This paper was prepared for the 9th
Annual Conference of Pakistan Agricultural Scientists Forum held in 1997 at
Abbotabad, (Pakistan).
Science has increased food production,
controlled diseases, globalised communication, alleviated man’s miseries and
added tremendously to his physical comforts. On the other hand, it has also
introduced deadliest weapons and poisons and caused environmental degradation
and pollution putting the very existence of mankind at stake. For both good and
bad, science has become an inevitable part of everyday life in modern
civilisation. So every nation of the world is willy nilly trying to maximise its
scientific efficiency and performance. Certain parameters have been set to
determine a nation’s scientific potential. The same parameters are applicable to
individual scientific establishments and institutions also. These are:
i) Supply of Scientific and technical
manpower.
ii) Technical and financial
resources.
iii) Supply of scientific and
technical information
iv) Form and organization of the
system
These parameters or standards, which if
met adequately, are believed to provide a favourable environment for ensuring
scientific and technical growth of a country. The crucial importance of these
material factors is universally emphasised in the management of corporate
science enterprises. Circumstances may, however, vary from one country to
another and accordingly emphasis on each of these factors shifts in their inter
se prioritisation.
In India, for example, Ranganathan never
felt weary in stressing the importance of information. He conceived scientific
activity as an essentially information process and used to say very fondly,
emphatically and repeatedly that information is the raw material as well as the
end product of all scientific research. One of his books begins with a mention
of ‘Research Consultants’ engaged by the United States Defence Department during
the Second World War. They were chosen from amongst the working scientists and
were deputed to spend all their time in the libraries sifting and collecting
information needed by their counterparts working in the laboratories. The
provision of effective and quick information support to the researchers saved
much of their time, which they previously used to spend in the libraries. Time
thus saved was now utilised by them in the laboratories which paved the way to
early discovery of the atom bomb by speeding up the discovery process. According
to Ranganathan, high priority accorded to information in the name of research
consultancy established the superiority of the United States in the domain of
science and thus enabled this country to emerge as the leading power of the
world.
Then in late fifties, the Russians took
precedence over the Americans in Space Science by launching the first ever
sputnik into space. The United States took it as a big challenge, rather a
threat to their image as a world power. The American President immediately
constituted a Committee headed by Dr. Weinburg, to delve into the weaknesses of
the US Research System which gave the Russians an edge over them. After a
thorough appraisal of the US Science System, the Committee submitted a Report
entitled ‘Science, Information & Government’ popularly known as the Weinburg
Report, which pinpointed major weaknesses and shortcomings in the United States
Science System. Most of these, according to the Report, pertained to the
Information component of the System. These weaknesses were overcome soon and
positive results started accruing. Consequently, the Americans not only caught
up with the Russian scientists in space science but also outstripped them in a
very short period of time.
These are, of course, interesting
stories containing very valuable lessons for the science policy makers. But
still these do not reveal the whole truth as these are focussed on the materials
factors only. Improving creativity in scientific researchers certainly needs
congenial material environment and it flourishes and thrives within the
empirical parameters already described. But in the ultimate analysis creativity
sprouts and blooms in the minds of the scientists that gives birth to new ideas.
The psychologists therefore got interested in the creative process and their
interest was quite natural, genuine and fully justified.
Most of the psychologists have studied
the creative process from a very broad perspective. For them, creativity of a
scientist or an artist is essentially the same kind of mental activity; you may
call it an identical psychological process. This point was made out in an
interesting intertangle of two contemporary creative geniuses. Havelock Ellis, a
great writer, is reported to have once remarked: ‘Einstein is a great artist!’.
On hearing such remarks of a great writer about himself, Einstein was piqued and
it stimulated his scientific curiosity. As a true scientist, he set out to
discover the real intent of the statement made by Havelock Ellis and started
reading his works. After reading some of his books, he too gave a similar
judgement on him saying: ‘Havelock Ellis is a great scientist’. Obviously this
exchange of statement with a counter-statement was neither just humour nor a
mere reciprocation of courtesy. It was, in fact, their concord on the deep
similarities existing between their innate psychological processes even though
their fields of activity were so vastly different. I need not dwell on this
point more than conceding that creativity of all kinds emanates from the
unconsciousness and the diverse forms that it takes have marked resemblences and
similarities.
