Introduction

The broader engagement between science and religion has passed through two phases and is now moving into a third (Davison 2022, 21). The first phase was typified by determining the various kinds of relationships that exist between science and religion. A famous development at this time was Ian Barbour’s four-part taxonomy of conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration (Drees 2010, 2; Moritz 2017) and the different responses, variations, and critiques it generated (Cantor and Kenny 2001). An important stance developed at this juncture was that of Stephen Jay Gould (1997, 1999), whose theory of non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) argued for a form of a priori independence for the two pursuits, where science covers the empirical realm and religion covers the sphere of ultimate meaning and moral value. An agnostic himself, he determines the magisterium of religion without considering religious teachings themselves and how those teachings address the nature of God and His relationship to the world. Though it assumes a no-conflict outcome for science and religion, which we authors also do, it does so at the cost of curtailing the scope of religious discourse and neglecting the theological and metaphysical commitments various religions have that would shape the unique ways each religious tradition would determine that scope.

The Divine Action Project (DAP) exemplifies the second phase, seeking to find a place for God within certain scientific constraints (Davison 2022, 22–24; Wildman 2004, 2005). It emerged as a pioneering project, marked by its enthusiasm and scope. This initiative was a collaborative effort between the Centre of Theology and Natural Science and the Vatican Observatory. It brought together eminent Christian philosophers, theologians, and scientists such as Ian Barbour, Thomas Tracy, Philip Clayton, John Polkinghorne, Wesley Wildman, Nancey Murphy, Keith Ward, William Drees, and William J. Stoeger. These participants engaged in a series of conferences and produced multiple volumes exploring the connections between science and theology across different scientific domains, including evolution, neuroscience, quantum mechanics, and chaos theory. Robert Russell played a key role as a principal coordinator and editor for each volume, working alongside various coeditors for different books (Malik 2021, 187). This phase has recently been critiqued for being too much in favor of science and not giving theology its due. This critique has resulted in more theology-centric proposals, a theological turn, which prioritizes theology in determining the God-world relationship from a metaphysical standpoint (Ritchie 2019; Feser 2019; Silva 2022; Kopf 2023; Tabaczek 2023). Moving away from such big-picture narratives, the third phase is a move towards more localised intersections in science and theology, known as science-engaged theology, as well as the explorations of the Special Divine Action Project (SDAP) (Perry and Leidenhag 2021).

To connect this broader discourse with Islam’s specific context, it is important to note that the field of Islam and science has followed a different historical trajectory. This distinct development will be the focus of this analysis as we explore how Islamic theology in particular interacts with scientific paradigms.

The relationship between Islam and modern science during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was shaped by diverse scholarly responses to the shifting political and economic landscape, as Muslims grappled with the forces of colonialism, imperialism, and orientalism. Figures like Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī (d. 1897), Sayyid Aḥmad Khān (d. 1898), Muḥammad ʿAbduh (d. 1905), and Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1935) sought to reconcile Islamic thought with modern science, countering narratives that portrayed Islam as backward and incompatible with progress. Alongside these thinkers, figures such as Muhammad b. Aḥmad al-Iskandarānī (d. 1889), who authored five volumes on the Qurʾān and science from the 1860s to the 1880s, and Ṭanṭāwī Jawharī (d. 1940), known for his multi-volume exegesis in the 1930s, also played crucial roles (Daneshgar 2017, 2023c). Their works, deeply influenced by the realities of French, British, and Ottoman colonialism, reflected attempts to engage with modern scientific paradigms while maintaining an Islamic worldview. These efforts were individual rather than part of a collective movement, with each thinker responding to the intellectual and cultural dominance of Western powers in their own way (Elshakry 2013).

For example, in Islam and Christianity in Relation to Science and Civilisation (Al-Islām wa-l-Naṣrāniyya maʿ al-ʿIlm wa-l-Madaniyya), ʿAbduh argues that Islam historically fostered scientific inquiry and compared its relationship with science to that of Christianity, which he claimed had been less accommodating (Scharbrodt 2022). This was a direct response to orientalist critiques that sought to frame Islam as inherently resistant to modernity. Similarly, Sayyid Aḥmad Khān and Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī saw rationalism and scientific thinking as essential to revitalizing Islam in the face of Western imperialism (Keddie 1983; Qidwai 2019).

Despite their intellectual significance, these efforts remained largely disconnected and did not form a cohesive field of discourse. It was not until the 1980s that Islam and science began to emerge as distinct and recognizable field marked by a more organized, collective approach. This period saw the production of scholarly books, the convening of academic conferences, and a more formal recognition of Islam and science as an area of academic inquiry.

The first phase of the Islam and science discourse was characterized by two significant approaches (Guessoum 2015, 856): (1) the Islamization of sciences, and (2) scientific miracles in scripture, each of which offered distinct outlooks on how Islam could engage with modern scientific knowledge.

The Islamization of science trend emerged as a multifaceted response to the dominance of Western scientific paradigms, which were perceived by some Muslim intellectuals as tied to materialism and secularism (Abaza 2002; Furlow 2005). While the phrase “Islamization of science” has been used as a general descriptor (Stenberg 1996), it encapsulates a diversity of approaches that differed significantly among thinkers. For example, Ismāʿīl Rājī al-Fārūqī (d. 1986) emphasized integrating Islamic metaphysical principles with the structure of knowledge to reformulate scientific disciplines, whereas Sayyid Muḥammad Naqīb al-AṬṬās critiqued the epistemological foundations of Western science, which he saw as inherently secular and disconnected from spiritual realities. Ziauddin Sardar, by contrast, focused on the socio-ethical implications of science, advocating for reforms that would address the specific needs of Muslim societies without necessarily discarding modern scientific methods. Seyyed Hossein Nasr called for a return to sacred science, critiquing modern science’s materialism and environmental consequences while emphasizing the spiritual dimensions of knowledge. Despite their differences and inner criticisms, these thinkers sought to create a framework for science that would harmonize with Islamic teachings, offering an alternative to the perceived ideological biases of Western science, thus grounding scientific practice that acknowledged divine principles rather than adhering to purely materialistic explanations (Guessoum 2011, 101–39).

