abstract
| - The relationship between true science and Islam is a matter of extreme controversy. In the Muslim world, many believe that modern science was first developed in the Muslim world rather than in Europe and Western countries, that "all the wealth of knowledge in the world has actually emanated from Muslim civilization," and what people call "the scientific method", is actually "the Islamic method." Muslims often cite verse 239 from Surah Al-Baqara —- He has taught you what you did not know. —- in support of their view that the Qur'an promotes the acquisition of new knowledge. In contrast, some people worry that the contemporary Muslim world suffers from a "profound lack of scientific understanding," and lament that, for example, in countries like Pakistan post-graduate physics students have been known to blame earthquakes on "sinfulness, moral laxity, deviation from the Islamic true path," while "only a couple of muffled voices supported the scientific view that earthquakes are a natural phenomenon unaffected by human activity." The development of scientific thought and knowledge has caused differing reactions among Muslims. In the Muslim world today, most of the focus on the relation between Islam and science involves scientific interpretations of the Quran (and sometimes the Sunna) that claim to show these sources make prescient statements about the nature of the universe, biological development and other phenomena later confirmed by scientific research, and proof of the divine origin of the Qur'an. This effort has been criticized by some scientists and philosophers as containing logical fallacies, being unscientific, likely to be disproven by evolving scientific theories.
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