Science, Capitalism and Islam Author(s): Vasant Kaiwar Reviewed work(s): Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.

29, No. 9 (Feb. 26, 1994), pp. 489-500 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4400865 . Accessed: 01/05/2012 00:08
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SPECIAL ARTICLES

Science,

Capitalism
Vasant Kaiwar

and

Islam

nor 'Islamicscience' is not good science since neitheritspremnises conclusionsare the least bit in doubt.It merelyseeks to affirn what is knoWn present in the Qu'ran)not search into the unknown,thus makingafraudtulentuse (that is, maxims of the term 'science'. At the same time, withthe institutionalisation science undercapitalisin,the notionof 'pure'or value-free science has of throughthe logic of lost some of itsforce. In theforn of endlessly multiplying commodities,whoseproductionis mlediated in the competitivepursuitofprofit, modernscience has becomethoroughlyitnbricated the existing structureofproduction, therebylosing sight of the possibility of humanemancipationthat is inherentin it.
Islamic science is not good science since neither its premises nor conclusions are the least bit in doubt. It merely seeks to affirm what is known (that is, the maxims present in the Qur'an) not search into the unknown. Islamic science seeks no new mathematical principles, no new experiments will be designed for its verification, and no new devices or machines will be -Pervez Hoodbhoy built on account of it. It is "a fraudulent THE importance and timeliness of Pervez use of the term science," sharing none of Hoodbhoy's Islam and Science, Religious the qualities of the scientific work that the Orthodoxyand the Battle for Rationality' M*uslim scientists of Islam's 'golden age' cannot be overstated. It is an investigation carried out. Pioneers like Ibn Sina of thedisastrousstateof scientific education (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Ibn alandresearchin Pakistan(and otherMuslim Haytham, Ibn Khaldun, and others were countries), an essay on the history of the devout Muslims who nonetheless pracdiscoveries and innovations of Muslim sci- tised science of anessentially secularkind. entists in the 'golden age of Islam,' and an Of course, they incurred the wrath of oreloquent argumentfor the universalism of thodox elements in Muslim society, and science against Islamic fundamentalistat- were most often threatened not by nontempts to concoct an Islamic science vis-a- Muslims but by a "virulent anti-science vis western science. It is also and most section" of the Muslim ulema.6 Seen in importantlya plea for a criticalcommitment this historical light, the Islamic fundato planned, democratic modernisationwith mentalism of the late 20th century is a science as a crucial component of education throwback to medieval attitudes, singuand development. The preface by Abdus larly inappropriate to the challenges of Samad, a Nobel prize-winning physicist, our time. Against this reactionary tensets the tone of the book by declaring, dency, Hoodbhoy asserts that no set of "There is only one universal science, its moral or theological principles permits problemsandmodalitiesareuniversal.There one to build a new science. Scientific is no such thing as Islamic science, just as research has only one standardof validity: there is no Hindu science, no Jewish sci- Does it, or does it not, meet the challenge ence, no Confucian science, no Christian of experiment?Greatscientists like Galileo science' 2 Hoodbhoyechoes this sentiment andNewton, devout Christiansthemselves stating, "Science is indeed the intellectual who hadno desire to challenge the religious propertyof all humankind,and part of the beliefs of their time, did opt to pursuetheir universal cultural heritage".' Modern sci- inquiries thoughitmeantundermining Chrisence, Hoodbhoy explains, is a set of 'defi- tian dogma.7No less a challenge faces the nite' rules by which "one seeks a compre- Muslim scientist of today-to establish an hensionof thephysical universe." Its power autonomousspaceforscientific work,while andauthorityare soley due to a method that choosing whether or not to remain true to combines observation and inference, with one's religion. It is perhapsa commentary experiment and logical consistency as the on thesad stateof manythirdworldcountries "sole arbiters truth".4 To qualify as scien- thatthese fightingwordsneed to be uttered of tific, a theory must make predictions that and the autonomyof science from religion canbe checked for correctnessagainst "ob- (andreligiously-based politics)reasserted. servation and experiment," that is, there I must be room for falsifiability, a principle A Critique of Fundamentalism thatKarlPopperasserted. An unfalsifiable and Parochialism theory is not a scientific theory. Against this criterion, what passes for Islamic sciFundamentalistsof all religious stripes ence has "no epistemological standing as wish to bring science into line withi the religious text(s) of their respective faiths. science."5
Muslim society, bullied by the military might of the west, pushed into retrograde positions by reactionary internal forces, torn by bitter rivalries and enmities, disappointed by its historical fate, and culturally wedded to the past, is in dire need of educational, social and political reform if science and human dignity are to flourish. Economic and Political Weekly February 26, 1994

All knowledge, according to the fundamentalists, is revealed in the holy text(s); an increase of knowledge is a matter of finding new interpretations of holy writ. This position is clearly stated in Maurice Bucaille, The Bible, 7he Qur'an and Science, in which the Quran is presented as the source of all scientific facts. For each topic that he discusses, he finds quotations from the Quran that have some plausible agreement with scientific facts. This, Bucaille asserts, is proof of the Quran's miraculous nature. The problem with this approach, Hoodbhoy wryly notes, is that the proof of a proposition is only meaningful if the possibility of disproof (a la Popper) is al-soentertained. For a believer, the disproof of the Quran s divine nature is is unthinkable; for the non-believer the exercise is uninteresting. Science is shameless in abandoning old theories, once falsified; religious texts, on the other hand, are supposed to reveal eternal truths (by definition unfalsifiable). Bucaille, basing himself upon the Quran. does not make a single prediction that could be tested on the basis of experiment and observation.8 All he can do is take existing scientific facts and find a roughly similar statement in the Quran, leaving faith to do the rest. Nem Kumar Jain [Science and Scientists in India] takes a similar approach. Quoting from the Bhagvad Gita 2-16 ("What does not exist cannot come into existence and what exists cannot be destroyed"), he assertsthatthe law of conservationof matter and energy was known to thie ancients, thereby positing the divine nature of the Gita and concluding that nothing new has been added to the stock of human knowledge since the scriptureswere set down. Not
only is this sort of exercise extremely vague

and disingenuous, but, as Jayant Narlikar hascommented, IHindu scriptureshave been cited in proofof boththe Steady Statetheory of creation and the Big Bang theory!9 Georges Sartonargues thatin ancientand medieval times, the arts of observation and experimentation were so underdeveloped that whatever positive knowledge they revealedseemedvery "changeable shaky", and and tlhereforevery unreliable. In comparison, thieological costructions appeared unshakable: "Not being based on observa489

tion, no amount of observation could destroy them; not being based on deduction, no amount of logic could impugn them. They stood apart and above the world of experience."'" Theological 'explanation' frequentlycompleted the scientists' observations." Today's fundamentalists take a deliberatelyantiquatedstance;Eitherscientific observationandtheorymust be madeto fit the unalterabletext of the scriptures,or it must be shown that those scripturesanticipatedmodernscientific findings. Given that the Quran did not anticipate, or cannot legitimate, many modern discoveries, it becomes necessary to disaffirm those discoveries, and to divide science itself along culturallines; thatis, to fabricatean Islamic societies because its epistemology is basically in conflict with the Islamic view. Science and technology must be broughtinto line with 10 basic Islamic values, including, 'tawheed' (unity of God), 'ibadah' (worship), and 'khilafah(trusteeship).Whatthat means is anyone's guess; readerswho seek more thanplatitudes,Hoodbhoywarns,will
be disappointed.'2

For the secular, there is 'thirdworld science' whose advocates declare thatmodern science and technoLogy based on 'westare ern experience and epistemology', and are for that reason ill-suited to the needs of the third world. They speak of the need to 'debrainwash'the people of the thirdworld and to fight 'foreign-trained scientists' who are the "greatest germ-carriers the westof ern virus against which our societies are
seeking immunity''."' Such sentiments are

found among a recent cropof 'philosophers of science' like SusanthaGoonatilake who finds thatscience in many thirdworld societies is neitheroriginal nor creative, is isolated from the society at large, and is furthermore divorced in spirit and substance fromthe knowledge andphilosophies which existed in pre-colonialtimes.14 Goonatilake, in a profoundly anti-Whiggish move, locates the sources of wisdom in the distant past. Thus, only the ancient civilisations contain sufficient wisdom to save third world countries from their crisis. Scientific and medical research must seek the "rich historical, scientific and conceptual traditions such as those of south Asia or China." Ayurvedic medicine, for example, could be "screened for new growth-points which could be married to contemporary scientific [western?] knowledge" . Is Vandana Shiva's Staying Aliveadvocates a similar position.6 Both arepartof a larger chorus of voices raised against 'western science'. In some respects, they are no differentfromthefundamentalist position,since the founts of knowledge thatought to guide modern scientific practice in non-western societies are located in ancient texts which are also the sources of a people's (nation's) spiritual life and vitality. Thereis a volkisch romanticismaboutthis feverish search in pre-colonial archives for

the sources of rejuvenationof the science and society of thirdworldpeoples. By eliding the distinction between popular practices and the elite textual tradition the proponentsof 'thirdworld science' require us to believe that pre-colonial society was an organicunity until the west impingedon it, a fictional notion at best. Also implicit is the proposition that only supposedly autochthonoustexts andpracticesare capable of developing the scientific knowledge that third world peoples require to solve their urgentproblems. Given thatmanyproblems including hunger, famine, and disease existed long before the arrivalof the colonial powers, one might ask why a scientific system to deal with these problemshad not alreadyevolved. In general, the whole propaganda of these latter-day romantics requiresmore faith in blood andsoil ideology than the historical evidence can support.'7 Te rootsof thiskindof thinkingactuallygo no furtherbackthanthe cultural-paternalist wing of Orientalism,which posited that in the conservative 'east' people gave "implicit obedience" to ancienttexts thatwent back to the dawn of their civilisation.8 Ironically, Goonatilakeand other romantically inclinedpopulistshavetakenthisrather literally, claiming implicitly that in the absence of western impact, people in these societies would still continue to follow the precepts contained in their religious and moral texts.'9ConservativeEuropeanideologues believed that the development of modern science in Europe was simply the inexorable march of the Greek genius via the Renaissanceandthe Enlightenment into the industrialrevolution with a few interruptions.20 Similarly, populist ideologues in the thirdworld would like to believe that the only way their societies can achieve an authentic developmentof science is torelink with their forgotten past, forgotten not because it is irrelevant to the problems they face todaybutbecausethe 'west' introduced an arbitrary rupture theprocessof cultural in continuity. In more ways than one, the exoticism of 19th century racialism has become the literal truthof late 20th century populism-an indigenous exoticism as it were. Needless to say, the recommendationsof populistintellectuals havenotyielded a programme methodologyof scientific and research. For the Orientalist,Islam (or some other faith) constitutedthe overarchingstructure within which social, political and intellectual life was framed;yet this crude forn of culturalreductionismdoes not speak to the realities of eithermedieval or modernlife.2' Islamic fundamentalistshave given a new lease of life to this reductionistconstruct developed by the practitionersof the humanist disciplines popular in the 19tlh cenitury-the history of religionis and the study of historical and comparative linguistics22-forcibly attemptingto unify aspects of life that were separate even

