Islam Keenness on and Encouragement of Science

Wednesday, 21 July 2010

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Written by Islamstory

Manifestations of Islam keenness on Seeking Science

In pre-Islamic times, scientists were isolated from the public and there was a big gap between them. Scientists in Persia, Rome or Greece lived in complete isolation, holding debates and discussions and inheriting science from each other while the public lived in complete ignorance and were away from any form of science. However, Islam was something else.

The Prophet said: “Seeking science (or knowledge) is obligatory to each Muslim.”[1] This hadith made the issue a religious obligation and a public one imposed on everybody. Everybody has to seek knowledge to be educated. The matter includes both men and women.

The Prophet carried out the practical application of such an approach when he agreed to release prisoners of war in the Battle of Badr after each one of them teaches ten people from Medina reading and writing. This was a form of civilizational thinking that had never been known in the world at that time or even centuries later.

Islam ordered its followers to make science a fundamental issue in their lives and to put scientists (or scholars) in a high position mentioned in the Prophet’s saying: “If anyone travels on a road in search of knowledge, Allah will cause him to travel on one of the roads of Paradise. The angels will lower their wings in their great pleasure with one who seeks knowledge, the inhabitants of the heavens and the Earth and the fish in the deep waters will ask forgiveness for the knowledge-seeker. The superiority of the knowledge-seeker over the devout is like that of the moon, on the night when it is full, over the rest of the stars. The scholars are the heirs of the Prophets, and the Prophets leave neither dinar nor dirham (money), leaving only knowledge, and he who takes it takes an abundant portion.”[2]

Such a popular scientific movement continued after the Prophet’s death and its marvelous effects and manifestations became clear. It was like dreams for the Europeans. The following are only three manifestations of such a popular scientific movement, which Islam established:

1- Public Libraries:

Building on such prompting and encouragement, which have become essential in religion, Muslims set up public libraries, where the public can read books for free and copy whatever they want of such books. Furthermore, caliphs and emirs used to host knowledge-seekers from different countries in such libraries and spend on them from their own pockets. Such libraries were widespread ion each city in the Islamic world[3]. The most famous of such libraries were: Baghdad, Qurtubah (Cordoba), Eshbilih (Seville), Al-Qahera (Cairo), al-Quds (Jerusalem), Demashq (Damascus), Tarabuls (Tripoli), Medina, Sana’a, Fas (Fes) and al-Qayrawan.

2- Emergence of Huge Scientific Meetings:

In pre-Islamic times, there were no scientists who spoke with the public. However, after the emergence of such a great religion, scientific meetings were widespread all over the Islamic world. Their number was sometimes astronomical. The meeting of Ibn al-Jawzy[4], for example, was attended by more than 100,000 people and all of them were from among the public. The same applies to the meetings of al-Hassan al-Basry, Ahmed ibn Hanbal, al-Shafie, Abu-Hanifa and Imam Malik. Moreover, there was more than one meeting inside each mosque at the same time; one was about Quran exegesis and others about fiqh [Islamic jurisprudence] the Prophet’s Hadith, doctrine and medicine, etc.

3- Regarding Spending on Science as Charity and a Way of Seeking Allah’s Favor: This made well-off Muslims spend their funds on building schools and places of learning. They also made many endowments to taking care of students, building libraries and developing schools. Therefore, spending on science became a way of charity for economist alike, not only knowledge-seekers.

Accordingly, the issue of science was a public one that concerned everybody. As seeking knowledge is obligatory to each Muslim, libraries and scientific meetings spread and illiteracy was almost eliminated.

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