Advocates of scientific miracles in scripture (iʿjāz ʿilmī) adopted a markedly different approach to engaging Islam and science. Their primary aim was to demonstrate the divine origin of the Qurʾān by identifying verses that were believed to allude to modern scientific discoveries (Daneshgar 2023a, 2023b, 2023c; Malik 2023b). Figures such as Maurice Bucaille argued that the Qurʾān contained precise descriptions of phenomena that modern science had only recently uncovered, including embryology, astronomy, and the expansion of the universe. This movement was not limited to academic circles; during the mid-twentieth century, iʿjāz ʿilmī became a central tool for Muslim preachers to counter atheism, serving as a theological corrective and inviting atheists to embrace theism by showcasing the Qurʾān’s perceived alignment with scientific knowledge (Daneshgar 2023c). The movement gained considerable popularity among Muslims who saw it as a powerful argument for the compatibility of Islam with modern science and as validation of the Qurʾān’s divine foresight. However, this approach often relied on retroactively reading modern scientific concepts into Qurʾānic verses, raising critical questions about its interpretive methodology and the broader limitations of such a hermeneutic (Mir 2004).

While both movements sought to bridge the gap between Islam and science, they did so in very different ways: one by reconstructing scientific knowledge within an Islamic framework and the other by retroactively interpreting Islamic scripture through the lens of modern scientific discoveries. Suffice it to say that both approaches have received their respective criticisms (Nasr 1991; Loo 1996; Abaza 2002; Mir 2004; Furlow 2005; Guessoum 2011, 100–72; Daneshgar 2023c).

The second phase, which began in the 2000s, saw a diversification of approaches within the field. This phase included ongoing discussions about the methodology for relating Islam and science—though not necessarily following the Islamization approach—alongside explorations of divine action and various localized interfaces between Islam and scientific disciplines. Unlike the DAP in the Christian context, this phase lacked a coordinated initiative but nonetheless witnessed significant scholarly activity. During this second phase, discussions expanded beyond the earlier movements to address new topics such as quantum mechanics, evolution, Islamic psychology, Islamic bioethics, and the nature of miracles. This broadening of focus could be seen as the beginning of an Islamic version of science-engaged theology, where specific scientific developments are engaged within the framework of Islamic thought (Malik 2023b).

However, this emerging discourse also brings to light differing perspectives on furthering the engagement between Islamic thought and modern science. Nidhal Guessoum (2011a, 13–14) proposes one such perspective and suggests that the next step should be the development of a theistic interpretation of science to conform with modern science as it stands and to harmonize Islamic belief with science. He says that “theologies that are fully consistent with modern science and methodological naturalism are far from trivial and require some sophisticated work. But they can be constructed” (Guessoum 2015, 873). This assertion specifically identifies theology and presupposes that existing theological frameworks within the Islamic tradition are inherently in tension or even in disharmony with the general acceptance of science and methodological naturalism. Consequently, Guessoum expresses skepticism toward classical theological models, suggesting they are ill-suited to address contemporary scientific challenges. For example, in his critique of David Jalajel’s 2009 book Islam and Biological Evolution, which analyzes evolutionary theory from a classical Sunnī perspective, Guessoum (2011b, 476) challenges the reliance on “views of scholars of a thousand years ago when discussing issues that have only become understood in, at earliest, the past century.”¹ This critique overlooks a crucial aspect: the views examined in that book are not the admittedly outdated scientific models entertained by past scholars; instead, the book examines the general metaphysical commitments and hermeneutical methods of the Sunnī theological traditions and explores what implications those commitments might have for the reception of modern scientific theories.

Following the work of Stefano Bigliardi (2014a), in an article called “Islam and Science: The Next Phase of Debates,” Guessoum (2015) reviews the emergence of a “new generation” of Muslim thinkers who harmonize Islamic thought with modern science, emphasizing the need to address pressing challenges like evolution, methodological naturalism, and divine action. While this framing highlights critical issues for contemporary discourse, it largely sidesteps the potential of classical theological frameworks to address these same challenges. We contend that classical models, far from being irrelevant, can offer profound metaphysical and hermeneutical resources for meaningfully engaging with modern scientific paradigms. Rather than framing the next phase of debates solely in terms of harmonization or adaptation to modernity, we propose a new meta-narrative that recognizes the enduring relevance of classical theology. This approach neither dismisses the importance of methodological naturalism and the other challenges identified by Guessoum nor reduces them to external impositions. Instead, it reaffirms the capacity of traditional Islamic thought to engage with these issues on its own terms, thereby enriching the broader Islam and science discourse (Jalajel 2009 and Malik 2023a).

In the following sections, we delve deeper into the nuances of traditional Islamic theology, particularly within the Sunnī framework, to explore how it can engage with modern scientific paradigms without the need for radical reinterpretation. We first examine these theological traditions’ enduring metaphysical commitments and hermeneutical methods, highlighting their relevance in contemporary discourse. Then, we critique Guessoum’s assertion that classical theological models are inherently incompatible with modern science, demonstrating that his approach may overlook the potential for a more harmonious relationship. Through this analysis, we aim to show that traditional Islamic theology, when carefully and rigorously examined, possesses the flexibility and depth to coexist with scientific developments without the need for harmonization or reconciliation, challenging the assumption of an inevitable conflict between science and traditional understandings of the Islamic faith.

Sunnī Theology

Sunnī Islam is professed by an estimated 85–90% of Muslims worldwide (Lugo et al. 2009, 8). Admittedly, the picture is complicated by the fact that many who identify as Sunnī Muslims might also have cultural, philosophical, mystical, political, or social commitments that put them at odds with various Sunnī theological teachings. The broad overlap between Sufism and Sunnism is an important case in point. Indeed, the existence of these other influences means that when traditionally minded Muslim communities resist science or particular scientific theories, it cannot be assumed that this is a result of the theological teachings those communities identify with, since other influences might be the cause. The only way to determine the role played by Sunnī theological commitments is to examine those commitments directly. Since many Sunnī Muslims identify with one or another of the Sunnī theological schools, it indicates the relevance of paying attention to those schools in the context of an Islamically informed theological turn.

As a major branch of Islam, Sunnism is typified by a professed adherence to scripture and a commitment to the received traditions from the Prophet Muhammad and the early Muslim community that followed him. There are three widely recognized formal theological schools with which many adherents to Sunnī Islam today openly identify. These are the Ashʿarī, Māturīdī, and Salafī schools. The Ashʿarī school traces back to the Iraqi theologian Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (874–936). The Māturīdī school is named after the central Asian theologian Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (853–944). These two schools developed in Sunnī Islam in the early tenth century as a reaction to the earlier formal theological development in Islam of the Muʿtazilīs and their scholastic (kalām) rationalism. These two Sunnī schools adopted their methods of argument to respond to them and became known as the Sunnī kalām schools (Leaman 2008, 84–89).

