focus

away from the Tahāfut and goes on to examine the medieval scholar’s views on
64
Ibid, 37.
65
Descartes’ attempt to reconcile his circular reasoning simply amounted to demarcating between immediate
knowledge and recollected knowledge:
Lastly, as to the fact that I was not guilty of circularity when I said that the only reason we have for being
sure that we clearly and distinctly perceive is true is the fact that God exists, but that we are sure that God
exists only because we perceive this clearly: I have already given an adequate explanation of this point in
my reply to the Second Objections, where I made a distinction between what we in fact perceive clearly
and what we remember having perceived clearly on a previous occasion. To begin with, we are sure that
God exists because we attend to the arguments which prove this; but subsequently it is enough for us to
remember that we perceived something clearly in order for us to be certain that it is true. This would not
be sufficient if we did not know that God exists and is not a deceiver. – Ibid, 106.
In summary, ascertaining the existence of God can be made certain within the moment, but the memory of coming
to that conclusion can only be made certain by believing in God. However, the solution is superficial in that it
presumes that one’s memory is already reliable enough to recall having ascertained God’s existence with certainty
prior to believing in Him.
mathematics, drawing from his biography, Al-Munqidh min al-Dalāl (Deliverance

from Error). Hoodbhoy more or less begins and ends his analysis by merely
quoting a passage from Al-Ghazālī and then adding some brief commentary:
[Al-Ghazālī states:] “There are two drawbacks which arise from

mathematics. The first is that every student of mathematics admires its
precision and the clarity of its demonstrations. This leads him to believe in
the philosophers and to think that all their sciences resemble this one in
clarity and demonstrative power. Further, he has already heard the
accounts on everybody's lips of their unbelief, their denial of God's
attributes, and their contempt for revealed truth; he becomes an unbeliever
merely by accepting them as authorities.”
The argument here is clearly that mathematics is potentially, but not

necessarily, dangerous. The danger exists because those who study the
subject may become inebriated with the power and beauty of precise
reasoning, and so forsake belief in revelation.66
Despite what may appear to be an unambiguous dismissal of the study of

mathematics -- due to its imbuing its wielders with the “power and beauty of
precise reasoning” -- and subsequent rejection of religious beliefs, Al-Ghazālī
clearly has been misrepresented. My contention is not about a simple difference of
interpretation, rather it is in contrast to a case of selective attention. Whether due to
the fact that he derived the quote solely from a secondary source,67 or because he
didn’t feel the need to present the entire context of the passage in question,
Hoodbhoy is clearly being disingenuous.
Aside from Al-Ghazālī’s aforementioned approval of mathematics in the Tahāfut,

his opposition to its study here refers specifically to a phenomenon during his time
where the philosophers insisted that the value of pure mathematics rested
exclusively in the appraisal of specific metaphysical doctrines.68 These included
66
Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, 105-106.
67
Hoodbhoy quotes from W. Montgomery Watt, The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazzali (London: George Allen &
Unwin, 1953), 33.
68
Al-Ghazālī, Incoherence, 8-9.
the doctrine of “the world’s pre-eternity,” the doctrine of “the world’s

post-eternity,” the doctrine “that heaven is an animal that moves through volition,”
and the doctrine “that annihilation is impossible for the human soul,” among many
others.69 Moreover, mathematics was also being used as a means to justify the
philosophers’ subaltern sciences, like astral determinations (i.e., astrology),
talismans, and even magic.70 In other words, although mathematics was important
for learning about the natural world, it was predominantly being utilized for the
sake of anything but. As such, Al-Ghazālī warned of studying the discipline since
it was not yet fully demarcated from the philosophers’ superstitions. In fact, his
concerns are mentioned in the passage immediately following Hoodbhoy’s
reference:
[…he becomes an unbeliever merely by accepting them as authorities],

