Timeline Islamic Scientist

Timeline of Islamic Scientists (600-1600)

Science & Mathematics in Medieval Islamic Cultures

Introduction: There were astonishing (surprising) achievements by Muslim scholars (people who study, students) and scientists during the period from approximately 750 to 1050 A.D. This period is called a "Golden Age" of the Islamic World. Great advances were made in the Abbasid Islamic Empire (with its capital in Baghdad) even up to 1258 when the Mongols invaded the empire and destroyed its capital. Great achievements also continued in Muslim Spain, in Cairo, Egypt at later time periods, but the glorious "Golden Age" was the best period for science and mathematics. These achievements greatly influenced learning in Europe, as well. Without the Muslim achievements at this time, much of the learning from ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt would have been lost forever.

I. Why was there a Golden Age?

What were the factors (all the reasons) that brought about a "Golden Age"? Why did it end? [The following is a simplification and reworking of an article from "Islamic History in Arabia and the Middle East: The Legacy" and other sources. Also see The Golden Age of Islam.]

A. Encouragement of Scholarship (studying) within Islam

The Muslims were encouraged by the Prophet Muhammad himself to "seek learning even as far as China". In the area of medicine, the Prophet Muhammad also encouraged a scientific approach. He said, "For every disease, Allah has given a cure," and scientists were encouraged to find those cures. This attitude toward learning and research was a powerful reason that science developed so much under Islam. Moreover, Islam encouraged learning in order to read the Qur'an, which begins: "Recite!" (which is also translated: "Read!").

Here are some more Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) which encouraged learning:

"He who pursues the road of knowledge Allah will direct to the road of Paradise... The brightness of a learned man compared to that of a mere worshiper is like that of a the full moon compared to all the stars.... Obtain knowledge; its possessor can distinguish right from wrong; it shows the way to Heaven; it befriends us in the desert and in solitude, and when we are friendless; it is our guide to happiness; it gives us strength in misery; it is an ornament to friends, protection against enemies.... The scholar's ink is holier than the martyr's blood.... Seeking knowledge is required of every Muslim....

From Science in Medieval Islam by H. Turner, University of Texas Press, 1995. Page 17

B. Geographic Unity:

During this period the territory of the Muslim Empire included present-day Iran, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Palestine, North Africa, Spain, parts of Turkey and Turkey, and more! People came from all those lands to Baghdad. This brought about a sharing of ideas from different parts of the world.

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The Abbasid Caliphate about 950 A.D.

C. Development of Paper

A third important reason for the Golden Age was the establishment of a paper mill (factory) in Baghdad. Paper was first invented in China and then the Muslims learned how it was made. (Actually Chinese papermakers were taken prisoner and forced to teach their captors how to make paper!) Soon paper replaced parchment (the skin of animals) and papyrus (a plant made into a kind of "paper" in ancient Egypt). The development of paper made it possible for a great many people to get books and learn from them. This was an important advance which affected education and scholarship.

Courtesy, Museum of Paper Making. Also see a map of the History of Paper which shows the slow spread of papermaking through the Middle East, across North Africa, and into Europe.

D. A Unified Language

Another important reason for the "Golden Age" was the development of Arabic into the language of international scholarship. This was one of the most significant events in the history of ideas. Scholars could communicate with one another, and ideas were translated from Greek, Latin, ancient Egyptian, Chinese, and languages from other parts of the world. In the ninth century the Caliph al-Mamun encouraged the translation of Greek and Byzantine knowledge. With the approval of the Byzantine emperor, the caliph sent scholars to select and bring back Greek scientific manuscripts (handwritten works) for translation into Arabic. This knowledge could be read and discussed by scholars from all over the Islamic Empire.

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Arabic painting of Socrates, a Greek philosopher

E. "The House of Wisdom - Bayt al-Hikmah"

The House of Wisdom was a place where scholar-translators tried to translate into Arabic the important philosophical and scientific works of the ancient world, especially from Greece and Egypt. They also tried to show how Islam could include exloring new ideas and experiments (rationalism). The House of Wisdom was set up by Caliph al-Mamun in 1004 A.D. in Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Empire. It was the greatest "think tank" the medieval world had ever seen! Without the translations and research that went on here, much of the Greek, Latin, and Egyptian knowledge would have been lost to the world.

The historian al-Maqrizi described the opening of the House of Wisdom in 1004:

" In 1004 A.D. 'The House of Wisdom' was opened. The students took up their residence. The books were brought from [many other] libraries ... and the public was admitted. Whosoever wanted was at liberty to copy any book he wished to copy, or whoever required to read a certain book found in the library could do so. Scholars studied the Qur'an, astronomy, grammar, lexicography and medicine. The building was, moreover, adorned by carpets, and all doors and corridors had curtains, and managers, servants, porters and other menials were appointed to maintain the establishment. Out of the library of Caliph al-Hakim those books were brought which he had gathered-- books in all sciences and literatures and of exquisite calligraphy such as no king had ever been able to bring together. Al-Hakim permitted admittance to everyone, without distinction of rank, who wished to read or consult any of the books.

Who ‘Invented' Science?

Pada dasarnya, perkembangan ilmu di masa itu masuk ke dunia Islam melalui tiga negara, yakni Yunani, India dan Iran. Ketiga negara itu dapat dikatakan sebagai pintu kemajuan ilmu yang berperan penting dalam peradaban dunia Islam. Yunani merupakan salah satu sumber penting yang melalui negara itu, ilmu logika masuk ke dunia Islam. Umat Islam pada umumnya, mengenal ilmu-ilmu logika dengan bantuan buku-buku yang diterjemahkan dari bahasa Latin dan Suryani. Orang-orang yang berperan mentransfer ilmu dari Yunani adalah kalangan Kristen berbahasa Suryani yang berasal dari Irak dan Syamat, khususnya Harran yang saat itu dikenal dengan kawasan Urfa, selatan Turki. Mereka memeluk agama Islam yang kemudian berperan penting dalam menyemarakkan gerakan penerjemahan yang didukung penuh oleh khalifah-khalifah masa itu. Sebagian ilmu Yunani yang diterima umat Islam juga berasal dari Iskandaria yang juga dikenal dengan istilah Alexander yang saat itu menjadi pusat besar ilmu.

