Paradox our scientists
‘Some are proud of the scholars of the golden age in Islam, and others disavow them, and do not give them any consideration, and we have been living for a thousand years in constant contradiction with regard to our position on these.’
The designation of Arab or Islamic scholars, and they are neither this nor that, is applied to the “scholars of the House of Islam,” meaning those who were born or became famous and excelled in Islamic cities during the era of the Abbasid Caliphate, and were not necessarily Muslims, for one reason or another.
Therefore, we find that the majority of conservative clerics, throughout the history, have never looked at the majority of these people, if not all of them, with reverence or respect, and do not consider them to be scholars at all.
This hatred or rejection was reflected in clear images represented in the almost absence of naming any of the places of worship, science, institutes, schools and laboratories, and this created a kind of paradox or sad irony.
On the one hand, some would like to be proud of them as Muslims; they are ahead of others in many fields, and the other side would like to see them otherwise and not give them any credit, and completely forget them and consider them non-Muslims in the first place, and there is no evidence of that from the tragic end in which the lives of all these notables ended.
Everyone who ruled his mind, ancient and modern, was accused of heresy, blasphemy and atheism by the majority of the clergy, they killed the ‘evil doers’, for fear of the downfall of the clergy’s position and the erosion of their authority, which is based mainly without the power to think.
In an article by Professor “Hilal Aoun” entitled “The Mantle of Religion and Hypocrisy Throughout History,” it was stated that among the evidence and scenes from our history indicate that the clergymen’s fight against reason are their positions on six personalities who are considered among the highest scientists and intellectuals in the history of Islam, and they may be the most important.
Ibn Hayyan was known as the first to use chemistry practically in history, and was called the “Father of Chemistry,” but he was not spared the accusations of heresy and blasphemy, as Ibn Taymiyyah termed him ‘unknown’, and has no mention among the people of science and religion.
If we prove its existence, we will prove one of the greatest magicians in this creed, who worked in alchemy, magic and was a talisman but the scholar was not spared his takfiri mind.
As for al-Farabi, who was nicknamed “the second teacher,” like the first teacher, “Aristotle,” the clerics agreed on his unbelief and heresy.
Then comes the role of their chief, “Ibn Sina,” whom Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya described as “the head of atheists of the creed,” “the leader of atheists who don’t believe in God, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day.” AlGhazali declared him a disbeliever, and the Kashmiri described him as an “atheist and heretic.”
As for al-Kindi, who has been called “the founder of Arab-Islamic philosophy,” he was criticized because he saw reason as the essence of getting closer to God. Many considered him “a misguided astrologer.”
As for the scholar “Ibn Rushd”, AlHafiz Al-Dhahabi and Ibn Taymiyyah considered him a “misguided atheist philosopher”, and that he tried to reconcile between Sharia and Aristotle’s philosophy, and in his approval and veneration of Aristotle and the Shiites, he was “greater in his disbelief than Ibn Sina”, because he defeated the atheist philosophers. He is considered one of the esoteric philosophers, and his atheism is well-known.
As for Ibn al-Haytham, he was not spared the insults, and he was considered an atheist outside of Islam, like philosophers like him. And Ibn Taymiyyah declared him a disbeliever and placed him with the outlaws of Islam, from among the peers of Ibn Sina in knowledge, foolishness, atheism and misguidance!”