Religion and Science: A Collection of Articles by Zia Shah on This Theme

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  • Zia Shah MD Affiliation: The Muslim Times Website: http://themuslimtime… He is a physician practicing in Upstate New York. He is the Chief Editor of the Muslim Times, which has more than 38,000 followers in Twitter. He was Chair of Religion and Science for the Muslim Sunrise, for more than a decade. He has authored more than 400 articles on Islam, Christianity, Secularism and Religion & Science. Follow in Twitter: @The_MuslimTimes

A great number of those who grew up under Christianity are living under a broken cross and taking on agnostic or atheistic point of view.  Unfortunately, given the Islamophobia in the West, they never pause to think, if they have the wrong version of religion, poorly collected scripture and faulty presentation of Monotheism, leading to a shabby co-relation of religion and science, given the incorrect dogma of Christianity.

Islam does not necessarily has the limitations of Christianity!

Atheists are right in exposing the irrationality of the Christian dogma.  However, the Christians are right in as far as their claim that there needs to be a Creator of this universe, Who employed natural means to do His work.  However, both parties in their self-conceit are not listening to how Islam resolves their conflict; Islam as understood by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

If the universe is the work and creation of God, then there should be no contradiction in revealed word of God, when properly understood and preserved over time, and science, which is the study of nature, or work of God.

This collection co-relates the act of God, science, with the word of God, the scriptures, the completely preserved, the Holy Quran and only partially preserved the Holy Bible. My favorite article in this collection is, The anesthesia of familiarity: There should be a Creator for this universe.
It also examines, the history of science and the roots of European renaissance; John Davenport writes in An apology for Mohammed and the Koran:

It is in the compositions of Friar Bacon, who was born in 1214, and who learned the Oriental languages, that we discover the most extensive acquaintance with the Arabian anthors. He quotes Albumazar, Thabet-Ebu-Corah, Ali Alhacer, Alkandi, Alfraganus and Arzakeb; and seems to have been as familiar with them as with the Greek and Latin classics, especially with Avicenna, whom he calls ‘the chief and prince of philosophy.’ The great Lord Bacon, it is well known, imbibed and borrowed the first principles of his famous experimental philosophy from his predecessor and namesake Roger Bacon, a fact which indisputably establishes the derivation of the Baconian philosophical system from the descendants of Ishmael and disciples of Mohammed.

In a short paragraph, John Davenport has very precisely identified all the links in the human intellectual evolution. Additionally, his book, that is available in Google books, is a master piece in the defense of the Prophet Muhammad, may peace be on him. Read his two page Preface and he is standing shoulder to shoulder with other great defenders of the Prophet Muhammad in the Western world, like Thomas Carlyle.

In ignoring the slow and multi-ethnic, cultural and religious history of science, some Western scientists and historians aim at making a god out of science and seek self-aggrandizement at the expense of the True God and human equality, they propose the European science to be some sort of magical wand and what preceded it as not good enough or label it as pre-science or mystical science etc!

Science is only a mode of study of nature; it cannot be raised to the pedestal of sublime, mystical, awe inspiring or infinite. Such stations in human imagination belong only to God the Creator.  Science cannot be a deity, it is only a mode of study.  These are the only two choices of deity that I can conceptualize, the Transcendent of God of Judaism, Unitarian Christianity and Islam or if you deny Him, sheer ‘chance’ or ‘time.’ Please note, these are the only two choices for a deity, which can capture human imagination and I hope you will agree with me after reading some of these articles that in reality there is only One possible Deity the True God of Islam, as is the creed of Islam ‘there is no God but Allah.’

Articles linked in this collection:

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