Should religious scholars also have scientific knowledge?

Yes. Those who teach the faith should also know the basics of the natural sciences and the main schools of thought, because the laws of nature are God’s work and do not contradict His word.

God created the laws of nature. Whoever discovers them is reading His work. That is why there is something true in the thought that a researcher is, in a certain sense, also a scholar. The first verse above explicitly links the study of nature with the fear of God.

A good religious scholar does not need to be a physicist as well. But he should know what science says about the world. He should know the names and main ideas of important thinkers, from the West as well as from the East. Only then can he understand the questions that move people today and answer them credibly. So the basics of the natural sciences and an introduction to philosophy belong in every good training of scholars.

It also helps when scholars come from every walk of life and from very different educational backgrounds. Some have studied natural sciences beforehand, others business or languages. Such a body of scholars reflects society and brings its knowledge with it. The higher the general education of the believers, the higher the knowledge of their scholars will be.

Where scholars despise or ignore science, they harm faith. They make claims that any schoolchild can refute, and they make religion look ridiculous. Islam has no need of that. God’s word and God’s work agree, and anyone who knows both can show it.