Brewster Ghiselin compiled a book
entitled ‘The Creative Process’ containing first-hand information on the
world’s most outstanding men and women of his time. They were selected from
various fields such as art, literature and science. He recorded in this book the
experiences of thirty eight persons in their own words as to how they begin and
complete their creative works. Analysing how new creative ideas are born and
developed, he classified them into two main categories: intensive thinkers and
intuition followers. It was interesting to note that the most of them reported
that they were guided by sudden flashes of intuition and clairvoyance.
Walter Bradford Canon also wrote a book
under the title ‘The Way of the Investigator’ and devoted one full chapter on
the subject. He says ‘The role of creative scientists depended on two methods:
the method of intensive thinking on the existing status to find out the next
move and the method of seeking assistance of a sudden and unpredicted insight’.
Both these methods according to him served the scientists in their discoveries
equally well. Canon states from his own personal experience that he invariably
had the unearned assistance of unpredicted insights during his research activity
which was a matter of routine from years of his youth and he always trusted
them. He remarks:
“The process had been so common and
reliable for me that I have supposed that it was at the service of every one.”
Canon also refers in this chapter to a
study conducted by Platt and Baker in 1931 which related to an inquiry into the
appearance of hunches among the chemists in their research work. The inferences
drawn were based on the answers received from 232 respondents. While recording
their evidence regarding their experiences in finding solutions to the problems,
33% of the researchers admitted that they always received assistance from
hunches and 50% reported that they had such assistance only occasionally whereas
17% of the respondents said that they never had any such experience. Among this
last category of respondents some researchers declared that the very idea of
hunches was distasteful to them. Without going into details, it would suffice
here to say that psychologists have been grappling with the creativity question
since long and as a result of their studies they have been advancing arguments
in favour of one or both these methods just described ie the thought aided by
intuition and the unaided thought.
Some of the psychologists have been
merely listing the conditions favouring the creativity process e.g; good
physical state, fresh mind, mastery of the subject, striving for results,
confidence, enterprise, willingness to take chance, eagerness for action,
readiness to break away from routine, etc. Certain conditions have also been
indicated by a few of them that help in the creativity process such as
discussing the problem with other investigators, reading articles pertinent to
the problem as well as pertinent to the methods useful in finding the solution.
Others have tried to corelate creativity to I.Q. or n.Ach. of the individual
scientist. Grahm Wallas describes four stages of creative thinking, viz.
Preparation, incubation, illumination and verification which are widely
accepted. Abraham A. Maslow differentiates between creativity associated with
great tangible achievements and creativity potential of the ordinary persons
which inheres in the self-actualisation motivation of every individual.
In short, there is a vast plethora of
literature on the subject to which one may refer according to his interest and
taste. It may, however, come as a great surprise to the psychologists and
scientists belonging to the secular school of thought that some scientists of
the highest stature talk about certain moral values and religious beliefs in
connection with scientific creativity. For example, the Nobel Laureate Krebs
laid great emphasis on the value of humility saying: ‘perhaps the most important
element of scientific attitude is humility because from it flow self-critical
continuous efforts to learn and to improve’. Similarly, the Pakistani Nobel
Laureate, Dr Abdul Salam, stated before an interviewer that the Islamic concept
of Tawhīd provided for him the basis and direction of research which led him to
a discovery that qualified him for the Nobel prize. I may be excused here for a
little digression from the subject and to refer to the Qur’ānic verse extending
open invitation to men of all other faiths for forging a unity on the concept of
Tawhīd. This Qur’ānic call, according to Dr. Rafi-ud-Din, has a special
significance for the scientific community as he regards the concept of Tawhīd
indispensable to science. He says:
The concept of God (Tawhīd), the most
fundamental of all the truths is indispensable to science as a system of truths.
It must be used to illuminate the paths of scientific observation and inquiry in
the worlds of matter, life and mind to reveal new scientific truths which can
never be known in its absence.
Therefore, the question I am now going
to raise pertains to the role of faith in nurturing scientific activity. In
other words, the question before us is: does Islam develop a special type of
mind-set that helps in the sharpening and strengthening the creative faculty of
the working scientists? My answer is: ‘YES’, and I will now try to explain what
forms the basis of this motif.
Before I proceed to discuss the subject,
let it be very clear that religious motivations are no substitute for natural
endowments or compensation of natural disabilities. For example, bravery and
cowardice are inborn mental dispositions. As bravery is a natural endowment, so
is cowardice a natural disability. But Islamic motivations can certainly
accentuate the bravery of the brave and attenuate the cowardice of the coward.