Umat Islam menggali berbagai ilmu dari Yunani khususnya di bidang matematika, perbintangan, kedokteran dan ilmu-ilmu alam. Mereka juga mempelajari matematikaBatlamus(Ptolemy). Melalui ilmu itu, umat Islam dapat terlibat dalam ilmu perbintangan. Lebih dari itu, umat Islam berhasil membuat peta geografi dengan bantuan buku geografi, Shurahal-Ard Batlamus (The Image of the Earth) yang menjadi landasan untuk menentukan panjang dan luas geografi.

Masih mengenai dunia ilmu Yunani, ilmu kedokteran Yunani, khususnya karya-karya Jalinous dan Baqrat juga disebut-sebut sebagai ilmu yang diserap umat Islam saat itu. Buku Jabir bin Hayyan terkait racun dapat disebut sebagai contoh karya yang menunjukkan bahwa umat Islam sedemikian memanfaatkan karya Baqrat, Jalinous, Plato, Pitagoras, Aristoteles dalam ilmu kedokteran. Akan tetapi, pengenalan ilmu kedokteran di masa itu bukan melalui buku-buku yang diterjemahkan. Dengan ungkapan lain, umat Islam saat itu mengenal ilmu kedokteran langsung dari para dokter Yunani.

Setelah Damaskus ditunjuk sebagai ibukota pemerintah dan khilafah saat itu, hubungan dengan para ilmuwan Yunani lebih mudah. Fouad Sazgin, pakar Timur Tengah, mengatakan, “Muawiyah mendapat informasi dari dokter istana yang bernama Asal, memanfaatkan racun-racun untuk menjaga tubuhnya. Dokter lainnya, Abul Hakam yang beragama Kristen, juga menjadi dokter istana di masa itu. Bahkan disebutkan dalam sejarah bahwa keluarga Abul Hakam menjadi dokter istana dari pertengahan abad pertama hingga abad ketiga hijriah yakni mencakup masa khalifah Bani Umayah dan Bani Abbasiah.”

Menurut Sazgin, berbagai bidang ilmu kedokteran Yunani merambah ke dunia Islam dari akhir abad pertama hingga pertengahan abad ketiga. Hunain bin Ishaq disebut-sebut sebagai salah satu orang yang berperan besar dalam mentransfer ilmu-ilmu kedokteran. Yang lebih mengejutkan lagi, Hunain bin Ishaq di masa itu masih sangat muda, bahkan umurnya tidak lebih dari 17 tahun. Akan tetapi dia mempunyai kemampuan menerjemahkan berbagai karya. Hunain bin Ishaq menerjemahkan ratusan karya Jalinous yang juga dibantu oleh murid-muridnya. Hingga akhir hayat, Hunain bin Ishaq menerjemahkan berbagai karya ilmu kedokteran dari bahasa Yunani. Salah satu buku referensi yang berhasil diterjemahkan adalah buku Dioscorides. Buku itu sangat urgen di bidang herbal bagi kalangan ilmuwan Yunani. Setelah bertahun-tahun, buku referensi itu disempurnakan oleh umat Islam. Dengan bantuan karya-karya tadi, ilmuwan Islam mendapat perhatian luas.

Sebagian ilmu juga merambah ke dunia Islam melalui India. Di awal periode dinasti Abbasiah terjalin hubungan ilmiah atara India dan dunia Islam. Berbagai buku berbahasa India di bidang kedokteran, perbintangan dan lain-lain diterjemahkan ke bahasa Arab. Pakar Timur Tengah asal Italia, Aldomieli, meyakini bahwa ilmu pengetahuan India berperan besar dalam peradaban Islam. Terkait hal ini, Abu Raihan Biruni bisa menjadi rujukan sebagai bukti peran ilmu India di peradaban Islam. Tak diragukan lagi, karya-karya ilmu besar India sangat berperan dalam kemajuan ilmu umat Islam.

Pada tahun 154 hijrah, sejumlah ilmuwan India mendatangi khalifah Abbasiah saat itu, Manshur. Di antara mereka terdapat pakar ilmu perbintangan yang bernama Mankah. Ia termasuk ilmuwan tersohor di masa itu. Mankah sangat mahir dalam ilmu perbintangan India, khususnya metode Zij yang ditulis oleh pakar perbintangan Brahmagupta.

Manshur saat itu meminta ilmuwan India itu supaya mengajarkan metode Zij kepada para ilmuwan istana dan menerjemahkannya ke bahasa Arab. Metode ilmu perbintangan India di bawah bimbingan Mankah sangat populer di masa khalifah Manshur. Ibrahim Farazi, pakar ilmu perbintangan muslim juga diperintahkan mempelajari ilmu perbintangan India dan menulis buku terkait perbintangan.

Abu Raihan dalam berbagai catatannya seringkali menyinggung buku karya Farazi. Dengan demikian, ilmu kedokteran India berperan penting dalam ilmu kedokteran Islam. Dalam kitab al-Fihrist karya Ibnu Nadim disebutkan 12 nama buku kedokteran di awal periode dinasti Abbasiah. Pada dasarnya, umat Islam banyak memanfaatkan obat-obatan nabati, mineral dan hewani dari karya-karya dokter India.

Adapun Iran sebelum Islam juga disebut-sebut sebagai negara yang berpengaruh besar pada peradaban Islam. Pada masa KhosrouAnoushiravan, aktivitas ilmu sangat pesat dan bahkan mencapai era keemasannya. Dalam sejarah disebutkan kota Jundi-Shapour yang terletak di antara kota Shushtar dan Dezful adalah pusat ilmu di masa itu. Di kota itu dibangun sejumlah pusat pendidikan. Untuk menyemarakkan kota ilmu itu, berbagai pakar dan ilmuwan yang beragama Kristen dan berbahasa Suryani diundang ke tempat itu.

Di masa itu banyak buku ilmiah dari bahasa Yunani, Suryani, Sansekerta, diterjemahkan ke bahasa Pahlavi atau bahasa Persia kuno. Menurut sejarah, banyak para ilmuwan di kota Jundi-Shapour yang tertarik menerjemahkan buku di bidang kedokteran. Pusat pendidikan atau universitas Jundi-Shapour diperkirakan didirikan pada abad keempat masehi. Ketika Nastorian digiring dari Odessa atau Urfa ke Iran, para ilmuwan Nastorian memilih bertempat tinggal di Jundi-Shapour. Nastorian banyak menerjemahkan buku berbahasa Suryani. Di masa itu, sejumlah filosof ishraqi Yunani yang diasingkan dari Antena, mengajarkan filsafat dan menerjemahkan buku-buku Plato dan Aristoteles ke bahasa Pahlavi.

