Bridging Bioscience and Islam: Engaging Big Questions about the Human Being (Islam & Science)

This book advances scholarly discourse at the interface of Islam, biomedicine, and the human being. Most commonly, discourses between science and religion center on conflict and commensurability. As the truth claims of one domain of knowledge are measured against the claims from the other, scholars, students, and members of the interested public seek to identify areas of contention, zones of overlap, and spaces for alignment. Recent advancements in neuroscience, genetics, and exobiology have yielded new data about the human being, thus providing avenues for renewed dialogue between science and religion. This volume seizes this opportunity to address fundamental questions about the human being by bridging bioscientific and Islamic understandings. Specifically, the volume brings together scientists, theologians, and educators to tackle questions of human origin, nature/essence, capacities, fatedness, future, and uniqueness, and to reflect upon teaching at the Islam and science interface. In doing so, it offers fresh multidisciplinary discussions on epistemology, theological anthropology, moral theology, ontology, and bioethics while centering discussions on the human being.

Aasim I. Padela, MD, MSc, is a physician-scholar and internationally recognized thought and research leader at the intersection of Islam and biomedicine. A tenured Professor of Emergency Medicine, Bioethics, and the Medical Humanities at the Medical College of Wisconsin, he also founded the Initiative on Islam and Medicine, a leading nonprofit ‘think-and-do’ tank.