format_quote Originally Posted by
Keltoi
The most important contribution of Greek scientists was the beginnings of the scientific method.
Scientific method among muslim scientists originated from hadith science. Scientific method was pioneered by Muslim scientists. Robert Briffault writes in "The Making of Humanity":
The debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist in startling discoveries or revolutionary theories; science owes a great deal more to Arab culture, it owes its existence. The ancient world was, as we saw, pre- scientific. The astronomy and mathematics of the Greeks were a foreign importation never thoroughly acclimatized in Greek culture. The Greeks systematized, generalized and theorized, but the patient ways of investigation, the accumulation of positive knowledge, the minute methods of science, detailed and prolonged observation, experimental inquiry, were altogether alien to the Greek temperament. [...] What we call science arose in Europe as a result of a new spirit of inquiry, of new methods of investigation, of the method of experiment, observation, measurement, of the development of mathematics in a form unknown to the Greeks. That spirit and those methods were introduced into the European world by the Arabs."[6]
Science is the most momentous contribution of Arab civilization to the modern world, but its fruits were slow in ripening. Not until long after Moorish culture had sunk back into darkness did the giant to which it had given birth, rise in his might. It was not science only which brought Europe back to life. Other and manifold influences from the civilization of Islam communicated its first glow to European life."[75]
George Sarton wrote in the Introduction to the History of Science:
"The main, as well as the least obvious, achievement of the Middle Ages was the creation of the experimental spirit and this was primarily due to the Muslims down to the 12th century."[76]
Muhammad Iqbal wrote in The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam:
"Thus the experimental method, reason and observation introduced by the Arabs were responsible for the rapid advancement of science during the medieval times."[9]
Rosanna Gorini writes:
According to the majority of the historians al-Haytham was the pioneer of the modern scientific method. With his book he changed the meaning of the term optics and established experiments as the norm of proof in the field. His investigations are based not on abstract theories, but on experimental evidences and his experiments were systematic and repeatable."[63]
Ibn al-Haytham's scientific method was similar to the modern scientific method in that it consisted of the following procedures:
1. Observation
2. Statement of problem
3. Formulation of hypothesis
4. Testing of hypothesis using experimentation
5. Analysis of experimental results
6. Interpretation of data and formulation of conclusion
7. Publication of findings