The most important reason why prophets and heavenly books were sent and the first command that is absolutely necessary to be communicated is to declare that the Creator of the heavens and earth exists, that He is one, that He has superior attributes such as knowledge and others, and that His power and greatness are infinite. Because most people believe the things which they see and hear as they see and hear them and cannot understand their inner natures and delicate particulars, Allâhu ta’âlâ, in His books, described the moon, the sun and the stars, which are the symptoms of His existence and greatness, the biggest and the most obvious creatures, which amaze people very much and which seem precise in every respect, so that every sort of people could understand them. By not explaining
their calculations, laws and inner natures, He did not force the ignorant majority to busy themselves with the things which they could not understand, and He encouraged the intelligent, wise and distinguished among mankind in every century to understand them by studying them. Man’s discoveries have been changing in process of time; those discoveries that were thought of as correct and dependable at one time have been understood to be wrong afterwards. Because the people of each century have believed in the correctness of the
latest discoveries of their time, the beliefs of each century has been different from those of the others; these beliefs did not become sins or a matter of disbelief, for the beliefs that are sinful are those which disagree with the prophets’ books and which deny what is stated in them. To protect His slaves against disbelief and sins, Allâhu ta’âlâ did not explain scientific knowledge, which not everybody could understand, in His books, but He only pointed it out, and by describing the earth, the sun and the skies as they appear, He commanded us to take a warning from them and to understand His existence and His greatness.
While explaining the command, “Introduce Me to My slaves through hikmat and through beautiful preachings!” which is in the hundred and twenty-fifth âyat of Nahl Sűra, Qâdî Baydâwî says, “It means, ‘Communicate to the intelligent and to the educated through scientific knowledge and to the ignorant populace, who follow their emotions, by describing what is seen.’ ”
At one time, upon reading about the things that were declared as they appeared in their books, Jews and Christians thought that the facts were so that the earth was smooth and motionless and that the sun was turning around it, that the sky was put over the earth like a tent, that Allâhu ta’âlâ sat on a throne, like a man, and managed all affairs. Because scientific knowledge, which is discovered through experiments, disagreed with these beliefs of theirs, they said that scientists were irreligious. Upon this unjust judgement, scientists attacked Judaism and Christianity. For example, William Draper, who is famous for his enmity against religions, says in his book Conflict Between Knowledge and Religion, “There is no human being who is apart from the universe, dominating the universe, and can do what he wishes.” This word of his shows that he thinks of Allâhu ta’âlâ as a human being and therefore denies Him. At another place, by stating, “There is a power in the universe which dominates everything, yet this is not the god whom the priests believe,” he indicates that he thinks that Allâhu ta’âlâ should be the greatest of the powers of physics and chemistry.
As it can be understood, the irreligious ones among scientists have either rightfully attacked the things which the priests and the ignorant populace have misunderstood, or they have denied the imaginary beliefs that were inculcated into their minds and which clashed with their time’s scientific knowledge, which they took for granted. If they had read and understood the scientific information which Islamic savants had derived from the Qur’ân
with its subtlety and correctness, they all would have seen the fact and become Muslims willingly.
While explaining the eighth âyat of Naml Sűra, “You see the mountains stand motionless, but in fact they are moving like clouds,” Qâdî Baydâwî states, “The mountains which, as you see, seem to stay in their places, are travelling fast thru space. When big objects move speedily in a direction, those who are on it do not feel its motion.” In the interpretation of the thirty-third âyat of Anbiyâ Sűra, Fakhraddîn-i Râdî writes that Dahhâk and Kalbî said that the moon, the sun and the stars rotated about their axes and revolved in their orbits. While explaining the twenty-ninth âyat of Baqâra Sűra, Fakhraddîn-i Râdî says, “Asîruddîn-i Abharî, the author of the physics book
Hidâya and of the logic book Îsâgujî, used to teach with the astronomy book entitled Majastî by Ptolemy. Somebody who considered the use of such a book as intolerable asked him with a harsh voice why he was teaching it to Muslim children. He answered that he was interpreting the sixth âyat in Sűra Kaf which purports, ‘Don’t they see how beautifully I have created the earth, the skies, the stars, and the planets?’ thus giving him a beautiful reply.” Imâm-i Râdî writes in his interpretation that this reply of Abharî’s was correct and stated that those scientists who observe Allah’s creatures understand the infinitude of His power very well. [Please read the twenty-fourth chapter in the first fascicle!]