The third Sunnī theological school originates in an earlier Traditionalism (Atharism), an anti-scholastic tendency that advocated strict adherence to received prophetic traditions while rejecting excessive formal rationalization to defend the doctrine. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (780–855) was an important adherent of these views. In the fourteenth century, Taqī ad-Dīn Aḥmad b. Taymiyya (1263–1328) sought to respond to the Ashʿarī dominance by providing a formal theological defence of Atharī teachings, which resulted in the Salafī theological school (Jackson 2009, 135–36).²

The three Sunnī schools differ on several issues but share many common theological commitments relevant to science and religion issues. These commitments relate to two broad areas: (1) the nature of God and His relationship to cause and effect in the created world, and (2) God’s particular actions and determining from scripture what He did or did not do in His creation.

God and Causality

With respect to the first consideration, Sunnī theologians developed divine action models to account for causation in the natural world, as well as for human volition, while maintaining belief in a creator God. The two most important models are occasionalism, advocated by Ashʿarī and Māturīdī theologians, and instrumentalism, advanced by Ibn Taymiyya. Occasionalism is a model where cause and effect in nature come about as the result of God creating one object on the occasion of another as a consistent, customary habit that provides an unvarying pattern in His creative act (Ibn Fūrak 2005, 297). Instrumentalism is a model of causation where God creates immediately at the time of action causal power directly in one created object and receptivity in another to bring about a resultant effect.³ The difference between these two models can be illustrated with the classic example of fire burning cotton. With occasionalism, God habitually creates ash in the place of cotton fibers on any occasion where He brings fire into contact with cotton. With instrumentalism, God creates ash through a divine act of directly imposing combustive potency in a particular instance of fire and receptivity in a particular instance of cotton, and possibly resistive potency in the cotton’s moisture (Hoover 2007, 160–61; Ibn Taymiyyah 1995, 3:113, 8:136).

An important feature these models have in common is that a wholly transcendent God is maximally active in His creation by directly creating every entity and event in the world. The world in turn is maximally contingent on God’s will and action. God does not act in nature; instead, He enacts nature. This makes the notion of God’s intervention in the world meaningless, since it is impossible to intervene in one’s own direct action. This removes the problem of determining a causal joint where God’s action can be accommodated within a causally closed system. These models are purely metaphysical accounts of God’s relationship to Creation. They are theological belief commitments. Admittedly, they are immune to scientific critique. There is no point where a purely empirical science could observe to confirm or negate any aspect of either of these models.

Sarah Lane Ritchie (2017, 376–77) finds this to be a shortcoming of such an approach that, while fully embracing science and its conclusions, “divorces scientific knowledge from theology” so that their models “are virtually immune to scientific critique.” She sees it as problematic, given that science has proven extraordinarily successful in explaining the natural world, that this entails placing artificial boundaries on science. She says this in the context of critiquing specific Christian models of divine action.

However, these Sunnī divine action models metaphysically account for the astounding success of science in explaining the physical world because, while God is absolutely transcendent, He enacts every aspect of that world at every moment with perfect regularity and causal coherence. As for “taking the explanatory success of science seriously” (Ritchie 2017, 362), these models assume, and even demand, that very explanatory success. Therefore, the lack of scientific critique for the models that Ritchie sees as a problem does not pose any real challenge since the models themselves are, on the one hand, purely metaphysical, and on the other, perfectly harmonious with an expectation of science being able to fully explain the physical world. However, science can only describe the observed unbroken and regular physical processes that unfold in nature, which Sunnī theologians would argue is to be expected from a wise and perfect Creator. It does not and cannot address the existentiation of causality itself, which is a purely metaphysical question. This will remain true if science one day achieves a natural causal account for the origin of matter and even the origin of space-time.

The Sunnī theological commitment to a maximally contingent world brings about a no-conflict stance between religious metaphysical commitments, on the one hand, and modern science with its assumption of methodological naturalism, on the other. Whatever a scientist might suggest as a naturalistic model to account for a natural phenomenon, it will fall within the realm of possibility for a pattern that God could manifest in nature by His power and will. In this way, all naturalistic explanations of worldly phenomena are by necessity metaphysically neutral under Sunnī accounts of divine action. What specifically happens in a maximally contingent world cannot be determined by pure reason nor constrained by metaphysics; therefore, knowledge of worldly phenomena must be taken from observation and based on evidence. On the metaphysical level, a conflict between science and religion is simply not there. So “theism does not enter into the scientific process” (Bigliardi 2014b, 162) because the Sunnī commitment to a maximally active God and maximally contingent world leaves all possible physical relationships open to scientific investigation. Natural causation, furthermore, is never seen as a rival explanation for God’s action but rather as the manifestation of His action. This means that an assumption of methodological naturalism for human engagement with the natural world is completely in line with the outlook engendered by Sunnī metaphysics and does not have to be integrated into it. This is why Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (1998, 4:379), though a strong advocate of occasionalism, describes it as “madness” for a person to ever expect natural causes to be circumvented. This answers what Guessoum (2015, 862) identifies as a challenge to the methodological naturalism of modern science:

Clearly such a framework for science poses a challenge to at least some Islamic conceptions of the world and nature, given that often Muslims claim and insist that God acts physically and directly in the world, in cases of miracles or in everyday events, either at large scales (earthquakes, floods, etc.) or small, individual, personal scales (in responses to prayers, in particular).

In this passage, God’s direct action in the world is pitted against a naturalistic outlook. However, from the Sunnī metaphysical perspective, the naturalistic explanation is precisely what God’s direct action existentiates for the world. There is no tension between the existence of complete, regular, and unbroken causal processes for everything in nature on the one hand and God’s ubiquitous action on the other because they are regarded as one and the same. God’s action is not an intervention, not limited to miracles or answering prayers. His action existentiates the natural causal order at every place, on every level, and at every moment in time.

