Provides an overview of the complex history of the secular tradition of science and its interactions with religions and spiritual traditions.

ncongruous places often inspire anomalous stories. In early 1984, I spent several nights at the Vatican housed in a hotel built for itinerant priests. While pondering over such puzzling issues as the intended function of the bidets in each bathroom, and hungering for something other than plum jam on my breakfast rolls (why did the basket only contain hundreds of identical plum packets and not a one of, say, strawberry?), I encountered yet another among the innumerable issues of contrasting cultures (...) that can make life so interesting. Our crowd (present in Rome for a meeting on nuclear winter sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences) shared the hotel with a group of French and Italian Jesuit priests who were also professional scientists. (shrink)

We discuss the special place of the Qur'an in the Muslim discourse in general and on science in particular. The Qur'an has an unparalleled influence on the Muslim mind, and understanding the Islamic treatise on science and religion must start from this realization. We explore the concept of science in the Islamic culture and to what extent it can be related to the Qur'an. Reviewing various Islamic discourses on science, we show how a simplistic understanding of the plan to adopt (...) modern science within an Islamic revival program has been corrupted in the form of the theory of "scientific miraculousness of the Qur'an." We assess and dismiss this theory but use it to show how a serious misunderstanding of the nature of modern science and a narrow view of the Qur'an has led to that embarrassingly popular yet misguided theory. We conclude by promoting a multiplicity of readings of the Qur'an and show that this allows for an enlightenment of one's interpretation of Qur'anic verses, using various tools at one's disposal, including scientific knowledge. We uphold Averroes's principle of "no possible conflict," which can be used to persuade the Muslim public of a given idea not by proving that it can be found in the Qur'an but rather by showing that at least some readings of it are fully consistent with the given scientific theory. (shrink)

A complete history of Islamic political thought from early Islam to the present Now in its 2nd edition, this textbook describes and interprets all schools of Islamic political thought, their origins, inter-connections and meaning. It examines the Qur'an, the early Caliphate, classical Islamic philosophy and the political culture of the Ottoman and other empires. It covers major thinkers such as Averroes and Ibn Taymiyya as well as a number of lesser authors, and Ibn Khaldun is presented as one of the (...) most original political theorists ever. It draws on a wide range of sources including writings on religion, law, philosophy and statecraft expressed in treatises, handbooks and political rhetoric. The new edition analyses the connections between religion and politics, covering the most recent developments in Islamic political thought and the most recent historical scholarship. It ends with a critical survey of reformism and Islamism from the late-19th century up to the present day. (shrink)

A Physicalist Manifesto is a full treatment of the comprehensive physicalist view that, in some important sense, everything is physical. Andrew Melnyk argues that the view is best formulated by appeal to a carefully worked-out notion of realization, rather than supervenience; that, so formulated, physicalism must be importantly reductionist; that it need not repudiate causal and explanatory claims framed in non-physical language; and that it has the a posteriori epistemic status of a broad-scope scientific hypothesis. Two concluding chapters argue in (...) detail that contemporary science provides no significant empirical evidence against physicalism and some considerable evidence for it. Written in a brisk, candid and exceptionally clear style, this 2003 book should appeal to professionals and students in philosophy of mind, metaphysics and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Preface p. vii Part 1 The Epistemological Foundation of Islamic Science Chapter 1 Religious Consciousness and the Scientific Spirit in Islamic Tradition p. 1 Chapter 2 The Question of Methodology in Islamic Science p. 13 Chapter 3 The Place of Doubt in Islamic Epistemology: al-Ghazzali's Philosophical Experience p. 39 Part 2 Man, Nature, and God in Islamic Science Chapter 4 The Unity of Science and Spiritual Knowledge: The Islamic Experience p. 61 Chapter 5 The Atomistic Conception of Nature in Ash'arite (...) Theology p. 77 Chapter 6 An Introduction to the Philosophy of Islamic Medicine p. 103 Part 3 Islamic Science and the West Chapter 7 The Influence of Islamic Science on Medieval Christian Conceptions of Nature p. 131 Chapter 8 "Umar Khayyam's Criticism of Euclid's Theory of Parallels p. 157 Part 4 Islam and Modern Science Chapter 9 Islam and Bioethics p. 173 Chapter 10 Muslim Intellectual Responses to Modern Science p. 201 Chapter 11 Islam, Science and Technology: Past Glory, Present Predicaments, and The Shaping of The Future p. 227 Appendix Designing a Sound Syllabus for Courses on Philosophy of Applied and Engineering Sciences in a 21st Century Islamic University p. 243 Index. (shrink)