By the same token...

By the same token, there is nothing essentially wrong with modern science, and it is the materialistic representation of science that lies at the heart of the so-called religion-science controversy.[^6] Namik Kemal joined Afghani with a rebuttal of his own in his Renan Mudafanamesi (The Defense against Renan), focusing, unlike Afhgani, on the scientific achievements of the Arabs, namely the Muslim countries of the past.[^7] In contrast to these Muslim intellectuals who sought to place modern science within the context of Islamic worldview, a number of prominent Christian writers in the Arab world including Jurji Zaydan (d.

1914), Shibli al-Shumayyil (d. 1916), Farah Antun (d. 1922) and Ya'qub Sarruf (d. 1927), begun to advocate the secular outlook of modern science as a way of joining the European path of modernization, hence taking primarily a philosophical and secular stance on the ongoing debate between religion and science.[^8] These two positions are still with us today as they continue to represent the ambitions as well as failures of the Islamic world in its elusive relation with modern science.

Islamic countries spend billions of dollars every year for transfer of technology, science education and research programs. The goal set by the Ottomans in the 19th century has remained more or less the same: gaining power through technological advancement.

Furthermore, the financial wedding between science and technology, begun with the industrial revolution, makes it ever harder to search for 'pure science', and the bottom line for the Muslim as well as the Western world becomes technology rather than science.

The will of the Islamic countries to participate in the modernization process through transfer of technology obscures the philosophical dimension of the problem, leading to the kind of simplistic and reductionist thinking upon which we will touch shortly. As for the intellectual challenge posed by modern science, it can hardly be said to have dwindled or disappeared in spite of the diminishing sway of positivism and its allies among the learned.

There is a peculiar situation in the wake of the rise of new philosophies of science with new developments in scientific research, extending from the ousting of positivism and physical materialism to quantum mechanics and anti-realism.