This does not mean that methodological naturalism is metaphysically neutral, as it is sometimes claimed (Guessoum 2015, 873), since it is easy to imagine a person upholding metaphysical ideas that would make metaphysical naturalism untenable for them. What matters is that the metaphysical commitments of Sunnī Islam, as we have seen, are inherently conducive to methodological naturalism. Its theistic vision is already amicable to the methodologies of modern science. This leaves science, as Bigliardi (2014a, 175) expresses it, “a field of knowledge with its own methods and internal dynamics that need to be fully grasped and not further reshaped” without any effort needed to reconcile Islam and science, the effort he identifies as preoccupying the new generation of Muslim thinkers.

This is in stark contrast to the underlying assumptions of the proponents of the “Islamization of science,” who attempt to bring modern science in line with what they judge to be correct metaphysical and epistemological principles (Al-Attas 1993, 133–35; 1995, 113–14). They hold that the approach of modern science is not in harmony with those principles (Nasr 1989, 27, 39, 94–95; 2001, 39–40). Based on what we have shown here, this suggests that the metaphysical and epistemological principles they advocate are not fully aligned with those of classical Sunnī theology but brought in from elsewhere, potentially Hellenistic philosophy, esoterism, or cultural norms. These are fruitful areas for future research.

Theological Hermeneutics

The second consideration is how Sunnī theologians approach scripture to determine theologically binding doctrine regarding what God actually did or did not do in creation. They developed a very cautious theological hermeneutics, which requires direct and explicit scriptural evidence to make any doctrinal claim about God’s action, be it an affirmation or negation; in other words, what God did or did not do in creation. For any matter or detail about which scripture is not clearly forthcoming, theological non-commitment (tawaqquf) must be exercised. This caution derives directly from their metaphysical commitments to a transcendent, maximally active God and a maximally contingent world. Since God can do anything logically possible, the only way to determine what God did in the world, barring our empirical experience, is through explicit scripture. The connection between this hermeneutical caution and theological commitments can be seen with the Ashʿarī theologian al-Ghazālī (1988, 132), who says:

What is known only by way of textual evidence (samʿ) is where one of the rational possibilities is actualized (by God), since it is all permitted by reason. These things are only known by way of revelation and inspiration, and we know about them from the revelation that reaches us, like the resurrection, the gathering of souls, reward and punishment, and the like.

Al-Māturīdī (2010, 254) likewise discusses why there is a need for God to send revelation via prophets:

There are three foundations—impossibility, necessity, and, between them, contingency—upon which rest all the world’s matters. Necessity is where reason does not permit a proposition to assert otherwise. The same goes for impossibility. It can be [otherwise] with contingency, since it vacillates from one circumstance to another, from one hand to another, from one domain to another. Therefore, reason cannot necessitate any tendency or rule it out as impossible. Therefore, the Messengers came to explain what is apposite in each circumstance.

The Māturīdī theologian Nur al-Din al-ṣābūnī (1969, 86) says in the same context:

Rational premises are three: necessary, impossible, and contingent. Reason makes judgments about the necessary and the impossible, but it must be noncommittal (yatawaqqaf) about the possible, so it does not pass judgment, neither negating it nor affirming it.

Likewise, Ibn Taymiyya’s student, Muḥammad Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, says (1998, 2:721–22): “[A] claim about God’s actions, if it is not established by Him declaring it about Himself, is a claim fabricated against Him without knowledge.”

For any detail about God’s actions in the world to be obligated as doctrine, the theologian must affirm what the scriptures explicitly state, negate what the scriptures negate, and exercise theological non-commitment about anything scripture does not directly address. As a result, theological hermeneutics, which explores matters of binding religious doctrine, is the strictest hermeneutical register. It is applied to texts deemed to bequeath certainty or near certainty in the authenticity of their attribution and meaning.

Theological hermeneutics can be contrasted with two other hermeneutical registers in Sunnī Islam, the legal and exegetical registers, which allow greater latitude for interpretation (See Table 1). The legal register determines legal rulings from textual evidence. Legal hermeneutics was developed to address the wide range of practical contingencies Islamic Law must address, many of which are not resolved by direct scriptural pronouncements, and its primary purpose is to navigate uncertain evidence to derive the legal verdict that best represents the divine intent. Hermeneutical strategies outlined in the works of Islamic jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh) are used to determine appropriate legal rulings from less-than-decisive scriptural evidence. Another hermeneutical register can be discerned in the works of Qurʾān exegesis (tafsīr) and ḥadīth commentary. This register permits exploring meanings of scripture for all of its possibilities while ruling out what is determined to be false. This is why exegetical works often present multiple and even contradictory interpretations side by side.

This means that exegetes will address questions in works of exegesis, particularly about matters of the unseen and scriptural possibilities open to interpretation, that theologians do not typically address in their theological works. These exegetical explorations might suggest matters that are at variance with modern scientific conclusions, but those suggestions are not necessarily intended to be binding doctrine upon Muslims. Therefore, apparent conflict between some interpretations suggested in exegetical works should not lead us to the conclusion that Islamic theology is in tension with science or with a particular scientific claim. An example of this is the extent of Noah’s flood. This question is discussed in works of exegesis, with some exegetes suggesting it was global in scope while others argued it was regional (Jalajel 2009, 53–63). The question is not usually discussed in theological works, nor is the extent of the flood asserted in statements of creed. Those who advocate that the flood had a regional extent are neither censured nor declared wrong for doing so. The matter remains on an exegetical level and is not considered a point of doctrine.

Where theologically binding doctrine is concerned, the methodological rigor required to establish doctrine about contingent matters of the unseen mitigates the possibility of conflict with science. Theories and models posited by science to explain natural phenomena will not be read into scripture where scripture does not make clear and direct pronouncements, since theological non-commitment (tawaqquf) is maintained for all matters not explicitly, directly, and unambiguously addressed by scripture. Therefore, scripture would neither be reinterpreted to conform with science nor its apparent meanings assumed to be in conflict with science. Questions of science are simply left alone, since they are not and—considering the Qur’ān’s focus, rhetorical style, and composition—really would not be addressed in scripture with a directness of language enabling theologically binding critiques of science to be grounded in it. There is no need to harmonize scripture with science (Bigliardi 2014b, 159) or vice versa, since no disharmony is supposed. It should be obvious how this is in stark opposition to modern scientific miracle tendencies.