Muhammad bin Hasan Ibni Haysam explored the laws concerning the reflection of light in mirrors. Europeans call him Alhazem. He was born in Basra in 354 [965], and died in Egypt in 430 [1039]. He wrote about a hundred books on mathematics, physics and medicine, and most of his books were translated into European languages. Alî bin Abilhazm, from Turkistan, was a doctor. His books, which explain his findings in the knowledge of medicine, have been a valuable source in this branch of knowledge. He was the first to draw a diagram of the circulation of blood in the lungs. Also, he was a deep savant in Islamic knowledge. He was well known by the name Ibn-un-Nafîs; he was born in Qarsh in Turkistan in 607 [1210], and died in Egypt in 687. The famous Muslim surgeon Amr ibni Abdurrahmân Kirmânî
used to perform surgical operations in the hospitals of Andalusia. He died there in 458 [1066].
Abű Bakr Muhammad bin Zakariyyâ Râdî was a great medical doctor in Islam. He was the first to perform an eye operation with scientific methods. He wrote almost a hundred
books, of which Kitâb-ul-hâwî, Bar-us-sâ’a and others are proof of his service to the field of medicine. In Europe he is known by the name Rhazes. He was born in the city of Rey in 240 [854], and died in Baghdad in 311 [923]. After receiving his medical education in Baghdad, he became a specialist. He wrote valuable books on medicine and on chemistry, too. [Abű Bakr Ahmad bin Alî Râdî is another personality, and he was a scholar of Hanafî fiqh. He died in
The Indian Mulla Qudsî, in his book Asrâr-i malakűt, collected the meanings which Islamic savants had given to those âyats about the earth, the moon, the sun, the sky and the stars; thus he proved that they fully agreed with today’s modern discoveries. He presented the book to Sultan Abdulmajîd Khan, who received it with pleasure. Hayâtîzâde Halîl Ţeref Efendi of Elbustân translated and explained the book, giving it the title Afkâr-i jabarűt, which was published in Istanbul in
After reading Islamic books, scientists have admired the Qur’ân, understanding that it has predicted every experiment, every new discovery precisely as it appeared. The ignorant, who know nothing of science, of Islamic books, read the books written by the enemies of Islam or by priests; hence, they misunderstand Islam and become enemies of religion. Like these people, some people who have become enemies of Islam blindly give
themselves such titles as poet, journalist, novelist, admirer and supporter of Turkish culture, and even man of religion or specialist of Islamic history. These individuals try to make youngsters irreligious by means of writings full of very loathsome lies and slanders. They drift both themselves and the masses to perdition.
Another group of such ignorant people think of themselves as scientists, having read a few scientific books. They attempt to smear Islam, which is as firm as steel, with the denials and objections which the European scientists rightfully directed towards Christianity. These fake scientists never think that a scientist’s word will be of value only when he speaks on the branch of science which he studies, or rather, in which he is specialized. His speaking on what is beyond his specialization, especially when he meddles in the affairs of the specialists of other branches, will be funny as well as valueless. Being a scientist does not give one the authority to speak on every branch of knowledge. A good chemist cannot cancel the diagnosis determined by a doctor. A good lawyer cannot assert
that there is a scientific error in the report of a chemist. A good engineer cannot penetrate the specialization of a lawyer. Scientists make many errors and mistakes even in their own scientific branches and specializations. While on the one hand accomplishing useful discoveries by solving one or more of the mysteries of matter, power and life, on the other hand, they have made such great errors so as to bring about global harm to civilization. This fact has many examples. For instance, Newton, a famous and great British mathematician, did unforgettable services to the world of science. Indeed, he discovered the law of universal gravitation, the basis of modern astronomy, and when he was only twenty-three years old, he discovered field-glasses that are referred to with his own name. Also, by experimention, he proved
that white light could be broken up into seven colors, while, on the other hand, by saying that light is made up of particles radiated from a source of light, he hindered this branch of physics from making progress for many years. Afterwards, upon the establishment of the theory of vibration, it was completely understood that Newton was wrong. Likewise, the French chemist Lavoisier, who is called the father of chemistry today, and who indeed eradicated Aristotle’s wrong theories and opened a new scientific way to experimental knowledge by introducing a balance to chemistry, rendered much service towards the improvement of science up to
