The field of science and religion

The modern category of ‘religion’ was established in the eighteenth century, while the category of ‘science’ was established in the nineteenth century.Footnote ⁷ For much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the predominant view of the relationship between the two was one of conflict. Historians of science and religion have increasingly recognized the complexity of the interactions between science and religion, with many arguing that the relationship has been characterized by a variety of different dynamics, including mutual support, dialogue and tension.Footnote ⁸ More recently, and in line with the overall movement of history of science, scholars have argued for a more global or transnational approach to the discipline.Footnote ⁹ However, certain myths still hold an important place in the public sphere.

The academic field of the history of science and religion is shaped in a reactionary sense by the notion of a perennial conflict between science and religion. Two publications by Draper and White, as mentioned in the introduction, sparked a wide array of responses. But the publications are more nuanced than that and not the only contributions to the notion of a conflict between science and religion. For example, philosophical positivism and the works of philosophers such as Auguste Comte (1798–1857) fanned the flames of controversy.Footnote ¹⁰ Since the 1980s, historians of science and religion have argued against the binary notions of conflict or harmony between science and religion. Leading this historiographical shift were historians such as John Hedley Brooke, Ronald Numbers and David Lindberg.Footnote ¹¹ In Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (1991), Brooke argued that the relationship between science and religion is complex and cannot be reduced to simplistic binaries.Footnote ¹² There is a significant shift in the field from models of conflict or harmony towards the complexity thesis. But, as Brooke reflects in 2019, it is more accurately conceptualized as a principle than a thesis, because it suggests a historical methodology that refuses to break down the relationship between science and religion into simple narratives of global conflict or harmony but rather insists on empirical analysis in each historical context.Footnote ¹³

However, the complexity principle leads to another issue: ‘complexity’ is not really an argument in and of itself.Footnote ¹⁴ It is an example of why big pictures are so difficult to produce as well. In addition to that, given its origins, there is also the issue of Eurocentrism in the field. Much of the scholarship in the field of the history of science and religion focused geographically on Western Europe and the United States, and Christianity is the dominant religion. Thus the inclusion of other perspectives, Eastern Orthodox included, is held up against this rubric. Before we can fully evaluate the complexity principle, and move towards any new narratives, we have to expand the scope of historical investigations. There is already much work in progress regarding this.Footnote ¹⁵ In recent years, the study of science and religion has expanded to include other religious traditions and the perspectives of non-Western cultures. It has also increasingly focused on the social, political and cultural factors that shape the relationship between science and religion. In the 2010s, one can point to a global turn in the field. John Hedley Brooke and Ron Numbers's Science and Religion around the World, a pioneering edited collection, broadened the discussion beyond Western and Abrahamic religions to include non-Western contexts and religions.Footnote ¹⁶ Alongside early and modern Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the book contained chapters on early Chinese religions, Indic religions, Buddhism, African religions and unbelief, establishing a ‘global’ approach to the field. While scholarship on Christianity is well developed, the book attempted to chart a way forward for non-Western topics, revealing the weaknesses of existing historiography. Thus the chapters on non-Western religions provided a less comprehensive picture than those on Christianity. Notwithstanding this, the book paved the way for new directions in science-and-religion scholarship that embraced a global perspective. Coupled with this edited volume is Sujit Sivasundaram's chapter titled ‘A global history of science and religion’, which was included in the edited volume Science and Religion: New Historical Perspectives.Footnote ¹⁷ Sivasundaram emphasized the need for a historical approach that focuses on analysing broad patterns and connections across different regions, rather than attempting to create a comprehensive history of every region. Sivasundaram also emphasized the importance of the colonial encounter in shaping the relationship between science and religion, arguing that colonialism was a significant factor in the development of modern science. Terence Keel's monograph Divine Variations: How Christian Thought Became Racial Science pushed this historiographical turn further. Keel demonstrates that the idea of race as a biological category was not a pre-existing concept, but rather was created and developed through the intersection of Christian theology and scientific inquiry.Footnote ¹⁸ Keel argues that the concept of race was formed through the interaction of ideas about human variation, which were initially based on religious concepts of divine creation and hierarchy, with scientific inquiry into human difference.