Setelah bangsa Iran memeluk agama Islam, banyak buku berbahasa Persia yang diterjemahkan ke bahasa Arab. Karya-karya Persia yang diterjemahkan di masa dinasti Abbasiah lebih cenderung pada aspek sejarah dan sastra. Karya-karya itu didukung penuh warga Iran yang punya pengaruh di dinasti Abbasiah. Salah satu contohnya adalah keluarga Barmakian di masa kekuasaan Harun al-Rasyid yang berpengaruh besar mentransfer keilmuan Persia ke Baghdad dan menerjemahkan buku-buku Iran ke bahasa Arab. Banyak ilmu perbintangan khususnya sejarah ilmu perbintangan yang disadur dari Persia. Di masa itu, banyak dokter terkenal dari kota Jundi-Shapour, termasuk para dokter keluarga Bukhtishu, yang diundang ke Baghdad.

Ibnu Nadim, seorang pakar bibliografi muslim seringkali menyebut para ilmuwan yang berasal dari keluarga Noubakht yang berperan besar dalam menerjemahkan buku bahasa Pahlavi ke bahasa Arab. Abu Sahel bin Noubakht, pakar perbintangan dan putranya, Hasan bin Sahel, adalah penerjemah buku-buku perbintangan bahasa Persia ke bahasa Arab. Salah satu buku yang diterjemahkan Abu Sahel ke bahasa Arab adalah buku Zik Shahriar. Menurut sejarah, buku itu diterjemahkan di akhir dinasti Sasanian. Zij berbeda dengan perhitungan perbintangan biasa, yakni memulai perhitungan malam dan hari dari pertengahan malam seperti yang berlaku pada perhitungan malam dan hari di masa kini. Perhitungan para pakar perbintangan Yunani dan Eropa hingga 1925 memulai perhitungan perputaran malam dan hari dari pertengahan hari.

Why did the Golden Age End?

UNDERSTANDING "BUCAILLEISM"

"Bucailleism" is the fundamentalist search for "scientific miracles" in the Qur'ān —modern scientific discoveries that have been cryptically foretold in the Qur'ān. Here is one common example from Zakir Naik:

MOONLIGHT IS REFLECTED LIGHT: It was believed by earlier civilizations that the moon emanates its own light. Science now tells us that the light of the moon is reflected light. However this fact was mentioned in the Qur'ān 1,400 years ago in the following verse:

  "Blessed is He Who made Constellations in the skies,  and placed therein a Lamp and a Moon giving light." (Al-Qur'ān 25:61)

The Arabic word for the sun in the Qur'ān , is shams. It is also referred to as siraaj … The Arabic word for the moon is qamar and it is described in the Qur'ān as muneer which is a body that gives noor i.e. reflected light…This implies that the Qur'ān recognizes the difference between the nature of sunlight and moonlight.1

Likewise, claims have been made about the Qur'ān predicting black holes, embryology, geology and astronomy.

Muslim Opposition to Bucailleism

This search for cryptic Qur'ānic "miracles of science" is a relatively recent fad in Islamic history. It has become popular with fundamentalists, but it hasn't met with much approval among Muslim intellectuals. Renowned Indian Islamic theologian Maulana Ashraf ‘Ali Thanvi (author of Behesti Jewar) opposes this methodology on four counts.2 Likewise, many leading Islamic scientists in Western and Arab universities are embarrassed by Bucailleism. Ziauddin Sharkar, in his book Explorations in Islamic Science calls the scientific miracles polemic "apologia of the worst type." Muslim historian Nomanul Haq of Penn State University is a leading critic of Bucailleism who attributes the rise of Bucailleism to a "deep, deep inferiority complex" among Muslims humiliated by colonialism and bidding to recapture faded glories of Islamic science.3 Another critic is Muzaffar Iqbal, president of Center for Islam and Science in Alberta, Canada.

Egyptian Muslim scholar Dr. Khaled Montaser wrote a book called (وهم الإعجاز العلمى 'The Lie of Scientific Miracles') against Bucailleism, and the former Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University Sheikh Mahmud Shaltut also opposed this idea of scientific miracles in the Qur'an.

Reputed Muslim Theoretical physicist Parvez Hoodbhoy of Pakistan writes:

the problem with such claims to ownership is that they lack an explanation for why quantum mechanics, molecular genetics, etc., had to await discovery elsewhere. Nor is any kind of testable prediction ever made. No reason is offered as to why antibiotics, aspirin, steam engines, electricity, aircraft, or computers were not first invented by Muslims. But even to ask such questions is considered offensive.4

Turkish Muslim philosopher and physicist Taner Edis writes:

"Quran-science [Bucailleism] is pathetic, but this is realized by many Muslims as well. It does not characterize Islam any more than the Institute for Creation Research typifies Christianity. Yet, even with that important qualification, the ridiculous extreme I described above can illustrate the ambiguous relation between modern science and orthodox Islam. While most believers are content to ignore the issue and declare full scientific compatibility for the Quran, some intellectuals take a cognitive relativist path, or insist that science be structured by Islam so as to comply with an Islamic view of nature.5

Abu Ammar Yasir Qadhi, popular speaker and Yale graduate, wrote in An Introduction to the Sciences of the Quran:

"In other words, there are not scientific allusions buried under every third verse in the Qur'aan, waiting to be unearthed by some over-zealous, highly-imaginative Muslim!"6

Regarding the whole concept of "Islamic Science," Dr. Abdus Salam, Pakistani Nobel laureate Physicist writes:

"There is only one universal science; its problems and modalities are international and there is no such thing as Islamic science just as there is no Hindu science, nor Jewish science, no Confucian Science, nor Christian Science."

Problems with Bucailleism

The problem with Bucailleism is that it portrays God as weak, unable to be indisputably clear. For example, if God intended to communicate the shape of the earth, why didn't he just put a verse in that says, "Have you not considered how we made the earth not flat, but a ball, which revolves around the sun?" Or if God intended to predict the television, he could have clearly said, "people shall one day watch images on boxes in their dwelling-places." Elsewhere God speaks very clearly! Consider Al-Imran verse 2: "Allah! There is no god but He,-the Living, the Self-Subsisting, Eternal. " Crystal-clear, no room for argument. If God had meant for there to be modern science in the Qur'ān , he would have presented it in a way that left no room for argument. The verses Bucailleists misuse are appeals to mankind to consider the obvious from nature—that all this had a Creator who is good.

