Islam and Science: Maulana Shihabuddin Nadwi's
'Scientific' Approach to the Quran
Yoginder Sikand
Author of almost a hundred books, the late Maulana
Shihabuddin Nadwi of Bangalore (1931-2002) is best
remembered for his efforts to develop what he regarded
as a 'scientific' framework of Quranic exegesis, being
one of the few contemporary South Asian ulema to have
worked in this field. His books and the institution
that he founded—the Furqania Academy—were devoted to
the elaboration of a 'scientific' Islamic theology
(kalam) as well as 'scientific' explanations of
various Islamic beliefs, laws and practices.
The Maulana's intellectual autobiography, Meri Ilmi
Zindagi Ki Dastan-e Ibrat ('Exemplary Lessons from My
Intellectual Life') was the last book that he penned,
which he completed only a few days before his death.
It discusses his own intellectual growth, beginning
with his graduation from the Nadwat ul-Ulema madrasa
in Lucknow and then, following from years of studying
science as well as English on his own, his emerging as
a brilliant scholar with a huge corpus of writings to
his credit.
Running as a connecting thread through the Maulana's
writings is the need for the ulema (besides other
Muslims) to study and understand modern science. The
Maulana was convinced that this was a Quranic
imperative and was also essential for the economic and
political empowerment of the Muslims as a community.
This appeal is also repeatedly stressed in the
Maulana's intellectual autobiography.
The Quran, the Maulana notes, repeatedly exhorts
Muslims to reflect or ponder on various aspects of
God's creation as a means for gaining understanding
God's attributes. This, he says, can be construed as a
call for Muslims to take to the study of various
physical and social sciences. Only if Muslims were to
do this could they be suitably empowered to fulfill
their responsibility as God's vicegerents on earth
(khalifa fil arz) and as people commissioned by God to
guide humankind, to enjoin what is good and forbid the
wrong (amr bil maruf wa nahy anil munkar).
In this regard, the Maulana evokes the Quran as
mentioning the appointment of Adam as God's khalifa
and his being given knowledge of the 'names' of
everything. The Maulana takes this to also mean
Quranic sanction for intellectual, including
scientific, knowledge and development. Yet, he
laments, most traditional madrasas shun the teaching
of modern sciences. He appeals to his fellow ulema to
reconsider their stance in this regard, warning them
that 'The community that breaks its ties with modern
knowledge will commit suicide'. 'The temper of the age
always changes', he adds, 'and a community which is
ignorant of the temper of its age will always be
defeated'.
The Maulana's passionate appeal for the ulema to study
modern sciences rests on his firm belief that there is
no contradiction between the Quran and God's creation,
between the Act of God (fail-e ilahi) and the Word of
God (qaul-e ilahi). Rather, the laws of both 'support
each other because they are from the same source'.
Every age has its own intellectual framework (aqli
mizaj), and since Islam is for all times, it needs to
be expressed in a framework suited to that age. 'In
every age', he explains, 'religion has a very close
relation with that age's sciences' and that is why
'the miracles given to every prophet were in
accordance with the demands of his age'. Hence, he
goes on, in today's 'scientific' age, Islam needs to
be expressed in 'scientific' terms, which, of course,
is possible only if the ulema have an understanding of
what science is all about. This is also essential for
the work of Islamic propagation (tabligh).
Further, scientific knowledge is also essential, the
Maulana argues, for the ulema to respond to
contemporary problems (masail) through ijtihad or
creative jurisprudential engagement. Here he bitterly
critiques the 'stagnation' (jumud) associated with
blind imitation of past juridical precedent (taqlid),
because of which, he says, 'the eternal relevance of
Islam is obscured', 'Islam is made to appear as a dead
religion' and 'Muslims are seen as a foolish
community'. The undisputed and empirically verified
findings of modern science, the Maulana insists, are
'reliable proofs from the shariah point of view', and
hence an important source of Islamic law and of
ijtihad. They cannot be denied', he asserts, 'as they
reflect the law of God's provision (qanun-e rabubiyat)
and the natural laws (zawabit-e qudrat)'. Hence, to
conceal them is 'to conceal the truths of the Quran,
rather than serving the Quran'.
Developing a 'scientific' Quranic theology, the
Maulana further adds, is also essential for Muslims to
take on and defeat the advocates of materialism, who
view the world through a lens that claims to be
'scientific' but is based on atheism. The sciences,
the Maulana insists, must be 'cleansed of the label of
materialism', and then suitably 'Islamised' and used
for the ethical purposes that God intends for them.
'By relating the creation with the Creator, and
showing the correspondence between science and Islam
and the planned nature of the whole cosmos' in this
way, he argues, proofs for the existence of God
(dalail-e rabbani) can be articulated.
The Maulana recognizes that his 'scientific' exegesis
of the Quran would mean a significant departure from
the views of traditionalist scholars and indeed from
the cumulative scholarly tradition of the ulema itself
on significant points. Yet, he says, his approach is
not to reject the commentaries of the past outright or
to condemn them, for all interpretations are human
products, influenced by the social location of their
interpreters, and so are liable to some degree of
error. This human element in interpreting the divine
text therefore means that 'intellectuals must never be
stagnant but must always ponder on the Quran'.
The Maulana describes his approach to the cumulative
tradition of the Quranic commentators as entailing
taking from them what he finds to be reliable and in
other matters relying on his understanding of the
Quran and Hadith. It is not, he stresses, that 'the
meaning of the Quran changes with every age', but,
rather, that there is 'great expansiveness in the
words of the Quran, which can reflect many different
meanings'. 'Accordingly', he writes, 'adopting new
meanings for a word does not mean that old meanings
attributed to it are fully nullified'.
In defence of this position, the Maulana cites a
Hadith report that describes the Quran as having 'many
faces'. He also refers to a Hadith report that states
that the 'miracles' of the Quran can never end, taking
this to mean that people will constantly reflect on
the Quran and discover or uncover new meanings from
and of it. The Quran, he writes, is 'like an ocean of
unknown depth' and so 'the more research one does on
it', including by relating it to the confirmed
conclusions of science, 'the more miracles does it
reflect'.
Further elaborating the need for the ulema to study
science and to develop a 'scientific' Quranic
exegesis, the Maulana writes that knowledge (ilm) in
Islam is a composite whole, there being no division
between 'religious' and 'worldly' knowledge. 'One arm
or eye of Islam is the shariat and the other is fitrat
(nature or science)', he argues. Hence, he stresses,
both forms of knowledge are needed, and Muslims
'should have the shariah in one hand and the sciences
in the other'. If Muslims were to ignore this, he
claims, they would actually be going against God's
will, and would be only selectively following the
Quran.
Lamentably, so he himself confessed, the Maulana's
appeals did not find enthusiastic reception among most
of his fellow ulema. Despite this, he kept up his
struggle, as manifested in the enormous number of
books that he wrote. Many of these are real treasures
that urgently deserve to the translated and widely
discussed and disseminated, particularly those on
Islamic theology and education, which present novel
perspectives on a host of issues of contemporary
import.
-------------------------------------------
For more details about Maulana Shihabuddin Nadwi's
works, look at the website of the Furqania Academy,
the Bangalore-based institution that he founded, on
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Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye
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The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping
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