viability of islamic science

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Viability of Islamic Science: Some Insights from 19th Century IndiaAuthor(s): S. Irfan HabibSource: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 39, No. 23 (Jun. 5-11, 2004), pp. 2351-2355Published by: Economic and Political WeeklyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4415117Accessed: 08-08-2014 11:16 UTC

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erspectives

Viability o slamic Science

Some Insights rom 19th Century ndiaScience lowered in Islam during the liberal Muslim Abbasidand later Ottoman kings. This was possible because the Abbasidswelcomed scientists and translators rom other cultures whowillingly became sincere participants in the project called Islamiccivilisation. The 19th century nterlocutors, afew of whom arediscussed in this paper, were aware of the cross-civilisationalcharacter of science in Islamic civilisation and modern sciencefor them was a culmination of the perpetually shifting centres ofscience in history. This plurality of vision and cross-culturalperspective is much in contrast to what is being propoundedtoday in the name of Islamic science.

S IRFAN ABIB

L et me start with an analogy fromMohammad Wakil, who asked us

L. to imagine a cable with manycoloured wires nside t, conducting ower,knowledge and information. This cable,he said, represents ontemporary ivili-

sation. It was created n many ands andby many hands: Pagan, Christian, udaic,Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Tao, etc. Eachof them contributed o this civilisation'sscience and arts...Somewhere nside thiscable of civilisation s a green slamic wirethat is sparking uriously because of aweak connection. It is seeking to re-establish ts internally amaged ircuit. tis also seeking o reconnect with the flowof information, nowledge ndpower hatinspires ontemporary ivilisation .. west-ern nations may remain keen to claim

exclusive ownership f this contemporarycivilisation However, this civilisationcannot e copyrighted ndpatented yanysingle, monolithic uperpower r by anyother exclusivist formation aroundreligion or culture. This sentiment s con-trary o the hinking f some of the presentday enthusiasts, ho, n the name of ques-tioning Eurocentrism, reputting orwarda religiously motivated alternative.Eurocentrism hould be questioned tobring out civilisational nd cultural iver-sity of modem science and not for replac-

ingit with another

entrism alled Islamic

science or Hindu cience. A large numberof Islamist intellectuals have proposedbinaries ike tradition/modernity nd Is-lamic science/modern western) cience.Here Islamic science is merely confinedto tradition while modem science is pro-jected as an exclusive preserve f moder-nity, which is not only western but also

Christian n spirit and inspiration. Onemay bring n the ssue of multiple moder-nities saying hat western modernity s notthe only modernity and one need notconform o its norms obe called modem.Actually a search or an alternative mo-dernity can be well meaning if it issought n terms of civilisational alterna-tive instead of an alternative lothed inreligion.2 Unfortunately, ost of the pro-ponents of Islamic alternative haveemphasised on the Islamicity of theircivilisation, ather han ts cultural istinc-

tiveness. The latter may include severalother religious denominations, whichhelped construct slamic civilisation, n-cluding ts Islamic cience. All those whoare looking for a religiously and notculturally motivated Islamic cience' aredoing a great disservice to science inMuslim countries.3 This perniciousexercise, which began few decades ago,has acquired dangerous nd ugly conno-tation leading some to talk in terms ofclash of civilisations.4

Eurocentrism, creation of an essen-

tialist hinking rocess sbeing challenged

by diverse essentialisms qually ondem-nable. Civilisations on't ust clash , aspointed out by the well known historian

of science A I Sabra, they an earn romeach other. Islam is a good example ofthat. The intellectual meeting of Arabiaand Greece was one of the greatest ventsin history, he said, its scale and conse-quences are enormous, not just for Islambut or Europe nd he world.5 Most of theIslamists repeatedly alk about modemscience's debt to Islamic civilisation butthey seldom say a word about he Arab'sscientificdebt to the pre-Islamic ncientcivilisations rom he so-called- 'jahiliya'phase. Can any Islamist ell us what was

the source f Islamic cience? Was tQuranor Hadiths r did it come straight hroughdivine intervention f angels? It is cer-tainly not true. Arab civilisation did notsee the light of science till the middle ofthe eighth century. There was hardly anyscience during he Prophet's ime or evenduring the Khulafa-i-Rashedin's TheKhalifas f The Right Way) period. t wasduring the liberal Muslim Abbasid andlater Ottoman ings hat cience loweredin Islam. This was possible because theAbbasids welcomed Greek, Indian, Chi-