today’s state, on the one hand. But, on the other hand, he made such big errors in the field of chemistry, in which he is specialized, that such words of his, which were transferred into books and taught in universities simply because they were his discoveries, would cause a student of junior high school to fail his exam if he used them. For example, he used to call chlorine gas a compound, an oxide, and he used to explain the acids wrong. Lavoisier’s worst mistake was his tainting his own valuable and accurate discoveries by attempting to explain them by means of an old argument that had been reiterated by irreligious and ignorant people. That is, upon seeing that weight did not change in chemical reactions and upon establishing the law of weight conservation, he said, “In nature nothing
comes into existence and nothing ceases to exist.” Upon hearing this, fake scientists clamoured, “There is nothing to be created out of nothing. Nor does anything cease to exist.” Staining the pages which they issued in the name of scientific books with these black writings, they lulled themselves into the assumption that they had eventually come into possession of a scientific weapon with which to blow out the fortress of îmân, to extirpate the Dîn, and to throw Islam to the ground. In fact, Lavoisier made this error because he thought that chemistry was everything, that Allâhu ta’âlâ would be limited to the law which he was able to see, and that there were no events other than this law. The understanding of this chemist, Lavoisier, that matter does not increase or decrease in chemical events, reveals the fact that
“Men cannot create or annihilate anything.” Like other enemies of religion, he too, extracted an erroneous conclusion from his experiments and attacked Islam. But he blemished himself by doing so, for today’s knowledge of physico-chemistry has penetrated into the depths of the atom where chemistry could not reach, thus proving that Lavoisier was wrong, and Einstein’s theory of relativity has modified the law of the conservation of mass. Hence, it has been understood that matter, contrary to Lavoisier’s supposition, is not the basis of the world.
As we have seen, scientists have made errors even in their own areas of specialization, thus causing great harm to humanity. We do not mean to say that these errors of theirs have devaluated them within the borders of science. Considering them within the context of their useful discoveries, we praise them for their service to science. Yet, by pointing out the fact that they have made mistakes even in their own specializations, we want to
indicate that the dry thoughts of a scientist on a subject which is outside his specialization, especially on religious knowledge, which is quite different from, deeper and more extensive than his specialization, is nothing when compared to the words of the superior men of religion, who are really great men equipped with religious knowledge and satiated with religious pleasure. A real scientist will admit this fact quite easily. But people who desire money, that is, those sham scientists who have customarily worn out their lives for a few years and memorized a few things to earn money or to obtain a skill, suppose that a few stereotyped, compressed, and fading drawings in their inanimate brains, no different from motion pictures, are science, attack the superior knowledge of Islam with
a courage and excessiveness fostered not by science but by ignorance, destroy themselves, and drift humanity towards eternal perdition.
For example, while a scientist is examining a piece of bone which he found among geologic layers and is trying to gather useful information about life, science-impostors, on the other hand, hearing of this through a radio or the press, are clamouring, “The bones of an ape, the origin of man, have been found. It has become a fact that men originated from apes.” They are striving to deceive credulous Muslims. Not understanding or misapplying Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest among the living, they are using it as a weapon to demolish Islam. Yes, for a hundred years some biologists, seeing blood groups, blood relations, numbers of chromosoms, physiological and anatomical changes, somatic changes for adaptation, various mutations with the effect of heat, light, x-rays and radium
rays, and some chemical substances in animals, paleontologic observations, the event of mitosis division, and meiosis division, which follows the former, in all living things, observations of blunted appendages in some animals [e. g., the existence of caecum, vermiform appendix, in man]; the formation of an embryo in all animals with more than one cells and an animal’s exhibiting the properties of all other animals in its stages of embryo [e.g., observation of such formations as pronephros, mezonephros, gill cracks, and in man’s embryo], have supposed that species of animals have been changing from the simple to the perfect for millions of years, [that is, there has been an evolution.]
