My dear, the god of Einstein is the sum of all physical laws governing the Universe, he is completely different from Judeo-Christian-Islamic god. Einstein’s god does not intervene in every day life, no micro management and no prayers, its not even clear that this god created the universe in the first place. In his own words:

"I am, of course, and have always been an atheist…. I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our being."

Now to Newton and his belief in a divine Creator. A brilliant man who by employing a few simple and highly non arbitrary laws of nature, deduced to high precision the motion of the planets in the solar system. The Newtonian method has remained valid from that time to this. He found out that the orbits of the planets circle the sun in an ecliptic plane, so he questioned "Why everything is so regular?" Why are all planets in the same plane? Why do they go around the sun in the same direction?". On the other hand the comets known in his days were helter-skelter. Their orbits were at every possible angle to ecliptic plane. From that he deduced that the distribution of the cometary orbits was the state of the nature and this is how planets have moved had there not been an intervention. He believed that God established the condition for the planets to go around the Sun in the same direction,in the same plane and rotating in a compatible direction.

But Newton was not clearly here, the general solution for this problem was provided by both Kant and Laplace by observing the discs of Saturn and the elliptical nabulae beyond the Milky Way. Both of them proposed that the solar system came from such a flattened disc and the planets condensed out of the disk. However, since the disk has some rotation, so everything that condenses out of it will be going around in the same direction. And if you think for a moment, you will see that as particles come together and make larger objects, they will have a common sense of rotation as well.

This concept is now known as solar nabula or ascertion disk, whose flattened form is the ancestor of the planets. Also, today we know that random orientation of the comets is not primordial, that they began in the solar nabula, going around in the same direction, they were ejected by gravitational interactions with the planets and passing stars, resulting in randomization of their orbits.

So Newton was wrong in both senses (a) that chaotic distribution of cometary orbits is what you will expect in the primordial system and (b) in assuming that there was no natural way that in which the regularities of planetary motion can be explained without divine intervention.

So if, Newton can be fooled…….

Interestingly as science advances, there seems to be less and less for God to do. Evolving in front of our eyes is the God of the Gaps; that is, whatever we cannot explain is attributed to God. And then after a while, we explain it, and so that’s no longer God’s realm. The theologians give that one up, and it walks over onto the science side of the duty roster.

God has been evolving to a do nothing king, who gets the universe going, establishes the laws of nature, and then retires and goes somewhere else

Lately, one one of the major gaps being filled in has to do with the origin of life :-)

Oooops this can go on for ever and I have not yet touched upon other portions of your post, and other segments of God Hypothesis e.g The Watch maker logic, the Creationists and Design theorists. Enough for the day, this was heavy stuff and it would be unethical of me not to give reference:

The Varieties of Scientific Experience
A Personal View of the Search of God
Author: Carl Sagan, Penguin Press

And this discussion started from fire crackers. Thanks to Amna for letting it drag on, but I am not finished yet :(

To be Continued…………….

I am sipping my coffee and enjoying it, I find your bundling of Einsteins God with every body elses very amusing, however, your post gives me a chance to touch upon God hypothesis. I ‘ll take this opportunity to comment in detail over the weekend.

Thank you for keeping an open mind and engaing in a rational argument. I’ll try to post a reply tomorrow.

I guess this will turn out to be a long post… So pls grab a cup of tea or coffee and read on, with open mind :)

You have mentioned that a documentary on cosmos by Carl Segan made you realize that you don’t need God. I am guessing that the documentary delved on how large, infinitely large the universe is and how small, insignificant, we are.

Wouldn’t you then be surprised that the absolute geniuses in the field of understanding universe, cosmos and its workings, Issac Newton and Albert Einsten were both believers in God – one an “avid” Christian and other one a Jew. And you have already mentioned many Muslim scientists of past who believed in God. The above two are from fairly recent times.

So what is it that these geniuses realized (with a more profound knowledge of the universe) that you missed out? Think about it.

You mentioned that “it was like a weight off my chest”. Well, my experience is exactly the opposite. Believing in God, and believing that the world is nothing but a trial, gets you rid of enormous weight of little fears, frights, panics and worries of this world. You can either live with thousands of small worries of this, that and those in the world, or you can simply accept that you are not all powerful and in control of your fate (which you are not) and submit to who is.

