The relationship between faith and science in Islamic civilization

For several centuries, in much of the Muslim world, observing the sky, studying the human body, solving an equation or understanding the movement of light was not seen as a way of distancing oneself from God. Knowledge of the world could, on the contrary, be considered as a way of deciphering its order. This is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating aspects of classical Islamic civilization: this conviction that faith and reason did not necessarily live in two enemy universes. The believer could pray and experience, meditate and calculate, read the Koran and question Aristotle. The boundary we draw today between science, philosophy and religion was much more porous then.

Understanding creation to better understand the Creator

The Koran itself calls on numerous occasions to observe the world: the sky, the earth, the rain, the stars, the diversity of life, the alternation of day and night. These verses obviously do not constitute a scientific treatise. But they establish an attitude: look, reflect, learn from what surrounds us. In this intellectual universe, nature is not just a setting. It is a set of signs. And seeking to understand these signs can become a form of intellectual, sometimes even spiritual, quest.

It is in this context that, between the 8th and 15th centuries, a formidable circulation of knowledge developed. Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, Cordoba, Bukhara, Samarkand and Isfahan became major intellectual centers at different times. Greek, Persian and Indian works are translated into Arabic, then commented on, corrected and sometimes outdated. Contrary to popular belief, Muslim scholars were not simple conservatives responsible for transmitting Aristotle and Ptolemy to Europe. The historian of science George Saliba precisely challenged this reductive vision: he shows that the Islamic scientific tradition had its own dynamic and that it produced important innovations, particularly in astronomy and mathematics.

Al-Khwarizmi thus contributes to the development of algebra; Al-Razi builds a medicine attentive to clinical observation; Ibn Sina writes a Canon of medicine which will exert a lasting influence even in European universities; Al-Biruni works on astronomy, geography and Earth measurement. But one of the most striking figures remains Ibn al-Haytham, born in Basra in the 10th century. His work on optics is based on a requirement that seems surprisingly modern: never be satisfied with the authority of the ancients. In his Doubts about Ptolemyhe wrote this remarkable sentence: “The truth is sought for its own sake. »

Ibn al-Haytham takes this idea even further. To seek the truth, he explains in substance, one must be capable of suspecting what one thinks one knows, of submitting assertions to proof and demonstration. In other words, the respect due to the great masters never exempts us from criticizing them. He thus attacks certain conclusions of Ptolemy while recognizing the importance of his work. It is a profoundly demanding conception of knowledge: the authority of a man, however prestigious he may be, is not enough to make a statement true. UNESCO rightly underlines this place given by Ibn al-Haytham to criticism, demonstration and confrontation with experience.

Faith, reason and controversy: an intellectual world far from uniform

However, it would be misleading to tell this story as that of a peaceful golden age where religion and science always lived in perfect harmony. The medieval Muslim world was rife with extremely lively debates. Philosophers, jurists, theologians and doctors did not share the same conception of reason, revelation or the limits of philosophy. It is even this confrontation which makes the richness of this period. Islamic civilization was not a single thought: it was an immense space for discussion.

The controversy between Al-Ghazali and the philosophers is particularly revealing in this respect. Al-Ghazali is sometimes presented as the one who “closed the door” to science in the Muslim world. This is a historical simplification. Al-Ghazali strongly criticizes certain metaphysical conclusions of philosophers, particularly when they appear to him to be incompatible with revelation. But he rejects neither mathematics nor logic as such. In Deliverance from errorhe explains that mathematics is based on demonstrations and “does not involve any negation or affirmation of religious questions”.

This distinction is fundamental. Al-Ghazali does not say that all philosophy is true nor that all science must be sacred. He says that a mathematical truth does not become false because it was formulated by a philosopher with whom one disagrees about God or about metaphysics. Religion has nothing to gain by denying a solid demonstration. It is a much more subtle position than the caricatured image of a clash between “religious obscurantism” and “scientific reason”.

