An account of science and religion in Islam must examine the attitudes of the faith of Islam towards science, as well as the scientific enterprise in Islamic civilization. The first aspect assumes that the perspective of religious thinkers and religious institutions play a determinative role in science through their coercive power or influential authority. The second aspect tempers and even challenges this assumption, for it investigates actual factors that facilitate or hinder scientific practice during particular historical periods and examines how and why particular social and political contexts promote or inhibit science.

These two aspects illustrate the complexity surrounding the term Islam. Primarily, Islam denotes a faith with particular beliefs, practices, and institutions within its historical and contemporary diversity of expressions. Beyond faith, Islam denotes an empire and then a series of...