before western colonialism. It is in this context that both the imperatives and limits of the attempt to develop an Islamic science become apparent. While Islamic science might provide a psychological defence against the "insistent pressure of modern science'"," the key imperative that sustains it is state policy, and the money made available as a result.24Islamic science has become linked to the material support that strategically-placedindividuals, organisations, and governments have provided-Saudi money being particularly importantin this regard.25 Pakistan,secIn tions of the politically conservative ulema who wished to increase their power have seized on Islamic science to extend the domain of religious law into the sphere of naturalphenomena.26 military dictatorThe ship that ruled Pakistanfrom 1977 to 1988, andits successor governments, not wanting to set aside resources for moderneducation, healthcare and other benefits for its people, have found the appeasementof the conservative ulema a convenient way to cement a political alliance and devolve some of the state'sresponsibilities religiousauthorities. to The limits of this approachin the field of education,andparticularlyscientific education, are obvious. Not only are levels of educational competenceextremelylow, even by thirdworld standards,butwhatpasses for scientific research in Pakistanis often ludicrous. The appendix to Islam and Science gives some examples thatare both hilarious and tragic: for example, a Pakistani scientist, chairmanof the Holy Qur'an Research Foundationin Islamabad, advocated using fiery creaturescalled 'jinns', who presumably inhabitthe heavens, to generatepower, thus solving Pakistan's energy problem in an environmentally sound fashion. Similarly, others have used Einstein's theory to calculate the speed of heaven and the angle of god, andprovided otherinformationbeneficial to Pakistan's economic progress. Unlike their 19tli century counterparts, modem-day Islamists are forced to pay at least lip-service to developing a science curriculum.Islamic science serves the purpose well enough. The elites after all do not have to educate theirclhildren the second in rate schools that combine orthodox religious instruction witlh an utterly outdated and useless scientific curriculum.The rich attendprivate schools andcolleges andthen go on to American universities. When ill, they consult doctors, not hakims. The latter are exclusively for the poor. This reproduces ruling class privilege, and a lack of concern for the well-being of the people.27 Rather than focus attention on developing the knowledge needed for a thoroughtransformation of society, so that all may have the benefit of modern education, health care, and employment, the developmentof an Islamic curriculum ensures that those subject to it learn nothing thlatwill enable them to address serious problems.

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The romantic populists (Goonatilake, Shiiva,anda host of others)may appearto be a fi)rcry from such movements, but in their of essentialistportrayals culturaldifferences, andtheirattribution the problemsof their of societies to the cultural dominance of the west, theydo sharea certaincommonground. The elite progenitors of populist ideology, like high-level bureaucr.atsand military kleptocrats, can ignore it in their everyday lives for all practical purposes. They, too, have access to all the fruits of modern science, modern education, medical care, air travel, fellowships, and sometimes jobs in the despised west. AGAINST PAROCHIALISM Hoodbhoyrejects the rival parochialisms of east and west. He locates the capacityfor scientific thought in a human capacity for In "reasonandabstraction." his words,"Rational man has emerged from the realm of biological evolution endowed with innate mental structures capable of abstract thought".28 Noam Chomsky's discovery of a universal human grammar suggests that fundamentally "human thought and behaviourare entirely universal." Thatdemolishes racist theories of development and establishes, "the oneness of us all' 29 In this view, it only needs "external stimuli to set cognitive and creative processes in " operation. 30 As an example of the western parochialism he rejects, he quotes from a recentwork by Michael Moravcsik annd John Ziman:
With European industrial civilisation comes European science.-.the process of economic growth and social development is entirely predicated on the 'rational materialism' of post-RenaissanceEuropeand its northAmerican colonies... In the present discussion, it is taken for granted that European science should become a dominant cultural force throughout the world.3'

Against this, Hoodbhoy asks: Could European science have made the progress it did, without the availability of advances made elsewhere, notably in the Muslim world?In his view it is 'utterly accidental' that modern science should have developed over the last 400 years in Europe. Only with the development of an industrial civilisation did science become partof cultureandexercised a vital influence on everyday life. Looked at in this light, "paroclhial pride in the historical cultures which we accidentally happen to be associated with appears
quite irrational"."32 Ie goes on to add that

many third world scholars have embraced modern science and are thankfulit found a fertile soil in Europe. While one miglht take exception to Hoodbhoy'sphilosophicalanthropology, his account of the development of science is a refreshing and, in many ways, insightful blast at the rival parochialismsthat appear to have settled into a comfortabledotage in our academic culture. Hoodbhoy's state-

Thomas Aquinas used the works of Maimonides (d 1204) and Ibn Rushd (Aveiroes, d 1198) and employed a manner of argument familiar from Muslim scholasticism. Dante, while consigning Muhammad II to inferno, was nonetheless indebted to Muslim visionaries whose works had been Towards a More Cosmopolitan translated into Latin. Parallel efforts in Understanding of Civilisation alchemy and astrology witl "Islam as teacher The failureof large areasof the erstwlile and Christendom a self-willed student introcolonial world to achieve economic devel- duced more concepts and associations to be opment has contributedin partto revivalist held in common".39 The Byzantines relied andfundamentalist trends.These "political on Arab medicine, and Ibn Sina's Canon of movements under the guise of religion" Medicine, translated into Latin, was taught have in turn encouraged a 'resurgence of for centuries in European universities. Roger essentialism'.3 However,it is worthnoting Bacon's experiments were based on althat even so confirmed a culturalist as Haytham' s treatise on optics, and Ibn Rushd GustaveE von Grunebaum stressedthat became the first philosopher of thie Reforhas the 'medievaleast andwest' (read:the Arab mation. Indeed, for many years the Univerworld and Europe)had at least two roots in sity of Paris only admitted Aristotle as excommon: one, the cultural legacy of thie plained in Ibn Rushd's commentary.40 'heathenworld' aroundthe Mediterraneani, Arabic civilisation itself was a rich tapesand two, Judeo-Christian monotheism, the try woven from many threads. The Arabian 'east' being the "more conscientious heir Nights, for example, drew on Indian and until a repentant west turned back to its Persian, Jewish and Greek, Babylonian and origins aided by Easternguidance"'.' The Egyptian sources, fusing them with "genuidentity,ornear-identity, the "fundamen- inely Arabic elements". In this synthesis, it of tal structures of their civilisations" may is a "small scale likeness of Islamic have contributedin no small measureto the civilisation as a whole". With a shift in "acrim6ny of their rivalry," but it was a emphasis away from the Indian, Babylonian meaningful rivalry in the scnse that the and Egyptian towards the Persian, Greek combatantsfought on the same plane. The and Judeo-Christiani, and a much greater "slogans andreasoningof one party could emphasis on the genuinely Arabic, "the be understoodby the other".35Acrimony structure of Islamic civilisation repeats the was not, however, the o1y productof their structure of the Nights". Thoroughly syninteraction; genuinerespectexistedbetween cretistic, it proved its vitality by coating the Byzantines and first the Persians and "each and every borrowing with its inimithenthe Arabs.Theophylactus Simocatta table patina" 41 The adoption of mental habof makesthe Persianking Khosrau write to the its that had supported Greek science helped

mentsunderline historical the circumstances in which science becamelinked to practical productiveactivity in earlymodernEurope, so that it ceased to.be an esoteric activity. An eminent physicist, floodbhoy is no naive celebrant of modern science. HIe emphasises that many of the promises science made for a betterworldhaveremained unfulfilled. Science may have created a global village but the villagers have not learntto talkwithorcomprehend eachother. We live in a dangerouslypolluted world in whichthe "wastesof industrial civilisation" destroyfragileecosystems. Militaristswith dangerous designs have used, or abused, science for their own ends. Our continued existence is in doubtdue to "Oppenheimer's sin." Despite this, he states, without the benefits of science, humankind was "helpless before wind and storm, ravaged by plague anddisease, and terrorisedby mindless superstitions." The human mind, an incomparableinstrument,was wasted. Science liberated human beings from those conditions, and holds, in his opinion, the best possibility for tackling our innumerable problems, provided there is also a socially conscious process to regulate its applications. I will returnto this theme below.

wealth of the Persians. By these two great empires, the barbarous and war-loving nations are kept in check, and mankind given --betterand safer government throughout.36 And when during and after the eighth century, the Arabs took the place of the Persians, it is they who constituted the pillars of civilisation. Aside from the Indians, only their nations were lettered; only they "keep aloof from the brutislh desires of the barbarians, such as the Turks and Chinese" .31 The spell of Arabic knowledge was so strong thatmany Spanish Clhristians neglected their traditions in favour of Arabic. Alvaro, a Christian zealot, writing in 854 AD deplored this tendency: Alas! the young Christians who are most conspicuous for theirtalents have no knowledge of any literature or language save the Arabic... they amass whole libraries of [Arabic] books at a vast cost, and they everyvhere sing the praises of Arabian lore... at the mention of Christian books they disdainfully protest that such works are unworthy of their notice.38

emperorMauricius: There are two eyes to which divinity has confidedthe taskof illuminating world: the thesearethe powerful monarchy the Roof mans and the wisely governed common-

scientific activity: "the ability to discuss problems according to thle categories of formal logic; the appreciation of purely theoretical speculation, and above all, the acknowledgement of a 'secular' science,

