Re: Root cause of Muslim decline in science
For the better part of the last century, and to date, the active opposition to science has not really materialized among religious circles. Yes, there are ideas that do mix religion and science, often at the expense of the latter. I mean, it's exhausting to explain the folly of trying to investigate the usage of Djinn as a power source. That mindset is out there. Yes 'Islamic Science' is something that needs to be killed in the most brutal fashion there is for an idea, save for the bit of the moral consequences of how we conduct science, and for what purpose (no Chimera please...thanks). But it runs parallel to those want to conduct real science. They will not find anything blocking them except...well, a place to learn and contribute.
To make a long story short: first, science doesn't flourish without patronage. Institutions, such as Universities, need endowments and funding. This either comes from business or government. Lay-persons, in particular religious ones, for the most part have no say or influence on this. The second part is a community of scientists that carry forward a body of work. Neither have established themselves in the Muslim world in the post-colonial era. The fault is ours as a whole, but I don't think it's because of religious sentiment. One looks at the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide, and you'll see a lot of academics there...working abroad to be sure.
So, to make science flourish in Muslim lands, we need to make it a viable career choice. That means funding, that means importing qualified professionals to bootstrap our own local talent, and supporting them with the resources and facilities they need. Second, we may need to start with replicating, then innovating technologies. It`s a nice place to work our way backwards to science.
But prior to that, we really need to realize that we truly are crippled as a people without it. This is not an option. We will be basket cases...relying on the charity of those who we internally regard as our enemies for our survival.
If there is anyone left that thinks science is useless philosophizing, then they must make a strong intellectual case for an abandonment of all technologies that Muslims lust over, from hardened Jihadists, to introspective Sufi mystics. Science *produced *the crop of technologies we so love, and make great use of. In any case, I think this is universally recognized, and contemporary scholarship is more concerned about usages of technologies. So forget this rubbish about Imam Ghazali.