This is in response to the question ‘Why did the Arabic world turn away from science?’ The standard ‘answer’ that most (all those who I have read anyway) give is based on three assumptions:

1. All religious scholars were scientists, and all scientists were religious scholars.
2. The doors of Ijtihad were shut.
3. Bifurcation between religion and science.

Let us examine these assumptions and look at what history records. As for the first assumption, it is incorrect though understandable thanks to what people today consider enough for someone to be called a ‘religious scholar’. In the first three to four centuries after Islam, the level of scholarship that it took for someone to be considered a scholar is such that I can safely say that there is not a single person living today who would come even close to qualifying. Today if a person has memorized the Qur’an and a few Ahadith and knows Arabic, he happily postures as a ‘scholar’. There are many who are flying high on far less. But in the first three centuries after the time of the Messengerﷺ memorizing Qur’an was part of the primary school curriculum. Arabic was the language of instruction and memorizing at least forty, not just a few, Ahadith was par for the course for every school kid. On the contrary, if you read what was written about scientists at that time, they were not called ‘Ulama or Fuqaha’ (Scholars or Jurists) and nobody went to them for religious rulings. They knew far more Islam than most Muslims today but was that enough for them to be called, ‘A’alim of Islam’ (Islamic scholar) or did anyone go to them for religious rulings? No it wasn’t and no they didn’t. Scientific enquiry and development happened side by side with everything else and it was not necessary for one to be an Islamic scholar to be a scientist and vice versa.

The second ‘allegation’ that the doors to Ijtihad were shut is simply untrue. They were never shut and remain open to this day. What needs to be understood is the meaning of Ijtihad. In Islamic Law there are four sources of rulings. The Qur’an, the Sunnah (teachings of Rasoolullahﷺ), Ijma’a (ruling of jurists by consensus) and Qiyas (ruling by an individual jurist). The fundamental principle has always been that when faced with a question, jurists look for the answer in a direct command in the Qur’an. If they don’t find an Ayah (verse) of the Qur’an that answers the question, then they search for an answer in the Sunnah. This is the reason the Sunnah was preserved so well from the beginning, because it has always been a primary source of religious rulings. If the answer is not found in either of these texts, then jurists consult and arrive at an answer by a process of consensus within the boundaries of the Qur’an and Sunnah. And if it is not possible to consult with other jurists, then a single jurist may arrive at a decision based once again on the Qur’an and Sunnah. This practice continues to this day. The process of deciding by consensus and issuing a ruling by a group of jurists or a single jurist is called ‘Ijtihad’. The doors of Ijtihad were never shut and remain open.

The overriding principle is that such rulings by Ijma’a and Qiyas must remain within the boundaries of the Qur’an and Sunnah. No scholar or jurist individually or collectively has the authority to rule in a matter and issue a ruling that changes what Allahﷻ and/or His Messengerﷺ commanded. For example, no scholar or jurist nor all living jurists together can change the law and permit the use of any intoxicant, pork or pork products, any form of gambling, sex outside marriage, dealing in bank interest or anything that the Qur’an or Sunnah prohibits. Neither can they individually or collectively change any of the commands of Allahﷻ and permit praying fewer times per day or not paying Zakat because we pay income tax or the laws of inheritance or criminal justice or any other thing. What Allahﷻ and His Messengerﷺ commanded supersedes everything else and remains unchangeable. This has always been the rule and is the reason why the Qur’an remains sacrosanct and unchanged for now, 15 centuries. Nobody can change it, and no Muslim will accept it if it is done. Ijtihad had never been used for scientific knowledge. It doesn’t need to be used. So, it has no relevance to the issue.

As for bifurcation between science and religion, yes, that happened, but the reasons have nothing to do with religion and everything to do with politics. Madrassas stopped teaching science because in the colonial period, firstly Madrassas were shut down and there was widespread oppression of Islamic scholars, including large-scale massacres. In India, after the First War of Independence in 1857, which the Indians lost thanks to the perfidy of other Indians, the British targeted Muslims and slaughtered over 100,000 religious scholars alone. Meanwhile in a targeted strategy attempting to change Muslim culture and identity, much like the infamous boarding schools for Native American children in Canada and America, secular schools were set up with English as the language of instruction and local languages forbidden. Language is the link to the culture and so it was banned to weaken the culture, if not supplant it with the awe of the culture of the British Empire. The idea was that the child would go to a secular school and learn science, math and so on there and hopefully be weaned away from his language, culture and religion. What saved the day was the Madrassas and some level of homeschooling in Islam that is a part of Islamic culture the world over. This did result in bifurcation of Islamic studies and secular subjects and the decline of Arabic and Urdu at the expense of English, but the colonial rulers were never able to eradicate Islamic culture, religion or languages even after 200 years of ruling these lands.