Secondly, Maulana Thanvi warns that we jeopardize the truth of scriptures if we attach them to current scientific theories which could be debunked in ten years. For example, Zakir Naik proudly says that the Qur'ān clearly describes the Big Bang (though ironically the Big Bang was first proposed by a committed Catholic priest). Since there is still no unanimous support in the scientific community for the Big Bang theory, what happens if it gets discredited in ten years? Then Bucailleists would have to contradict their previous "discovery" and find a new verse supporting the latest theory.

The History of Bucailleism

Ironically, it was a non-Muslim French doctor who first inspired this whole trend. Maurice Bucaille, after being hired as family physician to King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, published a book called The Bible, the Qur'ān and Science in which he argued that the Qur'ān was amazingly scientific unlike the Bible. After Bucaille, a charismatic Yemeni politician named Sheikh Abdul Majeed Zindani started the well-funded "Commission on Scientific Signs in the Quran and Sunnah" based in Saudi Arabia and became the chief global proponent of Bucailleism. More recently, Zakir Naik in India and Zaghloul El-Naggar in Egypt have propagated much of Zindani's material through religious television stations. Zindani's commission drew Western scientists to its conferences with first-class plane tickets for them and their wives, rooms at the best hotels, $1,000 honoraria, and banquets with Muslim leaders — such as a palace dinner in Islamabad with Pakistani President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq shortly before his death in a plane crash.7 Zindani promised the scientists "complete neutrality" as he coaxed them into proclaiming divine inspiration of various verses. Zindani used video footage from their conferences to produce a video boasting that Western scientists had confirmed the ‘scientific miracles' in the Qur'ān. Many participants were frustrated at being fooled into making affirmative statements. Marine scientist William Hay relates, "I fell into that trap and then warned other people to watch out for it."8 A Wall Street Journal article describes one such participant's reaction:

Gerald Goeringer, an embryologist retired from Georgetown University, says he urged the commission to try some verification: hire an independent scholar to see whether the Quran's statements could have been taken from

Aristotle, the Greek philosopher-scientist who preceded the book by nearly 1,000 years. After his request was denied, Goeringer says, he stopped going to the conferences for fear of being associated with fanaticism.  "It was mutual manipulation," he says. "We got to go places we wouldn't otherwise go to. They wanted to add some respectability to what they were publishing."

Zindani was a friend and mentor to Sheikh Osama bin Laden, who was one of the first fans of Bucailleism and funded its ‘research'. Zindani's co-authored textbook on Embryology has Sheikh Osama bin Laden listed as a primary sponsor. The world's most wanted man has regularly sought Zindani's guidance on whether planned terrorist actions are in accord with Islam, says Yossef Bodansky, biographer of bin Laden. Hassan A.A. Bahafzallah says of Zindani's association with bin Laden, "All I know is that during the jihad in Afghanistan, Zindani used to go and visit him." In 1995 Zindani stepped down from the Commission and is currently advocating for an Islamic state in Yemen.

"Scientific Miracles" in the Vedas & Other Literature

This search for cryptic prophecies of modern science in scriptures is not limited to Islam—we find the same thing in Hinduism. According to some fundamentalist Hindus, the Vedas predicted quarks, particle theory and quantum mechanics. The Wisdom of the Vedas by J.C. Chatterji relates some of these alleged predictions. The methodology is the same as Bucailleism and though the religion and holy book are different, the results are identical.

Outside religious circles, Bucailleism has met with disdain. One critic has compiled a humorous parody "discovering" similar cryptic scientific miracles in Virgil's Georgica poem. Using identical reasoning to that of Bucaille and Naik, he identifies one scientific discovery after another in just the first few lines of Virgil's poem.

Examining Some Alleged Miracles

If we look at all the alleged instances of Qur'ānic miracles, they prove to be unsubstantial. This is NOT attacking the Qur'ān ; it is merely debunking a modern misuse of the Qur'ān. The danger with debunking or disproving these Qur'ānic miracles is that many Muslims wrongly interpret it as an attack on the Qur'ān , which it is not. This is why Maulana Thanvi warned against seeking miracles in the Qur'ān , for if they are proved wrong, people may reject the Qur'ān.

Prophecy #1: Moonlight is Reflected Light

Let us begin, then, with the moon prophecy shown above by Zakir Naik:

MOONLIGHT IS REFLECTED LIGHT: It was believed by earlier civilizations that the moon emanates its own light. Science now tells us that the light of the moon is reflected light. However this fact was mentioned in the Qur'ān 1,400 years ago in the following verse:

"Blessed is He Who made Constellations in the skies,

and placed therein a Lamp and a Moon giving light." (Al-Qur'ān 25:61)

The Arabic word for the sun in the Qur'ān , is shams. It is also referred to as siraaj which means a ‘torch' or as wahhaaj meaning ‘a blazing lamp' or as diya which means ‘shining glory'. All three descriptions are appropriate to the sun, since it generates intense heat and light by its internal combustion. The Arabic word for the moon is qamar and it is described in the Qur'ān as muneer which is a body that gives noor i.e. reflected light. Again, the Qur'ānic description matches perfectly with the true nature of the moon which does not give off light by itself and is an inactive body that reflects the light of the sun. Not once in the Qur'ān , is the moon mentioned as siraaj, wahhaaj or diya nor the sun as noor or muneer. This implies that the Qur'ān recognizes the difference between the nature of sunlight and moonlight.9

The key problem with Naik's argument is that nūr (نُور) simply means "light"; there is absolutely no sense of "reflected" in the meaning of the word in any Arabic dictionary or lexicon. If, for the sake of argument, we adopt Naik's re-definitions, then Allah, bearing the title an-Nūr, must be merely "reflected light," while Muhammad, called "a lamp (sirāj) spreading light" in Sura 33:46 is the original source of light. It all begins to sound rather blasphemous.