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fully independentof anyreligious sectarianism"." At the same time, rulersandscholars enriched their field of knowledge with the scientific texts of Byzantium, Greece, Persia and India. ISLAMIC SCENCE MUSLIM OR SCIENCE? There is no question thatIslam played an importantrole in facilitating the developmentof Arabicculture.It gave theArabs"an identity, a consciousness and a worldview transcendingthe hitherto narrow confines of tribaland ethnic existence"." lTheyalso learntfrom Muhammadthat a "community undergod was more meaningful and thusof
greater political promise than a community under tribal law".4" Why did Islam itself

prevail in seventh century Arabia and then spreadoutwards with such dazzling speed? H1 Wells offers a secular explanation: G Islamprevailed becauseit wasthebestsocial and politicalorderthe times could offer. It prevailedbecauseeverywhereit foundpoliticallyapathetic peoples,robbed, oppressed,
bullied, uneducated and unorganised and it

foundselfish andunsoundgovernments out of touch with any people at all. It was the broadest, cleanestpolitical freshest, ideathat hadyetcomeintoactualactivityin theworld andit offeredbettertermsthananyotherto the massof mankind.45 Even if Islam had no direct causal role to play in the ensuing cultural revolution, it provided at least the ideological framework for the construction of a new political system, far transcending anything that contemporary feudal Europe could boast. The world of Islam became, for several centuries, the cultural heart of world civilisation. Arabs and non-Arabs living within the magnetic field of this powerful new culture found themselves in possession of the "dazzling intellectual treasures of ancientcivilisations". Their leritageconsisted of Greek philosophy and science, Persian literature, Indianme-dicine mathand ematics, and Chinese technology. Certain aspectsof EgyptianandBabylonianscience unknown to the Greeks were available to them. This 'umam-al-awail'(knowledge of antiquity)was a "vast storehouse of intellectual treasures".46 Von Grunebaumis unquestionablyrightin statingthatthe stupen-dous rise of this civilisation between 750 and950 AD was theresultof the "spontaneous collaborationof the best minds of all thie Empire's nationalities".'` During this period, thereweremassive translation projects to make available the scientific knowledge of antiquityto Arabicspeakers.TIhlie translators were, for the most part, non-Muslims; the greatestof them, HunaynIbnIslhaq, was aNestorian Christian,othlerswere pagans, Jacobites, and Buddlhists. The projccts undertaken at this stage represented the assimilation of imported knowledge.48By the high middle ages (1000-1250 AD), the translation projects had been completed. Arabic, not Greek, now became thlevehlicle

of intellectual thought. Many of -the most important scientific minds were concentrated in the lands that came under Arab dominance. Most of the prominent scientists were now Muslims: Ibn al-Haytham (965-1039), Al-Biruni (9973-1051), Omar Khayyam (1038-1123), Nasir-ud-dinTusi (1201-1274), not to mention the redoubtable Ibn Sina (980-1037), Ibn Rushd (1 126-1198) andIbn Khaldun(1332-1406). Thousands flocked to the universities that were established in Baghdad and in southern Spain, anda spiritof freedompermitted Muslims, ChristiansandJews to work side by side. Besides the universities,therewere the 'bait-ul-hiikmah', astronomical observatories, hospitals, and schools.49 Europeanmerchants and students came into contactwith this brilliantnew scientific culturemainly in SpainandSicily, the nearest point of contact between the two civilisations. In 1085, when Toledo fell to theChristians,European studentsflocked to this city to leam science as it was transmitted in Arabic. they employed Jewish interpretersto converse andto translate.In 12th centurySpain, Platoof Tivoli, Gherardoof Cremona, Adelard of Bath and Robert of Chesterweretranslating Arabicmathematical manuscriptsinto Latin.Y? Contemporaries divided the fields of knowledge into indigenous (Arab) and foreign sciences. Yusuf al-Hwarizmi's Keysof the Sciences written in 976 AD counted j urisprudence, holastic philosophy,gramsc mar, 'kitaba'(the artof thesecretaryincluding the terminologyof governmentadministration), prosody, and history as indigenous sciences, while classifying philosophy, logic, medicine, arithmetic,geometry, astronomy and astrology, music, mechanics, and alchemy as foreign sciences.5" a In modern classification, most of what we could consider science belongs to the foreign category.Islamic fundamentalistsand western writers have therefore tended to dismiss thescience of Islam's 'golden age' as no more than a "natural and logical extension of Greekscience". For example, Greek myths from the time of Arius and Pythagorasinspired alchemy; while scientifically dubious,it was theparentscience of modern chemistry, producing important knowledge of the properties of acids and alkalis. Similarly, the work of Ibn alHaythamonpoptics was a logical extension of Greek thought on the subject. Muslim mathematicianstook up problems that had been considered by their Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek and Indian predecessors. Indeed,the so-called Arabicnumerals were originally taken from Indian mathematics, which exercised a fundamentalinfluence in the developmentof algebra.52 I-loodbhoy himself finds nothing unusual in this, as all science is cumulative, progressing by absorbingexisting knowledge and generating innovations. A universal desireto ulnderstand physicalworlddrove the

Ahe great scientists, many of whom were practicing,if at times unorthodox,Muslims. Their methods were those used by good scientists invalf-a-gv o-bservatiop,experimentation, and mathematical proof." Ibn Rushdrefuted al-Ghazzali's view of divine interventionto explain every physical phenomenon by noting: "To deny the existence of efficient causes which are observed in sensible thingsis sophistry... Denial of cause implies denial of knowledge and denial of knowledge implies thatnothingin the world can really be known".'. Similarly Ibn alHatibof Granada,a famous statesman,historian and physician, braved orthodoxy in his studyof the plague, stating: "The existence of contagion is established by experience, studyandthe evidence, by trustworthy reports of transmission by garments... by the spreadof it by persons fromone house to another..." He went on to enunciate the daringprinciple that, "A proof taken from the traditions has to undergo modification when in manifest contradiction with the evidence of theperception of the senses' s To appreciate the boldness of this thesis, von Grunebaum remarks,it must be remembered that "the Prophet had expressly denied the existence of the contagion"'5A Despite these advances, science in the medieval Muslim world was an esoteric pursuit for the elites, often patronised by progressive rulers, for example, al-Kindi (801-873) in the court of the Caliph alMamun, and Ibn Rushd in the court of Caliph al-Mansur.While the elites pursued scientific knowledge in private academies, such knowledge was rigorously excluded fromthecurriculum the 'madrassas' of (venues for religious education). The scientists themselves showed fear of andcontemptfor the masses, cheerfully advocatingone truth for the 'ignorantmasses' andanotherfor the elect. Underlyingthis dualism was a fear of the mullahs who could mobilise the masses against the scientists and rationalist philosophers.57 Patronageitself was fickle. Occasionally, when conservative rulers succeeded more enlightened ones, these eminent court scientists were subjectedto severe harassment, and sometimes banishment. This is what happenedto al-Kindi when al-Mutawakil,a 'cruel drunkensot' in league with the qazis andmullahs,ascendedto thecaliphate.There was a round-up and extermination of the 'mu'tazilites' (mu'tazila = dissenters), Islamic scholastic philosophers whose belief in free will andreason was considereddamaging to orthodoxy. Ahmed ibn Hanbal, a literalist opposed to the mu'tazilites, proclaimed a holy war on science, and denouncedlearning and rationalism.The pulpits of Baghdad began to fulminate against the holders of heterodox views. Rationalist philosoplers fled Baghdadfor more benign locations.58 as elitist rulers,interestedin Just the pursuit of abstractrational knowledge for its OWnl could foster the scienlces,so sake,

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reactionaryleaders or a populist alliance of mullahs and the uneducated masses-could foment a rebellion against the pursuit of such knowledge-a potent combination. Technical application was not an-inducement to scientific endeavour, nor was science a separateandautonomousintellectual activity with its own institutional space. In this, the situationof Muslim science was no differentfromthesituationin ancientGreece; after all Anaxagoras was driven from Athens for teaching his scientific views.59Nor, for that matter, was it different from medieval and early modern Europe. Hoodbhoy provides a numberof examples of inquisitorial repression of scientific inquiry in
Europe.60

those who wished to combine piety with conservatism.

III Social and Political Roots of Scientific Revolution

Given the esoteric and elite nature of science in theMuslim world, a conservative ruling alliance of religious and secular authorities could effectively hobble the further development of '-science by denying patronageto the scientists.65 this type of Did alliance also tlhwartthe development of capitalism? There was certainly an extensive 'capitalistsector' in the Muslim world from the early eighth century, the most highly developedin historybeforethe world market created by the western European bourgeoisie. The extent of the market was due initially to "the military victories of Islam, and the long durationof the unified Muslimempire." When,finally, theempire broke up, the "power of the ideological bond" preventedwatertightfrontiersfrom developing.66Capital had achieved a high level of organisation,but failed to develop a capitalist economy tout court. Why? Quoting Marx ("The relationship of labour to capital... presupposesan historicalprocess whichdissolves thedifferentformsin which the labourer is an owner and the owner labours",) Rodinsonimplies thatthe structureof powerwas such thatcapitalistswere, by andlarge, unableto become the immedi-ateowners of the process of labour.Apparently both slavery and peasant ownership, with state support,coincided with a system in which a praetorian elite controlledpolitical power, enforced taxation and limited capital's interventionin the economy to a largely distributionary (thatis, capitalrole ists were free to make the profitsof circulation and alienation but not the profits of enterprise).The commercialbourgeoisie, a factor of considerableimportanceup to the early 11th century, was thereafterreduced to a secondaryrole in Muslim societies, as "castes of slave soldiers, mostly of Turkish origin, became established throughoutthe Middle East". Thecapitalistsectorbeganto
shrink.67

Ibn Khaldunperhapsrepresentedbest the ambiguity in medieval Muslim science; though himself a pioneer of materialistexplanation in social science, he stated that "partof the beautyof man's Islam, resignationof god" was to leave alonewhatdoes not concern him.6" is ironic that such a great It scientific mind should have voiced the sentiments of a religious hierarchy that was on coming to establisha stranglelhold knowledge in the Muslim world. Ibn Khaldunwas keenly conscious of this decline, remarking thatwith the extinction of scientific knowledge, civilisation had perished throughout the Muslim west (the Maghrib).The representatives of what remained of scientific erudition were forced to evade the surveillance of orthodoxdoctors.The situationwas slightly better in southern Persia, Transoxania,andEgypt.However,andmost significantly, he writesthatin the landof the Franks,on the northshoreof the Mediterranean, philosophical studies were flourishing; scientific work was revived in those parts and a great number of students and teachers were involved in its development and promotion.62 Given this situation, the "'outstanding puzzle", according to Hoodbhoy, is how individuals were able to sustain scientific thought over a period of some six centuries. About 700 years ago, however,this greatcivilisationlost the "will and ability" to do science, apart from an occasional flurryin the Ottomanperiodand in Mehmet Ali's Egypt.63 By 1500, the cultural influence of Islam on Europe had sunk to comparative insignificance. Europe "vaguely realised that it had nothing essential to learn from its ageold opponent, and in the Muslim world political success engendered a deceptive feeling of security and self-sufficiency'X64 I think it is fair to say that Islam itself was not the singular cause of either the rise and efflorescence of Muslim science or of its decline. The ideological andpolitical unity, and the sense of liberation fiom tribal and ethnicidentities,thataccompaniedits spread mobilised the creative energies of generations of people. In due course, it became an obstacle in the sense thatIslamic orthodoxy provided ideological weaponry for