Given the trajectory of the field, there are promising new avenues of research in the historiography that move us beyond complexity, but not quite towards a ‘big picture’. While many of the historiographical debates and developments are taking shape in edited collections, recent works have called for critical approaches to the topic of science and religion.Footnote ¹⁹ For example, Sheldon, Ragab and Keel's Critical Approaches to Science and Religion incorporates schools of thought such as critical race theory, feminist and queer theory, and postcolonial theory.Footnote ²⁰ Coupled with that is a push towards what Bernard Lightman and I have dubbed ‘globality’.Footnote ²¹ This is echoed in Alper Yalçınkaya's recent article ‘Globalizing “science and religion”: examples from the late Ottoman Empire’. Yalçınkaya shows that that the discussion surrounding ‘science and religion’ was a global phenomenon during the nineteenth century, fostering novel conceptions of both science and religion in numerous geographical contexts.Footnote ²² Thus, while there is a historiographical move in the field from conflict, to complexity, and towards globality, there are many more interdisciplinary concerns and historical developments to incorporate into the field of the history of science and religion before there can be a novel ‘big picture’. For example, in Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment, Renny Thomas charts a way forward by incorporating ethnographic research in non-Western contexts.Footnote ²³ Thomas presents a detailed exploration of the intersection between science and religion in South Asia, highlighting the perspectives of Indian scientists and their diverse religious engagements. He challenges simplistic notions of a natural connection between science and religion in India, advocating for a nuanced understanding that transcends binary frameworks of conflict and complementarity, thereby opening up new avenues for conceptualizing these complex categories.

While academics are examining historiographical intricacies and pushing the field forward towards a consensus, there are still certain popular notions that are taken as facts about the relationship between science and religion. Perhaps the lack of a ‘big picture’ has contributed to some of this. Academics in the field of science and religion have tried to tackle public misconceptions by writing with general audiences in mind. For example, several authors contributed to Ronald Numbers's edited volume Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion.Footnote ²⁴ Chapters in this volume offered a short overview of the new literature in the field organized around a key event or scientific idea. It tackled myths such as the idea that the medieval Christian Church suppressed the growth of science and taught that the Earth was flat, the popular notion that Galileo was a martyr for science who was imprisoned and persecuted by the Catholic Church for his support of the heliocentric theory, and even the idea that Einstein believed in a personal God.

Let's unpack the example of the Galileo affair and how it is discussed in various manners. The narrative goes something like this: Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was imprisoned and tortured by the Catholic Church for his defence of the heliocentric model of the solar system, which challenged the geocentric model endorsed by the Church. In 1616, the Catholic Church declared heliocentrism to be heretical, and in 1632 Galileo published his book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which endorsed the heliocentric model and criticized the Church's position.Footnote ²⁵ Galileo was subsequently summoned to Rome by the Inquisition, where he was interrogated and ultimately forced to recant his views under threat of torture. Thus there is a clear conflict between science and religion due to the persecution and torture of Galileo. In the chapter ‘Myth 8: that the Church hindered the progress of science by condemning Galileo’, Maurice A. Finocchiaro challenges the myth that the Catholic Church hindered the progress of science by condemning Galileo for his support of the heliocentric theory.Footnote ²⁶ He argues that the real story is more complicated than this simplistic view suggests. Galileo saw himself as a devout Catholic and his conflict with the Church had more to do with politics, the need for the Catholic Church to assert its authority in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, and personal animosity than with science itself. To add another layer, during this period, the Jesuits were heavily invested in the world of science, taking a global approach that leveraged colonial networks to spread and exchange scientific knowledge.Footnote ²⁷ Their involvement ranged from astronomy to natural sciences, and they established a presence in various parts of the world, including Asia, Africa and the Americas. Galileo, at times, was part of this same network, collaborating with Jesuit scholars and benefiting from their extensive communication and dissemination of scientific ideas. Overall, the Galileo affair could also be seen as a myth perpetuated by Enlightenment thinkers who sought to create a secular narrative of scientific progress. Ultimately, Galileo's story is not a simple tale of science versus religion, but a more complicated and fascinating episode in the history of ideas. Furthermore, it is events in the twentieth century that perpetuated the myth further.Footnote ²⁸

While scholars who study the history of science and religion have largely moved beyond the idea that science and religion are inherently in conflict with each other, many still hold onto this notion.Footnote ²⁹ Thus the value of a ‘big picture’ in the history of science and religion cannot be overstated. It is important to take a broad, inclusive view of the history of science and religion that goes beyond the traditional focus on Western Europe and Christianity in the West. Additionally, it is important to explore relationships between science and religion in other cultural and religious contexts beyond those tied to Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). This is because different cultures and religious traditions have different ways of understanding and reconciling the relationship between science and religion, which can shed light on the diversity of human thought and experience. To re-emphasize a key point, in the field of science and religion, other world views are held up to a pre-existing rubric of Christianity. Overall, there is a need for a more nuanced approach to studying the intersection of science and religion that takes into account the complexities of both historical and contemporary perspectives. In the following section, I demonstrate how such an approach could be developed through examples from the history of Islamic science.

