Short answer
No. A "god of the gaps" is a god brought in to explain only what science cannot yet explain. Islam never needed one. The Qur'an names natural means, the causes through which things happen: winds raise the clouds, and with the rain God (﷾) brings out the crops. It names God as the Maker of the means and of what they bring about. So each cause science finds shows the ways He has set in creation, and costs Islam nothing. The case for God (﷾) does not sit in a gap either. Everything we see depends on something else, and a chain of such things cannot explain why it exists. That needs something that depends on nothing. No discovery about how things work removes that need. Science traces how one thing leads to another. Islam's answer to why anything exists is Allah (﷾), who needs nothing, while all things need Him.
Full explanation
What a god of the gaps is
A god of the gaps is a god brought in only where science has no explanation yet. As science grows, such a god shrinks. Isaac Newton, who held that God (﷾) is present everywhere in nature, also gave a famous example. He argued that blind fate could not set all the planets moving one way, and that the system would one day need setting right. Later, the French astronomer Laplace asked whether that order came from the laws of motion. He wrote that appeals to God's (﷾) purposes keep being pushed back to the edge of knowledge. In 1894 the Christian writer Henry Drummond warned believers against hunting for gaps to fill with God (﷾). A god kept for the gaps, he said, is absent everywhere else.
Newton argues that blind fate could never make all the planets move the same way in near-circular orbits. He holds that this order is the work of an intelligent Agent. He adds that small irregularities may grow until the system needs to be set right again. In the same Query he calls God a powerful, ever-living Agent who is present in all places.
Laplace quotes Newton's claim that the order of the planets cannot come from mechanical causes and must be the work of an intelligent Being, and that it will one day need to be set right by its Author. He asks whether this order may itself be an effect of the laws of motion. He asks whether the supreme intelligence Newton calls in may have made it depend on a more general cause, and proposes a spread-out cloud of matter. He writes that final causes have been pushed back again and again to the edge of what people know. In Newton's own time, he notes, such causes were placed in the air to explain meteors. To the philosopher, he says, they express only our ignorance of the true causes.
A Scottish Christian writer and teacher of natural science warns against believers who search science for gaps to fill with God. He asks where believers will be when those gaps are filled. He adds that a God who appears only at special moments is absent the rest of the time.
The Qur'an names the means
The Qur'an does not offer God (﷾) as a stand-in for causes no one has found. It names the causes and God (﷾) together. In 30:48 God (﷾) sends the winds, and the winds raise the clouds, until rain falls from them. In 7:57 the winds carry heavy clouds, rain falls on dead land, and God (﷾) brings out every kind of harvest with it. In 2:22 He brings out fruits with the rain. The rain is the means, and God (﷾) is named as its Maker. So learning how wind, cloud and rain work does not remove God (﷾) from the account.
“It is Allah Who sends the Winds, and they raise the Clouds: then does He spread them in the sky as He wills, and break them into fragments, until thou seest rain-drops issue from the midst thereof: then when He has made them reach such of his servants as He wills behold, they do rejoice!-”
“It is He Who sendeth the winds like heralds of glad tidings, going before His mercy: when they have carried the heavy-laden clouds, We drive them to a land that is dead, make rain to descend thereon, and produce every kind of harvest therewith: thus shall We raise up the dead: perchance ye may remember.”
“Who has made the earth your couch, and the heavens your canopy; and sent down rain from the heavens; and brought forth therewith Fruits for your sustenance; then set not up rivals unto Allah when ye know (the truth).”
Cures and eclipses
The Prophet (ﷺ) told people to seek treatment. He said that God (﷾) sent down no disease without also sending down its cure. He also said that when the right remedy reaches the disease, the patient recovers by Allah's (﷾) permission. So the remedy works, and the healing is still from God (﷾). On the day his son Ibrahim died, the sun was eclipsed, and people linked the two. The Prophet (ﷺ) rejected that. He said the sun and moon are not eclipsed for anyone's death or birth.
Usama ibn Sharik reports that desert Arabs asked the Prophet (ﷺ) whether they should seek medical treatment. He told them to seek treatment, for God has not made any disease without making a remedy for it, except one: old age.
Abu Hurayra reports that the Prophet (ﷺ) said God has not sent down any disease without also sending down its cure.
Jabir reports that the Prophet (ﷺ) said there is a remedy for every disease. When the right remedy reaches the disease, the sick person recovers by the permission of Allah.