Miracles

Another issue relevant to science and religion that involves scripture and God’s actions is scriptural accounts of miracles. How are these understood within a Sunnī theological context? Guessoum (2015, 864) says: “Belief in miracles constitutes one of the most contentious issues in the debates on religion, science, and modernity.”

The Sunnī theological stance on miracles is closely tied in with the metaphysical commitments that inform its divine action models, namely the idea of a maximally active transcendent God and a maximally contingent created world. A miracle in Sunnī theological discourse is referred to as a “breach of [God’s] habit” (kharq ʿāda). This relates back to the metaphysical understanding that natural causes are patterns in God’s habitual actions. The Ashʿarī theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (2000, 4:27; 2015, 3:556)⁴ identifies two ways God’s breach of habit can manifest: (1) something could happen on an occasion that does not conform to the normal causal pattern, or (2) something fails to happen on the occasion when it would be expected. The Red Sea splitting on the occasion when Moses raised his staff, the birth of Jesus without a father, or Jesus’s touch being the occasion of the dead coming to life are examples of the former. Abraham being unharmed on the occasion of being placed in a bonfire is an example of the latter. Miracles might appear as uncaused events, genuine breaks in causality, as in ex nihilo appearances, or as unprecedented and customarily impossible causal sequences, which seems to be the understanding favored by Ibn Taymiyya (1995, 8:177). In all cases, God acts contrary to His habit and brings about the unexpected at the occasion where something else is expected, so miracles are cases of God acting differently than usual, not cases of His intervening in some other ongoing course of action.

This contrasts with the contextualization Guessoum (2015, 864) gives to miracles, where he defines them as: “‘[P]henomena which seem to contradict nature’s laws or course’ (something that would imply divine action or intervention), not phenomena which cannot be explained by science today.” The parenthetical insertion is telling. Phenomena that seem to contradict the laws of nature are conspicuous as cases of divine action in contrast to those that conform with natural laws, which do not imply divine action. God’s actions are understood as interventions in an otherwise ongoing and autonomous natural process.

Within the Sunnī theological tradition, miracles are not interventions. They are rather understood as instances where God, instead of directly acting according to His usual custom, acts in a non-customary manner in His direct existentiation of the world’s objects and events, manifesting a pattern in the world different from the one He normally manifests. In either case, God’s direct action is a metaphysical possibility He can enact. Miracles, however, are recognized as impossible events from the perspective of human onlookers. This is referred to in Sunnī theological discourse as “customary impossibility” (mustaḥīl ʿādatan) (al-Sanūsī 2003, 59–61). The human mind, from lived experience, is compelled to judge the norms of nature to be inviolable and exceptionless due to their unwavering consistency. This, however, is a customary or nomic judgment, not a logical judgment in the way that something simultaneously existing and not exiting would be judged to be a logically impossible contradiction in terms. In Sunnī theology, miracles are exceptions to “laws” (sunan) that are customarily exceptionless in nature but not logically exceptionless like the idea that a whole must be larger than any of its parts. This distinction between logical and nomic judgments avoids David Hume’s conundrum of exceptionless laws and miraculous exceptions (Horst 2014, 325). The laws are, in the framework of nature and human experience, exceptionless and inviolable. But as purely logical possibilities, they remain objects of God’s power. Sunnī theology, unlike Descartes, does not deem that God’s will encompasses violations of the canons of logic (Horst 2014, 324).

Miraculous and non-miraculous events are metaphysically identical; they are both manifestations of God’s direct action where He existentiates the world’s objects and events. Every action in the world belongs equally to God. The world has natural laws enabling us to practice science because God acts consistently. Humans experience the world’s material regularity, with its pleasures and pains, joys, and tragedies, because God creates those experiences for them. Guessoum (2015, 868) argues that the possibility of miracles makes “the accusations of a capricious or uncaring God (why didn’t He stop the Holocaust and other genocides?) become valid.” This, of course, is not a scientific objection to the possibility of miracles but rather one involving the problem of evil, which the Sunnī theological schools address in various ways. What is relevant to our present concerns is that Guessoum’s objection here is built upon understanding miracles as interventions in otherwise autonomous processes. From a Sunnī perspective, every physical action and outcome that occurs on Earth during a genocide, including every cessation of life, is inescapably part of God’s direct action in existentiating the physical world, with the sinfulness being restricted to the intentionality of the human participants. Al- Ṭaḥāwī famously expresses this as: “The actions of the servants are God’s creation and an acquisition of the servants” (Ibn Abī al-ʿIzz 2003, 2:662). Human sin is not an active force in the world but merely a description of the human actor’s choice to disobey God or act unjustly. The evil of the act is an attribute of the actor’s intention. The physical act itself is, by contrast, none other than the very act God chooses to existentiate in the world by His wisdom. There is no occasion for intervention and no need for any miracles to prevent an unwanted outcome. Everything in the world, without exception, is God’s direct action. Nothing is a result of His inaction.

An important question to investigate is the Sunnī perspective on the purpose of miracles. According to Sunnī divine action models, God can manifest any effect in the world at any time and in any way He pleases. He can, therefore, bring about whatever He wishes without contravening His habits. This means miracles are not conceived as means for God to bring about His will in the world, change the course of events, or achieve some worldly object that He could not otherwise realize. God does not need miracles to affect His will in the world, since He does not have to act in any particular way to bring about any particular consequences. Therefore, miracles are never invoked to explain natural phenomena, no matter how complex they are, as if they could not have come about in a non-miraculous manner.

What, then, do Sunnī theologians understand the function of miracles to be? Miracles are seen to have various expressive, communicative functions and for this reason, both al-Māturīdī (2006, 2:49) and Ibn Taymiyya (2000, 2:793) refer to them as signs (āyāt). Their important communicative functions are: (1) challenge (muʿjizah) as proof of a prophet’s claim to prophethood; (2) prelude (irhāṣ̣) to foreshadow a prophet’s future prophethood; (3) graciousness (karāmah) to honor a righteous person; (4) succor (maʿūnah) to show support to a common believer; and (5) disgrace (ihānah) to shame someone or discredit their claim to prophethood (al-Bayjūrī 1983, 133). As with speech acts, these different expressive functions are dependent on the context in which they are manifested (al-Rāzī 1987, 8:61; 2015, 3:551–53). Miracles depend on our ability to distinguish the customarily possible from the customarily impossible. This requires an otherwise causally consistent world.