It is Lamarck, a French doctor, who first wrote that the living developed from the simple to the perfect. In his book Philosophy Zoologic, which he published in 1809, Lamarck wrote that the
living could multiply from one origin. But the biologists of the same century said that the examples given by Lamarck proved nothing about animals’ developing from one another, but their adaptation to their environments.
Secondly, Charles Darwin, the son of a British biologist, in his book The Origin of Species, which he published in 1859, said, “The living struggle to adapt themselves to their environments. Those who are successful in this life struggle survive and those who fail die. The incidental changes in a creature enable it to survive by adapting itself to the environment.” Other scientists objected to this in various ways. Even Darwin acknowledged the fact that he could not understand the formation of such complicated organs as the eye and the brain, and he had to say in his letter which he wrote to a friend of his, “As I think of the construction of the eye, I feel as if I will go crazy.”
Thirdly, Hugo de Vries, a botanist from Netherlands, observed in plants that different plants came out from a pure species incidentally and that their properties were transferred from one progeny to the next, and he called this the theory of mutation. But, in fact, in mutation new organs do not develop. Furthermore, it is not possible to end the formation of complicated organs, such as the eye and the brain, which issue from the various layers of embryo, simply by the changing of events in the theory of mutation.
Lastly, paleontologists admit the fact that each living species can change within its own species, and that a living species does not change into another species. For example, today’s echinoderms are the same as the ones of the first paleontologic age. No echinoderm has ever been observed to change into a vertebrate, nor has any fossil been found to indicate this.
On the contrary, Hadrat Ibrâhim Haqqî has written in his book Ma’rifatnâma that in the construction of the living there is a development from the simple to the most perfect man with examples, and he has explained that this does not mean that the species change from one another.
Allâhu ta’âlâ declares: “Observe matter, the changes in matter; I created these for you. Utilize all of them.” And also, “Observe how the young develop and the events of life, see that all are based upon regular, scientific principles, and thus understand My existence and My greatness!”
In order to eradicate Islam, the enemies of Islam extract
unsound thoughts and depraved ideas from physical, chemical, biological and astronomical events. By propounding these slanders of theirs under the name of knowledge and scientific information to the youth, they deceive Muslim children. However, scientific progress and new discoveries expose Allah’s existence, His oneness, His power and knowledge clearly, thus supporting Islam.
Lest we might be deceived by those who attack our îmân, we should learn and understand scientific knowledge in high schools and universities well. Real scientists see how childish, how ignorant the words of the enemies of religion are.
It is notable that in none of the theories above has man been said to have originated from monkeys; it has not even occured to the minds of scientists.
Yes, it has been observed that there has been a process of evolution in the living within the course of time, yet such changes have taken place within each species. For example, the skeleton of a man called Cro-Magnon has been found among new layers of the fourth prehistoric age. As different from our skeletons as it is, paleontologists have stated that it was one of the first human beings. On the other hand, skeletons of monkeys called anthropoid have been found which lived during the end of the third age and which were unlike today’s monkeys. Anthropologists state that they are monkeys. But fake scientists, that is, atheists, say that the man called Cro-Magnon and the monkey called Anthropoid are the fossils of man’s first ancestors, or they are the fossils forming a transition between man and monkey. Biologists observe the difference between man and monkey only with respect to matter. However, the greatest difference between man and animals is man’s soul. Men have souls. The honour of humanity comes only from this soul. This soul was given to Hadrat Adam first. Animals do not have this soul. Materialists and philosophers, knowing nothing of this soul, may suppose that man is close to the monkey. Even though the figure and the construction of the earliest men were similar
to the monkey, man is man. For he has a soul. The monkey is an animal, for it is deprived of a soul and of the superiorities given by the soul. As it is seen, man and animal are quite different. There can never be a transition between them; they cannot change into one another. In fact, centuries ago it was written in Islamic books, e.g., in the foreword to Ibni Haldűn Târîhi and on the twenty-eighth page of Ma’rifatnâma, that among the animals the monkey was
the closest to man. [See the thirty-ninth chapter of the first fascicle! It is written in Bahjat-ul-fatâwâ: “Monkeys are not the descendants of those ancient people who were changed into monkeys. It is wrong to say that monkeys are of human descent. For those humans who were transformed into monkeys did not live more than three days. They were annihilated.”]
