34 Quotes by Pervez Hoodbhoy

The inability of the traditional system of education to respond adequately to a changing world may well have been the most critical factor which denied to Muslims the chance of spearheading the Scientific Revolution.

The proponents of this bizarre science are not the traditional ulema but, instead, holders of high-level degrees in scientific fields. Most of them have studied in the West, although almost none of them have any significant professional achievements to their credit. Islamic science provides a refuge from the challenge of doing difficult science.

The new Islamic science, like Creationism in the West, is a reaction against modern science. It is not a new direction of science.

Science may have transformed the world into a global village, but it has yet to teach the villagers to learn to talk with and understand each other.

Muslims – who comprise one-fifth of all humanity - will continue to suffer an undignified and degraded existence if science, and particularly a rational approach to human problems, is considered alien to Islamic culture.

An Islamic scientist describes his conception of how the universe began and will end. making an analogy with the passage of electricity in a wire. At the beginning there was disorder in the World of Spirits, just as electrons are disordered in a conductor. Then .... And finally. the soul is radiated into the Final World just like an electron radiates off electromagnetic waves.

Modern man does not deny spirituality. But he is oriented towards the present and future rather than the past, is open to fresh experiences and new ideas, accepts reason and calculability instead of fate, has a large inventory of knowledge and facts at his disposal, relies on planning and organization, is willing to accept the right of others to their opinions, and believes in individual merit and rights.

With breathtaking boldness, they laid claim to various bizarre discoveries which ranged from calculating the speed of heaven using Einstein's Theory of Relativity, to finding the chemical composition of jinns, and even to the extraction of energy from these fiery divine creatures so that Pakistan's energy problems could be solved.

Long before his death in 873 at the age of seventy-two, AI-Kindi had succumbed to prolonged depression and silence. Although a friend managed to retrieve his library by means of some subtle extortion, he never really recovered from the ordeal of his public flogging. AI-Kindi was the first major figure of Islamic scholarship to fall victim to the orthodox reaction against rationalism