Islam's Contribution to Science

[zerinus]

In this place where it is customary to bash Islam; it is worth mentioning their contributions too:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7810846.stm

zerinus

 

[Steadfast]

But what have they done lately?

At one time Muslims also created and sustained a far more culturally equitable civilization, with a greater degree of freedom, prosperity and education for more people than had yet been seen by “Christendom”…

But something happened, it collapsed.

In fact, a really excellent book was written by Bernard Lewis on this very subject. I recommend everyone read it.

 

[ralphinal]

But what have they done lately?

At one time Muslims also created and sustained a far more culturally equitable civilization, with a greater degree of freedom, prosperity and education for more people than had yet been seen by “Christendom”…

But something happened, it collapsed.

In fact, a really excellent book was written by Bernard Lewis on this very subject. I recommend everyone read it.

I was thinking the same thing. Not didley in 600+ years, as a culture. Now, before you throw the colonialism card, and I know someone will, SA and other oil-rich nations could buy/build the greatest facilities known to man. Why not catch up?

 

[cathopologist]

Its funny how sometimes scholars ignore the other civilizations and religions that contributed to science and mathematics. For instance, the Hindus invented the numerical and decimal place-value system, including the zero, which is often accredited to the Arabians without giving credit to the Hindus. The same is for Ayurveda, the world’s oldest natural health care system still in use today and recognized by the World Health Organization. Acupuncture was borne out of the Ayurvedic system but it is always credited to the Chinese.

Then there are the Babylonians, who invented the world’s first batteries, lamps, the irrigation system, metalworking, astronomy, etc. Let us also not forget the Mayans, Aztecs whose calendar system is even more accurate than any known modern civilization.

Before the birth of Islam, other religious civilizations made extensive contributions to the world. Islam followed up on their contributions and in some cases, improved on them, but they certainly were not the pioneers in science and mathematics.

 

[zerinus]

But what have they done lately?

At one time Muslims also created and sustained a far more culturally equitable civilization, with a greater degree of freedom, prosperity and education for more people than had yet been seen by “Christendom”…

But something happened, it collapsed.

In fact, a really excellent book was written by Bernard Lewis on this very subject. I recommend everyone read it.

All great divilizations of the past have risen and then fallen again. Islam is no different. Some people believe that the same fate awaits modern Western civilization too. But that is not the point. The point is that lots of people here are accustomed to bashing Islam as though it was something inherently evil, out of which nothing good ever came or could have come. That of course is not true.

zerinus

 

[Lujack]

I was thinking the same thing. Not didley in 600+ years, as a culture. Now, before you throw the colonialism card, and I know someone will, SA and other oil-rich nations could buy/build the greatest facilities known to man. Why not catch up?

Now hold on here. The Middle East got kicked around in ways that Europe never experienced. The Mongol Invasions absolutely devastated that region. Cities were wiped off the map.

Not just sacked, gone! It would be as if an army landed on Manhattan Island, killed everyone in New York City, and left. Except in this case, all the science and learning that had been accumulated was gone too.

Then, you have colonization, but just as colonization is beginning to end, the only constant force in the region, the Ottoman Empire, collapses and the map is entirely redrawn.

To use an analogy, it would be like the barbarians had not just sacked Rome, but utterly destroyed it, then the Arabs came in and set up colonies in Italy, and just as Western Europe was starting to come back together, the Catholic Church disintegrated into twenty denominations.

 

[ralphinal]

Now hold on here. The Middle East got kicked around in ways that Europe never experienced. The Mongol Invasions absolutely devastated that region. Cities were wiped off the map.

Not just sacked, gone! It would be as if an army landed on Manhattan Island, killed everyone in New York City, and left. Except in this case, all the science and learning that had been accumulated was gone too.

Then, you have colonization, but just as colonization is beginning to end, the only constant force in the region, the Ottoman Empire, collapses and the map is entirely redrawn.

To use an analogy, it would be like the barbarians had not just sacked Rome, but utterly destroyed it, then the Arabs came in and set up colonies in Italy, and just as Western Europe was starting to come back together, the Catholic Church disintegrated into twenty denominations.

I have no issue with that part. My question is why in the last 50 or so years, with the BILLIONS of dollars coming in monthly, have they not been able to catch up?