nese and other sciences and got all theseworks ranslated nto Arabic. Most of thesescientists and ranslators ho gathered nBaghdad were Arab Christians, Jews,Muslims and even Hindus rom India andwere sincere participants n the projectcalled Islamic civilisation. The 19th cen-tury interlocutors, ome of whom I amgoing to discuss n this paper, eem to beaware of this cross civilisational haracterof science in Islamic civilisation andmodern science for them was a culmi-nation of the perpetually hifting centres

of science in history. Their plurality ofvision and cross-cultural erspective s incontrast owhat s being propounded odayin the name of Islamic science.

The current ormulations f some ex-patriate slamic ntellectuals mostly basedin the Euro-American niversities withsome students ow at home ike Malaysiaand India, etc) should be viewed in thecontext of general ntolerance ta politicallevel, within Islam as well as elsewhere.6It is compounded ue to the disillusion-ment with the proclaimed objectives of

science, more so with technology and ts

Economic and Political Weekly June 5, 2004 2351

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direct role in developmental rojects. t'sa fact that S and T application has led tothe dehumanisation nd robotisation ofsociety, yet this is not an insight, by anystretch of imagination, which has ema-nated rom a particular aith. All those whoargue or a science based on religion beginwith a critique of modern science ques-tioning the value free nature of science,emphasising the destructive nature ofcertain of its products. The fact that thepractice of modern science has createdserious problems or human society wasnot a discovery of born again funda-mentalists.7 here have been critiques ofscience from within the community ofpractising cientists as well as from Marx-ists and anarchists ike Marcuse, Kuhn,Feyerabend nd others. In the name ofcritical perspective, ome of the currentinterlocutors re pushing for a sectarianagenda, making modem science look like

a monolithic European product with aChristian thic.8 nthe name of indigenousknowledge raditions, he religious essen-tialists are attempting o foreground nedominant radition nd threatening n theprocess he very dea of cultural luralism.More importantly n this porous world,fundamentalist rojects based only on apriori assumptions re doomed.9

Imperialism and Modern Science

What propose o do in this paper s to

look at some of the 19th century IndianIslamic intellectuals and see how theyperceived modem cienceand ontrast heirinclusivist approach with the exclusivismand sectarianism f the present day enthu-siasts. The 19th century ntellectuals werefaced with he brutal nslaught f mercan-tile imperialism nd reduced o civilisa-tional nothingness due to a concertedorientalist discourse preceding colonis-ation. Yet some of them tried making adistinction etween mperialist roject ndits concerns and the project of modern

science. They were bitter critics of impe-rialism llover he Islamic world but werenot prepared o disown modern science.Even today, the post-colonial Islamicsocieties are aced with ome real as well asperceived western ultural nd ntellectualhegemonisation. his s being misused bysome deologues of Islamic cience to dubmodern cience as part of the evil colonialbaggage o be accepted at your own peril.For them modern cience is an epistemo-logical as well as cultural break rom anearlier unadulterated slamic past.l?

I will mainly deal with Maulvi KaramatAli Jaunpuri, Maulvi Obaidullah Ubediand Syed Jamaluddin Afghani. The firsttwo were Kolkata-based slamic scholarsand teachers while the latter s a better-known pan-Islamist, ho spent ew event-ful years n India n the 1880s. Let me pointout that they raised questions at a veryrudimentary evel, attempting o conveythe feeling that modem civilisation, re-presented by the Euro-American orld,was the outcome of a joint human ffort,cutting cross ultural r religious barriers.We may not be justified in locating thecurrent nderstanding f multiculturalismor Needhamian cumenism n their writ-ings, yet they did have a vision of know-ledge, which was premised on the cross-cultural exchange of ideas through heages. In doing so they saw Islamic civil-isational ontribution san mportant om-ponent of modern cience and did not feel

the necessity of carving out a lone furrow,premised on a religious distinction.11