asserting: “If religion were true, this would not have been unknown to these
philosophers, given their precision in this science of mathematics.” Thus,
when he learns through hearsay of their unbelief and rejection of religion,
he concludes that it is right to reject and disavow religion. How many a
man have I seen who strayed from the path of truth on this pretext and for
no other reason! One may say to such a man: “A person skilled in one field
is not necessarily skilled in every field…On the contrary, in each field there
are men who have reached in it a certain degree of skill and preeminence,
although they may be quite stupid and ignorant about other things. What
the ancients had to say about mathematical topics was apodeictic, whereas
their views on metaphysical questions were conjectural. But this is known
only to an experienced man who has made a thorough study of the matter.”
When such an argument is urged against one who has become an
unbeliever out of mere conformism, he finds it unacceptable. Rather,
caprice’s sway, vain passion, and love of appearing to be clever prompt
him to persist in his high opinion of the philosophers with regard to all
their sciences. This, then, is a very serious evil, and because of it one should
warn off anyone who would embark upon the study of those mathematical
69
Ibid, 10-11.
70
Ibid, 162.
sciences. For even though they do not pertain to the domain of religion, yet,
since they are among the primary elements of the philosophers’ sciences,
the student of mathematics will be insidiously affected by the sinister
mischief of the philosophers. Rare, therefore, are those who study
mathematics without losing their religion and throwing off the restraint of
piety.71
Surprisingly, Hoodbhoy doesn’t bother to mention the other half of Al-Ghazālī’s

statement and infers an entirely different conclusion from what the scholar was
actually conveying. However, even more contrary to Hoodbhoy’s accusations is
yet another statement by Al-Ghazālī, in which he explains a second reason that
studying mathematics may prove to be problematic:
The second evil likely to follow from the study of the mathematical sciences
derives from the case of an ignorant friend of Islam who supposes that our
religion must be championed by the rejection of every science ascribed to
the philosophers. So he rejects all their sciences, claiming that they display
ignorance and folly in them all. He even denies their statements about
eclipses of the sun and the moon and asserts that their views are contrary to
the revealed Law. When such an assertion reaches the ears of someone who
knows those things through apodeictic demonstration, he does not doubt the
validity of his proof, but rather believes that Islam is built on ignorance and
the denial of apodeictic demonstration. So he becomes all the more
enamored of philosophy and envenomed against Islam. Great indeed is the
crime against religion committed by anyone who supposes that Islam is to
be championed by the denial of these mathematical sciences.72
In summary, Al-Ghazālī also went on to critique the other extreme of those who
reject mathematics altogether. As such, when we go beyond a cursory reading of
the texts, we find that his concern for studying mathematics rested not in its
inherent opposition to religion or science, but in the philosopher’s monopolization
71
Al-Ghazālī, Deliverance from Error (al-Munqidh min al-Dalāl), trans. Richard J. Mccarthy, S.J. (Boston: Twayne,
1980), 8-9. Accessed February 14, 2017,
https://www.aub.edu.lb/fas/cvsp/Documents/reading_selections/CVSP%20202/Al-ghazali.pdf
72
Ibid, 9.
of it solely for the sake of their unsubstantiated metaphysical views. Thus, contrary
to Hoodbhoy’s assertions, Al-Ghazālī was not against the study of mathematics per
se; rather, he attempted to facilitate it by pointing out its licentious misuse by his
intellectual opponents.
3) Al-Ghazālī and Instrumentalism
Hoodbhoy finalizes his critique of religious orthodoxy by suggesting that the overt
instrumentalism practiced by the early Muslims was another factor which led to the
decline of scientific productivity in Islamic civilization:
A second factor which discouraged learning for learning's sake was the
increasingly utilitarian character of post Golden Age Islamic society.
Utilitarianism - the notion that the only desirable things are those which
are useful - was not an obsession of Islamic society in the early days of its
intellectual development.73
Here, Hoodbhoy indirectly continues his assault on Al-Ghazālī for his opposition
to the Aristotelian philosophers, seemingly unaware that the latter conflated
scientific disciplines with their metaphysical doctrines. Despite having already
shown that instrumentalism was the driving force behind the rise of scientific
productivity in Islamic civilization, this accusation makes little sense. As such, we
should examine the basis on which Hoodbhoy is uncritically drawing this
conclusion.
One of the first critics of the Classical Narrative was the historian of science
Abdelhamid Ibrahim Sabra (d. 2013), who saw the conflict thesis as inadequate
and alternatively posited that, “the decline of science occurred, not in the context
of opposition (as is usually thought) but in the context of acceptance and
assimilation.”74 Despite Sabra offering a different perspective on the subject, his
hypothesis is more a modification of the Classical Narrative, rather than a genuine
critique. For instance, while he views the decline of scientific productivity in the
73
Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, 121.
74
Abdelhamid Ibrahim Sabra, “The Appropriation and Subsequent Naturalization of Greek Science in Medieval
Islam: A Preliminary Statement”, History of Science 25 (1987), 240.
Muslim world as not being the fault of religion opposing science, he believes it
occurred due to science playing a subservient role (i.e., instrumentalism).
Given that Sabra’s hypothesis still borrows extensively from the Classical
Narrative’s version of events, it’s not surprising that his analysis also projects a
negative view of religious influence on scientific inquiry. More specifically, he
does not resist the temptation to impugn the same historical figures as his
predecessors. For example, in his article, “The Appropriation and Subsequent
Naturalization of Greek Science in Medieval Islam,” Sabra writes:
In a chapter of his Muqaddima devoted to a lengthy refutation of

