This article deals with the reconciliation of modern science with Islam in 19th century India. This is done through a comparative study of two well known intellectuals and reformers: Syed Ahmad Khan and Jamaluddin Afghani. Both believed that science had been central to early Islam from the 8th to the 13th or 14th centuries, but that the situation had since then reversed. While no attempt is made to go into the early period, it never theless provides an important backdrop. Syed Ahmad was a reconstructionist who tried to reinterpret the Quran to assimilate modern scientific knowledge. Afghani, on the other hand, was a pragmatist. Though he stood for the cultivation of modern sciences, he did not approve of the aping of the West. Afghani stayed in India for three years, and had serious differences with Syed Ahmad Khan on the modus operandi of reconciling science with Islam. He denounced the ulema for the strange divide they had created between Muslim science and European science. This discussion may have a bearing on current attempts to provide religion or ethnicity to modern science.
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