A Comment I tried to sent to an interesting discussion going on in Jaa’s blog

http://jawish.org/blog/archives/236-Evolution-Theory-Atheists-Excuse!.html

I agree that there are some Islamic scholars who get carried away
passionately promoting/defending their beliefs, caught in the heat of the
moment and denigrating sound science in the process.
Misinformation about Islam also abounds all levels of intellectuals, from the
common man to the learned of all fields, Islamic and non-Islamic.

It may be not be entirely wrong to say that not all survives of the Islam
(Submission to Gods Will) that the Prophet (pbuh) left for us.

Islam is not only about prayers and rolling the rosary (using opposable
thumbs kekeke). It is a way of life. Muslims are people who are aware of the
reality of the existence of God and this awareness leads to a deepened
consciousness of the importance and meaningfulness of the gift of human
life and the responsibilities that go with it.

In my opinion there is no conflict between God and Science: Between

Qur’an and science; the pursuit of truth through observation, induction and
deduction etc.

Efforts to divorce science from God were started not by Islamic scholars but
by Christendom; where men of science were persecuted like women were
for being witches!
(Though there were some post-caliphate Moslem scholars who later were
purported to have discouraged scientific endeavours; using such alleged
hadith as the one where the Prophet is supposed to have related the story of a
man who deduces the location of Gabriel through math & thereby
discourage math! Preposterous and no doubt a fallacious hadith, but clearly a
reason enough for some to automatically reject whole of Islam as hogwash).

It was the followers of Muhammad (yes PBUH) that spawned an age of

innovation and discovery. In the words of Robert Briffault in his book The
Making of Humanity-

“ It was under the influence of the Arabian and Moorish revival of culture,
and not in the fifteen century, that the real Renaissance took place. Spain,
not Italy was the cradle of the rebirth of Europe. After steadily sinking lower
and lower into barbarism, it had reached the darkest depths of ignorance and
degradation when the cities of the Saracenic world, Baghdad, Cairo,
Cordova, Toledo, were actually growing centres of civilization and
intellectual activity. It was there that the new life arose which was to grow
into a new phase of human evolution. From the time when the influence of
their culture made itself felt, began the stirring of a new life.
The fact has been set forth again and again. But it has been nevertheless
stubbornly ignored and persistently minimised. The debt of Europe to the
‘beaten dog’ could, of course, find no place in the scheme of Christian
history, and the garbled falsification has imposed itself on all subsequent
conception. Even Gibbon treated Islam depreciatingly, an instance of the
power of conventional tradition upon its keenest opponents. Until the last
century there did not even exist anything approaching accurate knowledge of
Saracenic history and culture. What we call science arose in Europe as a
result of a new spirit of inquiry, of new methods of investigation, of the
method of experiment, observation, and measurement, of the development of
mathematics in a form unknown to Greeks. That spirit and those methods
were introduced into European world by the Arabs.”

He further writes-

“ It is highly probable that but for the Arabs, modern European civilisation
would never have arisen at all; it is also absolutely certain that but for them,
it would not have assumed that character which has enabled it to transcend
all previous phases of evolution. For although there is not a single aspect of
European growth in which the decisive influence of Islamic culture is not
traceable, nowhere is it so clear and momentous as in the genesis of that
power which constitutes the paramount distinctive force of the modern
world and the supreme source of its victory – natural science and the
scientific truth”

So what has happened to us now?

During the 91-gulf war when the ‘U-arse’ invaded Iraq, there were approx.
5000 scientists in Iraq compared to an estimated 50,000 in Israel. Lucien
Bronicki, one of Israel’s foremost experts in geothermal power, pointing to a
gathering of high tech college seniors in Ben Gurion University said, “
These are our oil wells”. (Israel also has the most companies listed in
Nasdaq, of any nation outside the US.)
The problem that lies in the Moslem world is not one of belief per se, but
how we define it. Assertions by Moslem scholars that this life is as fleeting
as a fart & that the next life is The life to Live up to is in my opinion the
reason for our downfall, besides the residual effects of colonial subjugation
and corrupt governments etc. When the Qur’an asserts that what you reap is
what you sow, that God would not change the condition of a people until
they change it themselves, that BOTH life’s are to be pursued to the fullest
and that one is to make prayer and then spread across the planes of earth and
‘work’ to achieve!

Adaalath or whoever proclaims God’s Will must emphasise the need to

empower ourselves with knowledge and to arm our youth with University
Degrees in every field. Supremacy in this world cannot be through
brandishing swords or by waiting for a ‘Mahdhi’. This perception prevalent
in the yester-Gen Moslem psyche needs to be corrected not because the neo-
Gen are not buying it, but because that is not what Islam is about or what the
Qur’an/God commands!

It is for this reason that I commend you Jaa. In a sense you are a better
Moslem than those who shuttle daily between the mosque and home; yes for
them is the afterlife, but not this life. As a Moslem we have a duty to strive
for the best of both!

Saying Islam has a conflict of interest with Science to downright reject it OR

vice versa, is equally wrong & quite frankly lame IMHO :-). Both are in its
purest form, merely reflections of each other.