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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 April 2000 Issue No. 477 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 April 2000 Issue No. 477
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Books Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters As the world turns
By Fatemah Farag
There are very few things we can be certain of these days, yet every night we go to sleep thinking ourselves safe in the knowledge of the world's most basic facts - that Earth is a planet, that it spins about itself and the sun, that gravity holds us to the ground, and that there is a solar system of which we are but a small part. You might want to reconsider your smug convictions; or so Eid Werdani, author of The story of creation: From the throne to the earth, would have us believe.
Werdani's book is a formidable publication: 599 pages bound in black leather with gold lettering, encased in a yellow cardboard box with a sunset motif. You pay for the presentation; a staggering LE45 for a book that tells you astronauts turn blind once they cross the stratosphere, hence the images they provide are erroneous.
The last page of the book is a photocopy of a statement of approval given by the Islamic Research Academy of Al-Azhar. The statement confirms that no part of the book's content contradicts Islamic belief and is dated 4 January 2000. On 11 April, however, Al-Azhar retracted its approval and claimed that the author had tricked them by presenting a version of the book other than that currently on the market.
Werdani, unknown before the publication of The story of creation (his first book), fears for the pious who are being misguided by modern science. "Human beings are peculiar. They go in pursuit of all creatures and leave the creator, even though this is not required of them. Nothing is required of them other than to contemplate creation in order to acknowledge the creator," exclaims a distraught Werdani.
The result of this preoccupation with the material world is allegedly pathetic. "What are these great discoveries of man? That it is not God who sent the wind, and let down the rain and made the plants grow - all of these things happen by chance!" scoffs the writer, adding, "What shame, what shame, that most people accept [these discoveries]."
The all too confident manner with which Werdani pulls down scientific reality is strikingly reminiscent of the late Abdel-Aziz bin Baz, grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, who insisted that the world was in fact flat and that images provided by satellite to the contrary were nothing but a Western conspiracy against the Islamic world.
For those of us who decide to forego Werdani's conclusions and accept that Earth is in fact a planet, a legitimate question that comes to mind is whether religion is in fact at odds with modern science. From this age-old question, numerous lines of reasoning have evolved, ranging from the outlandish extremes of Werdani - a farcical version of those who dogmatically adhere to the literal sense of religious texts - to the other side of the spectrum - atheists who use science to reject religion.
Many religious scholars have argued that such a contradiction does not exist. Mosalem Shaltout, an Azharite who published an extended critique of Werdani's book in the daily Al-Akhbar newspaper last week, takes up this argument. "The most dangerous thing about this book is that via obtuse and naive interpretations of the verses of the Holy Qur'an, it puts the latter in the position of direct confrontation with the facts of modern science. This is despite the fact that the Holy Qur'an in reality is in total agreement with all constant scientific facts that have been discovered to date."
Perhaps the most controversial rationale within religious circles is that adopted by renegade Islamic scholars like Nasr Hamed Abu-Zeid, who is currently in self-imposed exile in Europe after being hounded locally for his ideas. Abu-Zeid claims that we can only understand a religious text within the specificity of the historical moment of its inception.
Shaltout's reasoning represents the position closest to the majority of mainstream enlightened Muslims, but what if serious contradictions were to arise between religion and scientific discoveries? For instance, the theory of evolution of species. Werdani, of course, vehemently denies it, but so does the mainstream religious establishment.
According to Werdani, "The believers in God know that religion cannot contradict science and they know that correct science cannot contradict religion. If science contradicts religion, or the opposite, the believer will choose religion and the atheist will choose science, not because he loves science but because he loves infidelity."
It is this pitfall of reasoning in particular that many scholars have warned against. Sayed El-Qimni, an expert in Islamic history and thought, explained to Al-Ahram Weekly, "To constantly put religion in front of science [even, perhaps, to claim they are compatible] is not in the benefit of religion. This is the lesson that can be learned from the experience of the Church in Europe. They kept on saying 'no' to this and that, and in the end the power of physical evidence was more powerful and they were forced to bow down."
According to Qimni, it is unfortunate that ideas like those promulgated by Werdani still exist in this day and age. "We have a culture that still believes in myths. After all, science grows in a free environment and when there are constraints, scientific thinking is by definition dwarfed."
When the book vendor who pocketed my LE45 was asked what he thought about the arguments made by the book, he noted, "I have not read it, so I really cannot say. However, I think religion is a belief which belongs in the heart."
