CHAPTER SIX — Modern Possibilities

of evolution—as opposed to creation—was advanced. Even here, however, it has been scientifically proved that man could not have evolved to the biological level he is at today, because the earth itself is not old enough for such a lengthy, complex process to have taken place. 6. Science has proved that direct argument is not applicable to the facts of the universe. We can only arrive at the reality by making inferences from our perception of certain appearances. It is only through inference that we can know about any fact. Thus science has proved the validity of the indirect method of reasoning on which the foundation of religious methodology rests. One thing which has to be fully understood is that the age of science was essentially the age of Islam. The fact that scientific development led to atheism is explainable in terms of incidental mistakes, particularly its clash with Christianity, which has been subjected to human interpolations. What is science? It is the study of nature. Nature and the religion of Nature (Islam) are two aspects of the same reality. That is why the Quran prophesied that science would not pose any danger to Islam, but would rather be a means of clarifying the Truth. “We will show them Our signs in all the regions of the earth and in their own souls, until they clearly see that this is the truth.” (41:53) The age of science started not in Europe, but in Spain and Sicily in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries. There is no historical record of any clash at that time between science and religion. During Muslim rule, scientific development and Muslim intellectual development went side by side, without any clash. But when the Turks expelled the Byzantine scholars from Astana and Constantinople in the fifteenth century, they migrated to Italy, then the work of research and investigation into nature shifted from the Muslim world to Europe, thus making the history of science take an entirely new turn. Now science was faced with a world where Christianity was in a dominant position.