Setting the Record Straight: The Miracle of Islamic Science

[Perseveranze]

This appears to be all taken from progressive.muslim.org but this was written about a 100 years ago. But if it is true that Islam's influence is traceable everywhere then we have to take the bad and the good - however, it is one of those saying that is impossible to prove rather like the saying "every one knows" but like all universals it is disproved by one case and we might cite anything from the invention of the Yoyo to democracy. What is it about Muslims that they crave supremacy in everything but give credit to nothing else? The comment about the Greeks is plainly and totally untrue and one is amazed that anyone would say such nonsense let alone believe it. If one reads on in the quote we find Mohammed being described as a dictator - is that how Muslims see him?

Asalaamu Alaikum,

Are you finding it difficult to accept this? It's not suprising, alot of modern day people in the west don't even know this stuff. Would you like me to try and find you more quotes from well known Intellects?

It must be owned that all the knowledge whether of Physics, Astronomy, Philosophy or Mathematics, which flourished in Europe from the 10th century was originally derived from the Arabian schools, and the Spanish Saracen may be looked upon as the father of European philosophy. [John Davenport]

Here is something more modern for you;

I kindly suggest you research this thoroughly, without somehow comming to the most misunderstood of conclusions. Research on how quick of an advancement the Muslims made, so big that it took the world by storm.

What inspired the Muslims wasn't the Greeks, it was the Quran, almost every single piece of work they did they had some kind of Quranic verse attatched to it. Although I'm not discrediting the Greeks here, I'm just stating that the level of advancement that came through in this period of time was revolutionary to not just the Arabs but the whole world, one which alot of modern day Science would derive from.

The power that created in Muslims a ravenous appetite for knowledge sprung from the Qur’an. [Rev. B. Margoliouth]

 

[M.I.A.]

Asalaamu Alaikum,

Are you finding it difficult to accept this? It's not suprising, alot of modern day people in the west don't even know this stuff. Would you like me to try and find you more quotes from well known Intellects?

Here is something more modern for you;

I kindly suggest you research this thoroughly, without somehow comming to the most misunderstood of conclusions.

Bottom fact is, what Inspired the Muslims wasn't the Greeks, it was the Quran, almost every single piece of work they did they had some kind of Quranic verse attatched to it.

The power that created in Muslims a ravenous appetite for knowledge sprung from the Qur’an. [Rev. B. Margoliouth]

i dont like the symbol on the ambulance lol

iv seen snakes on pharmacy bags aswell.. im sure its all well and good but the paranoia kreeps in insidiously.

 

[Hugo]

Are you finding it difficult to accept this? It's not suprising, alot of modern day people in the west don't even know this stuff. Would you like me to try and find you more quotes from well known Intellects?

Yes please do

It must be owned that all the knowledge whether of Physics, Astronomy, Philosophy or Mathematics, which flourished in Europe from the 10th century was originally derived from the Arabian schools, and the Spanish Saracen may be looked upon as the father of European philosophy.[John Davenport]

I think you have to show this to be true - ALL is a very large body of knowledge and also at the same time forget that the Muslim scholars did not start from scratch but built on the work of others. If we consider the famous translation movement and its huge and impressive importance in the development of philology, philosophy and science in Baghdad between roughly the 9th and 10th centuries then you have to remember that scholars of all sorts were there and they did not translate just the odd book but (because the conquered empire was large and the Califs could afford it) but went off and translated whole libraries. You also must be aware that many of the most famous scholars were not Muslim at all, for instance Hunayn (Christian) and Qusta ibn-Luqa (polytheist) and the doyen of the Abbassid translation movement, Al Kindi was not a translator himself but was the head of a major translation circle. One also has to note that many of the towering Islamic figures were Ismaili. Nevertheless it was a fantastic period to get so much knowledge into a single language, incidentally it is said that a good translator could earn the equivalent of £24,000 a month at this time. Sadly, Muslim did not adopt the printing press until long after Europe and so huge numbers of Arabic text were been translated in to Latin because Arabic itself had become too complicated to see in movable type.