Symptomatic of this political structure, and the urban habitation of the militaryfeudal political elite, was the absence from the Muslim world of autonomouscities or urbanguilds comparable those thatdevelto oped in early modernEurope.Guilds in the Muslim world were not organisationsthat workmencreatedtoprotectthemselvesasnd their craft. Rather,they were organisations that the state put in place "to supervisethe craft and workmenand above all to protect the statefromautonomous organisations' '.6 For a numberof reasons, tlherefore, neither a powerfulentrepreneurial bourgeoisie nor an autonomousartisanalclass emerged in the Muslim world.69 practice this meant In thatpopular forces, withoutextra-economic

privileges or monopolies, were not available to take up the development of science and technology. This seems a more apt explanationthanthe fictitious notionputout by Syed Hossein Nasr, an Iranian'historian' of science, that Muslims while capable of building machines chose not to do so because this would upset the balance betwen " 'manandnature, reducingthespiritualquality of [their]existence" 7.0 The potent combination of the ulema and authoritarianrulers thus robbed Muslim society of the potential benefits of scientific and technical development. The power and wealth of the elites themselves rested on neither a rational knowledge of the physical world nor the development of the technical means of production. Elite strategy could concentrate on the elaboration of the structures of extra-economic controlandthe brainwashingof the popular masses into a naturalisation, and indeed of supernaturalisation, the hiierarchies they lived under and the misery thay experienced.71 One consequence of all this was to reinforce the resignationist, even fatalistic, aspects of Islamic ideology. In the theologocentricview, Islam itself could then be held responsible for both the technical backwardnessand the fatalism widely observed in the Muslim world, effectively exempting the political structurefrom any responsibility.72 But, as Rodinson demonstrates quoting Destanne de Bemis's study of the Tunisianpeasantry, fatalism is associatedwiththeenormousweightof "chancy" factorsthatcondition the success of productive efforts. Resignation, on the other hand, may be a perfectly rationalaccommodation to the futility of trying to change the status quo under the existing conditions of the distributionof power. Organisedreligion is, of course, diabolically clever at teaching people to sublimatetheirdissatisfactioninto a supplicationof forces beyond humancontrol. Similar attitudes were widespread in medieval Europe.73The definitive setting aside of these attitudes in western Europe was the result of many converging forces, most compactly manifestedin the decline of the authorityof feudal lords and the church and the rise of capitalist production. This profound economic and ideological transformation has its roots in the social and political struggles of late medieval Europe that led to the gradualseparationof church and state, and the growing independenceof the bourgeoisiefrom feudalmonopolies and controls. It is in this revolutionary milieu thatmodem science comes intpexistence. It is necessaryto understand so as to put in this perspective the very different trajectoryof
the Muslim world.
OF BIRTH MODERN SCIENCEIN EUROPE

Hoodbhoy correctly states that in premodern times there was no symbiotic relatkdnshipbetween science and technology. Science did not lead to notable improve-

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mnents agriculture,housing, clothing, or in even weapons of war. Science was "booklearming,disputatious and often abstract, withoutthe searching test of practicaluse",. Technology was empirical, ad hoc, without theoreticalunderpinnings.74 Inventionswere few and farbetween. While it is truethatthe symbiosis of science and technology does not achieve its mature form until the 19th century, the beginnings of this process go back almost to the mid-16th century. Edgar Zilsel, a German historian of science, describes thecomplex process through which the practical world of the plebeian artisancame into contact with the learned world of the university scholars. To the plebeian craftsmen in the Europeantowns, the "occult qualities and substantialforms of the scholastics and the verbosity of the humanists" were of no interest. Many of them, by the Renaissance, had outgrownthe guild restrictions on craft trainihgand productionandwere experimentingin the fields of mechanics, acoustics, chemistry, metallurgy, geometry, and anatomy. Many of these pioneers were uneducatedcraftsmen, and we do not know their names. We do, however, know the names of the educated: forexample, Brunelleschi (1377-1446) who constructed the cupola of the cathedral at Florence, Leone Battista Alberti(1407-72), Leonardo da Vinci (1492-1519), and VanoccioBiringucci(d 1538) "whose booklet on metallurgyis one of the firstchemical treatisesfree of alchemistie superstition".75 Though these 'superior' artisans had already developed considerable theoretical andpracticalknowledge whichithey applied to the tasks of production, they had not learned to proceed systematically; as a result their achievements form a collection of "isolated discoveries' ' . Methodicaltraining of intellect was an elite activity, reserved for university scholars and for humanistic literati. Experimentationand observation was left to more or less plebeian workers.The two worlds did not meet as yet. The former did not regard the latter very highly. We regardthe craftsmen andartists, not the university windbags, as the true heroes of the Renaissance and have created themyth thatthey were equally honouredin their time. Yet, in the literatureof the Renaissance, they recede into the background; at if mentioned all,itis in anextremelycareless way. As long as the separation these two of worlds persisted, scienceinthe"modemmeaning of the term was impossible".7 However, starting around 1550, a few learmed authorsbegan to be interestedin the
mechanical arts, which had become "economnically so important". TIhey composed

Latin and vernacular works on the geographical discoveries, navigation and cartography, mining and metallurgy, surveying, mechanics, and gunnery. Eventually the social barrierbetween the two components of the scientific method began to breakdown. The "methods of the superior

craftsmen were adopted by academically trainedscholars:real science was born'.78 Zilsel mentions some famous examples of the new scientific culture at work. William Gilbert (1544-1603), physician to queen ElizabethI, published the first book by an trainedscholarbasedentirely aca-demically on laboratoryexperimentand personalobservations. He attacked Aristotelianism, belief in authorityand, "humanisticverbosity." IHis scientificmethodderivedfromthat of foundrymen, miners,andnavigatorswith whomhe hadpersonalcontacts.Manyof the experimental devices he used were taken from a vernacularbooklet by the compassmaker Robert Norman, a retired mariner. Galileo (1564-1642) studied mathematics privately at the Accademia del Disegno in Florence. The school was founded in 1562 for young artistsandartist-engineers. Zilsel remarksthatthe foundingof this school was an importantstep in the process by which "eengineering its methodsrose gradually and from the workshopsof craftsmenandeventually penetratedthe field of academic instruction."Galileolecturedoon mathematics andastronomyat the Universityof Pisa and privately on mechanics and engineering. He conducted research on pumps, on the regulation of rivers and the construction of fortresses. He liked to visit dockyards and talk with the workmen. His greatest discovery-the law of falling bodies, published in the Discorsi-developed from a problemin contemporary gunnery.Galileo found the solution to the problem by combiningcraftsman-style experimentation with learned mathematical analysis. In the Discorsi, Galileo gives the mathematical deductions in Latin and describes the experimentsin Italian.After 1610, he gave up writing in Latin altogether and addressedl himself to non-scholars.He expressed his aversion to contemporaryprofessors and humanists in his treatises and letters.79 FrancisBacon (1561-1626) attackedbelief in authorityandimitationof antiquitywith passion,andset up analternative standard of "'methodical scientific researchfor the advancementof humancivilisation". Ilis vision of the ideal state as depicted in Nova Atlantis rests on scientific and technological progressvia the plannedco-operationof scientists, who use andcontinuethe investigations of their fellow workers.These scientists who aretherulersof theNew Atlantis are also divided into nine groups based otn the principle of division of labour. Bacon constructeda model on the experience of craftsmenwho drew on each other's work, andon the growingdivision of labourin the economy of hiisday.80 The emergence of science in the modern senise requiredtheconvergenceof a number of coniditions:the transcendenceof feudal extra-economiccontrols and the guild system, both of which limited the freedom of producersto experiment and develop new methods and devices. Renaissance crafts-

men and their successors must have expected to retain, and profit from, the new methods they pioneered. At the same time, there had to be a closing of the gap between university science (disputatious and scholastic) andpopularempirical practices. The university-trained scholars could contribute "logical training,learning,tlheoretical interest", while the lower stratumadded "causal spirit,experimentation, measurement, quantitativerulesof operation,disregard school of authority, objectiveco-operation" This and l convergence was decisive, and represents one remarkablefeatureof the social revolution that accompanied the birth of modern science. It was this social revolution that enabled western Europe to transform the techniques ar1 cientific knowledge of antiquity and thb Muslim world, and in due course to vault over the more advanced civilisations of the Middle EastandAsia. As noted, a similarconvergence, andthe social revolution in both signified and heralded, did not occur in the social formationsof the Muslim world.
HEAVY ARMLLERY INIPERIALISM OF

Thetransformation theEuropean of economies of the Atlantic seaboardis too complex a phenomenon to enter into here. Suffice it to say that modern economic growth requiredthe establishmentof capitalist farming and industry in which not only the instrumentsof productionbut labourpower too became commodities. All "fixed, fastfrozen relations, with their trainof ancient and venerableprejudices" had to be swept away, "all new-formedones" hadto become antiquated before they couldl"ossify.9"82As Marxpointedout, "The need of a constantly expandingmarketfor its productschases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe.''83 As dynamic competition, unhinderedby feudal or guild restrictions, spurredthe search for new sources of raw materialsandmarkets,new devices opened up new productivepossibilities. Capitalism,
tout court, was now a real force in the world.

"European capitalism" presented"in a tangible way a superiorformationto which one had to submitor adaptoneself." Most nonEuropean states, whose internal politicaleconomic structures had resisted the full developmentof capitalismandscience, were in no position to undertakea rapidtransformation, especially as they now lay in the "threateningshadow of the overwhelming superiority" of the imperialist nations of Europe.'M Clearly, some rulerseitherdid not fathiomthe nature of the beast they confrontedor found thatcollaboration with the Europeanimperialists served their best interests. Only thatcan explain the policies of theOttomangovernmentbetween 1818 (the commercial treatyof 1818 and the 'firman' of 1820 that an Ottoman minister felt was taking "'a line more favourable to foreign interests than native ones") to 1881 (the decree of Muharramthat gave European

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organisation)scomplete control over the Turkishecon'my).85 Indeed, in both Lebanon and Egypt, the 'collaboration' of the Ottomangovenunentwas animportant component of European capitalist penetration and the subsequent deindustrialisation of those regions. By 1913, foreign interestsor minorities with close links to Europeoperatedmost of the industrialenterprisesin the Ottoman empire. Capital resources in the 269 nominally Ottoman enterprises were owned as follows: 10 percent by foreigners, 50 per cent by Greeks, 20 per cent by Armenians,5 per cent by Jews, andonly 15 The percent by Muslim Turks.86 motives of the imperialist nations were transparent enough. What about those of the Ottoman government? Two motives suggest themselves: the Ottoman rulers may have been trying to accommodate the insistent demands of the western states withoutTransformingtheirownagrarian empire,the ource of their revenue and power; and thieymay have wanted to prevent the rise of a local bourgeoisie, especially outside the Turkish heartland, that would press for independence from the feudal imperialism of Turkey. In theevent, this playedinto the all-toopowerfulcapitalistimperialismof the west. Elsewhere,European conquestproceeded with the Maxim gun and the Gatling gun, steamships, telegraphs, and all the paraphernalia of the modern inidustrial economy.87 Science and technology furnished the knowledge'and the weapons for Europe to conquer the less developed nations.Theagrarian pastoralcivilisations, and with theirmoribund political and ideological structuresconfronting the heavy artillery of European capitalism, were in no position to resist. Disciplined European troops,or nativetroopsdrilledandequipped by European officers,decimatedmuchlarger local armies "untutored in military techniques." Therapidityof these conquestsleft Muslims, andothers, "numbed,disoriented and unsure of themselves".88 Reactionary ideologues, unwilling or unable to face the challenges ahead, strove vainly to escape themby "constructingunrealisticmodels of a thirdpath,a mythicalKoraniceconomy," finding favour not only among mystical minds with a "fantastic picture of social in reality"butalsoamongEuropeans "search of a salutarymyth" 89 Third-worldism made its appearance. IV