In addition, it was known at least a thousand years before Muhammad that the moon's light is reflected light. When Aristotle (384-322BC) discussed the earth's shape, he proved the earth's sphericity by arguing that during a lunar eclipse the earth's shadow on the moon is seen. Centuries before Muhammad (pbuh), the Jews knew that the moon is "borrowing its light" from the sun (Philo, 1st century) and, "the light of the moon must be derived from the light of the sun" (Midrash Hagadol, mid-1st century).

Naik has attempted to evade this conclusion by dividing God into two parts: 1) a siraaj light, and 2) a ‘reflector’ niche which reflects ‘Allah part #1’ and produces nūr (nauzubillah!). He builds this bizarre idea on a reinterpretation of the lamp verse (24:35). His interpretation utterly contradicts the interpretation of all the sahaba (Ibn ‘Abbas, Ibn Mas’ud, Ubayy bin Ka’b, etc), who all correctly interpreted the niche and glass as the believer’s heart in which the light of faith burns. None of the sahaba ever had the audacity of dividing Allah into two separate parts, one part of Allah a burning wick and the other part the reflecting niche. Zakir Naik's tafsir is wrong and his idea is blasphemous.

Prophecy #2: The Stages of an Embryo

Dr Maurice Bucaille & Dr Keith L. Moore have popularized the idea that the Qur'ān miraculously foretells our modern understanding that the embryo develops through stages:

Man We did create from a quintessence (of clay); Then We placed him as (a drop of) sperm in a place of rest, firmly fixed; Then We made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood; then of that clot We made a (foetus) lump; then we made out of that lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh; then we developed out of it another creature. So blessed be Allah, the best to create! (Sura Mu'minun 23:12-14)

So we find the following five stages outlined in the Qur'ān :

1.            Nutfa (نُطْفَه) – sperm

2.            ‘alaqa (عَلَق) - clot

3.            Mudagha (مُضْغَه) - piece or lump of flesh

4.            ‘adaam (عَظَمَ) – Dressing the bones with muscles.

It is alleged that since these stages were only discovered in the last century, the Qur'ān contains an unexplainable prediction of science. However, since ‘blood clot' cannot describe any embryonic stage, Bucaille reinvented the word ‘alaqa (عَلَق) to mean "that which clings" or "leech-like substance".

There are many problems with this argument:

1.       History indicates that these stages were not unknown at Muhammad's time, but were actually fairly common knowledge. The Greek writings of Hippocrates, Aristotle and Galen all give the same stages of development: sperm, menstrual blood, flesh, bones, then flesh growth around bones. This Greek science was well known around Arabia, and Muhammad(pbuh)'s companion Harith ben Kalada had studied medicine at Jundi-Shapur and was thus intimately acquainted with the medical teaching of Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen.

2.       Second, the word ‘alaqa (عَلَق) simply does not mean "leech" as any historical translation shows; it means ‘clot', which fits the ancient Greeks' stages but doesn't fit the scientific description. Both Ibn Sina' and Ibn Qayyim understood the ‘alaqa as clotted blood, as have all translators for the past fourteen hundred years until today.

3.       Third, modern embryology indicates that muscle mass (stage 5 above) appears before any bones are calcified (stage 4 above). The bones aren't "clothed with flesh"; rather, they start to emerge and solidify within the already-existing muscle mass.

4.       A Sahih Hadith from both Bukhari and Muslim expands on the Qur'ānic stages of development, saying that the first three stages all last for forty days.10 Even Dr Bucaille is forced to admit, "This description of embryonic development does not agree with modern data."11)

5.       Zakir Naik quotes Western obstetrician Dr Joe Leigh Simpson supporting this "miracle". Dr. Simpson later described these out-of-context comments as "silly and embarrassing."12)

Prophecy #3: Communication of Ants

Dr Zakir Naik perceives a miracle of scientific knowledge in the following passage:

"And before Solomon were marshalled his hosts – of Jinns and men and birds, and they were all kept in order and ranks. "At length, when they came to a (lowly) valley of ants, one of the ants said: ‘O ye ants, get into your habitations, lest Solomon and his hosts crush you (under foot) without knowing it.'" [Al-Qur'ān 27:17-18] (Zakir Naik:) In the past, some people would have probably mocked at the Qur'ān , taking it to be a book of fairy tales in which ants talk to each other and communicate sophisticated messages. In recent times however, research has shown us several facts about the lifestyle of ants, which were not known earlier to humankind.13)

Perceiving that ants communicate is called common sense, something perceived independently by most inquisitive ten-year olds.

Naik does not quote the wider context of this passage, in which Solomon also discusses political and metaphysical affairs with a Hoopoe bird and an Ifrit as well. God could certainly give birds and ants the ability to discuss distant kingdoms with one another by some miracle, but it is ridiculous to call it ‘scientific'.

Incidentally, the ancient Biblical account of Solomon does not portray him talking with ants, hoopoes and Ifrits, but rather portrays him scientifically studying them:

"He described plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon's wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom." - 1 Kings 4:33-34

DO SCIENCE AND SCRIPTURES FIT?

Some Muslims and Christians like to debate over which scripture fits better with modern science. We know that the God who created nature's laws and order is the same God who revealed scripture, so there ought to be agreement between the two. However, both the Bible and the Qur'ān contain certain passages which can appear inconsistent. Ironically, the most scientifically problematic passages are found in both the Bible and Qur'ān :

Apparent Miracles in Bible & Qur'ān :

-              Noah living to 950 years

-              Jesus' virgin birth

-              Jesus raising the dead

-              Jesus healing the blind

-              Jinns, demons and Angels – all scriptures assume the existence of spiritual beings which occasionally take material form and appear to humans.

-              Afterlife—The idea that a rotted, decomposed human being can re-form into a more spiritual resurrected person seems impossible to science, yet we believe that the Creator has this power.

Sincere believers do not smugly deny these difficulties but instead seek rational explanations and consider with humility. If we are honest we must admit that these are confusing questions. Yet as we shall see, there is rational evidence that the Bible does fit with science if it is interpreted correctly.

Creation and Science

Critics such as Zakir Naik have alleged that the Bible teaches a literal 24-hour day creation while the Qur'ān teaches a metaphorical six-age creation. This is clearly untrue.

There are two schools of thought which reconcile the Genesis account with an old earth. Neither are simply attempts to "reinterpret" Genesis to fit with modern science, for both have their roots with commentators who predate modern science's discovery of an old earth.