Karamat Ali was born n the early 19thcentury n Jaunpur12 ut spent most of hisproductive ears in Kolkata as a teacherand mutawalli f Hooghly mambara. isviews on history and science are bestreflected n his book called Ma'akhiz al-Ulum written n 1865.13His comments nthe state of science and education n theMuslim world, ncluding ndia during he19th entury reworth eporting efore weget into other questions elated o science

and Islam. He concedes that 'we, theMusallmans f India, have fallen far be-hind other nations n art and earning themain cause of that s, that noblemen n thiscountry, whether Hindoo or Mahomedan,pay no regard t all to learning nd cienceand never spend a trifle even on suchmatters; and other people, though theyspend enormous sums on marriage andfuneral ceremonies, keep their eyes shutwith reference o the education of theirchildren.'14 He called such a conduct ofhis countrymen nd coreligionists ll over

the Islamic world as 'antagonistic tocivilisation and to national prosperity.'15He begins with a conviction that the

Quran ormed an intellectual watersheddividing he ancient philosophies rom hemodern pistemologies, he argued hat tstill could provide guidance or modernsciences. To quote his words:

The whole Koran s full of passages on-,taining nformation nphysical ndmathe-matical ciences. f we would but spendlittle eflection ver t we should indwon-drous meanings n every word t contains.

The Koran has most satisfactorily onfutedall the systems of ancient philosophies; tplucked up from the root, the physicalsciences as prevalent among the ancients.What a strange oincidence exists betweenthe Koran and the philosophy of modernEurope.16

Karamat Ali's faith in the Quranicknowledge and its utility in modern times

did not go beyond treating it as a guideto progress. He did not look at it as ascientific text that had answers to all thecomplex scientific problems of today.17Quran, like all other religious books in-cluding the Vedas, is all encompassing inits range and it certainly talks aboutscience (not exactly in a way science isknown today). One can find interestinginsights in all these sacred books but theengagement should end there and not inmaking Quran or the Vedas as full timepreoccupation to read science in them,

making it an end in itself. Such attemptswithin Islam got a tremendous boost fromthe well-funded Saudi project called 'Sci-entific Miracles in the Quran'. The projectgot into comparisons of those verses of theQuran that deal with astronomy andembryology with the latest discoveries ofmodern science. Relativity, quantum me-chanics, big bang theory, embryology -practically everything was 'discovered' inthe Quran....Unfortunately, this variety isnow the most popular version of Islamicscience.18There are scholars who argue

that the work done by such scholars isuseful in a sense that it has reawakenedMuslims to the value of their inheritanceand rekindled the desire for further re-search with awareness that here s Quranicsanction for scientific research. As a matterof fact all such attempts have actuallyexposed Islam to western ridicule, bring-ing it into conflict with not only sciencebut with any rational thinking itself.19Sayyid Qutb describing such an exerciseas 'a methodological error' has insistedthat while the Quran contains guidance on

scientific subjects, it is not a textbook ofscience.20

Karamat Ali was of the view that underQuranic guidance, Muslims had developedGreek sciences into modem sciences andtransmitted them to Europe through theircentres of education in Spain. This processof cultural and intellectual diffusion hadresulted in the 19th century scientific dis-coveries of Europe from which the Mus-lims of India could justly benefit withoutany sense of inferiority.21 Other 19th cen-tury Islamic intellectuals expressed similar

2352 Economic and Political Weekly June 5, 2004



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sentiments as well. Munshi Zakaullah inDelhi also believed that knowledge orscience was the outcome of cumulativehuman effort over the centuries, and eachcentury added a new chapter o the progressof science. The 19th century, in particular,had been an auspicious century in thehistory of science, as it had brought about

revolutionary changes in knowledge nevereven conceived of by earlier generations.22Emphasising the multiracial and multi-cultural character of modern science,Karamat Ali, anticipating Martin Bernal,pointed out that science and learning werefirst introduced into Greece through theinstrumentality of the Syrians, the Phoeni-cians and the Egyptians... Those philoso-phers and mathematicians, who are gene-rally known as Greeks, were in realitypeople of the above-mentioned countries.

