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" Following the ascendancy of the conservative Sunni Caliph al-Mutawakkil, whom Syed Ameer Ali describes as a 'cruel drunken sot in league with the qazis and mullahs,' the physical extermination of Mu'tazilites, together with Shias, began in earnest. They were removed from all governmental positions, accused of heresy, subjected to torture, and summarily executed. Scholars and scientists, most of whom subscribed to rationalist beliefs, fled Baghdad for other parts of the Islamic world. Thus ended the most serious attempt to combine reason with revelation in Islam. Apart from various isolated efforts by individua119th century Muslim reformers, the separation between the religious and secular has been complete in Islam ever since. "
― Pervez Hoodbhoy , Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality
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" About 700 years ago, Islamic civilization almost completely lost the will and ability to do science. Since that time, apart from attempts during the Ottoman period and in Mohammed Ali's Egypt, there have been no significant efforts at recovery. Many Muslims acknowledge, and express profound regret at, this fact. Indeed, this is the major preoccupation of the modernist faction in Islam. But most traditionalists feel no regret - in fact, many welcome this loss because, in their view, keeping a distance from science helps preserve Islam from corrupting, secular influences. "
― Pervez Hoodbhoy , Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality
