“Read...
Read… Read…”. This was the first order from Allah to the last prophet to
mankind, Mohamed (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), to imply
the very strong relationship between knowledge and religion. This relationship,
which we have misunderstood and (indirectly) ignored through the last few
hundred years, which we can call the “backward” period, is the key for any
attempt to restore the current situation of being a “Third World” back to
the glorious years of the Islamic nation. Some people think that the reason
behind this backwardness is the political or the educational system, but I
believe that the lack of understanding and practicing religion and its
relationship with science and knowledge along with underestimating science and
knowledge, and the claim that they are not of the religion’s priorities, are
the main reasons.
It
is worth noting that “Read” here means “critical reading”, which points
to a logical process that includes:
1-
Looking
around to the phenomena of the universe and its creatures.
2-
Thinking
deeply about them, about how they work, and what they mean.
3-
Realizing
the facts behind them.
4-
Formulating
your conclusions and theories.
5-
Putting
those facts, theories, and conclusions together to build “science”.
Allah
is the One and only creator of the universe. This is the only solid and 100%
accurate truth. Based on this, every thing in the world should be pointing to
this creator, “The creature points to its creator”. Consequently, all
sciences that are related to the creature should be pointing to the creator too,
so they are related to religion someway or another, whether directly or
indirectly. This is quite logical! This is the cornerstone and the aim behind
Allah’s order to read, see, and think in order to reach the truth of the only
creator.
You
will find that the majority of people nowadays look at science as a way of
gaining money, which is valid to some extent, but they don’t pay much
attention to “learning” as much as they give to “earning” a degree in
order to find a good job! They even may forget all about what they have been
taught once they get what they want. Is this what Allah meant by telling us “read”? Is this the kind of “knowledge” that will lead its owner to
belief? Is this what our nation needs? Of course not.
I
believe that “learning” in the right way using the logical process I
mentioned previously is much more effective in terms of restoring and enhancing
faith. And this is a scientific fact itself, as the knowledge, and consequently
faith, that are gained after a hard thinking process will be much more
effective, creative, and stronger than blind faith which is gained after being
“told” that this thing or matter is true. And this is, as I believe, what
Allah was pointing to when He ordered us to look into His creatures and learn.
Allah even mentioned this kind of knowledge before the religion related sciences
in many places in the Qur`an, which indicates the great importance of scientific
knowledge to the extent of coming before religious knowledge.
You
can find some people who may say that science and knowledge are not so important
and that they can come in the 4th or 5th place when we talk about the priorities
of our religion, and we can separate them and still have great strong faith! The
relation between science & religion is a two-sided relation moving in both
directions from science to religion, and from religion to science and improving
one will improve the other. And so, science and knowledge are attached to
religion and can never be separated.
Another
major reason as I see it, is our rigidity while dealing with science especially
when it comes to some critical cross points with religion and beliefs, or even
explanations of some major Qur`an & Hadeeth commentators of ours. It is
known that those explanations were built on the knowledge these commentators had
at that time, and hence it is normal for those explanations to get changed along
with the enhancement in our knowledge. This is also logical, the more you see,
the more you know and the wider your thinking becomes. And it is valid that we
use some new scientific facts to understand verses of Qur`an, for example. But
the problem is that we look at those commentators as if they were messengers of
Allah and hence whatever they said is believed to be true and valid forever.
Because
of all the above, I believe that any attempt to remedy our nation’s current
situation has to start from rebuilding the Islamic mindset by changing our way
of practicing religion and the way we look and deal with science and knowledge.
Changing the political systems only will not do it, changing the educational
systems only will not do it either. We need to change our beliefs and our
mindset in order to give science the attention and importance it is worth as our
great religion ordered us to.
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