Allah’s promise of granting eternal life and bliss to the martyr immediately
after his death makes a brave Muslim all the more brave. Likewise His
admonishment for the cowardly behaviour with punishment in the life Hereafter
helps a coward in overcoming his cowardice to a remarkable degree if he is a
true Muslim. In a similar way, the creative faculties of the scientists are
greatly augmented by Islamic motivations and Islamic teachings.
In fact, all true believers in God among
the scientific community, whether Muslim or Non-Muslim, enjoy science as a
God-seeking and God-appreciating activity. Some of them had mystic experiences
in the midst of scientific activity. My own father who had a strong mystic
propensity used to relate a story about his going into ecstasic state in the
classroom while listening to a lecture on the circulation of blood. The great
lengendry negro scientist, George Washington Carver, known as the Peanut Man in
America, called his laboratory as God’s little Worship’ and always prayed before
entering it. A journalist wrote about him:
To me, it was a delight to meet a man of
such distinction as Dr Carver who enjoyed religion as he does. When I talked
about things of God, his eyes sparkled and his soul caught fire.
In recording these remarks about Dr.
Carver, the interviewer simply testified that the joy of science and the joy of
religion had mingled together so completely in Carver’s personality that it was
difficult to separate them from one another. This aspect of his psychology was
also reflected in his lectures. He used to describe his laboratory work as his
conversations with God. Linda O. Mc Murry gleaned one such lecture and gave its
account in the following words:
He often described his conversations
with the Creator about the peanut. In one account, he told the Creator: ‘I would
like to know all about the creation of the world’ to which His reply was:
‘Surely you have disappointed me. You are supposed to have reasonable
intelligence.’ Then Carver asked to know only ‘all about peanuts’ but still the
Creator declared: ‘All about the peanuts is infinite and you are finite’. As the
Professor narrowed his demands the Creator explained: ‘I’d be glad to give you a
few peanuts. I have given you few brains. Take the peanuts into the laboratory
and pull them to pieces.’ Carver broke the peanuts into their constituents and
the Creator advised him to take parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and put them together any
way you wish so long as you keep the law of compatibility. When Carver asked:
‘Can I make milk out of the peanut?’ The reply was: ‘Do you have the
constituents of milk?’ The professor would then note that the answer was yes,
and hold up a bottle of peanut milk, followed by dozens of other products.
Audiences loved the story which revealed a sense of humour and belief in the
divine inspiration and he used it often.
Carver used to say that the universe is
a Grand Broadcasting System of God if we only knew how to tune Him in. We can
thus appreciate what a powerful motivation the love of God can generate for
spurring up creativity of the scientist. As a true believer, he enters the
laboratory with reverence and conviction to understand things of creation as the
‘handiworks’ of God. The hunches of the creative scientists to which we referred
earlier thus turn into mystic experiences as ‘broadcasts’ from God.
Frithjof Capra, another great scientist,
earned world-wide fame for writing a book entitled ‘Tao of Physics’. He too had
a mystic experience mingling with the scientific thought. But he could not
relate it to God and was therefore led astray. In the preface to the first
edition of this book, published in 1974, he wrote about his mystic experience:
Five years ago, I had a beautiful
experience which set me on a road that has led me to the writing of this book. I
was sitting by the ocean late summer afternoon watching the waves rolling in and
feeling the rhythm of my breathing, when I suddenly became aware of a gigantic
cosmic dance. Being a physicist I knew that sand, rocks, water and air around me
were made of vibrating molecules and atoms and that these consisted of particles
which interacted with one another by creating and destroying other particles. I
knew also that the earth’s atmosphere was continually bombarded by showers of
‘Cosmic rays’ particles of high energy undergoing multiple collisions as they
penetrated the air. All this was familiar to me from my research in high energy
physics but until that moment I had only experienced it through graphs, diagrams
and mathematical theories. As I sat on the beach, my former experiences came to
life, I ‘saw’ cascades of energy coming down from outer space in which particles
were created in rhythmic pulses; I ‘saw’ the atoms of the elements and those of
my body participating in the cosmic dance of energy; I ‘felt’ its rhythm and
‘heard’ its sound; and at that moment I knew that this was the Dance of Shiva,
the Lord of Dancers worshipped by Hindus’.
