This is my review of Hawking’s writings and his self as a scientist cum storyteller.
Just in case if you think I’m a radical Islamist and talking all this because of my grudge for the writer, my journey is based on the impartial research & analysis of both sides – Religion & Science. I’m a Muslim turned Atheist (then) turned Muslim – A reason why I can perform a better comparative analysis of both domains. I solemnly said that I found this writer and his “Literature” totally absurd and misleading.
I started reading Stephen Hawking and then Richard Dawkins when I was in my early 20’s. Hawking is more towards atheism than a science, a pro atheist rather than a good scientist. He felt like it’s mandatory to become an atheist before becoming a scientist.
His writings based on pushing an idea of creator free universe, mostly based on unanswered queries, questioning the authority of the creator, and gamboling the debate in-between by deliberately creating a paradoxical situation for a reader.
His masterpiece A Brief History of Time is very informative as it covers the evolution of Astrophysics and the Theories within. But in his book, The Grand Design he left the ground after mentioning a need for a grand theory of Universe that can explain the context of all frames of references in an absolute scene.
As far as the questions related to the phenomenons of nature, he simply put the burden on forces of nature without mentioning the origin of these forces, (in a so-called Creator free Universe) a problem science still fails to deal with.
As far as Islam is concerned, the teachings of the Quran always sustain the established principles of science, not the feeble hypothesis of self-proclaimed liberal writers. Hawking’s merchant of doubt is to play a game with the mind of a reader by portraying his Hypothesis as a Theory.
Actual science is far more difficult and different than what Hawking portrayed in his writings without any patronage of the mathematical or statistical model of his comical claims.
What does the Quran say about Science and the Creation of the Universe? I will cover it in my next article.
May Allah SWT guide us towards the right path!