Of the various similar examples which come to our mind, by the way, being embarrassed on behalf of science and knowledge, we will mention this fact: the microscopic, one-celled animals called amoeboids multiply by fission, that is, their cytoplasm and nucleus divide into two. A biologist in North America clove the amoeba, its cytoplasm and nucleus in the middle and saw that both parts went on living. This process is the normal means by which amoebes multiply. Moreover, this experiment does not always give the same result. Reading about this in a magazine, a mathematician, an expert of calculation, gathered some youngsters and said, “In America amoeboids are being cloven and killed and then enlivened again. The mystery of life has now been solved. Dead cells are being enlivened. I read
about it a few years ago. There are perhaps more improvements now.” In this way he tried to deceive youngsters by imbuing them with the idea that science was enlivening the dead, that men were giving life [never!] to the dead, that there was no power, no creator other than science and nature, and that the concept of Allah had been [never!] fabled by earlier ignorant people-how appalling! An irreligious mathematician, being unable to find any dot to blemish Islam within the area of mathematics, which extends from infinity to infinity, attacks with the wrong understanding he derived from events unknown to him in another branch of science; this case is very astonishing, very lamentable. Wouldn’t such base behavior of a person who received an advanced education blemish the name of an advanced education? Would even a person
with a nominal education talk so ignorantly? We should not believe the thieves of faith, or the impostors of science, who, after hearing of the experiments and words of scientists, mask their own lies and plans with those words and try to poison the youngsters and rob them of their faith.
In order to deceive youngsters and cause them to leave Islam, the enemies of Islam attack with lies and slanders. They call religious men fanatics, retrogressives. They say that religious men are enemies of science. He who reads Islamic books and understands the exalted knowledge of Islam does not believe
these lies; he immediately understands that they are ill-willed, and that they are insidious enemies pretending to be friends. But those poor people who have little religious knowledge or who have not learned religious knowledge in their homes are caught in these base people’s traps and are drifted into perdition.
By saying, “As printhouses were built and books were printed in Europe, our block-headed people who wore turbans and grew beards said that it was a sin to build printhouses because they were the inventions of disbelievers, and they prevented them. They caused us to remain behind for years. Islam, the laws of the desert, caused great harm to the Turks,” they want to educate school children so as to be irreligious and faithless. They imbue them with hostility against Islam. Being unable to attack Islam through knowledge, science and morality, they fable such base lies and poison young brains. Like all their other slanders, it is obvious that these words of theirs are also lies. Whom they call block-headed is Abdullah Bey from Yenishehir, who was the fifty-seventh Ottoman Shaikh-ul-Islâm,
the greatest representative of Islamic savants. Let us see how he answered the question concerning building a printhouse and printing books: When a Hungarian Muslim wanted to build a printhouse, the Shaikh-ul-Islâm was asked, “If a person who claims to know the art of printing books well says that he can make the letters and words of the books of auxiliary branches of knowledge, such as, lexicography, logic, astronomy, physics and the like in moulds and print them on pieces of paper, thus obtaining their copies, does the Sharî’at allow the person to print books in this manner?” The Shaikh-ul-Islâm, Abdullah Bey, answered, “A person who knows the art of printing books well makes the letters and words of a book in moulds and prints them on pieces of paper, thus obtaining numerous copies of the book in a short time. In
this way he develops a cheaper way of printing books. Since it is useful work, the Sharî’at allows a person to do this work. A few people who know the branch of knowledge written in the book should correct the book first. If the book is printed after putting in the corrections it will be a beautiful piece of work.” The answer is written in the book Bahjat-ul-fatâwâ, in the chapter Hazar wa labs. It reveals how highly the Sharî’at values knowledge and science. The press and its machines were invented in 851 [1447 A.D.] and in 1192 [1778 A.D.] respectively. Paper was invented in 130 [747 A.D.].