Modernisation from Above

The emerging bourgeoisie in the colonies and ex-colonies knew very well that there was no such thing as an Islamic economy: The fundamentalchoice confronting them was whether foreign or local agency would carry out the necessary capitalist modernisation.This gave rise to two lines of thought that Hoodbhoy characterises as reconstructionist and pragmatist. The

reconstructionists might be seen as the proponents of a Muslim reformation. Their main aim was to reinterpret faith so as to the remove obstacles to modernisation,to reconcile the "demandsof moderncivilisation with the teachingsandtraditionsof Islam." This school held thatduringthe time of the Prophetandthe Khilafa-i-Rashida four (the righteouscaliphs), Islam had been a "revolutionary,progressive,liberalandrational" force. Subsequently, it became rigid as 'taqlid' (tradition)triumphedover 'ijtihad' (innovation).9 Tlhegreat achievements of Muslim science represented,in their opinlion, solid proof of the harmony between Islam and science. They draw attention to thefact thatnearly750 verses (one-eighthof the Quran)exhort believers to study nature and pursue science. From this, they "infer thatthe pursuitof science is both a religious duty as well as a pragmatic necessity".9' Syed Ahmed Khan (1817-1898) wished to reintroduce some of thatpioneeringspiritof innovation back into Muslim educational life. Prior to founding the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh (later AligarhMuslim University)in 1877, he had startedschools, a 'scientific' society for the translation westernknowledgeinto Urdu, of and a weekly magazinein Urduand English otnfacing pages. His rejectionof the authority of traditionalscholars and the sayings ('hadith') attributed Muhammad,andhis to relianceon his ownj udgmentin interpreting the Quran show his almost Protestantapproach to religion."'Given his ideological predilections, it was not surprisingthat he foundno contradiction betweentheworldof god, contained in the Quran,and scientific truths.If therewas a contradiction,he advocated a symbolic readingof the former.The Quranwas meant to be a moral guide, not a shackle on modernisation.93 His disciple Syed Ameer Ali (1849-1924) wrote 77Te Spiritof Islamin 1891 as a challenge to both the Orientalists and Muslim reactionaries. He compared the situation of the Muslim worldin the 19thcenturyto thatof medieval Christianity,andexplicitly advocateda reformationto bringreligiouspracticeinto line with the needs of the bourgeois world.94 Thepragmatistswereless concernedwith an Islamic reformationthanwith bombarding Muslim society with enough economic progress to loosen the grip of religious orthodoxy. Jamaluddin Afghani, for example, was not above using a little strategic Islamic rhetoricwhenin Indiabutconceded in a debatewith ErnstRenan(in theJournal des Debats) in the early 1880s thatall relithat gions were intolerant, Islam hadtriedto stifle science andstop its progress,andthat the religious view should 'lose its power'. He saw Islam pragmaticallyas a unifying force against the west, but criticised the Indian ulema for their division of science into a Muslim science and a Europeanscience, and forbiddingthe latterto Muslims. In general,Afghanitook a farmore opposi-

tional positionI to the British than Syed AlunedKhan,whom indeedhecharacterised as a 'sycophant'.9 With the development of political aspirations among an emerging bourgeoisie in the colonial world, the pragmatic line became incorporated into a political ideology of nationalism, and modernisationfrom above. Zia Gokalp's pithy aphorism, "Belong to theTurkishnation,the Muslim religion, and Europeancivilisation," admirablycaptures the sentiment of this new movement. In 1925, Kemal Ataturkwaxed lyrical about a modern civilisation that .. pierces the mountains,flies across the heavens, sees everythingeven to the stars thatare invisible to the nakedeye, this science thatilluminates investigates...[this and civilisation]to whose seething torrent is it vain to offer resistance.96 Ilis minister of justice, Mahmud Esad, declareda yearlaterthatthe "Turkishnation has decided to accept modern civilisation and its living principles without any condi" tion or reservation. 97 TalatI-larb, Egypan tiancapitalist, expressed similar sentiments to a Frenchjournalist: We wantto follow yourexample...Ourrequirements modest.We merelydesirea are place in the sun, to live like other people, producingand increasing our production, exportingwhatwe produce, consumingand our In increasing consumption. orderto reach this goal we areworkingin accordance with yourexample.99 In a more practical vein, Zia Gokalppronounced that 'large-scale industry' was a key requirement Turkey's modernisation. for He expected the state to take an active role in developingthis nationalindustryby bringing in the "most up-to-date and advanced techniques from Europe," ratherthan wait for its citizens spontaneously to develop a spiritof enterprise.As a prominentTurkish official explained, state initiative was designed neithierto avoid capitalism nor to bring development into conformity with some imaginarytradition.It had to do with "the inadequacyof initiatives andpossibilities on thepartof theprivatesector," and\the "weak developmentof economic education andthespiritof social co-operation"' .9Similar ambitions to secure Persian national integrity lay behind Reza Shah's vision of "modem factories,powerplants,dams, irrigation systems, railways, highways, cities " andarmies..." lie, too, saw an active role for thestatedue to a "shortageof technicians andmanagersand because privateinvestors aretimidaboutenteringthe industrial field.' Only the government could launch Iran's new steel industry. However, the policy of the governmentwas "graduallyto handover the government's existing factories to pri'01 vateconcerns." Some Europeans undoubtedly sympathised with these modernisers.The English novelist, Freya Stark, dedicated her 1945 novel,

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ELastis West, to her "young brothers, the

effendis". In opposition to imperialist and exoticist attitudes, she saw local peculiarities as of secondary importance, certainly no obstacle to the Turkishelite acquiringthe "dynamic and dominating virtues of free enterprise." As for Islam, her attitudewas impeccably pragmatic:it could provide its followers with "spiritual reasons for living," without getting in the way of their economic activities, and possibly protecting them from the "ravages of atheistic
communist ideology.''102 But Freya Stark

was an anomaly. Self-interest and cultural exoticism caused colonial officials to scorn the modernisers as feeble imitators of Europe, "driven to destroy their own heritage by abstract, ill-digested ideas." Colonial officials preferred "indigenous conservatives", and considered the modernisersan "inauthentic element, a betrayalof theeast's "103 individuality.' The process of modernisation has met with limited success; in some cases, as in Iran, it has failed miserably. This failure is not a vindication of the exoticists, and their populist followers, in the thirdworld today. It is an indictment not of the aspirationbut of the methods used. Capitalistrevolutions from above in the former colonial world have not been successful wlhenstates have neglected to carryout sweeping and, where necessary, revolutionary land reforms, implement a comprehensive educational system (including basic literacy andtechnical skills), and discipline capitalists to the needs of dynamic competition. Very often, state enterpriseshave been run without the minimal discipline needed to yield profits; unprofitableindustries have received state subsidies. For a nurnberof reasons, therefore, state-runindustrieshave not been able to power the niational economy into rapid andsustainedgrowth as earliermodlernisers expected. Third world modernisation has the incorporated worst aspects of capitalism and statism. The result is a serious crisis. Many in the former colonies now believe that the present state of affairs cannot continue for long without catastrophic social consequences.
CRISIS ANDREACrION

It is in this context thatsome of the attacks on science and 'western' knowledge are being mounted. Hoodbhoy makes the cogent observation that a majority of Muslims, and certainly a majority of Muslim leaders, are pragmatists. Yet, they have apparentlylost the initiative to those holding more fundamentalistpositions. At the most basic level, one might see this as a sign of the failureof pragmatismto solve thereal. economic and social crisis of the Muslim countries today. It is not enough to urge pragmatists,as Hoodbhoy does, to "snatch
back control of civil society.'
"'"

It is not a

simple matterof fundamentalistsseeking to revive a bygone era and pragmatistsrepine-

A K Brohi, former rector of Islamic University in Islamabad, declared that he had little sympathy for the "dubious contribution of contemporary thought that is reflected in sciences like plhysicsandchemistry". Ile found that university textbooks "bear on their pages the indelible imprint of... outstanding irreligious thinkers like Darwin, Freud, Karl Marx", and that the theory of relativity, seen "from an Islamic point of view," is false."'3MA Kazi, former adviser to the presidenitoni science and technology, stated that acceptable scientific theory had to be sanctioned by additional proof from the Quranand Sunnah.It should come as no surprise that the call for an Islamic science curriculum has failed to yield riesults. Theoriesthathave come under ferocious assaulthave been simply dropped from the curriculum. HIoodbhoy notes that rote learning, even in science subjects, is the normin Pakistan. Memorisationof facts, venerationof books, authoritarian methods of communicationin the classroom, the concept of knowledge as of the Quran and Sunnah".107 A high level "something to be acquiredratherthandisSaudi delegation to a conferencein Kuwait covered", all reflect the "culture of the in 1983 declared that science led to society"' Zia ul-Haq's Islamisationpolicies mu'tazilite tendencies.108 What does this made matters much worse.'14 Prayers, the rhetoricreally mean? Hoodbhoy is correct reading of the Quran, extra marks for to state thatthe implicit fear is of the "pro- memorising the Quran, use of religious fane attitudes that science would encour- criteria in selecting teachers, revision of age", among other things challenging the conventional subjects to emphasise Isauthorityof "antiquated theocraciesor dic- lamic values have all become part of the tatorialregimes''109 The fact is thatscience new education for the less fortunate. In cannot do away with questioning estab- 1987 and 1988, at the Quaid-e-Azam Unilished theories and that means "conflict versity, potential instructors in the sciwith traditionalmodes of thought".'" 'Tne ences were asked the following questions: advanced capitalist countries have (1) Whatarethe namesof the holy Prophet's institutionalised scienceandtherebystripped wives? (2) RecitetheprayersDua-e-Qunoot; it of its revolutionarypotential. But, in the (3) When was the Pakistan resolution Muslim countries, it is apparentthat the adopted? (4) What is the difference questions modernscience poses are anath- between the different azans? (5) What ema to defendersof religious orthodoxy.In does your [the candidate's] name mean? Muslimuniversities, Hoodbhoy states,Ptole- (6) Give the various names of god."' maic geometry is still taught; a modern Violence is endemic in the universities, system is available but presented as a the Kalashnikovculture being more appar"hypothesis". In 1982, Sheikh Abdul Ibn ent than the intellectual culture.Hoodbhoy, Baz of Saudi Arabia,winnerof the Service in fact, relates the two; lacking all means of to Islam King Faisal Award, authored a creativeexpression, "youth turnto violence book whose title literally translated into to settle their differences'' ."l Of course, in Englishreads, 'Motionof the Sun andMoon all Muslim countries, and certainlyin Pakiand Stationarityof the Earth'."' There are stan, the rich do not have to put up with this apparentlystill laws in Muslim countries nonsense. Even at the height of Zia's againstthe teachingof Darwin'stheoryand islamisationof education,therewas a handsevolutionarybiology. In 1990, theSudanese off attitudeto the private educationalinstigovernmentarrestedan eminent biologist, tutions whele the ruling class studies. Thus, FaroukMohammedIbrahimof the Univer- Karachi GrammarSchool, Aitchison Colfor sity of Khartoum, teachinghis students lege, Burn Hall and others continued to Darwin's theory. While in prison, he was provide a high-quality secular educationto whipped,kicked andbeatenin the presence the sons and daughters of the wealthy."-7 of a member of the regime's revolutionary One wonders if any of the proponents of council. This treatment elicited the follow- Islamistideology woulddaretouchtheprivi-