A First View of Genesis: The Day-Age Interpretation

The Hebrew word used for day in Genesis 1 is yôm (Hebrew יום), the same word used by the Qur'ān to describe the six "days" (يَوْم yaum) of Creation. In both languages, this yôm can also mean variously 12-hour periods, 24-hour periods, or indefinite ages.14 Furthermore, we read in the Bible that "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day" (Injīl, 2 Peter 3:8, also Zabur 90:415). In addition, the Hebrew words used in Genesis for ‘morning' (בקר) and ‘evening' (ערב) can also mean simply ‘beginning of yôm' and ‘end of yôm' respectively,16 just as we refer to 'the dawn of world history' or the 'sunset years of one's life.' It is clear that the author did not intend to mean a literal sunrise and sunset, as he used these terms to mark off the three yôm periods before the sun came into the picture.17

Possibly the clearest indication of this extended-creation interpretation's validity is the fact that most of the early Christian scholars of Genesis up until 400AD taught explicitly that the Genesis creation days were extended time periods (something like a thousand years per yôm).18 This was over a thousand years before modern science, at a time when there was no scientific reason to believe in long creation days.

On the contrary, theologically authoritative sahih Hadith show that Muhammad understood the Qur'ānic creation days literally as days of the week—Saturday, Sunday, Monday, etc:

"Abu Huraira reported that Allah's Messenger (pbuh) took hold of my hands and said: Allah the Exalted and Glorious, created the clay on Saturday and He created the mountains on Sunday and He created the trees on Monday and He created the things entailing labour on Tuesday and created light on Wednesday and He caused animals to spread on Thursday and created Adam (pbuh) after 'Asr on Friday; the last creation at the last hour of the hours of Friday, ie. between afternoon and night."19

Many of the earliest commentators had the same view; Al-Tabari records the tradition of Ibn Abbas:

The Jews came to the Prophet and asked him about the creation of the heavens and the earth. He said: God created the earth on Sunday and Monday. He created the mountains and the uses they possess on Tuesday. On Wednesday, He created trees, water, cities and the cultivated barren land. These are four (days). He continued (citing the Qur'ān): `Say: Do you really not believe in the One Who created the earth in two days, and set up others like Him? That is the Lord of the worlds. He made it firmly anchored (mountains) above it and blessed it and decreed that it contain the amount of food it provides, (all) in four days, equally for those asking'- for those who ask. On Thursday, He created heaven. On Friday, He created the stars, the sun, the moon, and the angels, until three hours remained.20

Since sahih hadith are authoritative in interpreting the Qur'ān , we must believe, contrary to Zakir Naik, that the Qur'ān teaches 24-hour creation.

Some might object that since the six-day sequence is like a work week, it must be 24-hour periods. It is true that the creation week is compared with a work week (Exod. 20:11). However, it is not uncommon in the Torah to make disproportionate unit-for-unit comparisons. For example, God appointed forty years of wandering for forty days of disobedience (Num. 14:34). Or in Daniel 9:24-27, 490 days represents 490 years.

A Second View of Genesis:

The Literary Framework Interpretation

Many respected scholars interpret the Genesis account to be a visual poem which is not intended to be interpreted with rigid literalism nor chronologically, since it is clearly a poetic structure with a primarily theological description:

Days of Forming:

Days of Filling:

Day 1: "light" (v3)                                          Day 4: "lights" (v14)

Day 2: "atomsphere & oceans" (v7)         Day 5: "birds & sea creatures" (v21)

Day 3a: "dry ground" (v9)                            Day 6: "livestock" (v24)  "man" (v26)

Day 3b: "vegetation" (v11)                          Day 6: giving of "green plants" (v30)

In this view, ‘day' is interpreted as a metaphorical poetic literary structure. One must interpret scripture according to the conventions of the original language and culture, and we know that it was common for Jewish literature to rearrange events according to theological significance rather than according to chronological sequence. Matthew's Gospel is a clear example—the chronological events in Jesus' life are deliberately rearranged according to theological groupings, though sequential language is still used. This seems strange to our cultural and literary conventions, but it fits the genre of Hebrew scripture.

If we demand rigid chronological sequence for scripture creation accounts, the Qur'ān also runs into problems. If we add up the creation days of Sura 41:9-12 we get eight days (2+4+2), while elsewhere in the Qur'ān it says that creation took six days (7:54, 10:3, 11:7, and 25:59). We cannot always interpret scripture sequentially.

The Sequence of Genesis Days

Critics have challenged the sequence of Genesis, such as how ‘day' and ‘night' come before the sun and moon, or vegetation comes before the sun. The following interpretation of Genesis clears up all these misunderstandings.

Basically, the perspective or ‘point-of-view' established in verse one of Genesis chapter one is the surface of the water on earth, where humans would be placed at the end of creation.

The stages of creation are described as they would be perceived from that perspective, not from some hypothetical observer in outer space. Gaining the correct vantage point or perspective clears up a lot of misunderstandings about the creation sequence.21

Modern Science:                                                                                 Genesis Account:

Creation (14 billion years ago) According to the generally          In the beginning, God created the

 accepted Big Bang theory)                                                                heavens and the earth." (v.1)

Initial Conditions of the Earth: (4.5 billion years ago)                  "The earth was without form and void,

According to current science, the earth's primordial                    and darkness was over the face of the atmosphere and the solar system's interplanetary debris           deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering

prevented the light of the Sun, Moon, & stars from reaching     over the face of the waters." (v.2)

the surface of the earth's ocean, which was chaotic and

unfit for life.      

STEPS FROM DISORDER TO ORDER

Stage One: Partial Clearing of Atmosphere (4.5-3 billion years ago) Clearing of the interplanetary debris and partial transformation of the earth's atmosphere so that light from the heavenly bodies now penetrates to the surface of the earth's ocean     First ‘Yom': "...And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day." (v.3-5)First ‘Yom': "...And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day." (v.3-5)

Stage Two: Atmosphere/Ocean Separation (3-2 billion years ago)

Formation of water vapor in the troposphere under conditions that establish a stable water cycle.

Second ‘Yom': "And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so." (v.7)

Stage Three: Continents, Plants (2b-650 million years ago) Formation of continental land masses and ocean basins, and the development of early organisms and plant life.

Third ‘Yom': "...And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good."

(v.9-10)

Stage Four: Sun & Moon Visible (650-600 billion years ago) Transformation of the atmosphere from perpetually translucent to occasionally transparent. Sun, moon, planets, and stars now can be seen from the vantage point of the earth's surface as distinct objects.

