Transcript How Islam Lost Its Lead

What went
wrong:
How Islam
lost its lead
XXIV paces
You need one handful of
seed for every square
pace. How many handfuls
of seed should you plant in
this field?
CDLVI
24
X 19
456
XIX paces
There are no elephants in
New York.
Effective isn’t it?
The White family has four children, Sarah, Jana, Miriam, and
Hugh. Sarah is 10 years older than Hugh. The older two children
are two years apart, and the younger two children are two years
apart. The combined age of the children is 88 years. How old is
Hugh?
H=x
M=x+2
S=x+10
J=S-2=x+8
H+M+J+S=88
4x+20=88
4x=68
x=17
Make me one
with
everything.
Vegetarian
Hot Dogs
In the eleventh century, Islam led the West in every cultural area.
The Muslims gave us
Arabic numbers
Algebra
After the eleventh
century, Islam lost its
lead.
Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn
Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ta’us
Ahmed al-Tusi al-Shafi’I
al-Ghazali
1058-1111
The Proof of Islam
The Ornament of the Faith
The Renewer of Religion
“If there had been a prophet after
Mohammed,
al-Ghazali would have been the man.”
Father was a dervish.
As a boy his goal was to be rich and
famous.
As a student he disliked his teachers
and began to doubt whether they
knew anything.
He quit school and became a hippie
(Sufi).
He didn’t “Get IT” so he sold out and
rejoined the academic world where
he did become rich and famous.
He was appointed chair of theology
department at Nizamiya University
in Baghdad at age 34 but still did
not believe Muslim theology.
Taught larger and larger classes
and became a consultant to the
government in religious and political
affairs (like Henry Kissinger).
He could not get over his doubts.
His mind told him what he believed
just was not true.
On the one hand he had
everything this world can offer:
fame, fortune, and power.
On the other he knew he was
living a lie and was afraid of
going to Hell.
He was convinced that the Sufis
were right, but how could he give
up everything to be right with
God?
He wrestled with his conscience
for 6 months: during that time
he could not eat, his stomach
ceased to work, and he finally
lost the ability to talk.
Not being able to talk made it
easy for him to resign his post.
He set up a trust fund for his
family, gave away all his other
money, and set out on a journey to
find God.
He wandered all over the Muslim
world, under-going rigorous
ascetic discipline and performing
religious exercises.
At the end of 11 years he returned
to his home village and said he
had “Gotten IT.”
During his time of solitary
wandering there had been
revealed to him “things
innumerable and unfathomable.”
He wrote his main works and
taught until his death.
Tahafut al-Falasifah
Destruction of the
Philosophers
Matters of physics and
metaphysics cannot be
proved or disproved so
reasoning about them is a
waste of time.
You can not trust your senses
to tell you the truth about
anything.
We have no sense
experience of the
metaphysical world
Our sense experience of the
physical world is often wrong.
Reason is also untrustworthy.
The philosophers use
reason to prove the world is
eternal, so they say there is
no evidence for a creator
God.
The philosophers reason
from cause to effect, but
there is no reason to believe
any two events are causally
related. (David Hume
figured this out about 800
years later. It is the post hoc
prompter hoc fallacy.)
The philosophers reason
that God can have no
knowledge of any particular
thing, but God knows
everything.
Since one cannot trust the
senses nor can one trust
reason, trust the Qu’ran and
think about it alone.
Not only is reason worthless in
science and theology, it is also
valueless in ethics. The good
person will spontaneously
know what is good, so any
choice one has to think about
is a bad choice.
Mysticism is a path to true
enlightenment, and its goal is
the dissolution of the self in the
Oneness of God.
Since God revealed the truth to
Mohammed, other cultures
have little to offer.
Translation
700-1000
All of Greek
literature goes
into Arabic
Since 1000 as
much
literature has
gone into
Arabic as
goes in
Spanish in
one year.
More
literature is
translated for
250,000
speakers of
Islandic each
year than for
800 million
speakers of
Arabic.
The Qu’ran is not a book
based on reason.
The few constantly repeated
narratives are borrowed from
the Bible.
There are no sustained
arguments like the Pauline
epistles.
As Christians we must treasure the reason God gave us, and
use it in physics and metaphysics.