Al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba reports that the sun eclipsed on the day the Prophet's (ﷺ) son Ibrahim died, and people said it had eclipsed because of Ibrahim's death. The Prophet said that the sun and the moon do not eclipse for the death or the birth of anyone, and told them to pray and call on Allah when they see an eclipse.
A Muslim scholar on the astronomers
About 1095, the Muslim scholar al-Ghazali wrote against the philosophers of his day. Yet he set out their account of eclipses without objection. In a lunar eclipse the earth's shadow falls on the moon. In a solar eclipse the moon comes between the sun and the observer. He said that whoever thinks it a religious duty to deny such proven things wrongs religion and weakens it. He added that the Prophet's (ﷺ) words on eclipses do not contradict the astronomers.
In the second preface of The Incoherence of the Philosophers, al-Ghazali sets out the astronomers' account of eclipses. A lunar eclipse is the earth's shadow falling on the moon, and a solar eclipse is the moon passing between the sun and the observer. He says he will not dispute it, because it does not conflict with religion and rests on proof. Whoever thinks it a religious duty to deny such things wrongs religion and weakens it. He adds that the Prophet's (ﷺ) words on eclipses do not contradict the astronomers. They only deny any link with a person's death and command prayer.
Al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba reports that the sun eclipsed on the day the Prophet's (ﷺ) son Ibrahim died, and people said it had eclipsed because of Ibrahim's death. The Prophet said that the sun and the moon do not eclipse for the death or the birth of anyone, and told them to pray and call on Allah when they see an eclipse.
The case for God (﷾) does not sit in a gap
The argument for God (﷾) starts from what we know, not from what we do not. Everything we see depends on something else to exist right now. A plant lives only while water, light and air sustain it. The sun shines only while its fuel and its gravity hold. Science traces these links, and it does so well. But each link it finds is another thing that depends. This is not about what came first. Even an endless chain of such things would not explain why there is any chain at all. Only something that depends on nothing can explain that. The more science explains, the more of the chain it shows. It never reaches a link that explains why the whole chain exists. The page on who created God (﷾) sets out this argument.
Divides all that exists into what is only possible in itself (mumkin al-wujud), which needs a cause, and what is necessary in itself (wajib al-wujud), which needs none. Argues that a chain of possible things, however long, needs a necessary being outside it, and that this being is one and has no parts.
Argues that the sufficient reason for the whole series of contingent things must lie outside that series, in a necessary substance, which Leibniz calls God.
“O ye men! It is ye that have need of Allah: but Allah is the One Free of all wants, worthy of all praise.”
The beginning is support, not the foundation
In 1929 Edwin Hubble reported that distant galaxies are moving away from us. That became the evidence for an expanding universe. Many take this as a sign that the universe had a beginning. Some physicists propose models with no first moment, such as the no-boundary proposal of Hartle and Hawking. The argument from dependence holds either way. A universe with no first moment would still be made of parts that depend. So a beginning supports the case, but the case does not rest on it.
Reports that the farther away a galaxy is, the faster it is moving away from us: the observation that became the evidence for an expanding universe.
Proposes the "no-boundary" state of the universe, a model in which time has no first edge. It is a proposal, not an established result.
Divides all that exists into what is only possible in itself (mumkin al-wujud), which needs a cause, and what is necessary in itself (wajib al-wujud), which needs none. Argues that a chain of possible things, however long, needs a necessary being outside it, and that this being is one and has no parts.
Islam's answer: study creation, and know its Maker
The Qur'an asks people to look at the camel, the sky, the mountains and the earth, and see how each was made. It praises those who think about the creation of the heavens and the earth. It teaches the Prophet (ﷺ), and through him every believer, to pray for more knowledge. So for a Muslim, each cause science finds is one more sign. Islam's answer to why anything exists is Allah (﷾), who needs nothing, while all things need Him. That answer shapes a whole way of life: worship, gratitude and conduct together.
“Do they not look at the Camels, how they are made?- And at the Sky, how it is raised high?- And at the Mountains, how they are fixed firm?- And at the Earth, how it is spread out?”
“Behold! in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day,- there are indeed Signs for men of understanding,- Men who celebrate the praises of Allah, standing, sitting, and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the (wonders of) creation in the heavens and the earth, (With the thought): "Our Lord! not for naught Hast Thou created (all) this! Glory to Thee! Give us salvation from the penalty of the Fire.”
