Saturday, May 26, 2012

Explorations in Islamic Science - 3

Part - 1
Part - 2

In two parts above we have covered the titles of the topics that are discussed by ZS in  his book Explorations in Islamic Science. In this post we shall quote his remarks after above description. This should be taken as additional insight.

Reality, whatever it may be and however one perceives it, is too complex, to interwoven, too multi-dimensional to be discussed as a single objective truth.
In its own right this looks like a philosophical statement and as such philosophical statements are not very illuminating. But to any author every piece of conclusion is precious and yours truly might have dumped a diamond. Lord Most High willing yours truly will have some thing to say along these lines later - Lord Most High willing.

Science has social, cultural and spiritual purpose and the image of science as altruistic pursuit to find truth is a con-trick.
There is a minor rephrasing here on our part. Altruistic is used in the sense of objective here. And this is a serious statement. It is not going to be easy for the west to digest it. P. Feyerabends of the world might spend life times on deciding whether there is scientific method or not but they will not be able to come to these points. Having turned materialistic the west stands cut-off from spiritual, ethical and moral issues to a dangerous extent.
All science is western - whatever be the pigmentation. 
Even yours truly hopes to understand such gems in the course of study. He uses above assertions to go about the task of explorations.

Then the author asserts that western science  is a science, not the science. We suppose that the author has done a lot in order to give the Muslim scientists a head start in freeing not only themselves to have an independent approach to science but also freeing science itself from western hegemony. Or might we say west from their own folly?