They emigrated into Greece, where theysettled and left their posterity.23 KaramatAli was not even conscious of the fact thata concerted attempt was on in Europe atthe time to negate this cultural plurality ofGreece and convert it into a purely Euro-pean source of modern western science.The Europeans during the 19th century,ignored even Herodotus, the 'father' ofGreek history, who had acknowledged theirstrong debt to Egypt. Martin Bernal arguespersuasively that the Greek model was a19th century invention deeply implicatedin the rise of European racism and impe-rialism. In his own words, for eighteenthcentury romantics and racists, it was sim-ply intolerable for Greece, which was seennot merely as the epitome of Europe butalso as its pure childhood, to have beenthe result of the mixture of native Euro-peans and colonising Africans andSemites. 24 Karamat Ali was convinced ofthe fact that the modern nations of Europehave had all scientific writings in the Arabictongue translated nto their own languages,and this translation is being carried oneven at the present moment.... The Span-iards were perhaps the first among the

Europeans who derived a knowledge ofthe above-mentioned things from the Arabs,which they were, in short, the mediumthrough which Arab genius made animpression on Europe. 25 Simultaneously,one is reminded of D G Howarth, perspicu-ous observer of Islam, who wrote 'Arabcivilisation owes a heavy obligation to theGreek, to the Persian, to the Jewish, butno heavier than are debited to all othergreater civilisations. Every advanced hu-man culture must be eclectic and its origi-nality is reckoned by the measure in which

it transforms and makes its own what ithas seized.'26Karamat Ali also observesthat Charlemagne, ollowing the exampleof the Arabs, instituted seminaries and

colleges in Paris and other cities of the

empire.. .The barbarians oon became aliveto the fact that without knowledge nothingcould be done, and began to make effortsin its pursuit .27 However he concededthat the tables are now turned on the latter,they have contracted a dislike for all sortsof learning and have forgotten that know-

ledge will not come to any person unlesswooed with the utmost assiduity, theEuropeans on the other hand havebecome exceedingly alive to this fact .28Jamaluddin Afghani was also of the viewthat the Europeans could not find thetreasures buried in Greece 'until Arabcivilisation lit up with its reflections thesummits of the Pyrenees and poured itslight and riches on the Occident. The

Europeans welcomed Aristotle, who hademigrated and become Arab; but they didnot think of him at all when he was Greekand their neighbour.'29 It was Islam thatrehabilitated Greek learning for the firsttime and conferred dignity to it once againafter the lull that had followed the Helle-nistic Age.30 It is necessary to question theepistemologically different Islamic sciencebut the contribution of Islamic civilisationto the plurality of civilisations should notbe denied its honourable place.31 We needto keep the spirit of Needhamian projectin mind. Needham emphasised on theChinese contribution to science and howits civilisation's cultural values contri-buted to scientific thinking and a growthin knowledge.32 Unfortunately, it was atime when writing of history was beingused to enhance the power of the domi-nant culture by diminishing the value ofthe history of those people who have beensubjugated or who have come under thesway of the dominant culture. 33

It is clear from Karamat Ali's writingsthat he saw continuity in history, particu-larly in the realm of the progress of know-ledge. For him the present had a definitelink with the past and the future again wasnot delinked with the former two. Modernscience could not be a product of Greekmind alone, in like manner Islamic sciencecannot be imagined in isolation as a dis-tinct epistemological entity, solely inspiredby Quran. Karamat Ali was aware of thehistory of Islamic intellectual efflorescencein the early centuries and its subsequentdecline due to the rise of ossified reli-giosity that made it difficult for secular

pursuits to exist. His comments again notonly reflect the above sentiment but also

emphasise the cross-civilisational characterof modern sciences. To quote his words:

All learning and sciences were annihilatedby religious bigotry. Sometimes a familyor a race becomes suddenly extinct, anda new one springs up and flourishes; suchis the case with learning and civilisation,they devolve from one individual toanother. When a nation or a family be-comes degenerated, knowledge andcivilisation recede from them and fly forshelter to another n a different country.This s awful rial o man rom he Creator.34

Jamaluddin Afghani also held the sameview when he said that 'science is continu-ally changing capitals. Sometimes it hasmoved from east to west and other timesfrom west to east.'35 Probably referring tothe Asharite reaction to the early Islamicscientific resurgence, called the 'goldenage' of Science in Islam, Afghani pointedout that'Muslim religion has tried to stiflescience and stop its progress. It has thussucceeded in halting the philosophical orintellectual movement and n turning mindsfrom the search for scientific truth.'36