“High above all is Allah, the King, the Truth! Be not in haste with the Qur'an before its revelation to thee is completed, but say, "O my Lord! advance me in knowledge."”
“O ye men! It is ye that have need of Allah: but Allah is the One Free of all wants, worthy of all praise.”
Reply by reply
Laplace, Exposition du système du monde (1835), Book V, ch. 6
Laplace quotes Newton's claim that the order of the planets cannot come from mechanical causes and must be the work of an intelligent Being, and that it will one day need to be set right by its Author. He asks whether this order may itself be an effect of the laws of motion. He asks whether the supreme intelligence Newton calls in may have made it depend on a more general cause, and proposes a spread-out cloud of matter. He writes that final causes have been pushed back again and again to the edge of what people know. In Newton's own time, he notes, such causes were placed in the air to explain meteors. To the philosopher, he says, they express only our ignorance of the true causes.
Cited for
Every god people used to explain storms and the sky has been replaced by a natural cause. Yours is next.
The response
That is true of a god used in place of causes. The Qur'an names the wind, the cloud and the rain, and names God as their Maker. The Prophet (ﷺ) rejected the eclipse superstition and sent people to look for cures.
Where it lands — Finding a cause removes a god used in place of causes, not the Maker of the causes.
Laplace, Exposition du système du monde (1835), Book V, ch. 6
Laplace quotes Newton's claim that the order of the planets cannot come from mechanical causes and must be the work of an intelligent Being, and that it will one day need to be set right by its Author. He asks whether this order may itself be an effect of the laws of motion. He asks whether the supreme intelligence Newton calls in may have made it depend on a more general cause, and proposes a spread-out cloud of matter. He writes that final causes have been pushed back again and again to the edge of what people know. In Newton's own time, he notes, such causes were placed in the air to explain meteors. To the philosopher, he says, they express only our ignorance of the true causes.
Cited for
Science keeps explaining what was once a mystery. In the end nothing will be left for God to do.
The response
Science explains one dependent thing by another. However long the chain, each link still depends. Even an endless chain does not explain why there is any chain at all. That needs something that depends on nothing. The page on why there is something rather than nothing takes this further.
Where it lands — More explanation makes the chain longer. It does not make the chain explain itself.
David Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779), Part IX
In Part IX, Hume's character Cleanthes answers the argument for a necessary Being. In an endless chain, he says, each part is caused by the one before it. Joining the parts into a whole is only an act of the mind. If the cause of each of twenty particles of matter is shown, it is unreasonable to ask next for the cause of the whole twenty. Explaining the parts explains the whole.
Cited for
Explain each thing by the one before it, and you have explained the whole. Or the universe is simply there, with no reason. Your "why" is just the last gap.
The response
Explaining each link by another tells us how each came about, given the others. It does not tell us why there are any links at all. Hume's twenty particles are explained by causes outside the twenty. A chain of all dependent things has nothing dependent outside it to explain it. Calling the universe a brute fact does not answer the question. We ask why of every part, so stopping at the whole is a choice, not a finding. Nor can more data fill this gap, since any new data would be more of the chain.
Where it lands — A brute fact ends the question without answering it. Something that depends on nothing answers it.
Laplace, Exposition du système du monde (1835), Book V, ch. 6
Laplace quotes Newton's claim that the order of the planets cannot come from mechanical causes and must be the work of an intelligent Being, and that it will one day need to be set right by its Author. He asks whether this order may itself be an effect of the laws of motion. He asks whether the supreme intelligence Newton calls in may have made it depend on a more general cause, and proposes a spread-out cloud of matter. He writes that final causes have been pushed back again and again to the edge of what people know. In Newton's own time, he notes, such causes were placed in the air to explain meteors. To the philosopher, he says, they express only our ignorance of the true causes.
Cited for
"God did it" only names our ignorance of the true causes, so it explains nothing. And if no discovery could ever count against God, the claim is empty.
The response
That test is made for theories about what we will observe next. Why anything exists at all is not that kind of question. It is answered by reasoning, step by step, and each step can be checked. The rule that only science gives knowledge is not itself a finding of science. And Islam does not say "God did it" instead of a cause. It names the cause, and then asks why there are causes at all.
Where it lands — An argument can be tested by its steps, not only by an experiment. A reader who rejects it must say which step fails.
