Relationship between religion and science in Muslim modernism

This paper aims to analyse modernist exegetes Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898) and Muhammad ‘Abduh’s (d. 1905) approaches to Islam and science, and ideas of Said Nursi (1877–1960), an influential modern Muslim scholar, on the relationship between religion and science. This paper argues that while these scholars have a number of similarities, Khan and ‘Abduh represent a modernist and reformist approach to Islam, and their approaches exceed beyond the scope of mainstream Sunni understanding of Islam. Nursi represents more traditional approach, and he can be situated at the middle way between classical and modern approaches.