My Book – some thoughts…

This is a weekly post by Nidhal Guessoum (see his earlier posts here). Nidhal is an astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at American University of Sharjah and is the author of Islam's Quantum Question: Reconciling Muslim Tradition and Modern Science.

Thank you very much, Salman for the great announcement about my book. I hope it will be well received by everyone, as I really believe it can constitute a very useful contribution to the Islam-Science field.

As you may know by now from my various writings, including on this blog, I insist both that Science must be taken seriously and rigorously by Muslims and everyone, and that harmony can be achieved between the Islamic beliefs/worldview and modern science, provided that the religious texts are not read and understood in any literal way. Hence, this book is first and foremost for educated Muslims who are finding it difficult to balance what Science tells them and what their Muslim tradition teaches them. It should also be useful for non-Muslims who are curious to know whether there are any moderate Muslim views that are neither fundamentalist nor post-Islamic and how such a voice proposes to harmonize modern science with religious faith. Indeed, as can be read in the opening page of the book, I dedicated this work to my two sons and their generation, and I explain in the acknowledgment section that I hope the book will help my sons and “their cousins” (i.e. young Muslims) “develop an identity which is both authentic and modern, without dilemmas, contradictions or crises.”

Three to four years passed between the day I started writing the book and the time the English version appeared (in the meantime, the French version was published some 2 years ago). First, as I was writing, the book got longer and longer, because I kept finding topics that needed other material before they could be explained in a clear and convincing manner. Indeed, the original outline for the book didn’t have the first two chapters on Allah/God and the Qur’an (at least its philosophy of knowledge), it was going to start with contemporary issues of Science and Islam, but then when I started to formulate the various analyses, I realized that I had to provide the background and platform (both the theology and the philosophy of science) before building anything. And by the time I was done, the book was too long, and I had to go over it and try to cut it to a more reasonable size, which was not easy at all. And when that task was, more or less, accomplished, 2-3 years had passed, and new ideas and developments had come up that needed to be integrated in the book…

Then the search for a (good) publisher began, and that was far from easy, as I was unknown in both the French and the Anglo-Saxon publishing worlds, this being my first work in those languages. Luckily, the French version got picked up very quickly, but the English one took much longer, especially as I ambitiously pitched it to academic (university) presses, whose reviewing process took forever; it was nearly successful (in one instance, 3 of the 4 reviewers were very positive, but still it got turned down), and in the end, IB Tauris (in London) picked it, which was very nice, considering that this house is very strong in publishing good works related to the Islamic world and is well distributed in the region, which was very important for what I’m aiming for…

And lastly, let me try to answer your interesting question, Salman: “if you were to give one advice to an aspiring Muslim scientist today, what would that be?”

First and foremost, get solid training in Science, whatever field of it you choose; for unfortunately, too often in the Muslim world, the education provided in Science (and many other fields) is deficient, as the pedagogy (approach, textbooks, etc.) is mediocre. Secondly, if you want to be a real scientist (a creative thinker, one who understands what s/he is doing), not a “technician of science” (someone who can apply the “methods” s/he was taught, but with no deep understanding and no capacity to go further), learn some philosophy of science, as well as some history of science (but especially the philosophy of science part, which is hardly ever taught in our region). Thirdly, read the literature, from specialized journals to magazines (like New Scientist), and from new books to blogs…

I am eagerly awaiting the reactions to my book, from everyone – Muslims and non-Muslims…