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Entry: Inventing Islam Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/inventing_islam#15771 Post contents: Once again Mr. Spencer has announced himself as a person who allows hatred for Muslims to cloud his judgment. Nevertheless, the question of why and how natural science arose in the West is a deep and important issue. I would recommend that he begin with Owen Barfield's "Saving the Appearances," which connects the rise of science with the loss of participant knowledge. Certainly one of the key factors here was that the West forsook a religious attitude toward Nature. Look at Descartes, who thought that animals didn't have souls - or Francis Bacon, who declared that we should put Nature on the rack and torture her secrets from her. By contrast, philosophy in Islam, so far as I have understood it from the writings of Seyeed Hossein Nasr and other commentators on traditionalist metaphysics, never lost the sense of Nature as theophany, the revelation of God. Furthermore Spencer assumes that modern natural science as it has unfolded in the West is the Last Word. But we will have to see. The pollution of the world and proliferation of wastes brought about by our technological proficiencies, will leave a very difficult world for future generations - who may indeed curse the natural science that brought it all about. Finally, Mr. Spencer ought to remember that the Arabs invented the concept of the zero - which is an essential element in our computer technology. I don't think that Taki's Last Drawer should be given over to the kind of anti-Muslim rants typical of Lawrence Auster and the people of the New English Review. This is not conservatism - it's fanaticism. Sent at: 2008 12 02