The infulx of oil money has represented the largest flow of wealth in the history of mankind. To compare, from 1492 until today, something like 300 billion dollars in gold and precious metals/jewals went from the Americas to Spain. The Oil Nations have made more than that in 50 years. Why are the Universities in these nations leading in everything? Where are they now?

If the money that these people put into supporting terrorist groups was used for research, imagine what could be done

 

[R_not]

The thing with islam is that it goes into a culture, people convert out of being forced to do so in order to live without a crushing domination of muslims making life unbearable for you and then the culture goes on for a while under its old norms and slowly drizzles out due to islam.

We see now in many of these muslim countries - not all, but many - most schools teach only boys and even at that they only teach the koran. In saudi arabia the largest group of people go after some sort of ‘islamic studies’ in college. Nothing useful, excet jihad.

At one point the saudis even tried to bribe people to take other things such as what we would call subjects in trade schools, or colleges. But very few took the bribe and did anything useful. (from book, Princes of Darkness)

Now Saudi’s largest exports are oil and jihadists.

wherever there is a resurgence of fundamentalism you will get no girls in school and that is sad since they are restricted to going to only women doctors. And you get no great advances in anything other than a great unrest with a lot of young people with nothing to do except be jihadists.

What do we see in schools such as in Gaza? An obsession with teaching hatred of the West and Jews, martyrdom, etc.

Here are some websites to some articles about their contributions, but they are long. I know very few want to read this sort of thing, but there rings a lot of truth in them. The jihadists don’t think up, or improve on inventions, but use them as weapons. They have been doing this for a very, long time.

believers vs unbelievers contributions

Fjordman: islam, the Greeks and the Scientific Revolution, Part 1
Part2
Part3

If you have dug up some scientist who happens to be a muslim, good for you. the first question that comes to my mind is how long before him being a scientist were his people conquered by muslims. What is his personal history. Yes, I am suspect. The dates of his life certainly are within the time parameters of newly conquered peoples of that area.

Overall, islam brings a decline and to try to prove otherwise, well, good luck. History doesn’t bear out that assertion.

 

[Lujack]

The thing with islam is that it goes into a culture, people convert out of being forced to do so in order to live without a crushing domination of muslims making life unbearable for you and then the culture goes on for a while under its old norms and slowly drizzles out due to islam.

We see now in many of these muslim countries - not all, but many - most schools teach only boys and even at that they only teach the koran. In saudi arabia the largest group of people go after some sort of ‘islamic studies’ in college. Nothing useful, excet jihad.

Do not confuse fundamentalist Islam and Islam itself.

At one point the saudis even tried to bribe people to take other things such as what we would call subjects in trade schools, or colleges. But very few took the bribe and did anything useful. (from book, Princes of Darkness)

Now Saudi’s largest exports are oil and jihadists.

wherever there is a resurgence of fundamentalism you will get no girls in school and that is sad since they are restricted to going to only women doctors. And you get no great advances in anything other than a great unrest with a lot of young people with nothing to do except be jihadists.

A resurgence in fundamentalism, yes. Fundamentalist Islam is dangerous, but it does not define the religion.

What do we see in schools such as in Gaza? An obsession with teaching hatred of the West and Jews, martyrdom, etc.

Here are some websites to some articles about their contributions, but they are long. I know very few want to read this sort of thing, but there rings a lot of truth in them. The jihadists don’t think up, or improve on inventions, but use them as weapons. They have been doing this for a very, long time.

believers vs unbelievers contributions

Fjordman: islam, the Greeks and the Scientific Revolution, Part 1
Part2
Part3

Again, fundamentalism.

If you have dug up some scientist who happens to be a muslim, good for you. the first question that comes to my mind is how long before him being a scientist were his people conquered by muslims. What is his personal history. Yes, I am suspect. The dates of his life certainly are within the time parameters of newly conquered peoples of that area.

Overall, islam brings a decline and to try to prove otherwise, well, good luck. History doesn’t bear out that assertion.

I’ll take this challenge and gladly.

How about al-Haytham, born in Persia during the 10th century, and the father of modern optical science? He was known in Medieval Europe and called Ptolemy the Second for his work on the physics of light. He also enunciated a very early version of the scientific method.

What about al-Rahwi, a 9th century Syrian who developed medical peer review? Perhaps al-Dinawari, who wrote the Book of Plants, one of the first major botanical works?