Iqbal once said, “yeh eik sajda jisse tu giraan samajhta hai, hazaar sajdon say daita hai aadmi ko nijaat. The idea is not to simply leave everything to God and sit by idly, the idea is to do what our human instincts of survival and prosperity allow us to do, but leave the consequences to God, without worrying about thousands of ifs and buts and otherwises… it keep your heart open, and mind free of worldly fears that everyone appears to be drowned in.

And what’s more. If your have researched Quran, you would have realized that God does not demand anything extraordinarily difficult from human beings… The rules: be good to others, stay clean, never lie, don’t steal, don’t harm anyone… aren’t they only logical to follow? … does one have to live a life of never ending lust, greed, selfishness to consider himself “free”… and as western society now clearly depicts, is that sort of “everything goes” freedom, and guilt-free greed a good thing for social fabric?… and just why do Western societies have such high suicide rates, and number of people seeking psychiatric help, despite taking God “off” their heads?

Off course there are no such rules or restrictions in Islam on issues such as keeping or not keeping a beard, and many other moulvi propaganda that you touched upon earlier.

The verse you mentioned (2:29) ends with the line, “He has knowledge of all things”. Now either we as human beings should stand up and claim that “we” have knowledge of all things, and we “know” that what’s mentioned in Quran about creation of heavens is not correct. I am sure no human being, no scientist can claim that. Then why challenge the claim of God? Our theories keep changing every 150 years. The comments of Einstein about infiniteness of human stupidity (or lack of wisdom) come to mind when we stand up in front of the huge undiscovered universe.

I am quite convinced that many actions of Muslims after Prophet Muhammad’s passing were not in accordance with Islam. The battles (many among each other to gain or retain power), the nature of governance in some cases and the attitude in other cases. Many unfortunate and others uncalled for.

On the topic of slaves: slavery was very much a common thing; in fact part of the social fabric, of Arab culture at the time of Prophet Muhammad. On social and personal issues Islam has usually taken an evolutionary approach to change, rather than a revolutionary approach. Islam did not prohibit alcohol one fine evening. Quran first just made it appear as an unappreciated entity. Later it disallowed Muslims to pray if they were drunk (leading many to cut down and finally quit drinking altogather), and then finally Quran declared it forbidden altogather. Similar approach was applied to slavery. Initially Muslims we allowed to keep / retain slaves as was the norm in the society – with the condition that they treat them nicely and fairly. Later it was ordered that if a slave wants to be set free, he/she should be freed, and finally it was ordered that no new slaves be taken from occupied lands / tribes, thus abolishing slavery altogather. Please do note that rest of the world kept on with the concept of slavery (including west) many centuries later.

You have to remember that the world of that time was way differed from our world, and Islam gradually changed the norms. Tribal wars, slavery, idolism – Islam got rid of them one by one. The best example is that of conquest of Makkah, when the Muslim army was strong enough to bulldoze the city of Makkah under its feet (people of Makkah therefore conceded defeat without fighting – a very uncharacteristic for Quraish tribe). And just read what Muhammad (entering the city as a conqueror) ordered to his troop – something very unlikely from a conqueror of those times – i.e. It will not be permissible for anyone () to kill any one in Makkah. Nor shall any one destroy the greenery of Makkah. I have forbidden the practice of all custom of the age of illiteracy”… To the people of Makkah he said “Today there is no reproach against you. Go, you are all free”.

You also touched upon human beings living in Amazon or Borneo, detached from the world. Fair point, but Islam makes it clear that you are only accountable for what you can know and what is within your domain. A mentally incapable person, for example, cannot be held accountable for his actions or beliefs, and God (as Quran says on so many occasions) is beneficent, the merciful.

Further, Islam also says that there have been around 124,000 messengers in the world. We do not need Quran to give an account of every single one of them, but rest assured, messengers were not all concentrated to Middle East. About Egyptian temples, maybe a messenger of God prophesized about a later day messenger with certain characteristics and later-on people documented it on those walls, or maybe there was a messenger in earlier times with similar characteristics as that of Jesus. Its quite possible. God knows best. Also please remember that Islam does not believe that Jesus or anyone else was son of God.

Neanderthals, which may or may not be linked to present day human beings, were not same as us. This points links to a previous one; we are only answerable for what we can know, and what’s in our domain. If I was a Neanderthal, I would probably not be questioned by God about what I believed and how I behaved in the world because I would probably have no idea what these words mean. So it’s only logical that Quran talks to and about us, the modern human being.

