CHAPTER SIX — Modern Possibilities

The Quran and the universe are two aspects of the same reality. The Quran is a statement in words of God’s revelations, while the universe is a practical demonstration of God’s scheme of things—“He ordains all things.” Science is nothing other than a study of the divine manifestation of the universe. Furthermore, since this divine management expresses itself through the laws of nature, which always function in strict uniformity, it is essential to engage in exact thinking of a mathematical kind in order to understand and apply these laws. While, literature and rhetoric tend to exaggerate, science on the contrary produces precision of thought and a realistic approach which are indispensable to an understanding of the workings of the universe. Science comes to the support of Islam in two ways: first, it makes man study the wonders of God—the only direct means of the realization of God in this world; and second, it produces scientific thinking, which is exactly what is desired by the Quran. It must be conceded that the ‘rebellion’ of science against religion was a matter of chance. That is why, within less than a century, the inner logic of science asserted itself in order to make science revert to its original position. The first demonstration of this reversion, from the Islamic point of view, took place in the form of a change in orientalism. After the Crusades (1099-1270), the literature produced by orientalists in Europe poisoned Western literature with antiIslamic thinking. After the failure in the Crusades, they took their revenge on the Muslims with their old weapon of pious fraud against Islam, the religion of their adversaries. Since they were dominant in the entire Europe they managed to fill the books of history, religion, and literature with anti-Islam views. Even the dramas of Shakespeare and Milton were not immune from this. In the modern age, since all the books were being published in the West, this Western orientalism influenced not only the European mind but also the educated mind of the whole world. But, according to the Quran, ‘God has power over all things,’ (12:21). By the end of the nineteenth century, objective thinking