philosophy the fourteenth century historian Ibn Khaldūn wrote that, “The
problems of physics [he was referring to Aristotelian natural philosophy]
are of no importance for us in our religious affairs or our livelihoods.
Therefore, we must leave them alone.” He was echoing a sentiment
already expressed by Ghazālī three hundred years earlier…There is only
one principle that should be consulted whenever one has to decide whether
or not a certain branch of learning is worthy of pursuit: it is the
all-important consideration that “this world is a sowing ground for the
next”; and Ghazālī quotes in this connection the Prophetic Tradition:
“May God protect us from useless knowledge.” The final result of all this
is an instrumentalist and religiously oriented view of all secular and
permitted knowledge…[which would] put a curb on theoretical inquiry.75
Yet again we find Al-Ghazālī shouldering the burden for the decline, only this time
his influence has been reinterpreted as having limited science to a religious
function rather than opposing it altogether. To support his position, Sabra makes a
tenuous connection between the views of the late 15th century C.E. historian Abū
Zayd 'Abd ar-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Khaldūn al-Ḥaḍramī (d. 1406) and
Al-Ghazālī, supplemented by a single ḥadīth. Despite Sabra considering this
“strongly suggested observation,”76 such scant evidence surely cannot constitute
enough historical data to propound a theory on the decline of a scientific tradition.
75
Ibid, 239-240.
76
Ibid, 239.
77
This is further bolstered by the realization that Al-Ghazālī’s rejection of ‘useless
sciences’ cannot possibly be seen as the least bit unwarranted, especially if we
recall the fact that Aristotelian physics (i.e., ‘natural philosophy’) incorporated
many erroneous concepts such as astrology, a stationary Earth, and an incorrect
view of celestial motion.78 To Al-Ghazālī, subjects such as astronomy were not
similar methodologically to natural philosophy; the former was defined by its
devotion to observation and the precise use of mathematics – much like
contemporary physics – whereas the latter was based almost entirely on speculative
reasoning. Despite the philosophers’ conflations, a lesser form of demarcation did
actually exist between the two prior to the advent of Islamic science, and only
became more pronounced as Muslims critically examined the Greek texts for
useful material. As Regep notes:
Islamic scientists inherited an astronomy from the ancients that already had
been differentiated to a lesser or greater degree from natural philosophy.
Islamic astronomers, though, carried this process much farther along, and
it does not seem unreasonable to see this, at least in part, as a response to
religious objections directed at Hellenistic physics and metaphysics, on the
one hand, and to religious neutrality towards mathematics, on the other.79
As such, it should not be an affront to historians that Al-Ghazālī would want to

