"We find the same phenomena in some forms of contemporary Islam: hundreds of books by scientists "demonstrate" how the latest scientific advances confirm the insights and injunctions of the Koran- the divine prohibition of incest is confirmed by recent genetic knowledge about the defective children born of incestuous copulation, and so on and so forth. (Some even go so far as to claim that what the Koran offers as an article of faith to be accepted because of its divine origin is not finally demonstrated as scientific truth, thereby reducing the Koran itself to an inferior mythic version of what has acquired its appropriate formulation in contemporary science.)" In Defense of Lost Causes
I have personally seen this taken to such an extreme that scientific expertise is called on to result disputes in the fiqh (Islamic law) of prayer. It was recently argued that the sunnah of doing prostration directly on the earth instead of a rug is confirmed by the fact that the discharge of static electricity between the earth and forehead changes the mental state of the prayer, conferring feelings of peace and contentment.
A little bit later, Zizek observes that "the true danger of fundamentalism does not reside in the fact that it poses a threat to secular scientific knowledge, but in the fact that it poses a threat to authentic belief itself." Fundamentalism squeezes out of existence any space for enlightened belief, a belief that is not founded on certainty but instead on existential choice as to the constellation of values that will be affirmed.
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