Question 38: Does belief in Allah prevent scientific research?

The Answer

Dear Brother / Sister,

Answer: Belief in Allah does not prevent scientific research; on the contrary, it encourages scientific research. One of the materialist evolutionists states the following since he does not know Islam:

If we had regarded intelligent design sufficient, we would not have gone to space; nor would we have reached the bottom of the seas. 

This fool does not understand that knowing that Allah created everything based on a plan and purpose encourages man more to research and to examine.  Since God Almighty did not create anything without a purpose and benefit, He wants every being to be known in detail. Such a wish encourages research and examination.

Islam does not conflict with science because the religion of Islam sees the whole universe as a book - a book that is the work of Allah’s attribute of power and a book written by elements, that is, the book of the universe

In Islam, thinking of the measured, planned and purposeful creation in things, is expressed as tafakkur (contemplation/meditation), reasoning and interpreting. Islam regards an hour of reasoning and thinking superior to supererogatory worshipping.

The Quran refers people to the mind by saying, Do ye not understand?1, Will ye not understand?2. It encourages people to think by using the mind. It says, And none will grasp the Message except men of understanding.3It advises us to ask Allah to increase our knowledge: Say, ‘O my Lord! Increase me in knowledge’.4 It draws attention to the fact that those who know and those who do not know are not equal: Are those equal, those who know and those who do not know??5.

Already have We shown the Signs plainly to you that ye may learn wisdom.6

People are asked to learn something that they do not know by asking and searching:

If ye realize this not, ask of those who possess the Message.7

Hadiths also encourage people to learn:

A person who sets off to learn knowledge is in the way of Allah until he returns.8

If a person seeks knowledge, this will atone for his sins in the past.9

A wise word is like something that a believer has lost. He has the right to take it wherever he finds it.10

Decrease in knowledge, increase in ignorance11 is stated to be the end of the world.

In Islam, the ink of a scholar is regarded superior to the blood of a martyr. Can such a religion oppose science? Are all branches of science not an interpretation and explanation of Allah’s book of universe? Both the Quran and the universe are His books. What conflicts with Islam is not science but some theories and hypotheses or ideological approaches.

To sum up, the advocates of positivist belief who deify matter use science for their own atheistic ideology. They present their philosophical view, which is based on faithlessness and denial as proven science and claim that Islam is against science.

However, Islam gives great importance to research, science and scientists and praise them.

1.al-Baqara, verse 76.
2.al-Baqara, verse 44.
3.Aal-i Imran, verse 7.
4.Taha, verse 114.
5.az-Zumar, verse 9.
6.al-Hadid, verse 17.
7.an-Nahl, verse 43.
8.Tirmidhi, Ilm 2, 2649; Ibn Majah, Muqaddima 17, 227.
9.Tirmidhi, Ilm 2, 2650.
10.Tirmidhi, Ilm, 19, 2688.
11.Bukhari, Kitabul-Ilm, 71-72.

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