Islam and Science Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality By Pervez Hoodbhoy. London: Zed Books, Ltd., 1991, 158 pp.

Abstract

One may wonder why the author wrote this book. In his own words:
The germ of the idea grew from a lecture which the Lahore Education
Society invited me to deliver in May 1984 on the subject
of Islam and Science. Those were bad times for the country in
general, and academics in particular ... numerous charlatans and
sycophants, responding to the regime's rhetoric of Islamization,
had seized the reins of society and set for themselves the task of
"Islamizing" everything in sight, including science. (p. xiii)
and, on his own secular and anti-Islamic attitudes:
Indeed the last section of this book is a reprint entitled "They
Call It lslamic Science." This is an exposition and critique that
was inspired by the First International Conference of Scientific
Miracles of the Holy Qur'an and Sunnah, organized in Islamabad
by the International Islamic University during the time of General
Zia. Originally published as an article in the Pakistani monthly
magazine "Herald" (January 1988), it drew vituperation and abuse
from proponents of the new so-called "Islamic Science." (p. xiv)
Thus the question: Can the author deal competently with such an interdisciplinary
subject? According to Hoodbhoy:
I wish to state wiequivocally that I have no illusions and make
no claims to mastery over the subject of this book, Islam and science,
or even of the philosophy of science. It was quite unwillingly,
and with considerable trepidation, that I embarked on
a project so far removed from my field of professional
concern-particle and nuclear physics ... I would have preferred
someone with a professional interest to have done this job
instead, but it seemed unwise to wait indefinitely for it to happen ...