The First Scientist

Just now Lahore is full of what we may call the scientific atmosphere, being the venue of the annual session of the Science Congress to which men who are somebodies in any branch of science have flocked in full force from all parts of India. While placed in an atmosphere like this and enjoying the rich intellectual food catered in the various addresses, our mind turned back to the epoch when a plain unlettered son of the desert had breathed exactly the same spirit at a time when the entire globe was enveloped in one thick pall of darkness and anything like the scientific spark had not yet ignited the heart of man.Our German brother, Dr. Hamid Marcus once described the Prophet ﷺ, in one of his brilliant articles in this paper as the First Cavalier Prophet, the First Knight Prophet reminding Europe that the virtue of chivalry which was so much admired there, especially in the Middle Ages, was first discovered, and practised in Arabia by the Prophet ﷺ of Islam. May we take this opportunity of reminding the galaxy of distinguished scientists assembled in Lahore that the scientific outlook and scientific spirit which they have been emphasizing and extolling, first came to the world through the same source. The Prophet of Islam was the First Scientist. It was he who inaugurated what may justly be termed the Scientific Era in the onward march of human thought.

It may sound rather odd to the ear of a Musalman to call the Prophet ﷺ a scientist – those afflicted with piety may even curse us for uttering a blasphemy. But the fact remains that no man has done so much for giving an impetus to the scientific spirit and releasing the forces of scientific quest as the Prophet of Islam. He was not only the First Scientist. We should go further and say he was the Father of Science, being the harbinger of the Age of Science.

No people have misunderstood the Prophetﷺ more than the Musalmans themselves. They conceive him in all sorts of colours – as a miracle-worker, as a beautiful one to be loved, as a great warrior. But if one aspect of him has been clean missed by them – and it is a basic aspect – it is the scientific outlook with which his great message, the Quran is permeated. The scientific spirit may, in fact, be called the burden of his message.

In his inaugural address at the Science Congress, H.E. the Governor emphasized two things as the very essentials of the scientific spirit – revolt against dogma and fearless quest of truth. And a man who runs may see how these two are the very keynotes of the Prophet’s message. It laid the axe at the root of all dogma on the one hand and made a forceful plea for cultivating a scrutinizing rationalistic mental attitude towards the riddle of the universe. All the false deities whether carved out of stone or superstition were pulled down and man’s mind emancipated from this bondage. The very formula of faith, “no deity worthy of adoration but one Supreme God”, sounds a revolt against all dogmatic belief – the cornerstone of science. Those given to blindly following traditional standards were likened to dumb driven cattle. And the entire message of the Quran is an amplification of this bringing man more and more face to face with the realities of life and the universe.

A newspaper article is no place even to touch upon the various notes struck by the Quran which also form the keynotes of science. Nature which for ages formed an object of awe and adoration was at one stroke declared to be subservient to man.

“We have subjugated to you whatever is in the heaven and the earth” – proclaimed the Quran.

أَلَمْ تَرَوْا أَنَّ اللَّهَ سَخَّرَ لَكُم مَّا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ

(Luqman (Luqman) 31:20)

Man was declared to be the lord of creation, the vicegerent of God Himself on earth. The phenomena of nature, the alternation of day and night, change of seasons, the heavenly bodies and their movements, formation of clouds, rainfall, the seas, waves and winds were repeatedly urged on the attention of man, and he was exhorted to ponder over them. “My Lord!”, he was made to exclaim in amazement at this wonderful drama of the universe, “Thou hast not created this in vain”. This revolution in the attitude of man towards the universe marked the beginning of the Era of Science that soon after ushered in. The floodgates of scientific knowledge were thrown open, illumining the East as well as the West. In the West, this light of knowledge released by Islam blossomed into the Renaissance.

To extend the boundaries of human insight into things he would have constantly on his lips the prayer – “Lord! Increase for me my knowledge”. His well-known saying “The ink of a scholar is holier than the blood of a martyr” should be inscribed in letters of gold on the portals of every academy of science. Only a man with a truly scientific urge within him could utter the memorable words – “Truth is the lost property of a Muslim.”

One cannot but hang his head in shame that in the footsteps of a man who was the Father of the Age of Science should have stepped a progeny of blockheads and dunces who made Islam narrow, hidebound, dogmatic, rigid, inelastic, shunning the light of reason. Till very recently these custodians – rather usurpers – of the seat of the Prophetﷺ actually condemned the man who dared open the Quran to study it for himself. With them taqlid, blind-following constituted the highest merit and ghair-muqallid was but another name for a Kafir. Scanning the heavenly bodies, their orbits and their movements, delving into the mysteries of nature in order to harness them to the service of man – characteristics of early Islam – now gave place to scanning the length of the pyjamas, beards and bead-strings. While a student in the local Islamia College, the present writer still remembers with a feeling of revulsion the questions in theology paper – “How many buckets of water must be drawn to purify a well wherein a dead dog has been discovered” or “Is the meat of the frog and the crow halal or haram?” Poor old Sir Syed Ahmad! He was mercilessly hounded with a heresy hunt by those mad creatures for daring to start a school and impart Western scientific education to the sons of Islam!

And people wonder why Islam has fallen on evil days! Any people who shut out the light of reason and knowledge are bound to decay. The Musalmans, so long as they were true to the pristine scientific urge of Islam, and held aloft the torch of learning, led the van of civilization. If they ever really aspire to win again a place in the sun, they must throw their Mullahs and Pirs who are keeping them blind-folded overboard, take the Quran in their own hands, study it for themselves, catch hold of its keen scientific urge for knowledge and advancement and re-kindle the torch of science which their forefathers once did. Prophetﷺ of Islam was the first Scientist and let every youth of Islam take that to heart. He has been depicted in the various roles he played in the shaping of human history – as a teacher, as a General, as a Lawgiver and so forth. The brightest gem in his personality, however, still awaits the pen of an artist, for above all else, he was a scientist of scientists. Would that somebody depicted the Prophetﷺ as a Scientist.

M.Y.K.

(The Light, January 8, 1939)