Augustus De Morgan, A Budget of Paradoxes (1872)
The mathematician De Morgan prints a story he calls well known in Paris but never printed in full. Napoleon told Laplace that his large book on the universe never mentioned its Creator. Laplace is said to have replied that he had no need of that hypothesis. De Morgan adds that nothing in Laplace's works shows him to be an atheist.
Cited for
Laplace, the French astronomer, told Napoleon that he had no need of that hypothesis.
The response
The famous words were first printed in full by De Morgan, decades later. But the astronomer William Herschel recorded a similar exchange between the two men, which he saw in 1802. Laplace argued that a chain of natural causes would account for how the heavens were built and are kept in order. Newton had said God (﷾) must set the planets right, and Laplace's answer removed that gap. It says nothing about why there are laws and matter at all. Herschel himself wrote that joining both arguments leads to nature and nature's God (﷾).
Where it lands — Laplace's point was about how the planets came by their order and keep it, not about why anything exists.
Hartle and Hawking, Physical Review D (1983)
Proposes the "no-boundary" state of the universe, a model in which time has no first edge. It is a proposal, not an established result.
Cited for
The Big Bang may not be a real beginning. Physics may change, so your argument from a beginning is a gap argument too.
The response
The argument from dependence does not need a first moment. Even a universe with no beginning would be made of parts that depend. So it does not rest on any result in physics.
Where it lands — The case does not rest on the beginning. A beginning only adds support.
Qur'an 3:47 — Surat Al 'Imran (The Family of Imraan), verse 47
“She said: "O my Lord! How shall I have a son when no man hath touched me?" He said: "Even so: Allah createth what He willeth: When He hath decreed a plan, He but saith to it, 'Be,' and it is!”
Cited for
Your Qur'an has a son born without a father. That is God in place of causes, which is a god of the gaps.
The response
Islam holds that God (﷾) is not bound by the means He set. He can act without them, as in the signs He gave His prophets. A miracle is a rare sign that comes with a message. People knew it was a sign because they knew the usual course of things. It does not explain how nature normally works. A god of the gaps is the reverse: a stand-in for a cause no one has found yet.
Where it lands — A miracle is a sign beside a known order, not an explanation for an unknown one.
Sahih al-Bukhari 1043 — Kitab al-Kusuf (Book of Eclipses), hadith 1043
Al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba reports that the sun eclipsed on the day the Prophet's (ﷺ) son Ibrahim died, and people said it had eclipsed because of Ibrahim's death. The Prophet said that the sun and the moon do not eclipse for the death or the birth of anyone, and told them to pray and call on Allah when they see an eclipse.
Cited for
Muslims still pray at an eclipse. So they still treat a natural event as a message from God.
The response
The same hadith denies any link between an eclipse and a death. It gives no rival account of the cause. The Qur'an calls the sun and the moon signs of God (﷾). That is about what an eclipse means, not how it happens. Al-Ghazali took up this very point. He accepted the astronomers' account and saw no conflict in praying at an eclipse, just as the daily prayers are tied to the sun's movements.
Where it lands — Prayer at an eclipse is worship at a sign whose cause is known. It is not an explanation of how it happens.
Sahih al-Bukhari 3199 — Kitab Bad' al-Khalq (The Beginning of Creation), hadith 3199
Abu Dharr reports that at sunset the Prophet (ﷺ) asked him whether he knew where the sun goes, and he answered that Allah and His Messenger know best. He said: it goes until it prostrates beneath the Throne and asks permission, and permission is given. A time is coming when its prostration will not be accepted and permission will not be given. It will be told to go back the way it came, and it will rise from the place where it sets. He said this is the meaning of Qur'an 36:38.
Cited for
Your own texts tie nature to the unseen: the sun bowing beneath the Throne, stars thrown at devils. That is God in place of causes.
The response
Those texts speak of the unseen side of creation: the sun is God's (﷾) servant, and every thing glorifies Him in ways we do not understand. They are not offered as the physical mechanism, and they do not replace it. The same Qur'an names the winds, the clouds and the rain. Each of these texts is answered on its own page.
Where it lands — Islam speaks of what creation does before God (﷾) and of the means science studies. One does not cancel the other.