If one considers Ibn Sīnā who wrote it is said 450 works (about half are now lost) though perhaps his most famous were The Book of Healing, a vast encyclopaedia and The Canon of Medicine, which was a standard medical text at many medieval universities until about 1650. The Canon of Medicine provides a complete system of medicine according to the principles of Galen and Hippocrates who were Greeks. One also has to recognise how often people like Ibn Sina were in trouble with shall we call it Islamic Orthodoxy and Ibn Rushd who in my view was one of the greatest thinkers of his age was made to sit outside the Mosque in Cordoba so the 'faithful' could spit on him.

Perhaps you would like to explain how all this flowering of knowledge came to and end? Or give praise to Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Turing, Dirac, Berners-Lee etc who brought us the modern world and ushered in a staggering acceleration of knowledge never before see in human history? You see people like the above as well as Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina understood that science belongs to no one and applies to every one no matter what they believe - can you acknowledge this? I suggest you look beyond the Islamic world and research there also and get away once and for all from the mistaken belief that all knowledge does not emanate from Islam.

What inspired the Muslims wasn't the Greeks, it was the Quran, almost every single piece of work they did they had some kind of Quranic verse attatched to it. Although I'm not discrediting the Greeks here, I'm just stating that the level of advancement that came through in this period of time was revolutionary to not just the Arabs but the whole world, one which alot of modern day Science would derive from.

What made it possible was conquered nations and the wealth that came from them and the sheer difficulty of running such huge empires. You should also note that most of the great Islamic scientist were in effect private employees of the califs, no oner else had the money and science costs al lot - even then support was often short lived, for example, observatories were created but the longest time any one of the existed was 30 years. But all this fell apart with internal and external rivalries with several simultaneous caliphates being created and inevitably the arrival of those who had 'pure' Islam and as I have already said persecution followed because the whole point of being a scientist is to ask questions however unpalatable they may seem

 

[Perseveranze]

Watch this;

So what happened to the once glorious scientific legacy of Islam and Arabia? Experts cite many things

Universities were an Islamic invention later adopted in Europe, but Muslim universities did not shelter and preserve scientific knowledge during wars and other upheavals. Christian warriors carved up the Islamic empire and cut off contact between great scientific centers. Here in Spain, the Catholic reconquest of Ferdinand and Isabella deprived Islamic science of the great libraries and schools in Cordoba, Seville and Toledo. Conflicts also cut off science's lifeblood -- cash for research and education. And the Ottomans, who took over much of the Islamic world in the early 1500s, used their resources to make war, not science.

It's a shame, Christianity went away from their religion and advanced, when Muslims went away from their religion they went backwards.

Perhaps you would like to explain how all this flowering of knowledge came to and end? Or give praise to Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Turing, Dirac, Berners-Lee etc who brought us the modern world and ushered in a staggering acceleration of knowledge never before see in human history? You see people like the above as well as Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina understood that science belongs to no one and applies to every one no matter what they believe - can you acknowledge this? I suggest you look beyond the Islamic world and research there also and get away once and for all from the mistaken belief that all knowledge does not emanate from Islam.

Watch the video above (and I've already stated above why the Muslims degraded). My point is pretty simple, in a span of 23 Years, Arabia went from a bandit' desert to a real unified civilization, filled with inspiration to do many things; one of which was clearly to seek knowledge (as many Hadiths and Quranic reverences point out to). From the death of the Prophet(pbuh), civilization took from that insipiration and continue'd to ascend at a rapidly increasing rate. This kind of revolution has never happened before, the likes of Einstine as you mentioned were born into an already developing world and through the ages such Great Scientists occurred, more naturally rather than spontaneously. Give me any other book apart from the Quran, any greek book or anything that stemmed their people to deeply think, observe and most importantly have hunger to seek great knowledge.

My arguement stands clear that if it wasn't for this sudden burst of inspiration, which has never till this day taken place before, Science would still be developing at it's natural pace as it has been since the Europeans took over. What the Greeks could not do (due to that 3rd or X factor that the Muslims had), was done in a matter of a few centuries through Quranic inspirations and the hunger to seek greater knowledge. Discoveries were made upon Knowledge and Spirituality.

Something happened in 23 years that sparked a revolution off that would change the world in many ways, whether you want to accept it or not (clearly you don't want to, since every expert Quote I give, you have a better opinion and a strange interpretation too), Islamic Science had it's part to share in that revolution and this is not a mistaken belief, it's your misconception due to several possible reasons. Things like Computers changed the world, Nuclear weapons changed the world, they'll all get their credits for it though, Muslims however won't.