seek more practical alternatives. Seemingly unbeknownst to Sabra, Ibn Khaldūn
likewise made this distinction. Only a few paragraphs prior to where the former
quotes him, he explains that the “problems” he was referring to revolved around
the philosophers’ assumptions regarding the unequivocal relationship between
Aristotelian abstract universals and sense perception:
The arguments concerning the corporeal existentia constitute what they

[the philosophers] call the science of physics. The insufficiency lies in the
fact that conformity between the results of thinking - which, as they assume,
77
Perhaps this should not be surprising given that Sabra did not intend for his thesis to be seen as comprehensive or
for Al-Ghazālī to shoulder complete responsibility for the decline. He further claims that it was only “meant as a
relevant and possibly illuminating observation that might help in future research by directing our attention in a
certain direction rather than others” – Ibid, 240-241.
78
Ragep, “Freeing Astronomy,” 59-60.
79
Ibid, 60.
are produced by rational norms and reasoning - and the outside world, is
not unequivocal. All the judgments of the mind are general ones, whereas
the existentia of the outside world are individual in their substances.
Perhaps, there is something in those substances that prevents conformity
between the universal (judgments) of the mind and the individual
(substances) of the outside world. At any rate, however, whatever
(conformity) is attested by sensual perception has its proof in the fact that it
is observable. (It does not have its proof) in (logical) arguments. Where,
then, is the unequivocal character they find in (their arguments)?80
In no way then was Ibn Khaldūn a representative of anti-scientific sentiments

either. That said, perhaps the greatest evidence against Sabra’s – and subsequently
Hoodbhoy’s – assertions are the numerous scientific advancements that occurred
five centuries post Al-Ghazālī. Although these discoveries are at the individual
level and don’t appear to be brought about by any institutionalized initiatives, they
still reflect a scientific mentality prevalent within society and one which had no
real restrictions. Such examples include the accomplishments of scholars like ‘Ala'
al-Dīn Abu al-Hasan ‘Alī ibn Abi al-Hazm al-Qarshi Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 1288), who
discovered the pulmonary circulation of blood, Kamal al-Dīn al-Farisī (d. 1319),
who discovered how the colors of a rainbow are formed,81 Mulla Fatḥallāh
al-Shirwānī (d. 1450) and Shams al-Dīn al-Khafirī (d. 1550), who both authored
astronomical commentaries critical of the Ptolemaic system, and many more.82 In
other words, the post-Ghazālī age was ripe with scientific discoveries and treatises
that most certainly influenced European scientists and paved the way towards the
Western scientific revolution.
Summarizing all the above discussions, not only is it evident that the Classical
Narrative fails to adequately represent the events and influences leading up to the
Age of Productivity, but also misrepresents the events and influences which led to
its decline. The arch villain chosen to exemplify a religious orthodoxy antagonistic
80
Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddimah V.3, trans. Franz Rosenthal (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1967), 251.
81
Saliba, Islamic Science and European Renaissance, 239.
82
Ibid, 240.
to science is not only innocent of the crimes he is accused of, but has proven to be
only a scapegoat for Orientalists’ fables.
Towards a New Understanding

The analysis I have conducted thus far on the rise and decline of scientific
productivity in Islamic civilization has not merely been for the sake of critique, but
towards establishing a new understanding of the subject entirely. What has been
determined, up until this point, is that the Classical Narrative can no longer be
considered a valid and coherent means by which to understand the scientific
history of Islamic civilization – the thesis that religion conflicted with or
subjugated science to inoperability is simply untenable. Rather, what we find is
that an overt instrumentalism, spearheaded by religious orthodoxy, actually
nurtured scientific ingenuity through the rejection of the outmoded paradigm of
Aristotelian philosophy. The question remains then: What went wrong?
Islamic science flourished well into the 16th century C.E., only then to decline to a
point where Muslims began to depend solely on European ideas and inventions.
Somehow and somewhere before the end of this period, events transpired within
Islamic civilization that took it on a self-destructive trajectory; events which would
see the abandonment of its scientific values altogether. As Açikgenç states:
… a scientific tradition is continuous, as such, it cannot be interrupted.