Our job is to seek truth and continue seeking it. I hope you agree. I appreciate your taking time to discuss this matter with an open mind. God knows best and may God bless all of us.

This is becoming extremely hard to manage while at work, and I am not allowed to surf at home. Since, you have taken time to post in such detail, therefore, I feel obliged to respond.

Back in my university days, one cold winter night I was watching "COSMOS" the amazing documentary by Carl Sagan and it dawned upon me that I don’t need God or Religion to live my life. It was like a weight was off my chest. Since then I have researched, read Quran, Islamic history and touched upon Judea-Christianity accounts, World history, Anthropology, Evolution Sciences, Astronomy, the human civilizations, paganism and what not. Unfortunately, I found nothing that could change my mind. I tried. More on this later….

But first to make things clear, if you read my posts I try my best that if I quote some thing, its not a mis-representation. So if I quote from Ghazali, its not from Quran and if its an interpretation then its an interpretation. Also it is very difficult for me to quote from someone while at work, so I take my time and be absolutely sure. I usually, dont quote from Quran or other scriptures, because then it opens up the Pandora of interpretation and people respond with emotion, every body has a version, for instance about 7 heaven, I will only quote and not comment:

"And He created seven skies (heavens) in two days, and taught each sky its duties. And He adorned the nearest sky (or: the sky of this world) with lamps (stars)…" (Fussilat 41: 12)

"It is He Who created everything on the earth for you and then directed His attention up to heaven and arranged it into seven regular heavens. He has knowledge of all things."
(The Qur’an, 2:29)

The references from history were to provide some food for thought for Amna bibi, they might help her to keep an open mind during her quest.

I agree that the actions of the companions after the passing of Prophet, and the subsequent history, its just history and should be studied as such. On the other hand if you dont talk about people without Alqabaat and place them on a pedestal, it becomes very difficult to maintain objectivity. That said, there are quite a few historical episodes (e.g Bani Quraiza) while the prophet was alive that defy justification or logic and I am yet to meet an Islamic Scholar who can justify them. Similarly, I dont see anywhere in Quran, " Thou shalt not make/keep slaves or molest your londi’s."

About Science and Religion, how can they reconcile? When the later is based upon the revelations by a Divine Authority, that cannot be challenged, while science seeks truth by way of logic, proof and experiment and scruitinizes everything. Once a question was asked, "Can religous belifs adapt to the future?" The answere given was, "If religion is about saying how the natural world is, then to be successful it must adopt the methods, procedures, techniques of science and then become indistinguishable from science….And ther are the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religions have adopted the best science of the time but that was a long time ago". If Iam not allowed to ask, "Where God came from"" then I shouldn’t be allowed to ask, "Where did the Universe came from?"

And then there is the small matter of evolution of Biblical religions from Paganism. If you read the writings on the Egyptian Temples, there was a Sun god, who had a son by virgin birth, the son had miraculous powers to cure, he was killed but was sent back. Doesn’t this sound familiar.

Here I dare to suggest a small correction in your post. Its true that written human history is few thousand year old ( that is related to discovery of agriculture and subsequent formation of civilizations ), but its also proven from fossil record that the evolution of present human species is spread over 5 million years, which is insignificant when compared to the geological time frame. It is also true that we all carry the DNA of the African Eve that lived around 140,000 years ago. And it is also true that there lived another species of humans from a different Adam known as Neanderthals who died out around 50,000 years ago in Europe. Also its true that development of written language was only possible after humans settled down as farmers but cave paintings have been around more than 30,000 years and hunting tools dated more than 700,000 years have been discovered.

Then there is the question of Biblical religions being concentrated in middle east while the humans isolated in Amazon or Borneo, still live the jungle life, roam around naked, do not have a written language. They are our living ancestors with no prophet and God as we know it.

My knowledge on religion (or science) is very limited. And just like you I intend to keep an open mind to accept ideas that are convincing and reject the ones full of fallacies.

Given the above, I believe in God and I do believe in religion.

As it appears that we have a difference of opinion on some matters, so let’s analyze them briefly:

First of all (Inzy notwithstanding) there is no conflict between religion and science. Both are studies / pursuits to understand the truth, and embrace it with open heart. Both, however, are grossly misinterpreted at times, which is where the apparent conflict comes in. Science doesn’t reject religious beliefs. (pls keep in mind that religious beliefs do not include man made stories that have no authentic reference in any religion, we will come to these a bit later). Yes, science hasnt been able to prove the existence of God. But equally important is the fact that science hasnt been able to prove that God doesnt exist. So science, with regards to this question, can at best be deemed as, inconclusive.