Miracles must be extremely rare or they would lose their expressive power. If miracles were common enough to become part of human experience, even on isolated occasions, they would be regarded as a normal part of the world’s functioning instead of manifesting the customarily impossible (al-Rāzī 2000, 4:27; 2015, 3:556). For people to genuinely regard them as impossible—scientifically impossible in today’s parlance—the overwhelming majority of people must never experience them. Human experience, in other words, must render them conceptually impossible within the world of experience, framing a phenomenal epistemological grounding for judging them to be impossible. For the few people who do experience them, they are unrepeatable, so they could never be subjected to sustained empirical scrutiny. This is why Sunnī theologians do not see belief in such miracles as undermining the world’s causal consistency. Miracles depend on an absolute causally consistent world, and, in the effectiveness of their expressive power, they validate that consistency. A universe without consistent and invariant natural laws, whose invariability provides an epistemological basis for determining what can and cannot happen, would undermine the meaning of miracles.

This theological stance of restricting miracles to extremely rare expressive events addresses the concerns of those who argue that the acceptance of supernatural miracles is in irreconcilable conflict with the acceptance of the scientific worldview and the viable practice of science as a field. The concern they have is that any acceptance of the possibility that God could or would create any object or event in nature contrary to natural law fundamentally undermines the epistemological grounding of science. Clayton (2008, 178) says that “merely knowing that a system could at any instant begin acting in a manner completely inconsistent with natural law because of a divine intervention would be enough, I fear, to undercut the practice of science.” The concern here is that if a miracle can occur, it would become impossible for an observer, observing what is presumed to be a natural phenomenon, to know in any instance whether God is performing a miracle.

This is not a problem from the standpoint of classical Sunnī theology, which holds that God’s will is for miracles to take place only in very unambiguous and narrow contexts against a backdrop of His habit of universal causal uniformity. Though it is within God’s power to act contrary to His habitual pattern of natural laws, Sunnī theologians insist that it is never His will to do so arbitrarily. Apart from those particular and unambiguous expressive contexts, the observer will be certain that what they observe in nature has a natural cause for it provided by God’s habitual action and is not a habit-breaking miracle. We have already discussed how al-Ghazālī (1998, 4:379) describes any expectation of a miracle on a person’s part to be “madness.” Consequently, miracles are never assumed to be the explanation for any natural phenomenon. Likewise, they are not to be invoked as an explanation for any peculiar firsthand experience, no matter how inexplicable it seems, in the absence of those very restricted contexts where their expressive functions are discerned, or indeed, as in the case of prophetic challenges, explicitly declared as such. Al-Rāzī (2000, 21:170) invokes Mary’s incredulous reaction in Qur’ān 3:43 and Qur’ān 19:20 to hearing she was going to have a child as proof of this principle, saying:

She only expressed surprise at the glad tidings that Gabriel gave her, because she knew that the norm is that bearing a child does not come about except with a man’s participation. Norms are what people of knowledge take into consideration in matters, even when they concede that other things are possible by God’s power.

For anyone other than eyewitnesses to the event, only scripture can confirm a miracle, and here it becomes a lesson and a test of faith for those hearing or reading the scripture. Indeed, belief in these miracles is seen in the tradition as a trial of faith, as the epithet of “al-Ṣiddīq” was given to Abū Bakr because he did not hesitate to believe when the Prophet told his followers about his miraculous night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem (al-Bayhaqī 1988, 2:361), and this is precisely because of the difficulty of such ready belief in the face of something customarily impossible.

The assumption of causal uniformity is what is needed for a meaningful practice of science. Most significantly, the Sunnī theological approach to the possibility and occurrence of miracles is consistent with methodological naturalism, since supernatural entities are never appealed to in explaining natural phenomena. Miracles are never provided as rival explanations to naturalistic models or as arguments that certain complex entities in nature cannot have natural explanations. On the other hand, a scientific mindset is needed to identify that something is a miracle, since a person must be able to judge the event to be scientifically impossible. When a miracle occurs, the “law” claim with respect to nature remains valid and inviolable; its violation remains nomically impossible, but the impossible has happened, and it is the recognition of this that signals a communicative expression from God. Sunnī theologians embrace this judgment since it is precisely this scientific—or customary—impossibility that gives miracles their expressiveness. This, of course, means a rejection of metaphysical naturalism, since it acknowledges that supernatural events can occur and that God can do the impossible as long as the impossibility is customary in its nature and not an explicit logical contradiction like a square circle. Miracles are the purely logically possible exceptions to customarily exceptionless natural laws, and this customary judgment of the human mind is the epistemological grounding that requires human beings to adopt an assumption of methodological naturalism for all their engagements with the natural world.

Guessoum seems to acknowledge this distinction between accepting something as an object of God’s power and accepting its actual occurrence as an object of His will when He says:

But because He is omnipotent it does not mean that He is just going to violate His own laws. So I am not saying that God cannot, I am saying that God put together the laws so that things function in an orderly manner. Otherwise, what is the point of putting together laws, and then doing whatever one wants every now and then? (Bigliardi 2014b, 175).

Methodological naturalism requires negating the expectation of supernatural occurrences, but it does not deny the logical possibility that God has the power to enact them. Once this distinction is made, the absence of supernatural occurrences is effectively indistinguishable from a situation where they occur only for specific, narrow, and unambiguous communicative purposes. In both scenarios, an observer studying nature will categorically rule out supernatural explanations in normal circumstances, assuming even the most inexplicable phenomena have natural causes. This ensures methodological naturalism remains intact.

However, the idea that God will not act otherwise because it would mean His breaking His own laws would be rejected by Sunnī theologians. In their divine action models, God enacts a causally coherent world because He wants it so. For Ashʿarīs, who stress God’s volition, it is simply because that is God’s will, and He has made this known to us. Māturīdīs stress God’s wisdom and argue that a wise God would only want to create a coherent, rationally discernible world. Salafīs, who emphasize God’s perfection, say that a perfect being would not want things to be otherwise (see Jalajel 2022, 7–9). In the end, however, it is God’s wish to act habitually in His creation so that the world is coherent and not a case of His upholding laws for Himself as He expects us to be law abiding as well.

