Separation of Religion and Science

people of Madinah informed him that they had been performing pollination for centuries. “Since you discouraged the practice, the produce was affected.” In resignation, the Prophet allowed them to continue with pollination, saying, “You have better knowledge of your worldly affairs.” (Sahih Muslim 2363) This was neither acknowledgement of ignorance on the Prophet’s part nor an expression of humility, rather the promulgation of a great truth, illustrated in the form of the unique incident quoted above. The Prophet’s statement was an encouragement to separate belief from scientific research. In ancient times, for thousands of years, religious belief was intermingled with knowledge of other disciplines. This is why, any scientific discovery that went contrary to the belief of the religious elite of the time was cruelly suppressed. It was for this reason that the Greek philosopher Socrates was sentenced to death by the religious establishment of his time. Socrates was one of the leading intellectual figures of Greece four hundred years before Christ, but some of his ideas contradicted the tenets of the Athenian government. Consequently, he was forced to consume poison as punishment for corrupting the minds of the youth and for impiety. From Socrates to Bruner and Galileo, thousands of scholars had done research in different fields