Religion doesnt contradict science. Islam, for example, doesn’t give a time frame of 10-12 thousand years to earth, as mentioned in your post. Neither does it say that we (human beings) are the center of the universe. Quite the contrary, as Quran seems to suggest that Universe is a far bigger entity than we ever thought of:

Certainly the creation of the heavens and the earth is greater than the creation of the men, but most people do not know. (040-057)

There surely came over man a period of time when he was a thing not worth mentioning. (076-001)

However the basic addressees of Quran are us, the human beings. Therefore it’s only logical that Quran (or Bible) would talk extensively about us, and not about dinosaurs or creatures that lived millions of years before us on earth or in other galaxies. Science has proven that the history of modern man (us) is indeed few thousand years old, which also happens to be the time frame the scriptures focus on. I dont see any contradiction here.

Having said that, the question of faith is a long debate, and at the end of the day it’s a matter that cannot be confined to half backed information from unauthenticated sources.

I see Islam as a liberal, modern and forward looking religion. However to understand the real Islam, one needs to read the Quran. Verdicts of any scholar, no matter how famous, are nothing but personal opinions. Quran invites us (on many occasions) to "think". We can chose to accept a certain opinion from a scholar, or reject it, if we think we are not convinced.

The lines "if the husbands body is covered with pus and blood…" are not from Quran. Neither from any authentic sayings of the Prophet. The lines "The marriage contracts of the occupied stand null and void…." are again not from Quran or Hadith. Your accounts of "intrigues and bloodshed" in the era of four caliphs, ummayads and abbasids – unfortunate as they are, are power struggles between kings and nobles. They have nothing to do with religion or belief system. You can see similar accounts of bloodshed in any era of ancient and medieval history, be it european, asian or african. Why then would you assume that religion had something to do with these instances.

I guess it has become a long post. However I would urge you to read Quran. Do not fall prey to misinterpretations of it, either by extremist zombies or by negative thinking intellectuals. First hand research is always helpful.

The questions that have dogged us are:

Since the time that living organisms evolved consiousness in the form of humans The one questions that have dogges us are:

- Where are we?
- Who we are?
- Where did we came from?
and
- Where are we going?

Religions especially the biblical ones have tried to give some simplistic anwere’s that a Divine Being named God created the universe in 7 days and we wound up in this world because our ancestor ate an forbidden apple. Furthermore, the present living species in the world are the ones that opted to get on board the Noah’s arch which was cleaned by Elephants acting as Janitors, approx. seven thousand years ago.

Being religious we have no option but to accept the above on face value and fruitlessly try to to find justifications for these prepositions.

But there is another way to find answer’s to the questions outlined above, that is called scientific method and free thinking. The brave souls that have taken that approach since the Sumarians, Egyptians and Greeks have been target of persecution by the religous dogma, however, the renaissance in Europe changed every thing. Now we know that the Earth is atleast 4.5 billion years old, not 10 or 12 thousand years (Biblical / Quranic calculation). We know that evolution / extinction of species is spread over millions of years and is much more complex than getting off or on a boat. We also know that we are not the centre of Universe but just an insignificant planet located at the outer spirals of the milky way galaxy, which by the way has billions of other stars and corresponding solar systems. And that the Milky Way galaxy is just one of the billions of galaxies that form this universe. So the pre-Copernicus ancient astronomic concept of seven heavens endorsed by Judaism, Christianity and Islam does not hold ground:

Universe is geocentric, i.e. the Earth is flat and located at the center of the universe. That the Sun and the Moon along with Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury made the seven known objects of the heaven are deities.

I admit science cannot provide all the answer’s, yet it is the best way to pursuit them and increase the collective prowess of the human race.

As mentioned in my earlier post philosophical credentials of Al-Ghazali are never in doubt, his anti Hellenistic and anti rationalist views are well documented in his book the Incoherence of the Philosophers . I have carefully chosen words of how his work was interpreted. That said, there should be no doubt of how these lines from his book Ihya ulum al-din be interpreted:

"If the husbands body is covered with pus and blood, and if the wife licks and drinks it, her obligations to her husband will still not be fulfilled"

So, continue with your scholarly pursuit and, I can only recommend that you study the Hellenistic Arab philosopher’s with similar zeal as you are doing the anti-Hellenistic one.

