Subject: Heaven Only Knows What Comes Next In Pakistani Science
Date: Published: 9/13/88 158 lines
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    Heaven Only Knows
    What Comes Next
    In Pakistani Science
    ---
    Mix of Research and Religion
    Yields Some Revelations
    On AIDS, Bees and Water
    ----  
    By Mary Williams Walsh
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Mighty strange things are being
 palmed off as science in Pakistan these days.
    Consider the First International Conference on Scientific
 Miracles of the Koran and Sunnah, inaugurated here last fall
 by the late President Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq.  Scholars read
 papers on:  
 -- "The Chemical Composition of Milk in Relation to Verse
 66 of Surah Al-Nahl" (a chapter of the Koran).
 -- "The World of Bees and the Holy Koran Miracle."
 -- "Lessons from the Teachings of the Prophet Mohammad
 (Peace Be Upon Him) in the Prevention of Parasitic Diseases."
 -- "The New Disease 'AIDS' in the Light of Koran and
 Sunnah" (The Sunnah is a document detailing Islamic customs
 based on the Prophet Mohammad's words and deeds).
    "One scheduled discussion was titled, most intriguingly,
 'Panel Discussion on Things Known Only to Allah,' " says
 Pakistani physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy, who attended the
 conference and came away perplexed.  "It remains a bit of a
 mystery to me as to how the participants could have discussed
 matters about which, by definition, they can know absolutely
 nothing."
    Science in Pakistan is a peculiar blend of high tech and
 high faith.  Pakistanis, of course, aren't alone in believing
 science can't answer all questions.  In parts of the U. S., the
 Biblical account of creation is taught along with the theory
 of evolution.  In the White House, Nancy Reagan has her
 astrologer.
    But Pakistan is a developing country where to put mystical
 explanations ahead of bricks-and-mortar development is to put
 the cart before the water buffalo.  The last census showed
 that only 31% of the population has access to electricity.
 Only 35% have potable water.
    While experts say Pakistan is a screwdriver-turn away from
 completing a nuclear bomb, three out of four citizens are
 still illiterate.  And even college graduates aren't
 necessarily educated.  A recent government study found one
 agriculture honors student who couldn't define "soil," and
 another who said Aristotle was "the Father of Botany."  In the
 city of Gujran wala, mullahs not long ago condemned all local
 Moslems who dared believe Americans had walked on the moon.
    In light of all this, you might expect the government here
 to pour millions into science.  But Pakistan is a poor
 country, so President Zia tried other tactics.
    Whenever there is a crisis in the country, the government
 goes for another dose of Islamization, says political
 scientist Mohammed Waseem of Quaid-i-Azam University here.
 "Then every Islamic careerist starts hoping he will get the
 patronage of the government."
    Thus, a new "Islamic anthropology" has been penned.
 Chemistry texts now reveal that "H2 + O, by the grace of God,
 = water."  And at conferences, academics try valiantly to
 harmonize space-age discoveries with the 1,400-year-old
 Koran.
    "It became a racket," says Pakistani journalist Rahimullah
 Yusafzai.  "Every Tom, Dick and Harry started organizing
 conferences on Islamization.  This is the Zia-ul-Haq legacy."
    At a conference on Science and Islamic policy, a delegate
 provided a complex formula for calculating the amount of
 merit one can achieve by praying:  It is, he said, a function
 of the number of other people praying nearby at the same
 time.
    Pakistani scientific meetings have yielded a mathematical
 model for calculating the degree of hypocrisy of various
 nations; a theory that heaven is rushing away from the earth
 at exactly one centimeter per second less than the speed of
 light; and the claim that heaven is a black hole.  (That last
 argument conflicts with yet another Pakistani engineer's
 treatise on hell as a black hole.)  
    It was beneath the soaring white minarets of the national
 mosque, at International Islamic University, that the
 conference on scientific miracles was convened.  Women aren't
 allowed into the university, even if they mask themselves in
 billowing veils -- indeed, female illiteracy in Pakistan is
 84%.  But a male secretary in the dean's office is willing to
 sneak a female visitor into an antechamber and bring her
 copies of the conference proceedings.
    "The ideal way of prevention from AIDS is in following
 Islamic instructions, and supporting the real Islamic
 society," delegate Muhammad Mahmud Abu Al-Ola Musa told
 conferees.  He read out accusations that AIDS researchers were
 perpetrating "the deceit of Western civilization" by trying
 to trace the disease's origins to Africa.  The real key to the
 origin of AIDS lies in the Koran, he said, quoting a verse
 that goes like this:  "Once adultery appears in a nation and
 acquires a mass nature, these people will be punished by
 plagues and pains that had no place among their
 predecessors."  (Some American fundamentalists, too, believe
 AIDS is God's punishment for deviant sexual behavior.)  
    Abdul Munim Mohammad Al Hafny discussed bees' tendency to
 fly in beelines.  "That shows that the bees' behavior is by
 intuition and guidance from Almighty God, the Creator of the
 universe and whoever is in it," he concluded.
    An aviation-medicine consultant opened his paper on "Man
 in the High Altitudes" with an "Ayat," or verse from the
 Koran:  
    Those to whom God (in His plan)
    Willeth to guide -- He openeth
    Their breast to Islam;
    Those whom He willeth
    To leave straying -- He maketh
    Their breast close and constricted,
    As if they had to climb
    Up to the skies.
    He then delivered a treatise on hypoxia and decompression
 sickness, noting that at 16,000 to 20,000 feet, people "feel
 extreme fatigue, a great desire to sleep, severe headache,
 difficulty in breathing and chest pain, exactly as stated by
 the Ayat."
    An Egyptian engineer established that when the Koran
 mentions "roofs of silver," it is talking about rooftop solar
 heaters.
    Across town in a quiet neighborhood, S. Bashir-ud-Din
 Mahmood, director of the Holy Koran Research Foundation, has
 become a sort of eminence grise of the Islamic science
 movement in Pakistan.  By day, Mr. Mahmood, a nuclear
 engineer, designs leak-detection systems for nuclear plants.
 By night, he concocts Islamic theories.
    Those who dare criticize such attempts, say that in 1983,
 Mr. Mahmood turned up at an Islamic science conference and
 read a paper saying that djinns -- Koranic creatures made of
 fire -- could be harnessed to solve energy shortages.  Mr. 
 Mahmood denies that he said it.  "Absolute nonsense," he
 insists during a chat.
    What, then, did he say?  
    Choosing his words carefully, Mr. Mahmood explains that
 djinns are made out of energy, and that King Solomon figured
 out how to put them to work for him.
    "I think that if we develop our souls, we can develop
 communication with them," he says.
    Mr. Mahmood isn't surprised that some people frown on his
 Islamic cause.  "Every new idea has its opponents," he says.
 "But there is no reason for this controversy over Islam and
 science, because there is no conflict between Islam and
 science."
    As one speaker said in an address at the
 scientific-miracles conference:  "If there is a contradiction
 between a definitive (Koranic) text and conjectural science,
 then the scientific theory is refuted."

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