Fourth ‘Yom': "...And God made (‘made appear') the two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars." (v.16)

Stage Five: Animal Life Begins (600-200 billion years ago)

Evolution of swarms of small sea animals

Fifth ‘Yom': "And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens." (v.20)

Stage Six: Complex Animals Evolve (600-200 billion years ago)

Evolution of mammals and the emergence of Homo Sapiens.

Sixth ‘Yom': And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds… Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." (v.24,26)

Both the Qur'ān and the Torah account of creation have some similarly perplexing sequences. In Sura 41:9-12 the Qur'ān 's primary creation account seems to place the creation of the seven heavens after the days of creating earth. Baqara 29 indicates the same:

"He created for you all that the earth contains; Then, ascending to the sky, He fashioned it into seven heavens."

So we see a similar sort of chronological difficulty in the Qur'ān. This doesn't mean the Qur'ān is wrong, it just shows that we can't always interpret verses as they first appear.

Some critics claim that the word used on day four for the sun or moon is ‘create' not ‘made appear.' However, the Hebrew word used in these verses is not ‘create' (בּרא, barah) but עשׂה (‛âśâh), which can be translated "made appear." This word occurs 1,200 times in the Old Testament and has a wide variety of meanings, some of which include "did", "made", "show", "appear", "made to appear", etc. In light of this fact, we must conclude that the sun and moon were created on day one (verse 3) but appeared in view on day four.

Vegetation before the Sun?

Naik has criticized Genesis for teaching that vegetation arrived before the sun, which seems scientifically impossible.22 Even though the above explanation clears up Naik's ‘difficulty', In Sahih Muslim23 and al-Tabari's account of the Qur'ānic creation sequence, we also find vegetation coming two days before the sun was created. The diagram above showing the sequence of the Torah creation period explains this—translucent light (which appeared on the first day) had been coming through the atmosphere from before this period, yet the sun or moon were not perceivable as yet. Thus photosynthesis could occur and plants develop, which in turn caused the oxygenation and clearing up of the atmosphere. Dr. Robert C. Newman (Ph.D. in Theoretical Astrophysics from Cornell University) concludes that

"vegetation was the immediate cause of both the oxygenation of the atmosphere and the removal of its heavy cloud cover."24

COSMOLOGY:

FLAT EARTH OR ROUND EARTH?

Diagram 1: The ancient view of the universe

Before Copernicus, most civilizations viewed the earth roughly as shown in the diagram above. However, Aristotle (384-322BC) and Ptolemy (2nd century AD) had determined that the earth is spherical, and Aristarchus (circa 280 B.C.) determined that the earth revolved around the sun.

Diagram 2: This picture is by'Umar bin Muzaffar Ibn al-Wardi. published in Kharidat al-'Aja'ib wa Faridat al-Ghara'ib. (The Pearl of Wonders and the Uniqueness of Things Strange). Late 17th century.

Diagram 3: From Ajaib al-Makhluqat (The wonders of creation) by the Persian author Zakariya Qazwini (d. 1283 or 1284).

Diagram 4: An ancient Egyptian view of the universe

Is the Earth Flat or Round?

"Do you not see how God causes the night to pass into the day and the day to pass into the night?" (Luqman 31:29)

Naik explains that the above verse miraculously teaches a round earth, because only if the earth was round could the day gradually become night. In fact, the Qur'ān is simply stating what is common knowledge, that the day doesn't instantly become night. To further support his claim, Naik uses the verse:

"And after that He spread the earth." (79:30)

Naik does next what he often does to prove his point, he invents his own new "meaning" for Arabic words. Words that have had known and accepted definitions for hundreds of years are suddenly redefined for no reason other than to prove Naik's scientific miracle. Thus, Sura 79:30 has always been translated, "spread out" However, Naik argues that the final word dahaha (دَحَهَا) means not "spread out" but "ostrich egg", so he translates this verse as, "And the earth, moreover, hath He made egg shaped."

There is no recognized Arabic dictionary where دَحَهَا means "ostrich egg." Previous to the last two decades of Bucailleism, no Arab scholar ever translated the verse this way; including scholars like Yusuf Ali, Pickthall, Shakir, Asad, and Dawood who have dedicated their lives to translating correctly these verses. Who do we listen to—a serious scholar of Qur'ānic Arabic, or a Saudi-sponsored television evangelist like Zakir Naik? As Abdul Rahman Lomax pointed out, this egg re-interpretation is "nonsense", for the earth is the exact opposite of an egg-shape; compressed at the ends (oblate spheroid) rather than elongated (prolate spheroid).

Despite Naik's attempt, several passages in the Qur'ān have been historically interpreted to indicate a flat earth. Thus:

"And the earth - We have spread out. (like a carpet)…" (Al-Hijr 15:19)

"Did we not spread the earth like a bed?" (Al-Naba 78:6)

"Have they never observed the sky above them, and marked how We built it up and furnished it with ornaments, leaving no crack in its expanse? We spread out the earth and set upon it immovable mountains." (Qaf 50:6-7)

"Do they never reflect on .. the heaven, how it was raised on high? The mountains, how they were set down? The earth, how it was made flat?" Al-Ghashiyah 88:18-20

Renowned commentator Al-Jalalayn's tafsir on this verse reads,

"As for His words sutihat, ‘laid out flat', this on a literal reading suggests that the earth is flat, which is the opinion of most of the scholars of the Law, and not a sphere as astronomers have it..."

Likewise, the prominent Egyptian Shafi'ie theologian Imam al-Suyuti also taught that the earth is flat.

Despite all the above passages, Naik has attacked the Bible for teaching a flat earth using Daniel 4:10-12,

"I saw a tree..it was visible to the end of the whole earth..all flesh was fed from it."

Naik entirely ignores (or conceals) the fact that this passage is simply quoting how a pagan king tried to describe a bewildering dream he had. King Nebuchadnezzar may well have thought the earth to be flat. As dreams often do, his dream may have contorted physical realities, or he may have misunderstood the dream in his description. In any case, this passage certainly cannot be used to show that the Bible teaches a flat earth. Naik also uses another vision produced by Satan during Jesus' temptation, in which

"The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world." (Luke 4:5)

According to Naik, this means that the Bible teaches a flat earth. In reality, it was a miraculous instantaneous vision. One might as well question the scientific explanation for the Mi'raj, how the Prophet could have rode a winged horse to Jerusalem, up to heaven and back in one night.