Bifurcation, therefore, was something that happened in the course of time, and not as a religious ruling in the nature of “Thou shalt not”. Islam clearly encourages enquiry and research and the teaching of science through the lens of the knowledge of Allahﷻ so that the scientist can see the signs of His Creator in His creation, which reinforces his faith. Allahﷻ commanded us:

A’al Imraan 3: 190-191 Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the day and night there are signs for people of intelligence. ˹They are˺ those who remember Allah while standing, sitting, and lying on their sides, and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth ˹and say˺, “Our Lord! You have not created ˹all of˺ this without purpose. Glory be to You! Protect us from the torment of the Fire.

The Qur’an is a book of signs – not science. Scientific facts about the creation which Allahﷻ mentioned in the Qur’an are for the purpose of helping us see the power of our Creator. Not to teach us science. The purpose is to give us the lens to see the Creator in all His creation and so that the more we study the universe, the better from an Islamic perspective. When we look at the marvels of creation, we see the power of the Creator in them and that reinforces our faith in Him and helps us to prepare for the day when we will meet Him.

My understanding from reading history is that the disappearance of the Muslim (not only Arab, because many of the scientists, philosophers, and scholars were not Arab) presence in the world of science has reasons that have nothing to do with theological differences, as is usually assumed by Western scholars. I am amazed at how these historians, political scientists and others, who ask and answer the question, ‘Why did scientific research disappear from the Muslim world’, do so without any reference to history, which was the root cause behind the phenomenon. Without understanding history, you can’t answer this question. Blaming the disappearance of science from the Muslim world on the Mua’tazila – Ash’ari debate is indicative of anti-Muslim prejudice and unwillingness to look at the real reasons. It is also a propagation of hatred for Islam and Muslims and the alacrity in seeing Islam as the enemy of Christianity and the West, which has plagued the Western world. It looks like they want to say, ‘The reason that Muslim scientists decided to call it a day is their own fault, and we had nothing to do with it.’ That is simply not true. It is a shared responsibility of all of humanity because it was a loss for all humanity. For me, the operative question is, ‘What are we going to do about this today?’

In my view what led to the disappearance of Muslim presence in the world of scientific research, discovery, and development, are the following factors.

Scientific research was never a grassroots, common effort. Unlike today, it was never taught in all Madrassas (schools) and nor did it form part of the conversation of common people. It was not part of popular discourse or school curricula. Scientific study was ‘elitist’ (I don’t mean anything negative by ‘elitist’) and restricted to some specialists and their students. Science was not seen as a means of achieving anything useful, especially in a commercial sense. All of which are important factors to ensure the longevity of culture and thought.

This reminds me of the time when I was on the Board of a charity which offered full scholarships for students all the way to earning PhDs in pure science. Study and research for the sake of pushing forward the boundaries of knowledge. Very noble purpose but guess what! Every year we would be forced to return a major portion (in some years, all of it) of the funds because there were no takers. I was very passionate about this and asked many parents and students and always got the same stock answer, ‘You can’t make money as a researcher or teacher.’ It is the same story in liberal arts. You don’t get the smartest and brightest if you get anyone, because, ‘What kind of a job can a BA, MA or PhD in liberal arts get?’ Especially compared to IT programmers and engineers, doctors, lawyers and others for whom there is a clear pathway of financial return. What value therefore for history, philosophy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, art, and the list is endless, all of which contribute to the development of culture and society, when none of them can earn as much as someone with knowledge that is commercially viable?

Scientific knowledge in the Golden Age of Islam was sought after as a branch of knowledge for its own sake. Noble though that purpose is, it ensured that it never became popular among the masses. Therefore, we don’t how many Khawarizmis, Ibn Sinnas, and Ibn Rushds died undiscovered because they were never introduced to science and scientific principles growing up in towns and villages across the Abbasi/Umayyad Empire. So, neither they nor anyone else knew what may have been possible. That is perhaps the reason we know the names of scientists and philosophers and their books, but I for one, have never heard that any of them had a school, where they taught their knowledge to the common people. I would venture to say the same about Greek philosophy which had it not been for the fact that the Arabs decided to translate their books into Arabic, which was the lingua franca of the time, would have remained hidden for we don’t know how long.