The book entitled Tanqîh-ul-kalâm fî-’aqâid-i ahl-i Islâm,
which was printed in Istanbul in 1330 A.H., by Abdullâtif Harputî, one of the men of religion educated during the time of Sultan Abdulhamîd Khân II, detailedly communicates old and new scientific information and the words of the great men of religion about it. It is written in its hundred and fifty-third page, “Scientists investigate and observe subtances and the events within substances. They carry out experiments in them. They understand substances and events and inform us of what they understand. They do not go beyond what they see and understand. He who goes beyond this has gone beyond his duty. Those subjects which cannot be perceived, observed or experimented are beyond scientific knowledge. A scientist’s comments concerning such subjects
are worthless and unimportant. If a scientist intends to mean that an angel’s existence cannot be observed through science and that it cannot be understood through experimentation when he states that there are no angels, this word of his agrees with science. But if he means to say that an angel’s existence is not believable because it cannot be proved with experiments, his word is worth nothing. It should be thrown back into the mouth of the speaker. For, by this word of his he himself goes beyond science and disagrees with science. To attempt to deny something whose existence cannot be understood by observation and experimentation, and to say that it cannot exist, is as out of place and as incompatible with science as saying that science proves its existence. It does not become a scientist to search for beings beyond
the scope of positive science, such as soul, angels, genies, Paradise and Hell within the limits of matter and events and to try to understand them through experimentation. Understanding such beings is possible by their being explained by Prophets, whose superiority is noted through their miracles. Information obtained by listening to Prophets is called ’Ulűm-i naqliyya. It is not called Scientific information or ’Ulűm-i ’aqliyya. To attempt to understand such information through science is similar to bringing bread to one’s ears in order to eat it. Some impostors of science who call themselves Muslims and who wear turbans and perform namâz, disbelieve in the existence of genies through this approach. They say, ‘It is incorrect to believe that a person can be paralyzed by genies. It simply is not appropriate to believe in such superstitions in this scientific age.’ They give wrong and tortuous meanings to âyats and hadîths about genies, and thereby they become disbelievers.”
It is permissible and necessary to give scientific meanings to
scientific information and the âyats in the Qur’ân which reveal knowledge that can be understood through science. But these meanings can only be given by Islamic savants, that is, by those great interpreters who are specialized in scientific knowledge and are mujtahids in religious matters. The impostors of science cannot interpret the Qur’ân. Their translations of the Qur’ân are worthless. It is a grave crime to attempt to adapt âyats, which are beyond science and experimentation and have nothing to do with science or scientific knowledge, and to change the interpretations made by the Salaf-i sâlihin (the early savants). Those who make such interpretations and translations become disbelievers.
It is written on its seventy-third page, “The stars that have been seen since the discovery of the telescope and the tiny beings that have been seen by microscope had not been seen and their existence had not been known of during the earlier ages. As it would have been wrong and unjust to say that these beings did not exist because they could not be seen, so it would be out of place and unjust for scientists to deny those things which they cannot understand through today’s scientific tools and scientific information, especially those beings that are beyond the limits of science. It would be a word incompatible with science, an ignorant word.”
In short, while real scientists always fall in love with Islam, sham scientists, being unable to understand Islam and the world, attack material and spiritual values, and finally end up in Hell.
Lamartine describes Hadrat Muhammad ‘sall Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ as: “A man who was a philosopher, speaker, Prophet, and commander who charmed human thoughts, brought new dogmas, and founded an extraordinary Islamic state. Here is Muhammad ‘alaihi ’s-salâm’. Let them measure him with all the scales that are used to measure the greatness of any person; I wonder if there could be a man greater than him. There cannot be.” Lamartine could not prevent himself from saying these words.
Gibbon, states: “... and the Koran is a glorious testimony to the unity of God.”[1]
Michael H. Hart, who is an American expert on astronomy, studied the lives of all the great men from Hadrat Âdam up to our time one by one. Distinguishing only one hundred from among
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[1] The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon; edited by Dero A. Saunders, 1952, chap. 16, div. 2, p. 653.
them, he demonstrated how Muhammad ‘alaihissalâm’ was the greatest of them all. He did not omit saying, “His might came from Qur’ân al-kerîm which he believed was revealed to him by Allah.”