And finally, unless you want to keep going back and forth in an endless arguement (unless you have a change of thought), I recommend we drop it.

The Prophet said: Let people stop boasting about their ancestors. One is only a pious believer or a miserable sinner. All men are sons of Adam, and Adam came from dust .

 

[Hugo]

There is no real shortage of books on this subject and the ones of most recent date are as follows. If I were to advise I would start with Masood’s book (linked to the TV series shown in many clips here) as it can easily be read in an afternoon. After that I think Al-Khalili’s (the TV series presenter) book is very readable and since he is a distinguished scientist, humanistic and atheist so in my view he brings a much needed clarity and depth to the actual science involved without any religious bias. But you must read more than one book to get a comprehensive picture and don't rely on carefully selected abstracts from web sites or YouTube if you really want to know and understand this history. Unfortunately, some of these books are expensive but use Amazon or abebooks.com to find second hand copies easily.

Saliba, G, (2007), Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, MIT Press, ISBN 978-0262516150
Lyons, J, (2010), The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, ISBN: 978-1408801215
Masood, E, (2009), Science and Islam: A History, Icon Books Ltd, ISBN: 978-1848310810
Morgan, M, (2008), Lost History: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers and Artists, NGS, ISBN: 978-1426202803
Al-Khalili, J, (2010), Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science, Allen Lane, ISBN: 978-1846141614
Turner, H, (1997), Science in Medieval Islam: An Illustrated Introduction, University of Texas Press, ISBN: 978-0292781498
Freely, J, (2010), Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe through the Islamic World, Vintage Books USA, ISBN: 978-0307277831
Al-Hassani, S.T.S, (2007), 1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in Our World, FSTC, ISBN: 978-0955242618
Karabell, Z (2007), People of the Book: The Forgotten History of Islam and the West, John Murray, ISBN: 978-0719567551​

Obviously I have not read all these books (just 3) but they are written by all kinds of authors from professional scientists and historians to journalists so you are bound to find inaccuracies or errors. For example, a common complaint about many of these books relates to the ethnicity and cultural background of the ancient scientists discussed and often they are all lumped together as ‘Arab’ because they wrote in Arabic giving readers the false impression those scientists such as Khwarizmi, Tusi, ibn-Sina and al-Razi were all Arabs when in fact they were Persian. Similarly we find other famous names such as Hunyan ibn Ishaq, Yahya ibn abi Mansur, Jibril ibn Bakhtyashu and Ibn Massawayh were Christians. Likewise Sahl al-Tabari, Ishaq ibn Amran, Mashaallah and Maimonides were Jewish.

Of course we cannot hope to understand the context of science at that time if we ignore the influence of Islam for Arabic science was inextricably linked to religion driven by a need to understand the Qu’ran plus the fact that the empire was large and made up of conquered nations so the income was immense so big science could and was funded (you cannot run an observatory for 30 years for peanuts). One final point is that politics in Baghdad during the early Abbasid rule was dominated by Islamic rationalists, known as the Mu’tazilites, who sought to combine faith and reason and this (unlike much of today’s Islamic world) led to a spirit of tolerance in which scientific enquiry of all kinds was encouraged - indeed it was said in the learned salons of Baghdad that you could say anything as long as it was well argued.

Some books don’t quite explain how science was transmitted and absorbed. For example, Ptolemy’s famous book ‘Almagest’ was translated into Arabic (3 versions) and his Planetary Hypothesis had a dramatic impact and shaped the course of Islamic Astronomy and so began a great sky watch and some Islamic Astronomers collected data for over 40 years. From this data they knew that Ptolemy’s model was wrong because any calculations using it had to be updated every few years but no one could figure out why although the famous Tusi couple idea helped simplify and modify the model but its was always fatally flawed. It was not so much that no one had ever thought of a heliocentric model (a number of Islamic astronomers and others did) but no one could figure out, explain, how such a model would work and that had to wait until Copernicus. Even then there was opposition from the Church and his new and correct model initially gave worse results than Tusi's updated model but eventually it was refined and recognised by all as correct.