Defining Modern Science

Afghani conceived of modern science asa universal science that transcends na-tions, cultures, and religions, although herecognised the role of cultural values in

the domain of technological applications.37He goes further saying that 'the strangestthing of all is that our ulema these dayshave divided science into two parts. Onethey call Muslim science and one Euro-pean science.... They have not understoodthat science is that noble thing that has noconnection with any nation, and is notdistinguished by anything but itself.'38 Touse the expression of Farouk El-Baz, anEgyptian geologist at Boston, Science isinternational. There is no such thing asIslamic science. Science is like buildinga big building, a pyramid. Each person putsup a block. These blocks have never hada religion. Its irrelevant, the colour of theguy who put up the block. 39 Abdus Salam,the only Nobel laureate in sciences in theIslamic world, and a great believer himselfcategorically held that 'There is only oneuniversal science, its problems andmodalities are international and there is nosuch thing as Islamic science just as thereis no Hindu science, no Jewish science,no Confucian science nor Christianscience.'40 Afghani laid great emphasis on




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deciding what exactly is the origin of anidea or an object. Sometimes a thing maycome, proximately, rom the west, but itsearlier origin may have involved non-western nfluences n a crucial way. Thisis particularly hecase when we talk aboutscience or mathematics, ince these sub-jects absorbed he contributions f manydifferent societies and cultures. To theimmediate ecipient, he arriving deas andbeliefs may look identifiably western',since heyarebrought n by people rom hewest, and yet these deas and beliefs maynot be, in any sense, specifically westernin nature r in origin.'51 One is remindedof the exhortation f Al-Kindi who askedthe believers not o be ashamed o acknow-ledge truth and to assimilate it fromwhatever ource t comes to us.'52 BI3

Address for correspondence:irfan53 @yahoo.co.uk

Notes[Shorter versions of this paper were presented atthe University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign,US and also at REHSEIS, CNRS, Paris.]

1 Shmuel N Eisenstadt nd Wolfgang Schuchter,'Introduction to Early Modernities - AComparative View', Daedalus, 127, 3, 1998,1-18.

2 Aziz Al-Azmeh, Islams and Modernities,Verso, London-New York, 1993.

3 Abdus Salam in a foreword to PervezHoodbhoy, Islam and Science, London, 1991,

p ix.4 Huntington, Samuel, The Clash of Civilis-

ations, New York, 1996.5 Dennis Overbye, How Islam Won, and Lost,

the Lead in Science, The New York Times,October 30, 2001.

6 Some of the prominent ntellectuals who hadbeen arguing or Islamic science are S H Nasr,Ziauddin Sardar, Osman Bakar, PervezManzoor and others. However this is not ahomogeneous group and we find quite a fewdifferences in their perceptions of Islamicscience.

7 Pervez Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science:Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle forRationality, Zed Books, London, 1991, p74.

8 This aspect was emphasised by Lynn Whitejr in the much discussed paper 'The HistoricalRoots of Ecological Crisis' published inMachina Ex Deo: Essays in the Dynamism ofWestern Culture, MIT Press, Massachusetts,1968, pp 75-94. Most of the Islamists referto this work while dealing with this issue.

9 Susantha Goonatilake, Towards a GlobalScience: Mining Civilisational Knowledge,New Delhi, 1999, p 7.

10 Osman Bakar, Tawhid and Science, Lahore,1998, p 16. Even this past, perceived asunadulterated, was not really so. This mostsought after and pristine Islamic past had itsillustrious Nestorian Christian, ewish, Hindu,

Chinese and Buddhist contributors, who werewelcomed by the liberal Caliphs of Baghdadto engage in the production of this corpus ofscientific knowledge, which later came to becalled Islamic science. Today one tries o forgetor deliberately overlook its multicultural ndmulti-religious origins.

11 For a detailed account on this issue see S IrfanHabib, 'Reconciling Science with Islam in19th Century India', Contributions o IndianSociology, 34, 1, 2000.

12 Jaunpur oday s an insignificant own in UttarPradesh. t had been an important ultural andintellectual centre during the 15th and 18thcenturies. Mulla Mahmud aunpuri was a wellknown scholar from the town whose bookShams I Bazegha remained nfluential amongtraditional cholars till the late 19th century.Jamaluddin Afghani also took note of thisbook in his India writings in the 1880s.

13 Karamat Ali, Ma'akhiz al-Ulum: A Treatiseon the Origin of the Sciences, Calcutta, 1965(in Persian). Ubaydi and Amir Ali translatedthis work into English in 1867.