The more famous al-Razi made major contributions to the medical field from Spain. Abu al-Qasim’s medical theories were taught in Europe well into the 1600’s. The same goes for the famous Avicenna, and the less famous Ibn Zuhr. Ibn al-Nafis researched the circulatory system for the first time.

I can go get more, but I think this makes the point. All of them were born smack in the middle of the Islamic Golden Age. The only way any of them knew conquest was in a history book.

 

[R_not]

You make the distinction between islam and fundamental islam.

Muslims do not. This is why they do nothing about such organizations like Hamas, hezbollah, Al Qaeda, the muslim brotherhood, the wahabbis, etc.

You can tell me that muslims make a distinction - then tell me what they have done to stop the violent ones worldwide? they don’t/won’t even disown them. They are currently in a frenzy supporting hamas and their killing ways.

If you want to learn about islam - read their koran, sirahs and hadiths. It is all there - you will find their will to do jihad against us.

And you can try to change history just because you disagree, unfortunately, muslim revisionist history is not the truth. You actually prove the point about scientists from relatively newly conquered areas. This is why nothing has come out of them recently - islam has caused the decline in such studies.

The muslims here might be doing well, but islam and that means muslim countries, do not allow for free thinking and that is what it takes to be inventive. This is why not too much has come out of muslim countries except… how to make a weapon out of what is invented.

 

[R_not]

The myth of islam’s Golden Age

In this article is this quote:

When the Arab Muslims, a collection of backward, nomadic warrior tribes who did not even have a fully developed script, conquered Egypt, Syria and Iran, they took control over some of the world’s largest centres of accumulated knowledge. To say that “Muslims” or “Islamic culture” created the civilizations of the Middle East can be compared to an illiterate person storming into the planet’s largest library, killing all the librarians and then claiming to have written all the books there. The cultural superiority of the Middle East in relations to Europe did not begin with Islam’s entry into the area. In fact, it ended with it. One of the great riddles of history is how this once-dynamic region could become the world’s number one problem spot. It so happens that this decline coincides with the region’s Islamization, although some would claim that it had already started before this. Islam’s much-vaunted “Golden Age” was in reality just the twilight of the conquered pre-Islamic cultures, an echo of times passed.

It is true that no civilization exists in a vacuum. Modern Western civilization owes much to Egyptians, Persians, Sumerians, Byzantines, Assyrians, Jews, Indians and Chinese. We owe little, if anything to Islam.

 

[Lujack]

When the Arab Muslims, a collection of backward, nomadic warrior tribes who did not even have a fully developed script, conquered Egypt, Syria and Iran, they took control over some of the world’s largest centres of accumulated knowledge.

Incorrect. What was in Syria when the Muslims took it? It had been swapped back and forth between the Sassanids and the Byzantines, and people were struggling to survive with armies marching across their territory left and right.

Nothing particularly special had come out of Egypt in a long time, and the Sassanids of Iran had long since ossified.

Regardless, that doesn’t explain Islamic Spain; many of the scientists and philosophers there had never been to the Middle East.

To say that “Muslims” or “Islamic culture” created the civilizations of the Middle East can be compared to an illiterate person storming into the planet’s largest library, killing all the librarians and then claiming to have written all the books there.

This is nothing but inflammatory rhetoric, with nothing of substance.

The cultural superiority of the Middle East in relations to Europe did not begin with Islam’s entry into the area. In fact, it ended with it. One of the great riddles of history is how this once-dynamic region could become the world’s number one problem spot. It so happens that this decline coincides with the region’s Islamization, although some would claim that it had already started before this.

1. There is nothing to back up that claim in here, and it is a claim that is demonstrably false. The Sassanid Persians did not produce anything to rival what the Byzantine Empire was turning out, and before that, the Romans were more advanced than the Parthians, and the Greeks more advanced than the Achaemenid Persians. Egypt was looked at as a grain-producing region, not a hotbed of philosophy, and there was nothing special in Visigothic Spain.

Islam’s much-vaunted “Golden Age” was in reality just the twilight of the conquered pre-Islamic cultures, an echo of times passed.

Then why weren’t there any noteworthy philosophers coming out of Sassanid Persia or Byzantine Egypt? If it really was a twilight of the Middle East, than why didn’t the Golden Age happen immediately?

The fact that there was silence for a few hundred years before the philosophy and science emerged indicates that it was an independent movement.