Jules Masserman, a well-known Jewish psychoanalyst, professor at Chicago University in America, examines in a special issue of Time magazine, which was published on July 15, 1974, all the great leaders in history up to now under the title “Where Are the Great Leaders.” He analyzes their lives, and says, “The greatest among them is Muhammad ‘alaihi ’s-salâm’.
Max Planck, one of the most well-known scholars in the natural sciences, was born in the city of Kiel in Germany. After he became a professor, first he worked in Kiel, then in 1889, he became a member of the teaching staff at the University of Berlin. His activities in Berlin lasted for 30 years. He died in 1947.
Max Planck mostly dealt with radiation. His most important finding was that the energy rays coming out from atoms diffused in quanta. He called this finding the ‘quantum theory,’ and calculated the energy to be produced. A nobel prize for physicist was given to him in 1918 for his discovery.
Max Planck stated: “Both religion and branches of science expose that there is an enormous Power which is unattainable. This Power created the world and keeps it under His sovereignty. However, their languages used in expressing this Power is different from each other. However, even though the methods of their explanations seem to be different, they originally are the same. These two explanations are not contrary to each other, but complement each other.
“Both religion and branches of science accept that this universe must have been created by a Power whose entity will never be understood, and which will never be attained by man. We cannot understand exactly the greatness of this enormous Power, and will never be able to understand it. Maybe, the tiniest part of His power might be understood indirectly by human beings.
“Religion uses reasonable symbols so that man can understand this Power, the Creator, and can approach Him. Branches of science use rules and formulas so that this Power can be known. If we unite these two ways, it will be clearly seen what a great power this Creator has. Therefore, His existence and greatness is expressed with the word Allah by religion, and with research, measurements and formulas by branches of science,
which are a small field of this Power.
“If religion is compared with branches of science, no contradiction can be found in them. Both religion and branches of science accept that this world cannot exist without an enormous Creator. All the new findings by branches of science are proofs which indicate the existence and the greatness of this enormous Creator. No differences exist between religion and the branches of science. The way of science is not something else, but some people claim so. What a shame it is that some people in our century think that there is no relationship between religion and branches of science. This idea is completely wrong. As I have tried to explain above, religious beliefs and thoughts are supported by branches of science.
“If you read history, you’ll see that the most famous scientists tightly followed a religion. Leibniz, Newton and Kepler were very pious men. As a matter of fact, in those days, scientific experiments were done only in churches, in dark dirty rooms, or in priests’ houses. Then, in the course of time, labs, institutions and universities were founded; hence, the scholars of religion and science began to study separately and followed different methods. Over time, their methods became so different from each other that it was thought that their aims must be different, too. In fact, they are not the ways leading to opposite directions. On the contrary, they are exactly parallel lines of each other. They go towards the same destination. As parallel lines are supposed to come to the same point
in the infinite distance, religion and science will embrace each other in the main infinite distance, too.”
Those passages above have been taken from the book Der Strom von der Aufklarung bis zur Gegenwart, by Max Planck.
Today’s cultured man, when he thinks about himself impartially, has to believe in the existence of Allâhu ta’âlâ. After reading Koranic translations which are not exactly correct, they confess that Islam is the only true religion. Translations can never be the same as an original. For this reason, those foreigners who wish to examine Islam should be advised to read books of ’aqâid, written by Islamic scholars ‘rahmatullâhi ta’âlâ ’alaihim ajma’în’.
The things necessary for everybody and especially for the youth are three:
The first thing is to correct the faith, from the Hell fire to be set free.
For that purpose you must gain the exact knowledge of faith
and îmân.
Knowledge is required to believe and then to act upon the Divine Firmân.
You should learn the ’aqâid, and fiqh as much as needed in your case.
The second thing is to obey Sharî’at and follow Muhammad ‘alaihissalâm’ pace by pace.
The third thing is to acquire ikhlâs in every deed, discarding vanity and show.
In obtaining all these essentials of Islam, you should be like an arrow in a bow.
The acceptance and reward for a deed with no ikhlâs is impossible to find.
The source of ikhlâs is tasawwuf, keep that always in mind.