senting the future. Indeed, one might say that the pragmatists represent the failed immediatepast andthatthefundamentalists have successfully occupied high groundby being able to portray themselves as the future of the Muslim world. And this is wherethe strugglehas to be fought:to show that fundamentalism and all varieties of culturalist and political Islamism are, like othervariants religiously-based of culturalist arguments,simply illusory; that their science, economics, and the general knowledge of the worldhave no theoreticalcoherence or practical applicability;105 they that represent"a closing of mindsanda failureto recognise the enormity of the crisis that envelops the Muslim world today'I; 106 that for all their rhetoricthe proponentsof fundamentalistideology are fully tied into the workings of capitalism, but one which is exceptionallybackward uses crude,feuand dal methods of control. Fundamentalistscall for a jihad against secularism,rationalism,capitalism and socialism. As articulated byMaryam Jameelah, "modernistideology" is "man worslhip"; modern science is "nakedmaterialismand arrogance".As opposedtoconstantprogress and change, Islam values the "permanent, immutable, transcendental, divinely revealed moral, theological, spiritual values

ing protest from Zaki Badawi, principalof the Muslim College in London: "They [the Sudanesegovernment]must havegone mad. ...They might justifiably arrest people for their political, but not for their scientific,
views. "112What an utterly amazing statement!

Economic and Political Weekly February26, 1994

leges of the rich, including their access to westernknowledge', or if they did, whether the new regime would not be some form of clerical fascism? Of the crisis of the Muslim world, Sadik al-Azm writes, "A protractedcrisis obtains when the old is dying while the new is
unable to be born.'"'18 If by new he means

overarchingspiritualumbrella,a system of of knowledge, andthepracticalinstruments government.Orthodoxy'sprescriptionsfor a society are "an invitationto catastrophe",
"a blind backtracking into the past' '3 In

something beyond capitalism, then yes, the new is indeed unable to born anywhereand thatis a crisis for us all. But, if he is referring instead to western-style bourgeois democracy and western-style capitalism, then one might argue that the present regimes in the Muslim world and the proponents of fundamentalism both prefer the present impasse. For the propertied elites in many Muslim countries, any concession to bourgeois democracy would mean empowering the masses, perhaps only to a small degree but sufficient to upset the status quo. Capitalist developmentmight also bringthe dangers of an organised proletariat. As the ruling classes can now buy the technology they need-particularly to increase the state' s capacity for surveillance and under ,oing the punishment-without arduousprocessofinternal transformation, perhapsthis is desirable from theirpoint of view. The managementof a crisis through force, brainwashing,and fake solutions has become an integral part of political life in many countries. V'e might be overstating the conflcit between the pragmatistsandthe fundamentalists. Perhaps they need each other; they certainly serve each other's purposes very well. Te 'symbiotic antagonism' between the two is, I believe, at the root of the crisis.I"9 he crisis itself is firmly protracted rootedin the global structureof capitalism.
V

other words, Hoodbhoywould like to combine Enlightenment-style anti-clericalism with an aestheticised faith, and a simultaneous commitmentto the goals of capitalist modernisation.Is it possible to arriveat this 'civilised' resolutionin the presenthistoric circumstances? Religion has historicallyexisted simultaneouslyatseverallevels:metaphysicalalienation, the source of which Amin considers to be the anguishhumanbeings experience confrontedwith theirown inevitable dissolution; social fonn, a 'functional adjunct

Considerations on Religion and Science Hoodbhoy sees no essential conflict in being a scientist and a Muslim; he would like a pragmaticand civilised resolution of the currentembattled situation between the two. Science is a secular pursuit, "reason organised for understanding the material universe".'20 The validation of scientific truthsdoes not rely on any authorityoutside of science itself; observation,experimentation and logic are its sole guides. Religion, on theotherhand,is "a reasonedandreasonable abdication of reason with regard to questionsthatlie outside the competence of science: 121 These are the great metaphysical questions (What is the purpose of life? Why does the universe exist?) that have exercised philosophers since the time of Plato. What is needed, in his view, is a frameworkfor thoughtand action based on science andreasonbut "in harmonywith the , [of inheritedculture theMuslimpeoplesI .122 Thus, he rejects the totalising claims of Islamic fundamentalism to provide an

and thatrationalised,justified, 'naturalised' thenakedexploitationin thetributary modes of production;'24 and, political alienation (to coin a phrase),the attribution a body of to authoritative'revealed' texts a uniqueefficacy to adjudicate all human affairs. By association with an original revelation, the authoritative (authoritarian?) of interpreters the religious texts can claim far greater power thanany secularconstitutionimaginable. Thereis no potentialfor democracyin thisreligiousconstitutionof thestate.Hence the need to invent the notion that people underIslam (orsome otherreligion)have no democraticaspirationsand willingly alienatetheirpolitical/socialresponsibilityto the clerical state. Christianity and Islam played a crucial role in the 'culturalconstitution'of thegreat Mediterranean of the tributarysystems arc of socio-economic reproduction. Their universalist disposition allowed them to transcend ethnic and tribal cleavages to the "advantageof the imperialstate" and their conservativeideology respectedsocial hierarchies (while positing an ideal community of the faithful).125 The transcendence of tribalreligion could take one of two forms: inclusion/synthesis,wherebydifferenttribal totem symbols are takenover into a central pantheon (as in Mediterranean paganism), or ajealous monotheismthatsmashespagan a idolatry.126While at firstrepresenting precocious development of the ideological sphere, religious universalism could also, andfrequentlydid, unleashtremendouspolitical energy leading to the constructionof imperialformations,in due course consummating the marriage of religion and the state. Moments of confrontationcould always reintensify the connection: the Crusades, as one historian comments, were foughtover issues of 'feudal' accumulation but were couched in religious terms. Rival religious attachmentsprovidedan "important and variablestimulant"but they were "seldomaprimecauseordominantmotive' .127 It took a unique concatenation of circumstances-the development of capitalist productionin Europe-finally to begin the processof snappingthe integrallink

between religion and politics. The first step along the way was, paradoxically, the Reformation.Al-Azm is surelyrightto say that, "as Europedecatholicised,modernised,and laicised, it was blessed with a plethora of (religious' movements which made thevery fulfilment of that eminently secular bourgeois historical project look like a movement towards god and a working out of his supreme will instead of the exact opposite"' 128 Te Enlightenment represented the maturation of a long process, as capitalist society finally burst through the integument of the remnants of the feudal and ideology. The Enlightenmentorganised institutionalised the critique of religious thought so that "religious authoritieswere more andmore marginalisedin regardto the operations of power, authority and legitimacy... This [was] the raw stuff of democraticpractices... ' 129 Once the link between organised religion and politics was broken, the power of religion gradually declined, both in its political and spiritual aspects. Religion has by no means disappeared in Europe; it is merely in a permanentrecession, maintained by the state either as a in juniorpartner the bureaucracy United (the Kingdom, Germany) or as a spectacle for tourists (France, Italy). For the few true believers, the 5 per cent of the population that attendschurch, it is a quiet haven from the hurly-burlyof industrial life, and perhaps a source of answers to the great questions of life and death. The Catholic church understandspolitics very well. When it got involved with hastening the downfall of communism in Poland, or when the Pope on his visits to Latin America andAfrica advocates social justice for the poor, it is with a view not to deal with metaphysicalalienation or high theological matters but to position the church in global politics. The Pope is aware of the link between poverty, despair and religious belief. And, so for that matter, are the Islamic fundamentalists. For them, ironically, the materialconditions are much more promising. In the heartlandsof Islam, more thanin the heartlandsof Christianity, there is both mass poverty and mass illiteracy, impotence andrage, the rawmaterialsof political religion. Up to a point, the very uneven geography of development on the world scale createdthe conditions thatdraggedthe Muslim world, once so proud and independent, out of its 'frozen medievalism'into the of raggedperipheries global capitalism.Once there, a combination of imperialism and class snobbery has served to reinforce the attachment of the petit-bourgeois and the poor to Islam. The poor saw in Islam "that which distinguished them from the foreign oppressorandtheeuropeanised upperstrata, ,disloyal in deed or in spirit". The Muslim clergy, '"largely poor and treated without respect by the occupying power, faithful to the values of the society they lived in, were their own people' 'l30 They provided the

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people with leadershipandspoke to them in their own languagc. Colonialism and class divisions set the stage for a populist alliance that came to fruition with the failure of the modernising projects, the massive corruption of the post-colonial elites, and neoimperialism.