For, if there is an interruption, it may not continue creatively as it is the
case with Islamic scientific tradition today. Discontinuity will necessarily
turn the members of that tradition to another civilization where they can
find a continuous tradition.83
In line with the previous discussions, Al-Ghazālī and his intellectual progeny were
certainly not to blame for undermining science; they simply believed that rational
knowledge should produce effective results and not remain in the realm of the
83
Açikgenç, Islamic Scientific Tradition in History, 28.
abstract.84 Thus, contrary to the Classical Narrative, scientific ingenuity is not

limited by mere opposition towards certain forms of speculative reasoning – as to
afford every theoretical whim the same value would be unrealistic and impractical.
Rather, the limitation in question would need to be far more constraining,
imprisoning theoretical inquiry not by means of utilitarian subservience, but some
form of impervious absolutism. Had the early Muslims’ instrumentalism been
prone to the latter, the result would have been the total abandonment of scientific
research, given the superfluous nature of inquiring further into already resolved
issues. On the contrary, we find instrumentalist-minded scientists struggling to
make their research relevant by formulating more pragmatic models – such as in
the case of Al-Qūshjī and others – making it possible for alternative solutions to be
found later. Therefore, recalling Dewey, we may be able to find clues towards
revealing the culprit:
The history of the development of the physical sciences is the story of the
enlarging possession by mankind of more efficacious instrumentalities for
dealing with the conditions of life and action. But when one neglects the
connection of these scientific objects with the affairs of primary experience,
the result is a picture of a world of things indifferent to human interests
because it is wholly apart from experience. It is more than merely isolated,
for it is set in opposition. Hence when it is viewed as fixed and final in itself
it is a source of oppression to the heart and paralysis to imagination.
….
Since the seventeenth century this conception of experience as the

equivalent of subjective private consciousness set over against nature,
which consists wholly of physical objects, has wrought havoc in philosophy.
85
84
For a more thorough discussion on what Al-Ghazālī considers ‘useful’ and ‘blameworthy,’ refer to Che Zarrina
Sa'ari, “Classification of Sciences: A Comparative Study of liJyii' culum aI-din and al-Risiilah al-laduniyyah”,
Intellectual Discourse 7(1) (Gombak: IIUM Press, 1999), 53-77.
85
Dewey, Experience and Nature, 11.
What is fascinating about this passage is that it seems to admit of an ideology that
intimately connects an ailing Islamic civilization to its now dominant Western
counterpart; what the latter was only beginning to experience by the 17th century
C.E., was what may have very well determined the destiny of the former by the
same period. It is from this passage that I began my journey into discovering how
the decline of scientific productivity in Islamic civilization occurred, and it is
where, I believe, the answer is to be found.
In the next paper, we will examine the actual influences behind the Age of
Dependency and how Muslims may be able to revive the Age of Productivity.

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2 | The Structure of Scientific Productivity in Islamic Civilization

Disclaimer: The views, opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in these

Copyright © 2017. Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research

Abstract: ​The popular analysis (promulgated by Orientalists) on the rise and

But in the 12th century, Muslim orthodoxy reawakened, spearheaded by the

viselike grip of orthodoxy, Islam choked. No longer would Muslim,

Science is not an entity that is obvious to everyone…To begin with, there

Broadly speaking then, ‘science’ may simply be defined as a “body of knowledge.”