14 Ibid, p 78.15 Karamat Ali expressed shock at music lovers'

ignorance with mathematics in his countryand Persia, where he travelled during he 1830s.While n Persia, a nobleman nd private tewardof the king wanted to learn music from him,'but as they were unacquainted withmathematics, they could not understand heother science, so in the end I had to teach themmathematics first.'

16 Ibid, pp 40-42.17 Maurice Bucaille is one of the foremost

articulators f Islamic science and author ofan exegesis called The Bible, The Quran andScience. He has concluded that whereas theBible is often wrong in the description ofnatural phenomena, the Quran is invariablycorrect and that it correctly anticipated all

major discoveries of modem science.18 Ziauddin Sardar, Waiting for rain

Fundamentalists ave hijacked slamic cience.Can it ever be liberated? http://dhushara.tripod.com/book/upd3/2002a/histis.htm, p 8.

19 A Pakistani neuropsychiatrist alled AA Abbasiauthored a book titled The Quran and MentalHygiene where he found n the Quran modemcures ordiabetes, uberculosis, tomach ulcers,rheumatism, rthritis, sthma and paralysis. nthe end these claims could not go beyondintellectual amusement Another Pakistaninuclearengineersuggested hat hejinns whomGod made out of fire, should be used as asource of energy to combat the energy crisis.

20 Ziauddin Sardar, Explorations in IslamicScience, London, 1989, pp 35-36.

21 Karamat Ali, op cit, pp 15-22.22 Munshi Zakaullah, Tabiyat-Sharqi wa Gharbi

ki Abjad (Beginnings of the Eastern andWestern Sciences), Delhi, Matbua Ahmadi,1900, p 6.

23 Karamat Ali, op cit, p 46.24 Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic

Roots of Classical Civilisation, Vol 1,London,1987, p 2.

25 Ibid, p 76.26 Elie Kedourie, slam n the Modern World nd

other Studies, London, 1980, p 39.27 Ibid, p 73.

28 Ibid, pp 76-77.29 Nikki R Keddie, An Islamic Response to

Imperialism, Berkeley, 1968, p 185.30 Aydin Sayili, The Observatory n Islam and

its Place in the General History of theObservatory, Ankara, 1988, p 416.

31 We can see a similar thinking among the 19thcentury Chinese intellectuals, who wereexposed to western science during the 16thcentury as a result of the Jesuit missions. Someof them opposed it as alien and uncouth, butothers believed hat t had preserved he vestigesof an older native tradition, augmented andcultivated in the west when the chain oftransmission within China had been broken.David Wright, 'The Translation of ModerWestern Science in Nineteenth Century China,1840-1895', Isis, Vol 89, No 4, December1998, p 657.

32 J Dhombres, On the Track of Ideas andExplanations Down the Centuries: The Historyof Science Today , Impact of Science onSociety, No 160, p 200.

33 Mohammed S Fakir, 'Towards an ExternalistHistory of Islamic Science' in The AmericanJournal of Islamic Social Sciences, Vol 9,

No 2, summer 1992, p 191.34 Karamat Ali, op cit, p 24.35 Nikki R Keddie, op cit, p 103.36 Ibid, p185.37 Osman Bakar, op cit, p 215.38 Nikki R Keddie, op cit, p 62.39 Dennis Overbye, op cit.40 Abdus Salam, op cit, p ix.41 Osman Bakar, op cit, p 218.42 Ziauddin Sardar, Can Science come back to

Islam?' New Scientist, Vol 88 No 1224,October 1980, p 215.

43 Obaidullah Ubedi, Reciprocal Influence ofMahomedan and European Learning andInference herefrom s to the possible influenceof European Learning on the Mahomedan

Mind in India, 1877, Calcutta, pp 46-47.44 Ibid, p 47.45 Ibid pp 48-49.46 Ibid, p 49.47 Ibid, p 10.48 Pervez Hoodbhoy, op cit, pp 68-69.49 Obaidullah Ubedi, op cit, p 48.50 S H Nasr, Islam and Contemporary ociety,

London, 1982, p 176.51 Amartya Sen, 'An Assessment of the

Millennium', UNESCO Lecture in Delhi.52 S P Loo, The four horsemen f Islamic cience

a critical analysis', International Journal ofScience Education, Vol 18, No 3, 1996, p 290.Al-Kindi was a distinguished ninth centuryrationalist

philosopherand scientist who was

publicly logged for resisting he tide of Islamicfundamentalism.

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