This book presents fifteen chapters on galaxies, the solar system and applied physics, and is illustrated by 48 colour pictures from NASA. Each chapter quoting liberally from the Quran, demonstrates the integration (tawhid) of the facts and values derived from the Quran with modern human knowledge. The Quran legitimizes science and technology as essentially Islamic knowledge thus making it the duty of every individual and society (fard ayn and fard kifayah) to understand and utilize them for the good of mankind and the environment.
Islamic ijtihad and tafsir, being subjedt to human and temporal limitations, provide knowledge (ilm) which has probability but not the certainty of truth. Quranic verses are given technological explanations based on data from non-Muslim sources and NASA explorations, without implying that every modern "fact", theory and scientific speculation is being "read into" the Quran as a matter of Islamization.
The book is a model of tawhid: The integration of the facts and values of Quranic revelations with those of modern technological advances. As such, it is crucial to islamic acculturation, and as a counter to latter-day Muslim reductionism (takhsisiyyah) which has excluded the natural sciences, technology and even socio-humanistic sciences from the Islamic pruview. This book also shows how Islamization provides values by which to evaluate knowledge; thus astrology and environmentally harmful sciences and technology are un-Islamic.
The author: S. Waqar Ahmed Husaini, (Ph.D., Engineering-Economic Systems Planning, Stanford University, California), is teh Founder-President of Institute of Islamic Sciences, Technology and Development, and, since 1986, Visiting Scholar, Stanford University. In the islamic and comparative contexts, he has taught civil engineering, engineering economics, history and philosophy of science, bio-medical ethics, etc. in Malaysia, Saudia Arabia and the USA.
As a consultant for US Government agencies, UN bodies and Islamic and Ara inter-governmental organizations, he has promoted Islamization and applied Islamic science and technology in public policies. His books, translated into Arabic, Malay, Indonesian and Urdu include: Islamic Environmental Systems Engineering, Islamic Science and Public Policies; Teaching Islamic Sciences and Engineering; The Quran for Astronomy and Earth Exploration from Space, Islamic Thought in the Rise and Supremacy of Islamic Technological Culture, Water Resources Sciences and Engineering in the Quran; and Economics in the Quran. His monographs on military expenditure and their impact on Islamic human development include: Muslim Militarism and Islamic Jihad; An Islamic Assessment of Belligerence and Development in the Sub-Himalayan Countries.
215 pages, paperback