Islamic science

Recently, old clips of American astrophysicist and science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson's talk titled ‘Islam's rise and fall in science’ have gone viral on TikTok and YouTube.Footnote ³⁰ In these clips, Tyson discusses the influence of Islamic scholars during the ‘Golden Age of Islamic science’, including their contributions to astronomy, which is evident in the Arabic names of many stars. He classifies the ‘Islamic Golden Age’ as a period of significant advancements in various scientific fields. Additionally, Tyson rehashes the trope that Al-Ghazali's influence led to the decline of the rational sciences in Islam.Footnote ³¹ Tyson's talk demonstrates how certain views of the history of ‘Islamic science’ are often characterized by oversimplified narratives and static views of the past. While the history of ‘science and religion’ as a field is moving towards a global approach, ‘Islamic science’ has witnessed growth in numerous interdisciplinary directions. This section presents an overview of the historiography, unpacks two case studies, and addresses how the topic has expanded beyond traditional confines, advancing postcolonial studies, interdisciplinary research and global perspectives, thereby contributing to a more nuanced understanding of scientific traditions within Islamic societies.

While trying to incorporate the Islamic or Arabic heritage in the history of science, orientalists in the nineteenth century, such as Ernest Renan (1823–92), a French scholar known for his work on the history of religion and the development of modern nationalism, and Ignaz Goldziher (1850–1921), a Hungarian Jewish scholar who is widely considered one of the founders of Islamic studies, constructed a static view of Islamic sciences.Footnote ³² The notion of an Islamic ‘Golden Age’ posited that with the rise of the Abbasid caliphate (750–1258), there was a translation movement.Footnote ³³ This involved the translation of ancient Greek, Persian, Hindu and other texts into Arabic, primarily facilitated by Islamic scholars and patrons. The movement was centred in major intellectual hubs such as Baghdad, Damascus and Cordoba. This is considered the Golden Age of Islamic science. However, the narrative posits that the Islamic or Arabic scholars were only translators and not innovators. Often, the ‘decline’ is attributed to a myriad of factors, including the decline of the Abbasid caliphate, conservatism, the influence of al-Ghazali and the revival of learning in the West.Footnote ³⁴ However, this is no longer the academic position.

The idea of a ‘Golden Age’ followed by decline is one that historians of Islamic science have thoroughly addressed and debunked. To quote Sonja Brentjes, the category of ‘decline’ is ‘a temporal absurdity’.Footnote ³⁵ Brentjes calls for a more nuanced approach to the history of science in the Islamic world, one that recognizes the diversity of scientific inquiry across time and place and resists the imposition of narrow categorizations. She argues that this approach can help to reveal the true richness and complexity of the Islamic scientific tradition and to challenge the dominant narratives that have marginalized it. Other academics have argued that the simplistic view of a Golden Age overlooks the diversity and complexity of Islamic intellectual traditions and fails to account for the many factors that shaped the development of science in the Islamic world over time.Footnote ³⁶ For example, George Saliba, in his seminal work Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, argued against the ‘classical narrative’ of the Golden Age and declared that the foundations of Islamic scientific thought pre-date the ninth century, when Greek sources were formally translated into Arabic.Footnote ³⁷ Instead, Saliba presents a compelling case to support the view that early translations for the use of government departments led to the development of an Islamic scientific tradition. In addition, Islamic astronomy was just one area that represented a creative response to Greek tradition, not just translation with minor improvements.Footnote ³⁸ Similarly, Ahmad Dallal has argued that the decline of rational sciences in the Muslim world was a symptom of complex and historically specific social, political and economic factors, not the result of an inevitable unfolding of culture.Footnote ³⁹ For him, Islamic science should be understood not as a monolithic entity, but rather as a complex and diverse collection of knowledge practices that were shaped by local contexts and influenced by interactions with other cultures.Footnote ⁴⁰ He also emphasizes the importance of understanding the social, political and economic contexts in which Islamic science was produced, as well as the role of patronage and institutional support in fostering scientific inquiry.