Qur'an 30:48 — Surat al-Rum (The Romans), verse 48
“It is Allah Who sends the Winds, and they raise the Clouds: then does He spread them in the sky as He wills, and break them into fragments, until thou seest rain-drops issue from the midst thereof: then when He has made them reach such of his servants as He wills behold, they do rejoice!-”
Cited for
If God works only through means, He does nothing the means do not do. Such a God makes no difference.
The response
The means themselves need to exist and keep working at every moment. Nothing in the chain holds itself in being. A God who acted only now and then would be absent in between. In Islam, all things need Allah (﷾) at every moment, and nothing happens except by His will.
Where it lands — The Maker of the means is needed for the means to exist at all, so He makes every difference.
Al-Ghazali, Tahafut al-Falasifa, seventeenth discussion (on causes)
Al-Ghazali argues that the link between what is taken to be a cause and its effect is not necessary in itself. When cotton burns on touching fire, observation shows only that the burning happens with the contact, not that it happens by it. The two are joined by God's decree, and God is the agent of the burning. God has given us the knowledge that He keeps to this order, though He can break it for a prophet's miracle. In a second answer, he grants that fire is created to burn any cotton it touches, and says God may give the fire or the person a new quality.
Cited for
Al-Ghazali denied that fire burns cotton. His ideas ended science in the Muslim world.
The response
Al-Ghazali did not deny that cotton burns when fire touches it. He denied that the link is necessary in itself. He held that God (﷾) creates the burning with the contact and keeps to this order. A prophet's miracle is the rare exception. A world run that way looks just like the world science studies. Astronomers in Muslim lands went on making new advances from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries.
Where it lands — Al-Ghazali named God as the Maker of the link between cause and effect. He did not deny the link, and science went on after him.
Perspectives
Atheist: God is a stopgap that science keeps replacing
People once explained lightning, disease and eclipses by gods. Science found natural causes for each one, and the gods were no longer needed. The story told of Laplace sums up this view: he had no need of that hypothesis. On this view God is a name for what we do not yet know. Each discovery leaves less room, and in time there will be none.
People once explained storms and other events in the sky by causes beyond nature. Science replaced them with natural causes.
Rebuttal
That is true of gods used in place of causes. The Qur'an names the causes and their Maker together. The Prophet (ﷺ) rejected the eclipse superstition and told people that every disease has a cure.
Science keeps closing gaps, so in time it will explain everything, and God will have no place left.
Rebuttal
Science explains one dependent thing by another, and it does that well. Even an endless chain of dependent things does not explain why there is any chain at all. So the question of why anything exists remains, however many gaps close.
Every time a natural cause and a supernatural one competed, the natural cause won, and never the reverse. So the safe bet is always on nature.
Rebuttal
That record counts against gods offered in place of causes. Islam never offered God (﷾) as a rival to the wind or the medicine, so no discovery was a loss for it. Why there are any causes at all is not one more mechanism waiting to be found.
A story told of Laplace has him tell Napoleon that he had no need of that hypothesis.
Rebuttal
Whatever his exact words, Laplace's point was about the planets. Newton had said God (﷾) must one day set them right, and Laplace argued that the laws of motion keep their order. That removes a god of the gaps, which Islam does not need, but not the question of why there are laws at all.
The Big Bang may not be a true beginning, so an argument from a beginning is a gap argument too.
Rebuttal
The argument from dependence does not need a first moment. A universe with no beginning would still be made of parts that depend. The beginning is support, not the foundation.
Saying "God did it" stops people looking for causes, so belief in God holds science back.
Rebuttal
The Prophet (ﷺ) told people to seek treatment, because God (﷾) made a remedy for every disease. Al-Ghazali said that denying proven astronomy harms religion. Naming the Maker does not stop the search for the means.
The Islamic perspective
God (﷾) is not an explanation kept for what science cannot yet explain. He is the Maker of the means and of what they bring about. The case for Him rests on dependence, which no discovery removes.
The Qur'an names natural means, such as winds that raise clouds, and rain with which God (﷾) brings out crops. It says God (﷾) is their Maker.
The Prophet (ﷺ) said every disease has a cure, and that the remedy heals by Allah's (﷾) permission.
The Prophet (ﷺ) rejected the belief that an eclipse was linked to his son's death.
Al-Ghazali accepted the astronomers' account of eclipses and said that denying such proven things weakens religion.
A chain of dependent things, however long, cannot explain why it exists. So it needs something that depends on nothing, and no discovery about how things work removes that need.
Allah (﷾) is the One who needs nothing, while all things need Him.