The question of the “signs” of nature leads to another basic...

The question of the “signs” of nature leads to another basic feature of Muslim natural history. Most Muslim scientists have sought to study nature in order to observe “signs” of the Creator in it, to witness directly the “vestiges” of God in His handiwork.[^4] This is a feature which seems most irritating to some modern scientists who aim to discover only the immediate and the material causes of things.

But from the point of view of Islam, no science can be considered legitimate which does not ultimately consider things in reference to their divine origin and which does not take into account the transcendent cause of all finite beings.

The marvels and wonders of nature and the moral and spiritual lessons drawn from plant and animal life mentioned by the Muslim natural historians, which many modern historians have ridiculed, have been from the point of view of Islam itself the most beneficial and basic elements of natural history because they have led the reader to a recognition of the divine agent present in nature. The Islamic perspective is in a way very practical.

The sciences which this perspective has nourished and matured are all in a sense useful, that is, they correspond to a basic need of man as envisaged in Islam. They may, like agriculture, medicine, and the sciences of history and society, be useful in the limited sense and fulfil man's physical and social needs. Or, like logic and theology, they may be useful in preventing people from being misled by false reasoning.

Or, finally, like the esoteric doctrines of Sufism, they may be useful in quenching the thirst for spiritual realization of the few, who seek God here and now.

But Islam has never considered simple curiosity or intellectual pas­sion either a virtue or a basic need of man and for this reason has never legitimized a science based only on curiosity.[^5] The desire of natural historians to learn moral and spiritual lessons from the phenomena of nature is, there­fore, legitimate from the point of view of Islam because it is spiritually meaningful and fulfils a need, whereas finding the weight of a certain leaf of a tree to be so many grams is from this point of view a secondary and un­important inquiry unless it leads to higher knowledge.

The modern criticism of Muslim natural historians on this point is, therefore, unjust and based on a misapprehension of their point of view.