As with the case of science and religion, while scholars of Islamic science have moved past certain assumptions and are pushing the boundaries of the discipline, there are numerous issues with the popular tropes in the field of Islamic science as well. As with the case of science and religion, while scholars of Islamic science have moved past certain assumptions and are pushing the boundaries of the discipline, there are numerous issues with the popular tropes in the field of Islamic science as well. Let us examine two examples from two different vantage points.

Going back to Al-Ghazali, some scholars have argued that his critique of philosophers and of their emphasis on reason and empirical inquiry had a negative impact on science in the Islamic world. Others argue that the decline of science in Islam was due to a complex set of factors, including political instability, economic decline, and the rise of religious fundamentalism. In a blogpost, Tim O'Neill argues that this claim is oversimplified and ahistorical, and that it ignores the complex factors that contributed to the decline of Islamic science, including political instability, economic decline and the rise of competing centres of knowledge in Europe.Footnote ⁴¹ While Al-Ghazali's ideas may have had some impact on the development of science in the Islamic world, it is important to note that the fate of science in the Islamic world was a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. It cannot be attributed to any single individual or factor. Thus, while Al-Ghazali was critical of philosophers, he was not the sole reason for the ‘end of Islamic sciences’.

On the other side, you have the temporal view of Islamic science as a cornerstone of civilizational progress. A prime example is the popular 1001 Inventions exhibition.Footnote ⁴² It is a travelling exhibition that explores the scientific and technological achievements of Muslim civilization during the Golden Age of Islam. The exhibition highlights the contributions of Muslim scholars, scientists and inventors in fields such as mathematics, astronomy, medicine, chemistry and engineering. The exhibition features interactive displays, multimedia presentations and hands-on activities that showcase the groundbreaking innovations of Muslim civilization, such as the invention of the camera obscura, the development of algebra and the creation of the first surgical instruments. The exhibition aims to challenge misconceptions about Muslim culture and to promote cross-cultural understanding and appreciation of the diverse contributions of different civilizations to human progress. It has been showcased in various cities around the world, including London, Istanbul, New York and Abu Dhabi, and has been visited by millions of people. The exhibition is a clear response to Islamophobia and post-9/11 perceptions of Muslims.

While the 1001 Inventions exhibition has been generally well received and praised for its efforts to showcase the scientific and technological contributions of Muslim civilization, there have been some criticisms and concerns raised about certain aspects of the exhibition. Academics have called attention to issues with it. An entire edited volume titled 1001 Distortions: How (Not) to Narrate History of Science, Medicine, and Technology in Non-Western Cultures is dedicated to this cause.Footnote ⁴³ To highlight some of the issues scholars have raised: there is much generalization involved in this project. Some critics have argued that the exhibition presents a simplistic and homogenized view of Muslim culture and history, overlooking the diversity and complexity of Muslim societies throughout history. Others have argued that the exhibition reinforces stereotypes and exoticizes Muslim culture, rather than presenting it in a nuanced and accurate way. There is the issue of overemphasizing the past – some critics have argued that the exhibition focuses too much on the historical achievements of Muslim civilization, rather than highlighting contemporary contributions and innovations made by Muslims around the world. Ironically, there is also a lack of representation! Some critics have raised concerns about the lack of representation of Muslim scholars and experts in the development of the exhibition, and the potential for non-Muslim experts to misrepresent or appropriate Muslim history and culture. Overall, while the 1001 Inventions exhibition has been praised for its efforts to promote cross-cultural understanding and appreciation of Muslim culture and history, it is important to acknowledge the criticisms and concerns raised by some scholars and experts.Footnote ⁴⁴

There is a fundamental difference between the claim that Al-Ghazali caused the decline of the Golden Age and the assertion made by the 1001 Inventions project that we cannot have modern science without Islamic science. The former is a historical perspective that traces the decline of philosophical discourse in the Islamic world to the influence of Al-Ghazali. On the other hand, the 1001 Inventions project celebrates the achievements of Islamic civilization in the field of science and technology. However, unlike the view that Al-Ghazali's ideas led to the end of philosophy, the 1001 Inventions project does not make any claims about the superiority of Islamic science over other traditions. Instead, it presents a narrative of Muslim scientific achievements and highlights the role of Islamic civilization in the advancement of knowledge during the Middle Ages. It also treats Islamic science as a self-contained category. But this perpetuates the Golden Age narrative. The real account is somewhere in the middle.

