Summary:

Sociological studies of Islam and science are limited in number and scope, with existing studies reinforcing a “deficit model approach” that shows religion as an obstacle to public understanding and acceptance of science (Carlisle et al. 2019 p. 150, Jones et al. 2023). This project locates the study of Islam within the growing field of the sociological study of science and religion, aiming to diversify the field further by exploring how scientific rationalism and belief may coexist (Catto et al. 2019). The study of Islam and science presents an important site for exploring alternative pathways of modernity and “enchanted moderns” (Deeb 2006) that defies the simple equation of modernity with non-religious rationalism. Building on a key development in Anglo-American sociological studies of religion and science that turns to study how people come to relate to science in personally meaningful ways (Evans 2021, Ecklund 2021, Jones et al. 2020, Sharp et al. 2022), this project explores how “everyday” Muslims navigate modern science in a Western Muslim-minority context. Taking the context of Southeast Queensland, Australia, a region with a vibrant Muslim population and Australia’s largest Muslim school, this study will interview 25 participants to understand how they encounter issues related to science and technology on a day to day basis and it will enquire into how they narrate their own engagements with science and Islam. Its outputs include two peer-reviewed journal articles, one reporting on themes from the interviews and the second offering a conceptual intervention to the study of Islam, science and society focusing on people’s lived experiences of Islam and science. The outcomes include diversifying the sociology of science and religion by advancing the empirical foundation into Islam and science while expanding the geographical scope of this research to Australia, outside the current Anglo-American basis to much of this research. The research will also provide methodological and theoretical advances in considering frameworks around “lived religion”, moral and ethical assemblages (assemblage theory), and value complexity that will help to move the field beyond science/secularity and religion/anti-science positions and contribute to a more nuanced public debate about science and religion.