COVID-19, Pandemics and Reconciling Religious Faith With Science

Unlike the advocates of science-centrism, accommodationists do not believe in ideological scientism or the uncritical application of science to all human situations, including those that are not amenable to the scientific method. Instead, accommodationists would argue that the vaccines that will cure diseases like the novel coronavirus will come from scientists, but that the scientific knowledge needed for that invention is based on God’s design. God’s omnipotence is a part of the equation—the reason why, for example, Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica failed to account for why the planets tugging at each other’s orbits have not made the solar system collapse into the sun.

To accommodationists, religion is important, not an airy-fairy form of metaphysical speculation or magical thinking. Both religion and science are founded on a belief in the existence of something outside the universe. For religion, it is an undefinable God. For science, it is a set of puzzling physical laws. With or without pandemics, science and religion speak to different realms of human experience, and the two fields of inquiry should be made to complement each other. Accommodationists insist that during crisis moments like the current COVID-19 pandemic, scientists should lead with research and innovation while the believers should pray to God to bestow scientists with the knowledge to produce the needed vaccines.

How would the people who believe there can be synergy between faith and science convince the faith-centric clerics to change their position? How can the actions and verbal pronouncements of the faith-centric clerics be carefully challenged before they develop into threats to public health? These are some of the questions religious clerics and scientists have had to grapple with since the outbreak of COVID-19. Religious clerics within the Islamic tradition initiated dialogue by looking to centuries-old Muslim texts and unearthing religious precepts that helped to clarify the dogmatic cul-de-sacs of their colleagues. For instance, Nigeria’s minister of communication and digital economy Shaykh Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, the imam of Abuja National Mosque Shaykh Dr. Ibrahim Ahmad Maqari, Grand Mufti of Nigeria Shaykh Ibrahim Salih al-Husseini, Director of the Centre for Islamic Civilization and Interfaith Dialogue Bayero University Kano, Shaykh (Dr.) Bashir Aliyu Umar, Imam of Dorayi Mosque, Shaykh (Dr.) Muhammad Sani Umar Rijiyar Lemo and others have cited a plethora of religious texts and examples from the historiography of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be Upon Him) to justify coronavirus responses and mandates. Such as the total lockdown of mosques, social distancing, the necessity of protecting life according to the second principle of maqāṣid al-sharīʿa, relying on prayers, asking for God’s mercy and forgiveness, and most importantly, the need for religious scholars to rely on sound medical advice before issuing religious pronouncements.