Although this may be said to be the principal aim of the Qur’an...

Although this may be said to be the principal aim of the Qur’an, it summons the human being insistently, at the very same time, to reflect and to ponder, and to acquire a realistic view of the world; it guides him on to the path of thought, of teaching and learning.

In the very first verses of the Qur’an to be revealed, we encounter praise and ennobling of the pen, of the acquisition of knowledge and of the study of nature as one of the principal sources of cognition; a profound awareness of nature may lead to the boundaries of the supranatural realm. Through the inspiration given by the Qur’an and as a result of the scientific movement launched by Islam, vital and active people blossomed into maturity, uniquely gifted with knowledge and virtue.

The viewpoint of Islam on science represented a major development that prepared the way for subsequent developments. Iqbal, the well-known Indo-Muslim thinker, says: "The birth of Islam, as I hope to be able presently to prove to your satisfaction, is the birth of inductive intellect...The constant appeal to reason and experience in the Qur’an, and the emphasis that it lays on Nature and History as sources of human knowledge, are all different aspects of the same idea of finality.

"Inner experience is only one source of human knowledge. According to the Qur’an, there are two other sources of knowledge - Nature and History; and it is in tapping these sources of knowledge that the spirit of Islam is seen at its best." [^1] All forms of scientific endeavor are necessarily based on respect for the intellect and for the development of the human being and on freedom of thought from all kinds of fetters.

The principal advances and developments in the natural sciences are all due to these premises. The contemporary human being is heir to the knowledge and the researches of millions of thinkers and scholars who in their investigations discovered the foundations of the various sciences, and who gained access to some of the mysteries of being by means of their intellectual originality and creativity and their untiring efforts.

In the age when the Qur’an was revealed - an age known as the Age of Ignorance - creative and innovative thought, marked by the comprehensive spirit of science, was non-existent, and no one was able to discern the mysteries of the vast, unknown universe. When expounding the mysteries of creation, the Qur’an is clear and explicit whenever clarity and explicitness are desirable.