At the other end of the debate, Ibn Rushd, Averroes for the Latin West, defended in the 12th century a particularly strong articulation between philosophy and revelation. Doctor, jurist and philosopher, he considers that the rational study of the world cannot contradict a correctly understood revelation. In his Decisive speechhe formulates a sentence which sums up all his thoughts: “The truth is not opposed to the truth, but agrees with it and bears witness to it. »

This sentence could almost sum up in itself a certain classic Islamic conception of knowledge. If there is a revealed truth and a demonstrated truth, they cannot, in the final analysis, be two contradictory truths. When the opposition seems insurmountable, Ibn Rushd therefore invites us to resume the work of interpretation. Such a position does not eliminate the tensions between faith and reason; she simply refuses to consider their conflict as fatal.

Scientific applications also had very concrete dimensions in religious life. Astronomy made it possible to determine prayer times and the calendar; mathematics was used to calculate inheritances; geography and trigonometry helped determine the qibla, the direction of Mecca. Religious needs have therefore sometimes stimulated certain research without this being limited to their religious applications. Muslim scientists naturally ended up asking much broader questions about the movement of the stars, light, matter or the structure of the universe.

The true heritage: rediscovering the taste for searching

However, we must resist another temptation: that of transforming this story into a glorious tale intended solely to flatter the memory of the Muslim world. Repeating that Al-Khwarizmi gave his name to the algorithm, that Ibn Sina was an immense doctor or that Ibn al-Haytham was a precursor of the experimental method is not enough. A civilization does not regain its scientific greatness by reciting the names of its ancient scientists. Nostalgia has never produced a laboratory, a top university or a scientific discovery.

The real question is elsewhere: what have we retained of their intellectual attitude? For Ibn al-Haytham was not remarkable simply because he was a Muslim and a scholar. He was because he agreed to doubt Ptolemy. Because he confronted ideas with facts. Because he considered error to be a permanent possibility, including among the greatest. Al-Razi observed the sick. Al-Biruni measured. Ibn Rushd argued. They all belonged to different, sometimes opposing, traditions, but they shared something essential: knowledge had to be worked on.

Perhaps this is where their legacy becomes profoundly contemporary. The challenge for the Muslim world is not only to remember that it was once one of the great scientific centers of humanity. It is to rediscover the conditions that make a true civilization of knowledge possible: schools that teach to think rather than recite, universities capable of producing research, institutions that accept discussion, intellectuals free to question and a culture in which methodical doubt is not automatically confused with the loss of faith.

Because scientific doubt is not necessarily doubt about God. It may be a doubt about our own knowledge. And this distinction changes everything. Ibn al-Haytham could believe in God while doubting Ptolemy. Al-Ghazali could defend the revelation while recognizing the solidity of a mathematical demonstration. Ibn Rushd could be a Muslim jurist while devoting a considerable part of his life to Aristotle. Their intellectual universe was infinitely more complex than the simplistic alternative that we are sometimes offered today: believe or think.

Science essentially answers the question of how reality functions. She looks for causes, formulates hypotheses, measures, experiments, corrects her models. Faith touches on questions of meaning, purpose, transcendence, good and evil. The two areas can meet and sometimes clash, particularly when a religious interpretation claims to replace the observation of reality or when a scientific discourse claims, based on its methods alone, to resolve all the metaphysical questions of existence. But recognizing their respective limits makes it possible to avoid false conflicts.

Knowing how a star is born does not answer the question of why the universe exists. Understanding the mechanisms of the brain is not enough to exhaust the mystery of consciousness. Explaining the evolution of living things does not, in itself, abolish all philosophical questions about existence. Conversely, invoking God never exempts us from studying the physical, biological or medical mechanisms that govern the world. Faith is not a laboratory method and science is not theology.

The history of Islamic civilization ultimately reminds us of something very simple: the truth should not frighten the believer. If God is the creator of the world, knowing more about the world should not in itself constitute a threat. A scientific discovery can overturn human interpretation; it does not necessarily settle the question of God. This is the strength of Ibn Rushd’s formula: the truth cannot be afraid of the truth.

The true heritage of science in the land of Islam therefore does not reside only in the astrolabes of Baghdad, the hospitals of Damascus, the libraries of Cordoba or the manuscripts of Ibn Sina. It lies in a mindset: observe, learn, translate, verify, discuss, transmit and accept being wrong.

Perhaps this is what we should find today. Not the cult of a vanished golden age, but the intellectual courage that made it possible.