All of that aside, what is being argued for here is that religious believers who adhere to the Sunnī theological doctrine on miracles will have a no-conflict stance towards all aspects of science in its methods (as long as they are deemed ethical), epistemological grounding, claims, and theoretical models. Their commitment to miracles will not result in their objecting to the principle of methodological naturalism or to any scientific claim. We are not arguing that all scientifically minded people will find their stance on miracles agreeable. If those who embrace this Sunnī theological doctrine are challenged, for instance, that Abraham’s unprotected skin being left unharmed by the fire is scientifically impossible, they will wholeheartedly agree that it is. If they are told that science indicates certain things about exothermic chemical reactions, they will argue that they have no problem with this because the miracle is not meant to explain anything about the natural world. In the following section, the example of Adam’s miraculous creation and the question of human evolution is discussed as a case in point. This is a no-conflict stance, and it is significant because it entails a complete absence of any objection to science within a strict, traditional theological framework, even for questions like human evolution, without any reinterpretation of texts or adjustments of doctrine or accommodations of any kind. It is the default stance engendered by the theological framework.

Human Evolution: A Case Study

The theory of evolution provides a natural causal account of the development and proliferation of the various species on Earth. Human evolution is the application of the evolutionary model to account for the genus Homo and the species Homo sapiens and all aspects of that species’ genetic, physical, and mental traits. It proposes that modern humans evolved from preexisting species with common descent going back to the earliest life forms. This is an issue where Muslim engagement has taken place with various degrees of rigor, with a wide array of opinions on display, even within a Sunnī context (Elshakry 2011; Shavit 2015; Malik and Kulieva 2020). The value of the theological turn is to take a step back and examine the theological tradition’s broad metaphysical framework and methodological approaches to determine the effect this could have on the question.

Biological evolution in general, and human evolution in particular, falls squarely within the realm of logical possibility with respect to Sunnī metaphysics. Sunnī divine action models fully accommodate them as patterns God could manifest in the world as His creative act. Claiming human evolution is metaphysically impossible could be seen as tantamount to unbelief since it implies a negation of God’s power. It would imply that God cannot manifest that particular causal pattern in the world. Within a Sunnī framework, it is not a question of God using evolution as a “means” to create certain living things. The idea of God using means to bring about His creations would be contrary to Sunnī understandings of God’s action. Instead, it is a simple question of God choosing to manifest one pattern in the world over time instead of another.

As for the requirements of scripture, Sunnī doctrine derives the following from what it determines to be direct and explicit pronouncements: (1) Adam and Eve were created without parents, and (2) all people on Earth are their direct descendants. This much is clear from Sunnī discussions on the matter. However, a claim that human evolution is theologically false is implicitly a claim that God never created extremely similar biological entities before Adam. To assert such a doctrinal position would require scripture to clearly and directly establish that biologically human entities did not evolve on Earth before Adam’s appearance. In the absence of any explicit pronouncements to that effect, a stance of theological non-commitment would be required on the matter. Likewise, to negate the common descent of today’s humans from earlier biological ancestors, it would be required to determine that Adam’s immediate descendants did not intermarry with preexisting entities. Since scripture explicitly requires only that all people on Earth today are descended from Adam and Eve, it does not rule out the possibility of intermarriage where such descent is maintained. Consequently, the story of Adam’s miraculous creation without parents does not provide a rival explanation to the scientific account of human biological origins. That is what is at stake. Guessoum (2012, 303) observes:

Adam is the central issue for Muslims with regard to evolution—at least nowadays. Contemporary religious scholars find it so impossible to conceive a pre-Adam species or even a possible multiplicity of Adams and lineages that have ended up disappearing (like Neanderthals, Java men etc.) that they’re willing to reject the theory of evolution wholesale for that reason.

What can be determined from a Sunnī theological perspective is that pre-Adamic species and lineages are neither metaphysically impossible nor scripturally ruled out. This is the value of the theological turn. If the methodology, metaphysical framework, and hermeneutics of classical Islamic theology are engaged, it could be determined that this issue, so central to Muslim hearts, is a non-issue. Guessoum rightly points out that the question of Adam is used to reject evolution wholesale, where the truth is, if analyzed within the rigorous framework of Sunnī theology, it is not even an obstacle for human evolution.

Of course, the creation of Adam and Eve without parents does require an acceptance of supernatural miracles (for Adam and Eve themselves), which Guessoum finds problematic, but that is a separate issue from the question of accepting human evolution as an account for the natural origins of the biological species, which could have happened separately from and prior to Adam’s appearance on Earth (Jalajel 2009, 154–55; [2019] 2021, 24–27, 30; Malik 2023c).

By engaging with the theological turn, it is possible to identify what is and is not an issue for religion and science. From the viewpoint of Sunnī theology, human evolution is not a controversial issue. This is because Sunnī metaphysical principles assert that anything, including evolution, must be within God’s power to enact. Additionally, Sunnī theology’s cautious approach to interpretation insists there is no doctrinal basis to deny evolution. An attempt to appeal to scripture to reject evolution would not be a case of prioritizing scripture over science but rather a case of deliberately interpreting scripture with the intent to instrumentalize it against science. This is because rejecting evolution would mean adding unnecessary assumptions and interpretations to the scriptures, which only offer minimal information on the origins of life. It is important to stress that this no-conflict stance is purely a consequence of Sunnī theology taken on its own terms and not a response to evolution or a maneuver to accommodate it. It is merely that the extreme hermeneutical caution of Sunnī theology has a consequence of allowing human evolution to be a matter of complete indifference. Therefore, going back to what the centuries-old theological tradition suggests through its metaphysical vision and its consequent hermeneutical methodologies allows for a more relevant engagement with what actually concerns today’s Muslims, at least those who subscribe to Sunnī models, and provides an answer that does not suggest a conflict between science and faith.