Jim Kaklili said "It is rather sad that around the world today to non-Muslims the term Islam, [not without reason], evokes a negative stereotype that contrasts with our Western secular, tolerant and enlightened society. This lazy view can make it difficult to acknowledge that a thousand years ago the roles were reversed where it was understood that progress, through reason and rationality, is by definition a good thing; knowledge and enlightenment are always better than ignorance." In the same way Muslims can take a lazy view that everything Western is bad and instead of trusting in a shared humanity take a supremacist view and bask in the glories of the past whilst forgetting what other have done. For my part it does not concern me whether a particular area of science was developed by Greeks, Christians, Muslims or Jews because for me there is just science (there is only one Ohms law or Archimedes Principle etc) and I take the view that if God created the Universe and its laws there is no real difference in principle perhaps between someone claiming moral revelations and those who discover scientific ones as they all ultimately must come from God.

 

[جوري]

d since he is a distinguished scientist and humanistic atheist he brings a much needed clarity to the actual science involved without any religious bias

:lol: I must admit that is refreshing and says a mouthful!
like the other idiot who brings an apostate with a 4th grade education in Islam and presents him as a 'Muslim scholar' and you wonder why you have no credibility around here?

Here is an advise that you can surely use.. Try books taught in academia! try a little solid history, try Museums and travel before you peddle around braying donkeys who echo your hatred and share your views with no scholastic aptitude whatsoever!

You can't strike a tent and pass around snake oil as a miracle cure anymore in the face of conventional modern medicine. And The same can't be done of history!

Take a hike you hateful jealous ignoramus!

all the best

 

[Hugo]

I just want to add one final note for the moment to my posting number 25 by sharing some of Professor Al-Khalili's thoughts with you.

In today's world the comfortable compatibility between science and religion during the Abassid period contrasts starkly with the tensions between science and the many different faiths around the world today - one only has to think of IVF, weapons research, artificial life to see this and these tension are not good for openness.

What we saw way back in about 800AD was that in contrast to the Greek philosophers abstract notions, scientists in Baghdad became grounded in something very close to the modern scientific method with its reliance on empirical evidence, experimentation and testability. This does not mean they were 'better' than the Greeks but they did move science a very big step forward. One might say that these scientists in Baghdad were able to disentangle science from religion and so we have the saying "the Qu'ran (or Bible or whatever) tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go".

It is common in books to refer to all this as 'Arabic science' because the language was Arabic so its an easy and convenient term. But scholars came to Baghdad from all over the place (Iran, Spain, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan etc) in much the same way that scholars are drawn to Oxford or Cambridge or MIT today because that is where the best science is, the best people are, the money to make it all work and the open and free environment for the exchange of ideas. We don't talk about Latin Science or English Science but as long as one understand the term "Arabic Science" to mean science recorded in Arabic in the Abassid (mostly) period then nothing can be really misunderstood. The only caution here is that these great men are known in the literature by Persian names, Arab names and Latin names so its often hard to know where they came from but that should not stop us looking in wonder at what they managed to achieve.

One final word about the start of the wonderful flowering of science some 1200 years ago is worth saying. In 768 AD Abu Ja'far Abdullah al-Ma'mun (son of the very famous Harun al-Rashid) was born and he was to become the most famous ruler of Baghdad. He was half Arab, half Persian but he is central to the story of Arabic Science for he without doubt became the greatest patron of science in the cavalcade of Islamic rulers and the person responsible for initiating the world's most impressive period of scholarship and learning since Greek times. A time that was not to be repeated until the modern era beginning in the late 17 century and up until now.

Al-Ma'mun was not the only caliph to support scholarship and science, but he was certainly the most cultured, passionate and enthusiastic. He created, and this is absolutely crucial, an environment that encouraged original thinking and free debate like no other Islamic ruler before or since so scholars from everywhere flocked to Baghdad.

 

[IsamBitar]

Great stuff. I'm not trying to troll here, this is a genuine question: do you have credible references for that? Because I didn't find any on the citation you provided.

 

[sis muslimah]

jazakallahu khair for posting this :thumbs_up, its annoying that your not taught this stuff in schools i knew about some of them but like discovery of pendulums and the first flying machine an most of the other stuff i had no idea about subhanallah

 

[umairlooms]

do we need to feed ourselves with history to know what we are capable of?
to tell you the truth, i dont believe we are capable of anything
that is basically our problem
faith in ourselves, rather than trust in Allah
There is no power and strength other than him. remember that and we got it made.