Islam and Learning
Quoted from I.R.and L.L. Al-Faruqi in The Cultural Atlas of Islam; MacMillan Publishing Company; New York; 1986. p. 320: The verses of the Quran that command, warn, advise, and entice humans to observe the phenomena of nature - the succession of day and night; the movement of stars, sun and moon, and other heavenly bodies; generation and decay; life, growth, and death; of psychic events in individuals; and of social events in groups and in the broader movement of history, are too numerous to list. The variety and beauty of flowers, trees, and fruits... mountains, rivers, climates.... all are ayat (signs or indices) pointing to the Creator and Source of order, according to the Quran. Humans are enjoined to look into them, to investigate and understand them, to see them in the right perspective which applies to them as well as the overall order or pattern of God. Islam called everyone to be a scientist investigating every field and aspect of nature; a historian examining every chapter of human and group behaviour through the centuries. It called for this widest possible scholarship, confident that men will find Islam's claims for God and His providence, for nature, for man and history, confirmed. It made a point of faith to discern the patterns of God in nature, an act of piety to articulate those patterns correctly and adequately; and an act of charity to teach tem to others. It required its adherents to ascertain the movement of time and to locate precisely their geographical position on the earth, especially when they travel, and to find water and expurgate themselves of dirt...' God, Islam held, created the world and implanted in it His immutable patterns that make it a cosmos. He designed it in a way calling for wonder: perfect, orderly, malleable, its parts causally and teleologically bound to one another, and its totality subservient to man. He invited man to study and investigate nature, to make the necessary deduction, and thus recognise, worship, and serve Him.'
by: Quoted from I.R.and L.L. Al-Faruqi, Sun 21 July, 2002
 
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