New website on "Islam and Science"

by Salman Hameed

A new website has been launched with a focus on Islam and Science: An Educational Approach (thanks to Abdelaziz Gillali for sending the link). The effort is led by Nidhal Guessoum (he used to contribute to Irtiqa as well) and is a collaboration between the American University of Sharjah and the

Interdisciplinary University of Paris (though there are many more individuals from different institutions involved in it). This is an important addition to the discourse over science and Islam and I think it will be good counter to sites propagated by people like Zakir Naik,  Harun Yahya, etc. While I'm a proponent of a strong separation of science and religion, this website/project will also provide a platform for those who are seeking a synthesis and integration between science and Islam. Go check it out.

Here are its Vision and Objectives:

• Pursue the elaboration of a new synthesis between modern scientific knowledge and Muslim traditions, approaches which are removed both from easy concordism and the view according to which it is impossible to reach a fruitful harmony between those fields.
• Contribute to open a high-level dialogue between Islam and modernity, thus allowing the development of a unified and coherent understanding of the world, without conflict or dissonance.
• Propose an education and training program to Muslim scholars, who would be able to develop a modern and sophisticated Science-Islam discourse and to present these points of view in international arenas.
• Develop and broadcast, on a large international scale, a well-informed discourse on  Islam & Science, one which is reasoned and scientifically solid.
• Delineate the fruitful pathways for the development of scientific culture in the Arab/Muslim World and popularize certain philosophical implications of contemporary science towards/aiming at the elite as well as the public at large.
• Show how the Muslim tradition can be a factor of dialogue and peace.
• Particpate to a high-level inter-religious dialogue and contribute to the emergence of a “common discourse” among the world’s major religions, that can be the basis of a new form of dialogue among cultures.
• Construct a process for delineating the role of science in the search of meaning in a more and more complex globalized world, a world full of promise but one which also carries dangers and threats for future generations.
• Contribute in a spirit of dialogue and openness to reopen the question of the meaning that modern societies are facing.

Go check out and explore their website.