From the Koran to quantum physics

Iran is changing. A society once closed to the outside world has acquired a hunger for knowledge and a thirst for cutting-edge ideas. The number of publications by Iranian scientists in international journals has quadrupled over the past decade. Young people in particular want more Kuhn and less Khomeini. And they voted overwhelmingly against hardline candidates in last week's elections.

But what about the clerics who have led Iran since 1979? How comfortable are they with modern science and technology? Do they oppose it? Can they learn to live with it? Do they believe it should be "Islamicised"?

Western ways of thinking and doing have long held a fascination for Iran's religious leaders, from before the Islamic revolution of 1979 that deposed the Shah. When the Shah banned Ayatollah Khomeini's speeches, for example, his supporters distributed them on audio cassettes in the hundreds of thousands. Similarly, desktop publishing was eagerly adopted to produce glossy magazines extolling the virtues of post-revolution Iran.

Unlike most other Muslim countries, Iran has several institutions dedicated to enabling clerics to test their knowledge and ideas against those developed in modern universities. Mofid University is the best known. In just 10 years, it has developed a reputation in the fields of philosophy and human rights, and organises exchanges with universities abroad, including the US. Michael Bond travelled to Qom – Iran's spiritual hub, birthplace of the Islamic revolution and home of Mofid University – to ask Masoud Adib, Mofid's head of philosophy, about Islam and the challenge of science.

Is there such a thing as Islamic science?

We cannot really talk of Islamic science. We can talk of Islamic philosophy, political science, sociology, and maybe Islamic psychology, but not Islamic physics or chemistry. Sciences like physics and chemistry are neutral.

However, in science it is important to distinguish between discovery and judgement – between collecting data or experimentation, and evaluating and judging what has been collected. When researchers evaluate data, they all use the same methodology, whether they are Muslim or Christian, religious or secular.

But when a researcher is collecting data or conducting experiments, things like religion, culture or even the attitude of the researcher make a difference. There might be differences between the way a Muslim collects data and someone else, just as there are differences in the way women and men collect data, or people from different cultures. But this does not mean the science produced is Islamic science.

How does an Islamic approach to experimenting and data collection differ from other approaches?

In an Islamic culture, the reason a person seeks knowledge is to know God, to seek a better understanding of God. That is the motivation. Someone from another culture or religion may do it for another reason: to seek particular technologies, for example, or just to know reality. People who do science for different reasons will probably look at different areas, or approach a problem from different sides.

What would a Muslim scientist seek?

In Islam, science or knowledge should not be sought solely for the sake of curiosity. Research should always be targeted. In a world where there is a lot of disease and many complex problems such as poverty, famine, drought and lack of education, scientists should not be allowed to just go after scientific curiosity for its own sake. It is the duty of scientists to try to solve these problems. So a scientist should not spend all his time in a laboratory working for himself, satisfying his own curiosity. He needs to always consider whether what he is doing is in line with what God wants.

If people are guided so much by religion, how can they do good, objective science?

Religion offers a framework for life. It helps you from the moment you get up in the morning until you go to sleep at night. You have to live within it. But that doesn't mean that in every moment of the day you have to take your instructions from religion. Rather, it means that you have to live for religious targets, and that the values from your religion should govern everything you do. In this there is no difference between Islam and other religions.

Within that religious framework, you have to learn how to secularise. Day-to-day life has to be based on secular knowledge: for instance, how to eat your breakfast or work in an office. So you can have knowledge of a secular science within the framework of a religious life.

How does that work in practice? Where do you draw the line between the two?

People tend to make two mistakes. One is to try to derive the details of life from religion – for example, looking to religion for the answers to why everything happens, the answers to all the practical things in life. This will not help us run a society. The other mistake is to loosen the religious framework so much that you think you can derive the ultimate aim of life from the empirical.

One of the major reasons a lot of Muslims do not do well in science is that they make the first mistake. A lot of modern societies run into difficulties and cannot adapt to problems in life because of the second mistake.

How can Iran modernise and develop in science and technology without sacrificing the values and traditions of Islam?

Iran has already modernised in some areas. One of the problems of this modernising is that it is not a result of blossoming from the inside; it has come from the outside. Over the past 150 years, a gap has opened up in Iranian society, with one group going for modernity and another for tradition. The revolution in Iran had roots in both modernity and tradition, and I believe the gap between the two has been gradually closing.

However, if modernity is not based on a nation's culture it can do serious damage. This is what happened in the west. This does not mean we have to escape from modernity. Rather we have to try to minimise the damage that arises from the clash with tradition. This means that in our individual lives, and as a society, we have to keep our eyes on religious targets while at the same time making best use of modern knowledge.

How would that work in science?

One of the duties of a scientist from any culture is to progress in science and knowledge while preserving his moral values, not as a religious person but as a human being. You have to produce knowledge, but you may have to restrict yourself from certain areas. It is delicate – you lose if you hold back from research, you lose if you ignore your moral values.

Are there any modern technologies that you think are a particular threat to Islam?

On one level, technology is simply a tool and people have to learn how to use it. Of course it depends how you use it. The important thing is that people use technology in the best way for a country and minimise the damage.

But there is another deeper level at which to look at technology. New technologies are deeply tied up with spirituality and morality, for they influence how we behave. For example, whether I choose to go to work on horseback or in a car will affect how I behave during the journey and the effect I have on others. Whenever a new technology arises, such as the internet, it is essential to have a dialogue about how it is going to affect us. We need time to contemplate such changes in life.