God, Life and the Cosmos

Here's a question that doesn't get asked often enough: What happens when Christians and Muslims sit down together to talk about science - not as a battlefield, but as common ground?

God, Life and the Cosmos is the answer.

This is the first book of its kind. Not a collection of polemics. Not a polite exercise in avoiding difficult topics. A real, rigorous, respectful conversation between leading Christian and Muslim scholars about the deepest questions science raises - and what their traditions have to say about them.

And the lineup is extraordinary.

You'll find William Chittick on the anthropocosmic vision in Islamic thought - a breathtaking essay on how traditional Islam sees the human being's place in the cosmos. Ibrahim Kalin (now a senior Turkish statesman, then a rising scholar) on the three views of science in the Islamic world. Mehdi Golshani on creation in the Islamic outlook and modern cosmology - a physicist who is also a philosopher, asking whether the Big Bang points beyond itself.

From the Christian side, Ted Peters on moving from "warfare" to "consonance" between science and faith. Philip Clayton on whether divine causes can operate in a world governed by natural laws. Nancey Murphy on what neuroscience tells us - and doesn't tell us - about human nature.

And that's just a sample. The book is structured in three parts:

Part I: Philosophical, Historical, and Methodological Issues
What is the relationship between Islam and modern science? How did classical Islamic civilization recast the Greek legacy? Can Christian approaches to science and religion inform Muslim thought? These chapters lay the groundwork.

Part II: Cosmological Issues
Where did the universe come from? Does modern cosmology leave room for a Creator? How do Islamic paradigms for understanding creation compare with Christian ones? Scholars grapple with the biggest picture of all.

Part III: Life, Consciousness, and Genetics
What does the genetics revolution mean for religious ethics? How should Islamic jurisprudence approach the body in an age of biotechnology? Can neuroscience explain away the soul? The conversation turns to the most urgent questions of our time.

What makes this book so valuable is its honesty. The contributors don't pretend that Islam and Christianity are the same. They don't paper over differences. But they also don't let differences prevent dialogue. They show that believers from different traditions can think together about the world God made - and come away with deeper understanding on both sides.

For the Pakistani reader, this book offers something rare: a chance to see how the questions you wrestle with - about science and faith, about modernity and tradition, about where we come from and where we're going - are being wrestled with by serious minds across the world. And to see that wrestling happen in the presence of the other, with respect and rigor.

Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal, the Pakistani-born editor, has spent his career building bridges between Islamic tradition and modern science. Through the Center for Islam and Science, he has fostered exactly the kind of conversation this book represents. It's fitting that a Pakistani scholar helped bring this project into being.

God, Life and the Cosmos is available now at Kitab Markaz. We deliver across Pakistan - so this pioneering conversation can reach your home.