It is not surprisingthat"in the fightagainst injusticeanddomination,it is the orthodoxy alone which has been successful in translatingpopularresentments politicalgains." into Nor should it be surprisingthat the Islamic modernist "has been effectively banished from the scene" .131 But, is it thereforetrueto assert, with the likes of Amar Ouzegaine, thatthe masses can only be mobilised in tthe name of Islam, thatthey are not susceptible to being mobilised behindotherideologies? If fact, given an opportunity the poor do show great enthusiasm for secular programmesof reform.132 After all, for all its problems, the PakistanPeople's Partyin ZulfikarAli Bhutto's time enjoyed unprecedented popularitybehind a perfectly secular slogan ("Roti, Kapda aur Makan" or F-ood,Clothing and Shelter). l'o the extent that secular slogans and modernising prograntimesare successful in improving the lot of the poor, they weaken the hold of religious fundamentalists.And to the extent thatthe link between organisedreligion and politics is broken,society itself will move in a secular direction. The religious fundamentalists,however, lhavea keen grasp of these integral links. That is why they battle so hard to gain control of education and state power itself. Anti-state Islamist forces in Algeria and Egypt aspire to state power either througl
the ballot box or a coup d'etat. In Pakistan,

peniing to sweep away the power of the church.But conservatives are acutely conscious thatmodernscientists,whatevertheir personalbeliefs, cannotpreventtheirscientific work"fromemptyingtheIslamic intellectual universe of its content unless, of course, this science is shornaway from its secular and humanisticmatrixwhere it has
been placed since the Renaissance","34 that

is, unless it is brought into line with prescriptionsof 'Islamic science'. floodbhoy, of course, emphatically rejects any such merger of Islam and science. Indeed, he displays the ambiguity and uncertaintyof Muslim modernisers and pragmatists towardsthe contradictionsbetween the foundationsof organisedreligion andthe scientific attitudesof query and scepticism. He seems to think that personal faith can be reconciled with scientific work. Individually that might be possible, but what happens in a society of believers?Is it possible to conceive such a society without a powerfullyorganised religion?Andis notorganised religion, in Muslim countries at least, the site of opposition to scientific work, especially wherethe leadersalso,aspireto political power?If scientists in the west can work in an environmentfree from the interventions of religious authority, it is because generations of political struggles have establishedcertainbasic freedoms.A comprehensive political struggle awaits the Muslim world.I imagine thebattlelines between religion and science will be clearly drawn. SCIENCE HUMAN AND EMANCIPATION Hoodbhoyis not takenin by the currently fashionablecritiquesof modernisation,and states that ''modernisation is not westernisation''.The crux of the modern to approach life is notlhing an orientation but to the present and future, rather than the past; an openness to fresh ideas and new experiences; "acceptance of reason and calculability ratherthan fate"; the possession of "a largeinventoryof knowledgeand facts", relianceonplanning andorganisation; and last, but not least, an "ability to relate cause to effect, to resolve conflict without violence". The great Arab scientists of the past insisted on a rational creed, and had thereby sown the "seeds of the modern to approach life"M lie emphasisestheneed for a "rational,egalitarian,modernsystem of education",thatwill acquaintpeople with the history of science and the scientific method, and give them the capacity for "criticalthought",employingreasonratlher thanreligious dogma."3 At one level, Hoodbhoystrikesout at the right-wingLudditesof the presentday who from their comfortable bourgeois position excoriate the evils of industrialismand advocate a returnto pre-industrial ways. As a critic pointed out long ago, intellectuals affect a kind of "aesthleticrevulsion" to industrial society, a desire to escape to a latter-dayWalden, but withoutany histori-

the Jamaat-i-Islami,with very little popular support, gained significant access to the policy-making organs of the state via a strategic alliance with the military. The currentimpasse keeps people mobilised and impotentat the same time. Thlere plenty to is enrage and mobilise the masses. Yet, the sheer incapacity of the Islamist political forces to come to grips with the realities of global capitalism means that they can only point to the people illusory targets. This is the nature of the crisis, and recourse to a gentler, more contemplativeIslam will not resolve it.
ISLAM ANDSCIENCE:

INEVITABLE CONTRADICnONS Hoodbhoy never comes to terms with the potential of modern science for undermining the religious world view. This is odd because he cites the example of Isaac Newton who, though deeply troubled by the conflict between scientif-icwork and Christian dogma, plunged ahead with the research that ultimately "set into motion a tidal wave of scientific growth that swept away much of the power of the church' '.3 One does not have to accept such an apocalyptic visiohl. Many other things were hap-

cal consciousness of what rurallife was like in the epoch before the industrialrevolution and why those "with a choice have walked off the land and into factories as fast as the lattercould take them" ."' This yearningfor an imagined rural past is, as Willis Truitt observes, "at best a daydream, at worst an immoralLudditefaintasy' I." At another level, Hoodbloy is perfectly aware of the problems of late industrial society as environmenital pollution, militarism, and even the threatof extinction confront us. lIe attributesthe "emotional void in technological culture, the unbridledpursuit of weapons of destruction, the callous destruction of the environment..., and the imbalances in the economic and social progress of humanity" to a linear vision of progressthat "consecrates andelevates science to the level of anethic and a morality", Calling this a delusion that must be "opposed as vigorously as rationality must be fought for", Hoodbhoy insists that the primarystruggle in the 'east' is the strugglefor rationality (that is, the scientific outlook), while in the 'west' it is over the "skewed outlook on science' '.13 Structures of domination-those that permit either one class or one country to oppress another-must be "dismantled". In many countries,while tyraninical military-bureaucraticelites help themselves to theresources of the society, the people arepreventedfrom making any progress; "true progress towards modernity requires mass participation in planning and execution".140 The challenge ahead for all of us is to find ways to enriclhhuman life, uplift human dignity, liberatethe creative spirit, and vindicate freedom. As an idealist, Hoodbhoy portrays the struggle as one between the forces of reason and unreason, between those "who seek more light and those who are afraidof it' '141 In the main, I endorse Iloodbhoy's attempt to see science as an integral part of any emancipatoryproject.I agree with him thatnativism andculturalism have no place in scientific research.Yet, I am not entirely sure I agree with the sharp distinction be wishesto makebetweenscience, that"knows nothingofjustice, beautyorfeeling", andits malignant technological uses by vested interests. Like many scientists, he is concerned that the subordinationof science to any set of values from the outside would result merely in the suppression of free scientific inquiry.142It is truethatthe liberation of science from religion andmetaphysics (a process Truitt refers to somewhat and problematicallyas the "dehumanisationi desocialisation" of science) that began in the 16thcenturycreatedthe necessary, if not sufficient, conditions for the "possibility of
plenitude that exists today'
' . 43

But is it also

not thecase that,witlh institutionalisation the of science under capitalism, the "myth of value-free science" or tiheimmunity of the scientist "from moralculpability" is losing

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some of its force? The integral connection between scitntific research and political and economic institutions, including the military-industrial complex, and the abbreviationof the time lag between researchand its applicationin technology, blur the sharp distinctionbetween science and its applications. The notion of value-independentscience is bound to be queried when the technology thatgives content-tothe theoryconfrontsus as an alien, frequentlydestructive, force.1"Arguably,too, reasonmay not be as neutral an instrument of progress as lloodbhoy portrays it ("Reason may be a small force but it is constant and works always in one direction"). Wartofsky advances thethesis that "science, as liberating reason, can become transformed into its .145 opposite,repressivereason" Reason,used simply as "the instrumentalityof conflicting wills becomes a threat", bound to its repressive uses, developing more andmore into "a meansof powerandexploitation' '*146 When the structureof scientific production is totally imbricatedinto capitalism, it partakes of some of its characteristics: the "limited rationality of science as no more than an instrument of dominion and exploitation by one class or nation over anotherflaws rationalityitself... andtransforms even its liberating features into repressive ones'
.147

pulled into the vortex of this alienation.l" But, it is precisely the technically exploitable knowledge that science has provided industry,with increasing intensity as capitalism has matured,that has enabled capital to discipline labour and remain a flexible and adaptablemode of production."5' Modern science, that originated in a creative symbiosis with the practical problems confrontingworkingpeople, has over time turned into an instrument of their
oppression.

That is a structuralimpasse. Medieval science, like thatof the great Arabheretics Hoodbhoy cites, could actually be more purist; it had no immediate application. Modernscience is thoroughlyimplicatedin the productsgeneratedby its own research. These products take the form of the vast multiplicationof commodities, whose production is mediatedthroughthe logic of the competitivepursuitof profit.As we arenow aware, this structure productionhas creof atedproblems,notmerely of the destructive appropriation nature alsoof a perduring of but and gross inequality in the distributionof the very benefits of science and industry across classes andnations. In the words of J D Bernal:
...the frustration of science is a very bitter thing. It shows itself as disease, enforced stupidity, misery, thankless toil, and premature death for the great majority, and an anxious, grasping and futile life for the remainder. Science can change all this, but only science workingwith those socialforces which understand its functions and which march to the same ends.'52

Even as 'pure method',

science-severed from any intrinsic relations with "nature,naturalprocesses, man, andsociety" -is at the call of any project, the "most horrendous and feared contingencies can be mathematised and abstracted into innocuous statistics", rendering science "an ideology in the highest degree' 148 I should make it clear that I am emphatically opposed to any kind of romantic retreat into mysticism, irrationalism, pietistic morality or Luddism. Rather,I think it is necessary to locate science within some of the contradictions of capitalism, in order to seek a way out of the current global impasse. The ambiguity of science lies in this, that it partakes of the alienated nature of labour under capitalism but is also an instrument for the more refined and intensive exploitation of labour. The product of scientific labour, no less so than any other kind of labour, confronts the producer as an alien force. As Marx describes this in the Economlicand Phlilosophical Manuscripts:
The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that the labour becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him, and that it becomes a power of its own confronting him; it means that the life which he has conferred on the object confronts him as something hostile and alien.'49

The potential for science to play this transformative role certainly exists. I agree with Marx that as "natural science has invaded and transformedhumanlifepractically throughthe medium of industry' , it hascreatedthepossibilityof "humanemancipation, however directly and much it had to consummate dehumanisation' . Such a project for humanemancipation is, in my opinion, inconceivable unless and until the whole structure of commodity productionthat sustains science today and that it so crucially sustains give-s way. At minimum, it will take a serious commitment to go beyond what Samir Amin calls the "stunted universalism" of marketideology to a more genuine universalism, in which we shall go "from bourgeois democracy to democracy in politics and economics", "equalityof rightsto social equality", "polarisation to the confraternityof the world's people" .The slogan of the French revolution-Liberty, Equality, Fraternity-has not exhausted its full potcntial.
154

1 Pervez Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, Religious Orthodoxyand the BattleforRationality, Zed Books, London, 1991, p 134. 2 Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, p ix. 3 Ibid, p 20. 4 Ibid, p 145. 5 Ibid, p 146. Karl Popper enunciated the principle of falsifiability in The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Hutchinson, London, 1968. 6 Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, p 149. 7 Ibid,p 78. 8 Ibid, pp 67-68. 9 Ibid, pp 65-66. 10 G Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science, Baltimore, 1927, Vol I, p 5, quoted GustaveE von Grunebaum,MedievalIslam, Chicago University Press, Chicago; 1953, p 333. 11 Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, pp 70-72. 12 This is Ziauddin Sardar's position, but it mightbe taken as fairly representativeof the fundamentalistmind-set. Ibid, p 75. 13 Excerpts from the Conference Report cited in Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, p 83. 14 SusanthaGoonatilake,AbortedDiscoveryScience and Creativity in the Third World, Zed Books, London, 1984. 15 Ibid. 16 Vandana Shiva, Staying Alive, Kali for Women, New Delhi, 1988. MeeraNandahas subjected this book to a superb critique in 'Is Moderrn Science a Western, Patriarchal Myth?: A Critique of the Populist Orthodoxy', SouthAsia Bulletin,Vol XI, Nos 1 and 2, 1991. 17 I use the phrase 'blood and soil' advisedly. has SumitSarkar recentlypointedoutthatthe combination of aggressive indigenism and rejection of Enlightenmentrationalismtout court is, in certain of its manifestations, barely distinguishable from fascism. See Sumit Sarkar, 'The Fascism of the Sangh Parivar', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol XXVIII, No 5, January 30, 1993, pp 165, 167 (n 6), particularly the ignominious slide to the right by certain members of the SubalternStudies group. 18 See RaymondSchwab, TheOrientalRetaissance, Europe's Rediscovery of India and the East 1680-1880, Columbia University Press, New York, 1984 (Englishtranslation), for an exposition of this notionparticularly as the Germanromanticsarticulatedit. 19 Maxime Rodinson, Islam and Capitalism (translated BrianPearce),PantheonBooks, by New York, 1973, p 3. 20 Gustave E von Grunebaumslips into this way of writing in Medieval Islam. 21 MaximeRodinson,EuropeandtheMystique of Islam (translatedby Roger Veinus), University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1987, p 123. 22 Ibid, emphasis added, pp 60-6 1. 23 floodbhoy, Islam and Science, p 150. 24 This might very well explain why 'Hindu' science or 'third world' science have not done so well. Modernscience requiresstate
patronage.