This is not so surprising if you see what happened to science in the other two cultures which were known for it even before the Muslims/Arabs, the Indians and Chinese. Thanks to the impact of British colonial rule in both nations, all local initiative was discouraged and shut down. There were exceptions, like Ramanujan, the great mathematician from India. But he was an exception in more ways than I can say here. When a supreme external force takes control of a nation with the goal of exploiting it in every way possible, then there is no chance for local talent to be nurtured and to shine. What is more, the constant indoctrination about the superiority of the invaders over the locals and the denigrating, discounting, and denial of all goodness of the local people, their culture, language, religion, dress, food, history, achievements and so on, creates, after a generation or two local people whose feelings about their own identity range from embarrassment to hatred. There are plenty of living examples of this before our eyes in this country and elsewhere, including of course the Muslim world. The first casualty among the colonized is confidence followed by self-respect.

As for the Mua’tazila and their movement, it was a political movement using religion as its cover. As I mentioned earlier, the theological differences are not many though significant. But what led to the conflict was the politicization of the Mua’tazila philosophy led by its founder Wasil bin ‘Ata’, who interestingly was the student of one of the most revered of the classical scholars, Hasan Al-Basri. He broke away from his teacher and started his own school. He was successful in gaining political power when he managed to influence the Khalifa Mamun Ar-Rasheed, the son of the famous Abbasi Khalifa, Harun Ar-Rasheed. That led to the persecution of orthodox scholars, especially Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal on the question of the Qur’an being a created thing and not the actual speech of Allahﷻ.
If there is one single factor that preserved the Qur’an as it was revealed and not subjected to changes according to the whims and fancies of rulers and scholars, it is the constancy and fortitude of Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal who refused to change his opinion, despite being tortured and imprisoned. Had that not happened, it would have opened the door for people to change the Revealed Word of Allahﷻ. But Allahﷻ promised to guard His word and He did, with Imam Ahmad as the instrument.

The fact that despite imprisoning, torturing and killing traditional scholars the Mua’tazili belief didn’t gain ground is evidence of how strong orthodox Islamic belief was and remains. But that is not the point of my story. My point is that the influence and power of the Mua’tizili belief remained for only two generations of rulers. After that it ended. But scientific development continued for almost five centuries. So, I don’t see any causal relationship between the Mua’tizili and Ash’ari debate and the end of scientific development in the Muslim world. Rather I see scientific development in the Muslim world as something that happened independently of religious discourse.

What killed scientific development was the twin catastrophes of the Mongols who sacked Baghdad, and the Reconquista of Ferdinand and Isabella who sacked Cordoba followed by the Inquisition. When these happened, the two major centers of Muslim learning with all their books and relics were destroyed. In the case of Baghdad, everything, scholars, and relics, perished. In Al-Andalus it was the Benedictine and other monks who had been given the task of destroying all books, who managed to save a considerable number of them, at the risk of their own lives, and these found their way into Europe. But by the end of the Inquisition and the ethnic cleansing (what a horrible phrase) of Spain, all remnants of Muslim science had been wiped out. So, it was not religious differences between Muslims and not Imam Ghazali who is usually blamed for it, but military and commercial reasons why the Muslims dropped the baton.
As I said, what contributed to the demise was the ‘exclusivity’ of the scientists and their students, which was because scientific education was not seen as commercially beneficial (didn’t lead to the creation of products of technologies for sale) and neither was scientific education seen as religious education which people would have pursued for their spiritual needs. This is not criticism of the people involved. It takes time for scientific discoveries to become widely spread, enough for common people to see value in studying science. That happens when the discovery moves from the lab to the market. That didn’t happen.
That is one of the ‘benefits’ of our commercial world today that the market has taken the place of a royal patron. Having said that, we must ask how many modern-day discoveries never see the light of day because they can’t be commercialized.

Without either of these two motivations, commercial or religious, Muslim scientific education remained elitist and exclusive, supported solely by royal patronage and so when the massacres happened, followed by the outlawing of Islam itself (the Inquisition) not enough Muslim scientists/students were left to revive it.’ Even their books, given that this was a few centuries before the printing press, were scarce and when they were destroyed, the knowledge was lost. The truth is that the real extent of damage to global human knowledge and experience that happened thanks to the efforts of Hulegu and later, Ferdinand and Isabella and the Inquisition, can never be known, because we don’t know what was lost.

Suffice to say that perhaps the world would have been a different place, if Hulegu, Ferdinand and Isabella had gone to school. What, however, is one to say about those who ordered the Inquisition – though they had gone to school – remains a matter of conjecture. Or perhaps we see a reflection of that today, where the most ‘educated’ commit the worst atrocities.