The religious state of Islamic science

http://www.salon.com/2007/08/13/taner_edis/
" in Europe, you had a three-way interplay between science, orthodox religion and more occult religious alternatives. You could have interesting alliances. These end up being separated through historical accident — I don’t see anything special about Western Christianity that sets it apart from Islam — and they go their separate ways. This type of separation never really happened in the Muslim Middle East."

"In the Western world, the institution of law achieved a kind of autonomy from religion early on. Some historians argue that this was really a precursor to science achieving autonomy as well. In the Muslim world, law was never entirely disentangled from religion. Islamic culture has not been as supportive of intellectual independence for different areas of life."

"This is a dilemma for many people in the Muslim world who are thinking about science and religion. On the one hand, there is a desire to catch up, especially in the technological realm which underpins the military and commercial superiority of the Western world. On the other hand, there is a desire to adopt modern science in such a way that local religious culture is not corrupted. So yes, they are very concerned not to go down the Western path. You can find many Muslim thinkers who say that Western Christians made a mistake by allowing science to operate independently of religious constraints. However, that is the way modern science has achieved the success it has. So it’s hard to negotiate between these options."