The True Jihad
Non-Violence and Islam
~ 81 ~
such a long delay in their discovery? Why could not
the scientific advancement of the last few hundred
years have been made thousands of years ago?
The reason was that in ancient
times religion and science
(divine knowledge and human
knowledge) being so closely
linked with one another,
scientific enquiry was anathema
to men of religion. Religious
persecution had then become an
insuperable obstacle to the
progress of science.
What Islam did was separate
religion (which had become, in
essence, a set of irrational
beliefs) from scientific research and investigation.
For instance, eclipses of the sun and moon had been
linked with human destiny. The Prophet
Muhammad, may peace be upon him, declared that
eclipses had nothing to do with the lot of human
beings. These were astronomical events, not events
Islam played a
key role in
disassociating
religion from
science. This
paved the way for
great progress to
be made in the
field of scientific
investigation.
