The golden age of Arabic science

[Uthman]

The ancient Greek and Renaissance periods are lauded in the history of science, but what about the influence of the Arabic world, writes theoretical nuclear physicist, Jim Al-Khalili:

We often forget in the West that there have been, throughout the history of human civilisation, not two but three major periods of rapid scientific progress and incredible achievements. For in between the Ancient Greeks two thousand years ago and the European Renaissance that began about 500 years ago was the golden age of Arabic science.

The period between the 8th and the 11th centuries AD (and to a lesser extent for a further two or three hundred years after) saw a flourishing of mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, medicine as well as many other fields, that was in fact crucial to the European Renaissance movement.

Note that I have carefully used the term 'Arabic' science here rather than 'Islamic' science. By Arabic I mean that which was carried out by those who used the Arabic language in their scientific writing, even though many of the greatest of them were not Arabs but Persians.

But many of the early scholars were not Muslims either. Instead, what unified Muslims, Christians and Jews, Arabs and Persians, was the Arabic language. It would remain the international language of science for 700 hundred years.

The point is that there is no such thing as 'Islamic science' or 'Muslim science', as it is often portrayed both in the West and the Muslim world today. Science cannot be characterised by the religion of those who engage in it. We are rightly critical of Nazi Germany in the 1930s for referring to Einstein¹s theory of relativity as Jewish science, although in that case it was purely to undermine the quality of the work. No one would argue with the breadth and importance of the science carried during the golden age of Arabic science. But to call it Islamic science is dangerous. There is just science (albeit carried out at the time mainly by Muslims). Of course that this golden age of science would not have taken place without Islam is a different matter and no one can argue with that.

What is important in today's world of often heightened religious and cultural tensions is that the West acknowledges its debt to the scholars of early Islam, and that Muslims around the world feel a pride in their heritage.

Jim Al-Khalili is head of the theoretical nuclear physics group in the department of physics at the University of Surrey

Source

 

[Whatsthepoint]

I like the atricle. I agree that the scientific achievements of the Arabic as well as the Indian, Chinese etc civilizations are often forgotten in light of the western civilizations.
I also like the term Arabic science.

 

[Keltoi]

Arabic and Persian scientists owed a great debt to the Greek knowledge they inherited. Europe owed Persian and Arabic scientists for protecting and documenting the works of the early Greek scientists, and of course their own discoveries as a result.

At least somebody was working with science while Europe was in the grip of religious censorship and chronic war and bloodshed.

 

[Abdu-l-Majeed]

There are a few things I don't understand: if science can be ascribed to a nation, why not to a religion? Those scientists were Muslims, and Islam did encourage them to study the world around them...

 

[Whatsthepoint]

There are a few things I don't understand: if science can be ascribed to a nation, why not to a religion? Those scientists were Muslims, and Islam did encourage them to study the world around them...

Science is rarely ascribed to a nation, it is usually ascribed to a civilization or a language. It is true though that the civilization in question is usually referred to as the Islamic civilization.
Not all scientists were Muslims as the article states.

 

[جوري]

it is ascribed to the Muslim empire.. I have posted this here, in regard to, How much error there was in Greek math that was corrected by Muslim scientests.. we are not going to change history to appease a few

http://www.islamicboard.com/health-...renaissance-science-george-saliba-others.html

 

[Keltoi]

There is a problem with stating "Greek" science in the first place, as most of the early scientific discoveries were a product of individual minds, not a unified national effort. There were mistakes by some early Greek scientists, particularly Pythagoras, but those mistakes were known to be mistakes at the time. Pythagoras kept that information to himself and those who were a part of his numerical cult.

The most important contribution of Greek scientists was the beginnings of the scientific method. The formation of hypothesis through observation of the natural world. Added to that, were the discoveries of atoms, the judging of distance by the movement of the sun, and the formation of the heliocentric worldview. Of course Plato and Aristotle would come along, with the help of the Catholic Church, and place a geocentric worldview in place and effectively ended Greek scientific freedom.

 

[Chuck]

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

 

[Keltoi]

^^^ Yes, Ibn al-Haytham was an important contributor to the modern scientific method. I was referring to the "beginnings" of the scientific method in the ancient world. Science was in its infancy during the days of the early Greeks.

 

[Chuck]

^^^ Yes, Ibn al-Haytham was an important contributor to the modern scientific method. I was referring to the "beginnings" of the scientific method in the ancient world. Science was in its infancy during the days of the early Greeks.

That is debatable. I see 2 issues with that.
(1) What greeks contributed was abstraction into theories, which imo is not really origin of scientific method. Basis of scientific method is experimental method.
(2) Experimental method among muslim scientist originated from hadith science, it was not from from greeks. If you study the hadith science history, you will see that devising empirical verification tests and documentation started from tabeen (somebody correct this name). When muslims started to go into other sciences they adopted these methods, the important verification and documentation lessons they learned from hadith sciences.

 

[faizan786]

Interesting and quite debatable article (as can be seen). However, it presents a point of view through which I hadn't looked at it. Jazak'Allah for the post brother