Frithjof Capra was waylaid by Hindu
Mysticism because, as he himself admits, he was only familiar with Hindu
Mysticism or the Zen of Budha. His intuition was perfectly right but he
intellectually integrated his experience to the Dances of Shiva due to the
limitations of his religious knowledge. Here one is reminded of Holy Prophet’s (sws)
saying that every human being is a born Muslim and it is the upbringing by his
parents which turns him into a Jew or a Christian. Had Frithjof Capra been
familiar with the Tawhīd of Islam, this Grand Dance of the Universe would have
surely appeared to him as the Grand ‘Tawāf’ of the entire creation of universe
around Allah (swt).
Coming to the Islamic view of scientific
creativity, I prefer to conceive it as a form of ‘faith activism’. I think that
all sorts of creativity coming from ‘insights’, ‘hunches’ or ‘unearned
inspirations’ are emanating from the same source: i.e. deeper recesses of the
unconsciousness. These have marked psychological resemblences and similarities
and are essentially manifestation of the same quest for REALITY in various
forms. What the scientists and artists call ‘creativity’, mystics and religious
people name as ‘love for God’. In support of this statement.
I ask you to ponder on the following
verse of the Holy Qur’ān which points to a covenant between man and Allah (swt)
which is deeply rooted in the human unconsciousness:
And [remember] when your Lord brought
forth the children of Adam from their reins, their seed and made them testify to
themselves [saying]: ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They said ‘Yes, verily’. (7:112)
Reminding the same covenant, the
precursor of faith, of lying dormant in human unconsciousness, the Holy Qur’ān
in another verse exhorts man to activate it at the conscious level:
Read in the name of your Lord who
created. (97: 1)
This is the very first revelation which
flashed on the mind of Muhammad (sws) through the medium of angle Gabriel.
I strongly feel inclined to interpret
this verse as the way shown to man for activating the covenant presently lying
dormant in his unconsciousness. According to the verse, the very first step
towards the Ma‘rifat of Allah (swt) is the study of His creation. To my mind,
this is what the allusion ‘Who Created’ in this verse signifies. It is through
the knowledge of His creation we call science that we develop an understanding
of Allah (swt) at the conscious level with whom an eternal covenant is already
inherent in us. Science is thus simply a process of faith activation. Creativity
in science is thus a means of coming closer to Him. All search for knowledge,
says Iqbal, is essentially a form of prayer. To explain this point, he quotes
the following passage from the mystic poet Rumi.
This Sufi’s book is not composed of ink
and letters, it is not but a heart white as snow. The scholar’s possession is
pen marks. What is Sufi’s possession? Foot marks. For some while the track of
the deer is the proper clue for him; but afterwards it is the musk-gland that is
his guide. To go one stage guided by the musk-gland is better than the hundred
stages of following the track and roaming about.
On the analogy of the mystic’s method
expressed as ‘hunt of the musk deer’, Iqbal explains the process of creativity
in science as coming closer to God and gaining power over nature. He says:
The scientific observer of nature is a
kind of mystic seeker in the act of prayer. Although, at present, he follows
only the foot prints of the musk deer, and thus modestly limits the method of
his quest, his thirst for knowledge is eventually sure to lead him to the point
where the scent of the musk deer is a better guide than the foot prints of the
deer. This alone will add to his power over nature and give him that vision of
the total infinite which philosophy seeks but cannot find.
Again it is profoundly meaningful that
by combining Dhikr and Fikr, the Holy Qur’an integrates the act of (scientific)
reflection on the things of creation with the act remembrance of Allah (sws) and
establishes a vital relationship between the two. Just ponder over the following
two verses:
Verily in the Creation of the heavens
and the earth and in the succession of night and day, there are indeed messages
for all who are endowed with insight [and] who remember God when they stand,
when they sit, when they lie down to sleep, and thus reflect on the creation of
heaven and the earth: ‘O our Sustainer! You have not created this without
meaning and purpose. Limitless are You in Your Glory! Keep us safe, then, from
suffering through fire! (3:190-191).
For Muslims, then, remembrance of Allah
and reflection on His creation are vitally bound to one another. By remembering
Allah, a Muslim scientist invokes the Source of all creation and creativity
whereas by reflecting on His creation, he discovers Him through His laws
operative in the natural phenomenona of this universe. To remain in constant
contact with Allah (swt), through remembrance and reflection is for the Muslim
scientist the be-all and end-all of all his research activities. Dhikr and Fikr
are therefore indispensible to each other in the Islamic concept of Science.
