Blogging the Qur’an: Sura 5, “The Table,” verses 61-120

Any chance your Qur'an blogging will make it to a print version?

It better.

Robert Spencer's commentary on part of Sura 5 above offers one important example of a Qur'anic passage in which the conception of Allah (whose had is "not" fettered) helped discourage the development of science:

"Allah’s hand is fettered? It is unclear what Jewish concept, if any, the Qur’an is referring to in this case. Ibn Kathir comments: “Allah states that the Jews, may Allah’s continuous curses descend on them until the Day of Resurrection, describe Him as a miser. Allah is far holier than what they attribute to Him.” He is also absolute will, with hand absolutely unfettered: Allah’s unfettered hand is a vivid image of divine freedom. Such a God can be bound by no laws. Muslim theologians argued during the long controversy with the heretical Islamic Mu‘tazilite sect, which exalted human reason beyond the point that the eventual victors were willing to tolerate, that Allah was free to act as he pleased. He was thus not bound to govern the universe according to consistent and observable laws. “He cannot be questioned concerning what He does” (Qur’an 21:23).

Accordingly, there was no point to observing the workings of the physical world; there was no reason to expect that any pattern to its workings would be consistent, or even discernable. If Allah could not be counted on to be consistent, why waste time observing the order of things? It could change tomorrow. Stanley Jaki, a Catholic priest and physicist, explains that it was the renowned Sufi thinker al-Ghazali who 'denounced natural laws, the very objective of science, as a blasphemous constraint upon the free will of Allah.' The great twelfth-century Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides explained orthodox Islamic cosmology in similar terms, noting that Islamic thinkers of his day assumed 'the possibility that an existing being should be larger or smaller than it really is, or that it should be different in form and position from what it really is; e.g., a man might have the height of a mountain, might have several heads, and fly in the air; or an elephant might be as small as an insect, or an insect as huge as an elephant. This method of admitting possibilities is applied to the whole Universe.'

Relatively early in its history, therefore, science was deprived in the Islamic world of the philosophical foundation it needed in order to flourish. It found that philosophical foundation only in Christian Europe, where it was assumed that God was good and had constructed the universe according to consistent and observable laws. Such an idea would have been for pious Muslims tantamount to saying, 'Allah’s hand is fettered.'"

And the overall conception of man, mere mortal man, as someone whose role is never to question Allah's decisions -- his whim be done -- or seek to explain them through investigation, also discourages the advancement of science. For if man is to be an unquestioning "slave of Allah" then any questioning, any free and skeptical inquiry about anything at all, immediately suggests someone who is not willing to be merely a Good Muslim, but wishes to be something else. And that is dangerous. And this discouragement of that free and skeptical inquiry has observable consequences outside the non-developoment of science after the first few centuries of Islam (about which more below). It has been noted how Muslim peoples are particularly susceptible to every kind of rumor and conspiracy theory, and this should not surprise. For those who are raised in societies or families suffused with Islam, who are discouraged or even punished for exercising their critical powers, are unlikely to be used to exercising them in the political sphere as well. And since the Infidels are the enemy, helping to lead Muslims astray (those "whisperings of Shaytan") and helping to bloc the rightful spread of Islam until it covers the globe and dominates everywhere, it is natural that those conspiracy theories will always and everywhere come back to blaming Infidels. There is no doubt that whatever Sunnis do to Shi'a, and Shi'a do to Sunnis, and no matter how many men were sacrificed to prevent exactly that Sunni-Shi'a warfare, and how many hundreds of billions of dollars spent on good works, or the attempt to do good works, for the sake of "the Iraqi people," by the Americans, they will be blamed, for anything and everything that is considered by Muslims to have damaged Muslims, and not only in Iraq -- but everywhere. Do the Lords of Misrule in Egypt and Saudi Arabia continue, as Muslim rulers always do, to exact their tribute by corruption, by diversion of foreign aid in the case of Egypt, or theft of national wealth, as in the case of the Al-Saud in Saudi Arabia? Of course. But the party to be blamed, in the end, will be "the Americans" because it is "the Americans" who are the Infidels. In Iran, whom do even reformist-minded Muslims blame for the Islamic Republic of Iran? Oh, they go back more than a half-century, to the Anglo-American coup against Mossadegh, and allow themselves to believe that, "but for" that coup, Islam would never have emerged again as a power, under the unsettling effect of the great oil wealth. But they are wrong. Islam was certain to come back for Islam is what defines, what regulates, what controls, the primitive masses, if not the lycee-attending courtiers of the Shah in Teheran.