It is true that no civilization exists in a vacuum. Modern Western civilization owes much to Egyptians, Persians, Sumerians, Byzantines, Assyrians, Jews, Indians and Chinese. We owe little, if anything to Islam.

The Europeans would have disagreed with you, strongly. If they didn’t, Averroes, Avicenna, and those like them would not have been taught in European universities until the 1600’s.

 

[R_not]

No, many of the Spanish came from Europe!

You are telling me that what they did is not ok to talk about - is that why muslims and their appeasers/apologists rewrite history? Of course it is inflammatory they killed, looted, took slaves. They terrorized so much people converted out of fear - if they lived. That is what should be considered inflammatory!

That is exactly what they did and then claimed that islam is the reason why there were scientists.

You certainly have a different view of history.

So, while the jihadists were out doing their atrocities - did they take college courses at night? You have proven by the dates of these scientists that not many came out of islamic domination after islam set in. Because of the censorship during the period, many of the Averroes works were lost.

Avicenna was 9th century and was Persian which once again proves my previous point that you got irritated over.

I think maybe a reassessment of the contributions by Jews who are much smaller in number to the muslims might be a good comparison of what each brings to the world. Let me see, Arafat was given the nobel peace prize - a terrorist thug. Oh well, here is a website with a pretty good list to show us what islam produces.

 

[mark_a]

In this place where it is customary to bash Islam; it is worth mentioning their contributions too:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7810846.stm

zerinus

Well I gotta stick up for Catholicism. You, Zerinus, of all people should know we are equal opportunity bashers.

Pope Benedict got it right at Regensburg:

“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

 

[Lujack]

No, many of the Spanish came from Europe!

You are telling me that what they did is not ok to talk about - is that why muslims and their appeasers/apologists rewrite history? Of course it is inflammatory they killed, looted, took slaves. They terrorized so much people converted out of fear - if they lived. That is what should be considered inflammatory!

Show me the evidence that they were any worse than their contemporaries. Everyone at that time killed, looted, and took slaves, but the early Muslims actually weren’t that bad. In their wars with the Byzantines, the Coptic Christians, the Nestorians, and the Jews all switched sides to fight alongside the Arabs.

In Spain, there were many Visigoths who fought alongside the Muslims, and the peasantry of Persia joined them against the Sassanids.

While they weren’t saints, they weren’t out of the ordinary for that time, and they certainly weren’t the Mongols.

So, while the jihadists were out doing their atrocities - did they take college courses at night? You have proven by the dates of these scientists that not many came out of islamic domination after islam set in. Because of the censorship during the period, many of the Averroes works were lost.

Wrong. Islam had been established in Spain for hundreds of years during the time of Averroes. He lived during the 12th century. The only way he knew about pre-Islamic Spain was by reading history books.

You are right in one sense, though: censorship did cost us many of the Averroes works. To say that “Islam set in”, though, misrepresents the history. The Spanish Umayyads had established a strong caliphate at Cordoba that had a flourishing and vibrant culture. As they began to lose ground to the Spanish, they called desperately for help from the Berbers in North Africa, who established the fundamentalist Almohad and Almoravid dynasties.

Much like how the Byzantines turned to iconoclasm out of desperation, the Almoravids and Almohads banned philosophy out of desperation, ending the long tradition of philosophy and science under the Cordoba Caliphate.

Notably, the Spanish Ummayads were not the first Muslims in Spain, something which contradicts your assertion that the arrival of Islam stifled scientific growth. Spain had not produced anything to match the science and philosophy of the Cordoba Caliphate under the Romans or the Visigoths, so the Ummayads certainly weren’t piggybacking off anyone before them, either.

Avicenna was 9th century and was Persian which once again proves my previous point that you got irritated over.

Avicenna was born in 980. Persia had been fully Muslim since 696. That would be like claiming that Thomas Edison piggybacked off of the Apache.

I think maybe a reassessment of the contributions by Jews who are much smaller in number to the muslims might be a good comparison of what each brings to the world. Let me see, Arafat was given the nobel peace prize - a terrorist thug. Oh well, here is a website with a pretty good list to show us what islam produces.

What does Arafat have to do with any of this? We aren’t talking about Palestine or the modern Middle East?

Also, what do the Jews have to do with this? Unless you want to start some kind of Philosophy Fantasy League, there isn’t a competition between ethnic groups.