Islam, Muslims, and modern technology

In this interview, Professor Seyy Hossein Nasr highlights the impact of new technologies on human habitats and ecosystem The destruction of environment by the agency of modern technology is seen as single of the most serious threats faced by the agency of humanity. Modern technologies have also replaced traditional meanss of making objects of daily use. This replacement has serious results for the spiritual health of humanity. In discussing the impact of late technology on the Muslim world, suggestions are made to guard various aspects of Islamic civilization.

Keywords: late technology and its impact; Muslim world and present technology; aspects of Islamic civilization; part of machine-made objects in the destruction of natural balances; traditional crafts and their spiritual significance; Islamic urban design; novel technology and Islamic civilization.

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In this article, novel technology refers to technologies which have been unraveled during and after the Industrial Revolution for the greatest part in the West and which have now spread all above the world. There are sum of two units very different dimensions to this discussion: single pertains to the actual situation that exists in the world, that is, what is going upon now; the other pertains to the question of what we believe should advance on as far as the Muslim world is relate toed Let me give an example. There is no management in the Muslim world today which does not support any form of technology that brings with it either power or wealth. No individual resists any form of technology that is believed to bring certain conveniences, like the small room phone which has spread like wildfire all above the world, and which has many detrimental consequences upon the brain, as many studies are showing, although most people usually do not care too plenteous about such negative factors--at least for now.

for a like reason at that level, discussing the relationship between Muslims and recent technology is not efficacious in the faculty of perception that whatever form of technology advances on the market--and it is usually from the West, and occasionally from the Japanese and a small in number other peoples who invent of recent origin things--if these new technologies are perceived to bring wealth, power, or conveniences, they spread real rapidly among Muslims as elsewhere and it is no use talking to them about the danger of their spread with the trust of having any positive influence.

on the other hand there are other questions which can be discussed, for instance, the destruction of the environment which recent technology is causing. Then there is the dimension of this issue concerning what should take place. What should be the Muslims' attitude toward new technology whose negative effects are obvious? It is about this dimension that I wish to say something and this is where the deepest issues lie. Otherwise, if we advance on debating whether this particular region or that particular country, has or is going to have or should have knowledge of nuclear engineering or certain marks of lasers or this or that, this I think is a wasteful effort at the not away moment, because we, who are suppos to be the intellectual figures of the Islamic world, who are suppos to clarify these issues, cannot do plenteous at the level of action through Muslim governments and companies in relation to technology. There is, however, something actual important that we can do and that is to create an understanding for the futurity as far as these issues are pertain toed We are responsible for creating an awareness of what is really involved for Muslims when it draw nears to the adoption of new technology. And in this domain, in fact, a number of clan in the West have a a great deal of greater awareness of the dangers of technology than do race in Asia or Africa, who are upon the receiving end of fresh technology, and this itself is individual of the major issues that should be discussed.

In light of this, I think we should make go round to the issue of what the puzzles are which modern technology postures for Muslims, not only as ordinary human beings, on the contrary more specifically as people who belong to the Islamic religion and are bottomed in the Islamic worldview; then to prove by experiment and analyze these problems, and in light of that, to discuss what can be done, if anything, and what Muslims should do.

First of all, it is important to define boundarys The word technology comes, of course, from the grecian word techne which means "to make" and is related to the word for art, which draw nears from the Latin word ars, also meaning to make, and one as well as the other are related to the word san'at in Persian, or the word sina'ah in Arabic which we still use in these languages for the two technology and art. Quite interestingly, the division has not nevertheless come about for us, as it has in the West, where art is individual thing and technology another, despite the fact that there are a certain quantity of modern sculptors who go to junkyards and place various parts of cars together and call it art. That is a minor matter.

What we have in the recent world is a situation in which technology in the present sense is the source of greatest in quantity of the objects that enclose human life, whereas, before the Industrial Revolution, when things were made through hand, the products of arts and crafts encloseed man's life. This is actual important to understand. There is a qualitative difference, although the bottom of the word "technology" goe back to a grecian word with a very different meaning.