Now, someone will ask: but what about the growth of science, what about the early contributions to optics, for example, of people in high Islamic civilization? What about it? Study carefully how long that "flourishing" of Islamic science took place. Remove, first of all, those developments for which credit has been claimed for "Islamic civilization" but which were clearly borrowed from others -- such as algebra and the zero from Sanskrit mathematicians, or paper-making -- see Dard Hunter -- from China. Now look at the actual identities of those who, though they have entered history with Arab names too often confused with Muslim ones, were in fact Christians or Jews. Now look at those who remain on your list of scientists, and find out how many were, though converts to Islam, one or at most two generations removed from being Christians or Jews, and grew up in a milieu heavily influenced by, and still in large part consisting of, Christians and Jews (if Islam were to become dominant through demographic conquest in Europe, for a long while after the old ways of thought would still be present, not yet extinguished as long as the non-Muslim population remained significant). And finally, ask how many of the dozen or two dozen figures in the history of science under Islam were either freethinkers, in danger of persecution (including ar-Rhazi, the most famous of the Muslim scientists), or were non-Arabs, and so had another identity, that did not reinforce but worked against Islam.

Do that, and you will see that the dying out of "Islamic science" -- see Toby Huff (and see the huffing and puffing against Toby Huff by the comical Defender of Islam, the hysterical George Saliba)-- is not a mystery, but can be explained.

Robert offers, in his commentary above, one of the important Qur'anic passages that demonstrates the Muslim conception of Allah that prevented the development of science. I have merely added a demographic, or sociological, addendum, to explain that early, and short-lived, development of science under Islamic rule, almmost entirely either by non-Muslims or by non-Arab Muslims, or by those whose views on Islam skirted the heretical, and then some.

I think the word 'fettered' is misspelled, it should say 'fetid', which means: having an offensive odor; stinking.

From article: Allah’s hand is fettered? It is unclear what Jewish concept, if any, the Qur’an is referring to in this case.

Now you know...The ancient Jews were no dummy's, they knew that Mohammads invention Allah, stunk from the beginning. 'Fetid' may not be their description, but it fits...

O Jesus, son of Mary! Didst thou say unto mankind: Take me and my mother for two gods beside Allah?

Well, Jesus didn't say this in the Christian Bible, either. Either Mohammed didn't know Christianity as well as he thought, or Mohammed's beating a straw man. Mary is not considered divine, as a god, in any Christian religion I know of. And I'm Roman Catholic :)

If the problem is the former, then Mohammed is clearly in error here -- and according to the Koran's claim of infallibility, the whole thing falls apart.

BTW, some of the other commenters on Hot Air mentioned the spiritually draining aspect of reading the Koran -- I have the same experience.

Both Robert and Hugh have aptly linked Surah 5:64 passage to the Western concept that the universe is "fettered" by consistent and observable laws, a concept unimaginable in Islam where Allah can do what He wants without restriction.

There are two other aspects of the passage that are worth noting -- Allah's implied superiority over the God of the Jews and Allah's relationship to his followers who are called "slaves."

Whereas the God of the Judeo-Christian religion created the universe in six days and rested, Allah created it six days but didn't need to take a rest. (See 7:54 and 10:3) So Allah one-upped Yahweh. There is no concept of a Sabbath or day of rest in Islam. (See 62:9)

The other implication of 5:62 has to do with the beneficence of Allah. The rejoinder to Jews' statement that "Allah's hand is fettered" is "Nay, but both his hands are spread out wide in bounty. He bestoweth as He will." But Allah does not bestow things generously on his slaves. This can be seen in the abject poverty of most of the Muslim countries. Why wouldn't he be more generous to his followers? The answer is found in 44:27: "And if Allah were to enlarge the provision for His slaves, they would surly rebel in the earth, but He sendeth down by measures as He willeth." (Pickthall)

The Islamic concept of Allah as a master over his slaves stands in stark contrast to the Christian concept of God being a "father" who loves and cares for his "children" without reservation. (See Romans 8:14-17)

Apparently Allah's hand is fettered since he can't possibly be both God and Man.

Robert,
I'm no Qur'an expert, but I've long assumed that the "fettered hand" reference is to the doctrine found in Lamentations 2: 3, that G-d has withdrawn His hand from before the enemy -- in other words, that when Israel is defeated, this signifies that G-d is allowing the defeat by voluntarily restraining His protective power. In rabbinic and kabbalistic developments, this becomes connected with the view that G-d enters into exile along with Israel -- "I am with him in suffering" (Psalm 91: 15) -- and that G-d's full power in the world can only be manifest once again when Israel makes this manifestation possible. In short, G-d voluntarily limits Himself by making His own power in the world depend on human action, which therefore takes on a central role in the cosmic narrative. That this doctrine empowers human action in politics, science, etc., can easily be argued.
Paul

I try to remember to thank God everyday for letting me find this site.

Thank you Heavenly Father for JH and crew!

PIMF

I meant JW.