However, although this definition may be useful in a broader analysis,

The implications of such a view may seem counterintuitive; contrary to being

goals related exclusively to the preservation and functioning of a non-religious

interpretation. Therefore, I propose that the categories of ‘rise’ and ‘decline’ be

Finally, it is necessary to know those terms representing the primary ​influences

The ‘rise’ and ‘decline’ of a scientific tradition re-conceptualized.

The ‘Classical Narrative’ and Scholarly Dissent

Middle Ages ​(Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2010), 81-82.

The historical significance of the Arab conquests can hardly be

However, when discussing the rise of scientific productivity in Islamic civilization,

version of events,21 otherwise referred to as the ‘Classical Narrative,’ has

In this context, very few authors would go beyond the characterization of

The classical narrative, however persists in imagining that the Islamic

nuanced and evidence-based perspectives regarding the history of Islamic science –

According to legend, Al-M’amūn’s desire to translate Greek works originated from

Similarly, Al-Nadīm contradicts the Classical Narrative by asserting that the

This translation movement provided the knowledge base of the emergent

However, it is unsurprising that scholars supportive of the Classical Narrative

But why was such a theological controversy so important to Orientalists? Because

The records in Damascus were in Greek…The records were translated

Islām as Values – Science as a Tool

Furthermore, the Prophet Muḥammad ‫ ﷺ‬encouraged seeking knowledge to the

"Knowledge from which no benefit is derived is like a treasure out of which

These a​ ḥadīth enjoin Muslims to acquire knowledge that is “beneficial” and to

The classical scholars of Islam were concerned that in the pursuit of

Science, far from being enjoyed as an end in itself, must be instrumental to

This perception would eventually result in the establishment of a scientific

One notable example of a successful manifestation of this passive approach may be

Qūshjī is clearly sensitive to the Ash’arite [theologians’] position on

What makes Qūshjī’s position especially fascinating are some of the

1) Tawḥīd (Divine Unity):

The concept of Allāh’s Oneness, or unity, is central to Islamic doctrine; even an

“I created jinn and mankind only to worship Me.” (Al-Qur’ān, 51:56)

applying that knowledge in an ethical manner, whether it be through biology,

As mentioned earlier, the acquisition of beneficial knowledge is one of Islamic

5-6) Ḥalāl (Permissible) v. Ḥarām (Impermissible):

What Islām considers ‘praiseworthy’ and ‘blameworthy’ are essential to how

7-8) ‘Adl (Justice) v. Ẓulm (Tyranny):

The establishment of justice against tyranny is another essential aspect of a Muslim

9-10) Istislah/Maslahah (Public Interest) v. ‘Isrāf/Tabdhīr (Waste):52

This last pair of concepts continues to establish a humanitarian and

The office of physical science is to discover those properties and relations

Dewey’s views would go on to inspire other philosophers of science, including

Thus, it would be appropriate to summarize Islamic science as an enterprise which

Al-Ghazālī: Villain or Scapegoat?

So, if Al-Ghazālī was not opposed to our conventional understanding of science,

extravagance. God, may He be exalted, is the patron of success in the

1) Al-Ghazālī and Causality

In order to examine Al-Ghazālī’s views on cause and effect, we should begin by

Hoodbhoy subsequently concludes that the acceptance of Al-Ghazālī’s perspective

Al-Ghazālī’s rendition of his critics’ ridicule includes a number of absurdities that

Even more incriminating evidence against advocates of the Classical Narrative is

In order to showcase Descartes’ position on this epistemic relationship, we need

himself. So he will never be free of doubt until he acknowledges that God

More importantly however, even if one were to accept Descartes’ reasoning as

Abstract: The popular analysis (promulgated by Orientalists) on the rise and

Finally, it is necessary to know those terms representing the primary influences

Middle Ages (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2010), 81-82.

These a ḥadīth enjoin Muslims to acquire knowledge that is “beneficial” and to

mathematics, drawing from his biography, Al-Munqidh min al-Dalāl (Deliverance

Aside from Al-Ghazālī’s aforementioned approval of mathematics in the Tahāfut,