This discussion of Al-Ghazali and the myth of a ‘Golden Age’ highlights another key issue: would a master narrative stitch together the early literature with recent directions of the field? While it is true that the fall of Baghdad in 1258 is a significant turning point, there is another to consider in the historiography: the rise of the Mughal, Ottoman and Safavid empires in the subsequent centuries provided new centres of intellectual and scientific activity, fostering the continuation and advancement of scientific inquiry across diverse geographical regions. Currently, historians of Islamic science are increasingly expanding the temporal and geographical scope of the field. For example, attention is drawn to the global impact of the Ottoman Empire by numerous scholars.Footnote ⁴⁵

There are also strong arguments to cast a wider net on the definition of ‘science’. This would lead to the inclusion of several new areas of investigation, such as the occult sciences. For example, Melvin-Koushki argues that while Islamic occult sciences may not conform to modern scientific methodologies, they were nonetheless considered valid forms of knowledge in premodern Islamic intellectual tradition. He suggests that the term ‘science’ should be understood in its historical context, rather than simply as a synonym for the modern natural sciences. In this sense, Islamic occult sciences can be considered part of the broader scientific tradition of Islam.Footnote ⁴⁶

Apart from geographic and temporal additions, scholars are drawing on insights from other fields, including anthropology, sociology and philosophy. This has led to a more holistic understanding of the development of Islamic science and has helped to highlight the importance of multidisciplinary approaches in studying this topic. There are several promising interdisciplinary directions that scholars have recently taken. In 2018, the Immanent Frame published a series of essays as part of a forum titled ‘Science and the soul: new inquiries into Islamic ethics’, providing reflections on a group of contemporary publications concerning the intersection of Islam and science.Footnote ⁴⁷ The forum introduced five books that delve into various aspects of this relationship, covering topics such as thermodynamics, astronomy, psychoanalysis, psychiatry and urban planning.Footnote ⁴⁸ This was a platform not only for reviewing or commenting on each individual monograph, but also for examining their collective contributions as integral components of a burgeoning shift in the anthropology and history of Islam. Each discussion initiates a range of inquiries that is significant for the examination of Muslim modernity across various spheres. Here we see an important shift. Scholars have increasingly emphasized the importance of social and cultural contexts in shaping scientific knowledge in the Islamic world. This has led to a greater appreciation for the role of religion, politics and culture in shaping the development of science in Islamic societies.

As the field of ‘science and religion’ adopts a more global approach, ‘Islamic science’ has experienced growth in multiple interdisciplinary areas. When we expand the category from science and religion as a binary, there are several new areas to examine. Furthermore, works such as Marwa Elshakry's Reading Darwin in Arabic point to the intersection of a specific science – evolutionary biology – and the many boundaries the topic can cross. This includes the ability to speak about multiple religions.Footnote ⁴⁹ Thus scholars are writing new narratives of the nineteenth century that, to use my own term, are ‘not routed through Europe’. Apart from imperial encounters, there was another cosmopolitan intellectual network operating for nineteenth-century Muslims, in which a wide range of debates and discussions were anchored firmly in an Islamic context. While it is important to examine the imperial context and discussions with orientalists, there are fascinating intra-religious debates that stretch across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. This discourse not only highlights the diversity of thought but also underscores the dynamic and evolving nature of Islamic intellectual traditions across different regions and historical periods. Understanding these accounts offers valuable insights into the broader narrative of science and religion, showing how local contexts and internal dynamics contribute to the global history of scientific thought.

To sum up, this discussion of ‘Islamic science’ reveals a complex and dynamic landscape that defies simplistic narratives. Recent scholarship, as demonstrated in this section, has moved beyond static interpretations to embrace interdisciplinary approaches and global perspectives. By unpacking historical misconceptions, addressing the diverse contributions of Islamic societies, and exploring emerging areas of inquiry, scholars are charting new narratives that enrich our understanding of the complex interplay between science, religion and culture in Islamic societies. As the field continues to evolve, it offers valuable insights into the multifaceted nature of scientific traditions and their enduring relevance today.