Fascinating piece in Physics Today about the struggle to reconcile science and faith in the Muslim world. It’s a very thorough look at the state of science in Islam today, and what needs to happen to restore science’s place in Muslim society.

The language used to frame the discussion should sound somewhat familiar to Christians. After all, Christianity—like Islam, although perhaps to a lesser degree—has both embraced and rejected science at different stages in its history:

Is boosting resource allocations enough to energize science, or are more fundamental changes required? Scholars of the 19th century, such as the pioneering sociologist Max Weber, claimed that Islam lacks an “idea system” critical for sustaining a scientific culture based on innovation, new experiences, quantification, and empirical verification. Fatalism and an orientation toward the past, they said, makes progress difficult and even undesirable.

In the current epoch of growing antagonism between the Islamic and the Western worlds, most Muslims reject such charges with angry indignation. [...] In defending the compatibility of science and Islam, Muslims argue that Islam had sustained a vibrant intellectual culture throughout the European Dark Ages and thus, by extension, is also capable of a modern scientific culture.

I’m intrigued by the suggestion that Islam lacks an “idea system” to encourage scientific innovation and exploration. Do you think that Islam’s current struggle to reconcile faith with science is analogous to Christianity’s own checkered historical relationship to science? Does Christianity encourage (or at least allow for) scientific innovation in some way that Islam does not? What’s your reaction to this article?

(I wish I could say that Physics Today is a part of my daily reading, but I’m afraid I just followed a link from Metafilter.)