Muzaffar Iqbal مظفر اقبال | |
|---|---|
 Iqbal in 2013 | |
| Born | 1954 (age 69–70) |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Citizenship | Canada |
| Known for | Islam and science, Qur'anic studies and Islam and the West |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of the Punjab University of Saskatchewan |
| Influences | Seyyed Hossein Nasr[1] |
Muzaffar Iqbāl (Punjabi/Urdu: مظفر اقبال; born December 3, 1954, in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan) is a Pakistani-Canadian Islamic scholar and author.
Currently, Dr. Iqbal is the President of Center for Islamic Sciences, Canada. Between 1992-1996, Iqbal worked as Director (Scientific Information) COMSTECH, the Ministerial Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation of the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation). From 1996-1998, he served as Director (Scientific Cooperation) of Pakistan Academy of Sciences. Between 1999 and 2002, he was the Director of Science and Religion course program of the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences (CTNS), Berkeley, a research center of the Graduate Theological Union. In 2000, Dr. Iqbal established the Center for Islam and Science,[2] Alberta, Canada, (renamed Center for Islamic Sciences in 2013). In 2009, he initiated a project to produce the first English language encyclopedia of the Qur'an exclusively based on primary Islamic sources, The Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qur'an (IEQ). The first volume was published in 2013; in 2020, the project was reconfigured to become an online encyclopedia. Iqbal is editor of a journal of Islamic perspectives on science and civilization, Islamic sciences (formerly, Islam & Science).[3]
Iqbal's published works are on Islam, Sufism, Muslims and their relationship with modernity.
Iqbal appeared on PBS's Ask the Experts in 2003, discussing "Can We Believe in Both Science and Religion?"[4] In another show in 2003, he joined a panel to discuss "Can Religion Withstand Technology?"[5]
In an article on Islamic science, the New York Times quoted Iqbal as explaining that modern science did not claim to address the purpose of life, whereas in the Islamic intellectual tradition, the question of purpose was integral to the quest for knowledge.[6]
Iqbal was one of the experts called on by the Physics and Cosmology Group of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, alongside scientists including Andrei Linde of Stanford University, John Polkinghorne of Cambridge University, Paul Davies of Macquarie University and Charles Townes of the University of California, Berkeley.[7] Between 1996 and 2003, the group conducted an intensive public dialogue on science and spirituality.[8]
Roxanne D. Marcotte, reviewing Iqbal's Islam and Science, published in 2002, wrote that it "presents an articulate and concise historical introduction to intellectual developments that have shaped Islamic civilization, both religious and scientific."[9]
The first volume of the Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qur'an has been described by Andrew Rippin as "sumptuous and carefully produced," "an impressive beginning", and "a considerable contribution to the study of the Qur'an".[10]
Iqbal has written, edited, and translated twenty-three books. He is the General Editor of the Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qur’an, the first English-language reference work on the Qur’an exclusively based on fourteen centuries of Muslim scholarship. He is also the Series Editor for Ashgate's Islam and Science: Historic and Contemporary Perspectives, a four-volume edited work that brings together the most important and influential articles on various aspects of the relationship between Islam and science from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. He has authored twenty-one books and over one hundred articles covering three broad areas within the framework of Muslim encounter with modernity: the impact of this encounter on Muslim understanding of their own spiritual and intellectual traditions, the role of modern science and technology in the reshaping of the Muslim Ummah, and Qur’anic studies, including Western academic studies on the Qur’an. His books and articles have been translated into Persian, Bahasa Indonesia, Albanian, and Korean.