It has been argued that the idea that Adam and Eve were specially created, even if they do not serve as the biological explanation for the origins of the species Homo sapiens, is a form of creationism and that a person who believes this should be classified as a creationist (Guessoum, 2011b). This confuses a general commitment to the possibility of miracles, which Sunnī theology upholds, with a specific doctrinal commitment to oppose a scientific explanation for the origin of a species, which Sunnī theology does not require. Creationism is a rival account to a naturalistic, scientific explanation for the origin of a species, and the investigation of species origins is a question about something that takes place in the natural world. The Sunnī commitment to Adam and Eve’s miraculous creation does not oppose the scientific theory about the origins of the species Homo sapiens determined from observing the natural world. What it does entail is the belief in something scientifically impossible: the appearance of two particular, fully formed, complex living beings named Adam and Eve who have no biological progenitors, but this impossibility is also conceded by these believers in miracles. This is a separate issue from the issue of rejecting evolution as an entirely satisfactory scientific explanation for the origin of the species. The belief in Adam and Eve’s unique origins does not violate methodological naturalism, since it does not appeal to a supernatural explanation to explain any natural phenomenon. It fully accommodates the naturalistic explanation for the origins of the various human species, including Homo sapiens, and for all matters related to human physiology that are open to scientific observation and testability. It only posits a supernatural event relating to two individuals who are part of the unseen and therefore belief in whom is grounded wholly in scripture.

Interestingly, Joshua Swamidass (2019, 79–80) shares how even atheist scientists concede this point: “This finding is a secular claim about evidence, which does not require belief in a de novo created Adam and Eve to affirm. For example, several atheist scientists participated in the workshops, and all agreed there was no evidence against a couple specially created within a larger population. They agreed with this evidential conclusion even though they personally do not think Adam and Eve were real, nor do they believe that God exists.”

Adam and Eve’s miraculous creation would undermine the scientific account of human evolution if it were theologically asserted as the explanation for human biological origins (or for certain purportedly uniquely human traits like sapience) in opposition to a naturalistic scientific model. That would be a form of creationism since it negates modeling natural processes for the occurrence of a natural species or a natural biological trait by insisting on direct ex nihilo creation for the same. We have demonstrated here that such a position is scripturally not sustainable.

Conclusion

The theological turn proposed in this article may offer a refreshing perspective on the relationship between Islam and science. We argue for two claims, one general and one specific. The general claim is to recommend a theological turn in determining the relationship between science and religion within an Islamic framework. This has the potential to reveal possibilities that have so far been neglected in defining that relationship. To support this general assertion, we explored the example of classical Sunnī theology, engaging with the metaphysics and hermeneutical underpinnings of its three highly developed theological schools, the Ashʿarī, Māturīdī, and Salafī.

By doing this, we determined that Sunnī metaphysics holds all natural, material relationships between natural objects to be contingent relationships within the scope of God’s power and volition; therefore, any purely scientific claim about the natural world will, in principle, never be in metaphysical conflict with Sunnī theology. This metaphysical orientation of maximal divine activity and maximal worldly contingency leads, in turn, to a particularly cautious approach to scriptural hermeneutics. When scripture is engaged to derive theologically binding assertions about contingent matters of creation, the epistemic bar is so high that it nearly precludes the possibility of conflict between scriptural assertions and scientific claims about the natural world. However, we also identified that the same metaphysical orientation results in a firm commitment to the possibility of isolated miraculous happenings that, by definition, go against scientific norms. However, those miracles are understood to serve rare expressive functions and are not seen as interventions in the world or as rival explanations for natural phenomena. Therefore, they will never be invoked to negate or supplant scientific explanations or theories about any aspect of the natural world. This leads to our specific claim: that the framework of classical Sunnī theology provides, or is very likely to provide, a no-conflict stance with respect to the reception of science in general, its assumption of methodological naturalism, and the various assertions scientific theories make about the natural world.

This no-conflict stance allows for the harmonious coexistence of scientific inquiry and religious faith. Rooted in the belief in a transcendent, maximally active God and a maximally contingent world, this stance suggests that the natural sciences, as understood and practiced today, can be pursued without the need for reconciliation with religious doctrine.

One of the key strengths of this result is its resilience to changes in scientific theories or knowledge. By focusing on the empirical investigation of natural relationships, science remains inherently compatible with religious beliefs, regardless of advancements in scientific understanding. Moreover, the no-conflict stance encourages scientific exploration without imposing religious biases or restrictions, fostering an environment where scientists are free to follow science-based inquiries (Malik and Muhtaroglu 2022). Furthermore, this stance empowers believers to resist attempts by ontological naturalists and materialist atheists to instrumentalize science for their own agendas. By recognizing the boundaries between scientific inquiry and religious doctrine, the no-conflict stance ensures that Islamic law and ethics guide the application of science without dictating claims about the physical reality of the world. The no-conflict stance should not be confused with a stance of independence for each field, because the full scientific freedom it affords scientists is determined by Sunnī metaphysical commitments, nor is it one of integration, because each field remains intact and with its own methods and domain of inquiry.

The theological turn, in the case of classical Sunnī theology, reveals that a conflict and reconciliation narrative should not be assumed as the only outcome for science and the Islamic tradition, showing the value of this approach. It also opens up many avenues for further research. For instance, it must be acknowledged that people who profess to be Sunnī Muslims may have other influences on their thoughts, whether philosophical, mystical, cultural, or political, that could lead them to conclusions in conflict with scientific claims. It is clear that many members of the Muslim public who identify with traditional Sunnī Islam have problems with science or with some of its theories. These influences can also lead them to approaches that are in conflict with Sunnī theological commitments, like the “Islamization of the sciences” efforts that conflict with Sunnī metaphysical and epistemological assumptions, and “Qur’ānic miracle” tendencies that violate the principles of Sunnī theological hermeneutics. The theological explorations we have done are of value since they can assist in pinpointing the actual drivers or motivators for these movements and for other prevailing tensions with science and particular scientific theories. This prevents drawing a hasty conclusion that tensions with science within traditionally minded Sunnī communities stem from their traditional theological commitments.

Likewise, our work encourages similar efforts to be made for other theological frameworks, like the various classical Shiʿī traditions, as well as certain important “late tradition” syntheses of much later post-classical historical periods that incorporate Neoplatonic, Aristotelian, and Akbarian thought with Sunnī and Shiʿī theology. Employing a theological turn within these frameworks may lead to different outcomes than the ones we have determined here for classical Sunnī theology. Also, our no-conflict conclusion could be challenged by convincingly demonstrating, using classical Sunnī theological sources, that the application of Sunnī metaphysics and theological hermeneutics is likely to result in claims that conflict with the modern practice of science in general or with some of its particular theories.

In essence, the stance suggested in this article offers a promising path forward, promoting dialogue, understanding, and mutual respect between these two domains. By embracing Islam’s longstanding theological traditions, we can navigate complex questions with nuance and wisdom, ultimately enriching our scientific endeavors and religious faith.