Notes
and Eleanor [I wish to thankSucheta Mazumdar Stein for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.I alone amresponsiblefor errorsof fact and interpretation.]

As science has become preoccupiedfor the mostpartwithtechnicallyexploitableknowledge, the labour of tile scientist, too, is

25 26 27 28 29

Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, p ix, 77. Ibid, p 150. Ibid, pp 4-5. Ibid,'p20. Emphasisadded.NoamChomsky,Laguage and the Problems of Knowledge-The Managua Lectures, MIT Press, Cambnidge, 1988. On Chomsky's view of human MvASS,

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and a nattzre thedesiretofound socialist ethics, see PerryAnderson, the Tracksof Historical In Materialism, VersoPress, London,1988,p 82: and Noam Chomsky, 'Linguistics and Politics-An Interview', New Left Review, No 57, September-October 1969, pp 31-32. 30 Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, p 20. 31 Ibid, pp 18-19, 21. 32 Ibid, pp 19-20. 33 Rodinson,Europeand theMystiqueof Islamn, p 121. 34 von Grunebaum,Medieval Islam, p 342. 35 Ibid, p 8. 36 Cited, ibid, p 53. 37 Ibid. 38 Cited, ibid, pp 57-58. 39 Ibid, p 342. 40 Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, p 90; von Medieval Islam, pp 340-43. Grunebauim, 41 Ibid,pp318-19. 42 Ibid, p 321. 43 Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, p 96. 44 von Grunebaum,Medieval Islam, p 72. The destructionof the idols at the Ka'aba was a profoundturningpointin the life of theArabs (G W Bowersock, ilellenism in LateAnitiquity, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 1990, p 20). 45 HGWells,OutlineofHistory(London,1956), and quoted in RafiqZakaria,Muhammad the Quatan, Penguin, Harmondsworth,1992,p 5. 46 Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, p 96. 47 von Grunebaum,Medieval lslam, p 201. 48 Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, pp 89-90. 49 Ibid, p 85. 50 DirkStruik,'ExcerptfromA ConciseHistory of Matlhematics,Dover Publications, New York, pp 83-93', republished in Willis H Truitt and T W Graham Solomons (eds), Science, Technology, and Freedom, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, p 74. 51 von Grunebaum,Medieval Islam, p 40. 52 floodbhoy, Islam and Science, pp 87ff. 53 lbid. 54 Cited, ibid, p 1 14. 55 Cited, von Grunebaum,Medieval Science, p 335. 56 Ibid. 57 Hloodbhoy, Islant and Science, p 94. Of course, this sort of dualism was not uniqueto the Muslim world. 58 Ibid, pp 93-100. 59 BenjaminFarrington,'excerptfromScience and Politics in thleAnicientWorld,George, Allen and Unwin, London, 1965, pp 57-66, reprintedin Truittand Solomons Ceds), 65. p 60 Hoodbhoy, Islam and Scientce,Ch 3. 61 Cited,von Grunebaum, MedievalIslam p232. 62 von Grunebaum,Medieval Islamt, p 339. 63 Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, p 1. 64 von Grunebaum,Medieval Islam, p 63. 65 Ifoodbhoy, Islam and Science, p 126. 66 Rodinson, Islam and Capitalism,p 56. 67 Ibid, pp 55-68. 68 Bryan Turner,Weber and Islam, Routledge andKeganPaul,London, 1974, p 103,quoted in Hoodbhoy, Islam and Scientce,p 131. 69 Hoodbhoy, Islam anidScience, p 126. 70 Ibid, p 80. 71 A point well made by SamirAmin, 'listorical and Ethical Materialism',Mlonzthly Review, Vol 45, No 2, June, 1993, pp 44-56. 72 Rodinson,Euiropeand Mystiqueof Isla,i, the
p 104.

73 Rodinson, Islam and Capitalism,p 113. 74 Hoodbhoy, Islam an1d Science, p 92. 75 Edgar Zilsel, 'TsheSociological Roots of

Science'inTruitt Solomons (eds), p 83. and Ibid,p 84. Ibid,p 85. Ibid. Ibid,p 86. Ibid,pp 86-87. Ibid,p 87. Marx,TheCommunist Manifesto,Pathfinder Press, New York, 1980, p 19. 83 Ibid. 84 Rodinson,Islamand Capitalism,p 136. 85 Ibid,pp 122-24. 86 Ibid. 87 DonaldHeadrick, TentaclesofProgress, The TechnologyTransferin the Age of ImperialNew York,1988. ism,OxfordUniversityPress, 88 Hoodbhoy,Islanm Science, p 3. and 89 Rodinson,Islamand Capitalism,p 136. 90 Hoodbhoy,Islam and Science, p 55. 91 Ibid,pp 86-87. 92 StephenHay (ed), Sources of Indian Tradition, Vol 2, ColumbiaUniversityPress, New York, 1988, pp 182-83. 93 Hoodbhoy,Islam and Science, p 57. 94 Ibid,pp 57-59. 95 Ibid, pp 59-62. 96 Rodinson,Islam and Capitalism,p 127. 97 Ibid. 98 Ibid,p 126. 99 Ibid, pp 128-29. 100 Ibid,pp 127-28. 101 Ibid,pp 128-29. 102 Rodinson,Europeanid theMystiqueofIslam, p 76. 103 Ibid,p 73. 104 Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, p 63. 105 On the incoherence of Islamic economics, see Ziaul Haque, 'Religion and Economics: Islamisationof Economy in Pakistan,197788',SouthAsia Bulletin,Vol X, No 2, 1990, pp 25-31; and by the Ame author, 'Islamic Processes,RealitiesandTrends', South Asia Bulletin, VIII,1988(specialissueon PakiVol stanatthe Crossroads, guest-edited Hassan by N Gardeziand Jamil R Rashid),pp 50-54. of Hoodbhoy, course, does a magisterialjob of dismantling Islamicscience. This type of knowledgeis essentialfor a critiqueof fundamentalism scholarsshouldworkco-op. and to eratively buildupsucha bodyof knowledge. 106 Hoodbhoy,Islamand Science, p 51. 107 MaryamJameelah, Islamismand Modernism, MuhammadYousuf Khan Publishers, Lahore,1977,pp 16-17,quotedinHoodbhoy, Islamand Science, pp 52-53. 108 Ibid, p 29. 109 Ibid,pp 34-35. 110 Ibid,p45. 111 Ibid,p48. 112 Ibid,p 47, emphasisadded. 113 A K Brohi, 'Knowledge for What?', proceedings of the seminaron the Islamisation of Knowledge, Islamic University, Islamabad,p xv, quotedin Hoodbhoy,Islam and Science, p 79. 114 Ibid,pp 38-39. 115 Ibid,p 44. 116 Ibid,p 45. 117 Ibid,p38. 118 Sadik Al-Azm, 'The Importanceof Being EarnestAbout SalmanRushdie',SouthAsia Bulletin,Vol XI, Nos I and 2, 1991, p 17. 119 'SymbioticAntagonism',a phrasecoined by Barrington Moore,Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, Penguin Books, 1996. 1-Iarmondsworth; 120 1-Ioodbhoy, islam and Science, p 137. 76 77 78 79 80 81 82

Ibid. Ibid,p 135. Ibid. Amin, 'Historicaland Ethical Materialism', pp 49-50. 125 Ibid, p 54. Hinduism is an 126 Outside the Mediterranean, other prime example of inclusion and synCultureand thesis. See D D Kosambi, Thte CivilisationofAncient India, Routledgeand KeganPaul,London, 1965; Bowersock,Hellenism in I-ateAntiquity. 127 John La Monte, 'Crusadeand Jihad'in N A Faris (ed), TheArab Heritage, Princeton UniversityPress,Princeton ,1944, p 196,cited Rodinson,Islamand Capitalism,pp 207-08. 128 Al-Azm, 'The Importanceof Being Earnest about Salman Rushdie', p 17. 129 Cornel West, 'Conclusion: The Author Responds', MonthlyReview,Symposiumon Cornel West's TheEthicalDimension ofMarxist Thought, 45, No 2 (June),pp 59-60. Vol 130 Rodinson, Islam and Capitalism,p 226. 131 Hoodbhoy,Islamand Capitalsm,pp 134-35. 132 Ibid,p63. 133 Ibid,p78. 134 S H Nasr, Islam and Contemporary Society, LongmanGroup,London, 1982, p 180, cited Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, p 70. 135 Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, p 136. 136 Ibid. 137 C P Snow, Two Cultures: And a Second Look, Cambridge University Press, New in York, 1969, pp 28-29, reprinted Truitt and Solomons (eds), pp 56-57. 138 Willis Truitt, 'Science, History and Human Values' in Truittand Solomons (eds), p 11. 139 Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, pp 137-38. 140 Ibid, p 138. 141 Ibid,p 138. 142 In this context, see also Truitt, 'Science, History and Human Values', p 7. 143 Ibid, p 10. 144 SheldonKrimsky,'TheScientistasAlienated Man' in Truittand Solomons (eds), p 174. 145 Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science, p 138; Marx WWartofsky,'Is Science Rational?'in Truitt and Solomons (eds), p 203. 146 Ibid, p 209. 147 Ibid. 148 Truitt, 'Science, History and Human Values', p 9. 149 Karl Marx, excerpts from Economic and Philosophical Manuscriptsofl844 in Robert C Tucker (ed), The Mcirx-EngelsReader, W W Norton and Company, New York, 1978, p 72. 150 As Willis Truittpoints out, capitalism can give science its 'freedom' in the sense of pursuing the best possible scientific methods, butthe sponsorshipof reseanch, funding and so on are an entirely partisan affair. Truitt, 'Science, History and Human Values', p 9. Accumulation is, needless to say, the Moses and the Prophets. 151 Harry Braverman, Labour and Monopoly Capital, The Degradation of Workin the TwentiethCentury,Monthly Review Press, New York, 1974, pp 155-235. 152 J D Bernal, The 5ocial Function of Science, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1946, p xv. 153 Marx, excerpts from Economic and Philosophical Manuscriptsof 1844, p 90, emphasis in original. 154 Amin, 'Historicaland Ethical Materialism', pS6. 121 122 123 124

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