ABSTRACT
An important response to Darwin in the Islamic world was the attempt to reconcile the Quran to modern science. In 1880 an Egyptian physician produced the first of what was to become a modern literary tradition of Quranic Scientific Interpretation. In modern times, it was an Azharite-trained shaykh from Syrian Tripoli, Husayn al-Jisr, who produced the first substantial work of Scientific Interpretation. Shaykh Husayn al-Jisr's contribution to Scientific Interpretation is dedicated to ennobling religion in the light of science, but not without emphasizing the necessity of science as something vital in itself in a thriving civilization. The reformist writer Shaykh Rashid Rida attended the school. One of the leading modernist shaykhs in Syria, abd al-Qadir Qabbani, invited Shaykh Jisr to teach in the Sultaniyya. Shaykh Jisr was aware of the tricky dilemma allegorization presented. Even Shaykh Jisr clung to tradition when confronted by modern technology.