In Islam, science may therefore be
conceived as a process of faith activism which on its culmination issues into a
special type of religious experience termed as Khashī‘ah by Holy Qur’ān.
The whole process of scientific research
in an Islamic framework may therefore be conceived as under:
1. It begins with man’s eternal covenant
with Allah (swt) lying dormant in his unconsciousness and he seeks to re-affirm
it at the conscious level through the pursuit of knowledge we call science.
2. The pursuit of knowledge is endless.
As the island of knowledge in the limitless ocean of Creator’s secrets of
creation expands, its frontiers with the unknown also go on increasing in the
same proportion. Man can never achieve or ever hope to achieve full
comprehension and mastery over the secrets of creation. This means that the urge
for scientific knowledge ingrained in the human mind has a far more subtle
purpose of generating faith rather than mere conquest of nature which is usually
assumed by the secular scientists.
3. In the pursuit of knowledge, man
remains ever engaged in an endless game of ‘hide and seek’ with his Creator, Who
is both the Manifest and the Hidden. In playing with the elusiveness of God lies
the fascinating joy of science.
4. All sciences are based on the law of
causality. But the chain of cause and effect is infinite in which Allah (swt)
acts as the First and the Last i.e. the ultimate causer of every cause and the
ultimate producer of every effect in the infinite continuum of cause-and-effect
relationships in nature. A Muslim scientist therefore recognises two levels of
causality viz horizontal causality and vertical causality. At the level of
horizontal causality, he discovers cause-effect relations which he can
comprehend and manipulate. But at the vertical level of causality, he can only
attribute them to the omniscient and omnipotent Creator Who is the Creator and
Sustainer of the universe. A Muslim Scientist’s approach and attitude to this
universe is, therefore, to quote Bosinian President, Mr. Alija Izatbegovic, a
‘mixture of scientific curiosity and religious admiration’. That is why the Holy
Qur’ān emphasises the symbiotic relationship between Fikr and Dhikr.
5. In the ‘hide and seek’ game of the
scientists in the continuum of ‘cause-effect’ relationship, he is rewarded with
material advantages and spiritual elevation. Scientific activity, therefore,
bestows on man not only power over nature but also a high-grade spiritual
experience to which the Qur’ān refers as Khashyah.
6. This spiritual experience obtained
through scientific method is according to Iqbal the need of our time. The modern
man, who ceased to live soulfully by developing ‘habits of concrete thought’,
demands a ‘scientific form of religious knowledge’ and ‘concrete living
experience of God’. All scientific knowledge obtained from whatever source it
may come is valuable and has a religious significance for us. But the Muslims
have their own way of assimilation of scientific knowledge by integrating all
knowledge with their concept of Tawhid.
7. ‘God-consciousness’ or Taqwā is the
measure of personality growth in Islam. Scientific knowledge must therefore be
assimilated in such a manner that it adds to ‘God-consciousness’ of the
individual. This necessitates changes in the style of science education and
science writing.
In the end, I want to share with my
readers a feeling which will surely gladden their hearts. Just imagine the Holy
Prophet (sws) being spiritually in the company of scientists of all times when
he prayed:
O Allah! Show me the reality of thing as
they actually are
In your endless quest for knowledge, try
to seek communion with God as Rumi yearned:
Let this droplet of intellect that thou
hast bestowed on me merge with thy oceans of intellect.
Before concluding, I may refer to a
genuine difficulty of some of us who insist on the dichotomy of science and
religion and emphasise the incompatibility of the permanent nature of religion
with the ephemeral nature of science. I also strongly believe as they do that
the religious laws disclosed through revelation are immutable whereas scientific
laws discovered by human intellect are tentative and ever changing; but at the
same time I also believe that human mind cannot be divided into two opposite
camps; Moving from one camp to the other at ease is not only against our basic
principle of Tawhīd but also simply impossible. I belong to the school of
thought based on the intellectual tradition set by Allama Iqbal and Dr.
Rafi-ud-Din who believed in the harmony of religion and science and were great
advocates of their integration.
I conclude my discussion with the prayer
that may Allah (swt) guide our scientists in coming closer and nearer to Him in
their scientific pursuits and they serve humanity with the perpetual insights
they receive from Him. And always remember that faith is the gateway to science
and science is nothing else but faith activism.
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