Now coming to what I quoted from Moudoudi’s Tafheem-ul-Quran Vol.1. We cannot be dismissive of scholar’s like him, he was no ordinary dude, whatever, he says its either from Quran or from some historical precedence set by the earliest Muslims. And dont worry about what hisfollowers will do, sadly, his interpretation that I quoted has already been put into practice in 1971, when Bengali’s resisting Pakistan army were declared Kafir via an edict, hence, all the poor Bengali women became open game. The Republic of Bangladesh still demands official apology for those heinous acts.

Speaking of precedences there are quite a few, that are not so pleasant like:

- Execution style massacre of all (600 to 900) adult, unarmed males (ages 12 and above), of the Jewish tribe of Bani Quraiza, just after Ghawa-e-Khandaq. The distribution of the surviving women, children and other possessions among the faithful. It is said that a ditch was dug in the Bazaar of Madina. The poor souls were killed, pushed and covered up in sand together. We might have erased this unpleasant episode from our history, but some sick souls still draw inspiration from it.

- The incident at Saqifa Bani Saeda where noblest of the noble companions argued, cursed and drew swords over who should be the leader of the faithful, while the Prophet was not even buried.

- The intrigues and bloodshed within the companions faced with the question of succession, from the first Caliph onwards.

- The real cause of enimosity between Ali and Ayesha, culminating in the Battle of the Camel that took thousands of lives.

- Though women for the first time were give the right of inheritance, sanctioning of beating up a non compliant wife escapes me.

- Then there is Slave and Kaneez taking and the fact you are allowed to have extra marital relationships with your female slaves is something to ponder. Though it is ordained that you treat them well. But this institutionalizes the practice rather than abolishes it.

- The Kharjee episode and their radical philosophy.

- Usman’s actions resulting in turning Khilafat into Umayyad Dynasty.

- The continued persecution of Prophet’s family, first by Ummayyad’s and later on by Abbasid’s.

- During the Abbasid period, the fourteen year revolt of "Zanj" by the black muslim slaves around Basra, fed up by the ill treatment of their Arab and Persian Masters.

- The destruction and demolishing of historic Mecca and Medina, including the houses of the Prophet, Khadija and Abu-Bakr by the Najdi / Wahabi clan of Sauds, who by the way are illegitimate rulers of Hijaaz.

The list goes on and there is a lot to research, then reject or justify. But for me the cross over point was not from history. I said farewell to my inherited faith as a consequence of a broader conflict /
debate between science and religion.

To be continued ……..

And while still on the subject of the instituion I study in, I just mentioned it to show you what is being taught in secular classrooms as far as I can see. It may be hailed by some as the best university in the nation, but really, many things are far from excellent here. Maybe I’ll have a post on that soon.

@kaami: whatever these ‘literate’ moulvis have said is clearly contradicting with the injunctions laid down by the Quran itslf…even a five-year old can see that. But I don’t know if people following Maududi’s ideology are such people as will even defy the Quran. What they have said is against everything that the Quran says of war and occupation, let alone the Sunnah. As for the people who say things like this, whther moulvis or not…do I really have to say it out loud? If what you say is true, then what I feel about it is too heavy to be expressed in words.

While judging a certain group like maulvis, I don’t think one should look at politics and international fatwas anymore. Today, any moulvi who goes into politics is swallowed up by the system and is not strong enough to defy it, in my opinion. Stick with the ones who follow the deen out of fear for Allah, and not for their material gains, or their ‘cultural’ systems; look at the ones that are humble and who are not comfortable with labelling themselves as true Muslims. They’re less easy to find, but they’re there if you look out for them.
And about Al-Ghazali, he never ‘depressed science’, but rather he rejected the basic assumptions of Hellenistic philosophy, not philosophy as a whole. And I am currently reading one of his books; his intellectual autobiography, and studying it with a scholar of his works. There is nothing that of lebelling anyone, but he presents his own arguements very clearly. Don’t quote from anywhere and don’t repeat what you have heard about scholars such as Ghazali, because you do not know how big a perosn you are dealing with here. Study him for yourself, and then speak. Don’t add to the misinterpretations of his works, which, as you yourself has said, led to such consequences that you talked about.