Finally, Naik also uses the following verse as "evidence" of a flat earth Bible:

And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." (Isaiah 11:12)

The word translated ‘corner' is ‘kanaph' (כּנף), which is also translated "extremity," "quarter," "border," "ends" or even "wing." Even ancient societies that believed the world was flat thought it was a disc, which wouldn't fit with the Bible's description here. Ancient societies did understand the four primary directions of north, south, east and west, so this is how we must naturally interpret the four ‘kanaph'. It is pretty obvious that this is an idiom for the four directions (north, south, east, west). Ironically, even Bible critic Ahmed Deedat (Naik's predecessor) inadvertently used this common idiom, saying: "to the four corners of the globe."25

Thus, we see for all Naik's attempts, there is no verse in the Bible that proves a flat earth. Instead, since ancient Hebrew had no word for ‘sphere' (a three-dimensional circle), ‘circle' was the closest equivalent which could be used to describe the earth. This expression "circle" is used repeatedly in the Bible to describe the earth (see `Īsāiah 40:22, Job 26:10, Proverbs 8:27).

Pillars Upholding Heaven

The Qur'ān does not explicitly deny the existence of pillars, yet it says in a number of verses that they are not visible to the human eye:

"God is He who raised up the heavens without pillars that you can see.." (Al-Ra'd 13:2; also Luqman 31:10)

Ibn Kathir's commentary on this verse reads, "there are pillars, but you cannot see them,' according to Ibn 'Abbas, Mujahid, Al-Hassan, Qatadah, and several other scholars."

There is likewise one verse in the Bible that also speaks of pillars, which critics mistakenly use to criticize Biblical cosmology:

The pillars of the heavens quake, aghast at his rebuke. (Job 26:11)

Job is Wisdom literature and uses extensive metaphoric, hyperbolic and poetic imagery. We know that Job did not literally believe that the heavens have pillars, for an immediately preceding verse says:

He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing. (Job 26:7)

Job not only knew that the skies are suspended over nothing, but he also seemed to know that the entire earth was suspended in empty space, which would seem unusually advanced for such ancient writing. If the critic will not even accept these proofs, he should be reminded that Job is chastened by God at the end of the book for presuming to know all about creation (Job 38:1-4). Job then repents, and God honors him for it.

Pillars Under the Earth

Naik attacks the Bible for saying that the earth has pillars:

"He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble" (Job 9:6)

"When the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm." (Psalm 75:3)

There is no problem with this description, for "earth" and "pillars" here are simply imprecise Hebrew terms for what we would today call "continental plates" and "underlying subterranean masses".26 If God had said, "…when the continental plates quake, it is I who hold the subterranean layers firm" the Jews would not have understood what he was saying, so he used their vocabulary. God chooses to use familiar human expression and language to communicate. In just the same way the Qur'ān uses expressions which are technically incorrect but nonetheless acceptable, terms like "sunset" and "sunrise." The critic fails to realize that this verse is not intended to be a description of the earth, but is rather a passage about God's sovereignty which uses a familiar human metaphor to communicate.

Naik criticizes the following passage as well:

He raises the poor from the dust

and lifts the needy from the ash heap;

He seats them with princes

and has them inherit a throne of honor.

"For the foundations of the earth are the LORD's;

upon them he has set the world. (1 Samuel 2:8)

The word "foundation" above used in Hannah's prayer is matsuq, sometimes rendered "pillar." Again, "foundation" is a fair description of the subterranean mass beneath the continental plates. We must remember too that this historical passage is simply recording the prayer of a fallible human (Samuel's mother Hannah).

Sun, Moon, Stars, Comets, and Heavens

Naik has alleged that the Torah incorrectly teaches that the moon emits light:

God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:16-18)

This argument is ridiculous, for it is perfectly acceptable to call the moon a "light"—the verse nowhere calls it a "source of light." One might as well criticize modern people for using the term "moonlight." All the Scriptures use phenomenological terminology to describe creation—the Qur'ān also called the moon a "light" (71:15-16). The Hebrew word "light" (מאור, mâ'ôr) covers both direct and reflected light (Proverbs 15:30). In fact, Ezekiel 32:7-8 and Matthew 24:29 hint that the moon's light is dependent on the sun's primary light.

The Qur'ān also contains a somewhat problematic description of the moon, for it says that there are seven layered heavens, with the lowest one containing the stars27 (though we now know that stars are found all throughout the cosmos). However Surah Nūh 71:15-16 places the moon in the middle of these seven heavens, which puts it much farther away than the nearest stars in the lowest heavens.

We also find comparable cosmological difficulties in the Qur'ān , this time regarding comets. Sura Al-Saffat says that:

We have decked the lower heaven with constellations. They guard it against rebellious devils, so that they may not listen to those on high. Meteors are hurled at them from every side; then, driven away, they are consigned to an eternal scourge. Eavesdroppers are pursued by fiery comets. (37:6-10)

It appears that comets are designed to chase eavesdropping jinn, unless one reinterprets these verses or redefines the words. These examples are not given to discredit the Qur'ān but rather to illustrate that we cannot reject Scripture for using nontechnical language.

THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE

Critics like Zakir Naik try hard to portray the Bible as impeding scientific progress:

"If you analyze, the Church was against science previously – and you know the incident that they sentenced Galileo to death. They sentenced Galileo to death – why? Because he said certain statements in the astronomy, etcetera, which went against the Bible – so they sentenced him to death.28

Galileo, a devout Catholic, was never sentenced to death. Galileo was sentenced to life imprisonment on June 22, 1633 and then that sentence was commuted to house arrest. He died more than eight years later on the evening of January 8, 1642 of old age. Galileo believed that his theories fit with the Bible, and he wrote a book arguing this based on early interpretations of Christians like Augustine.

When we look at history, we find that a Bible-based worldview has had a tremendous positive effect on science. Time after time, key scientists have been motivated to study nature by a deep faith in the Bible. Recent scholarship is rediscovering how science is not just ‘discovering facts' but it is very much shaped by one's worldview. Societies where rivers and trees are worshiped as divine have not developed flood banks to control dangerous floods, or dams to tap the resources. The Greeks developed little in the way of technology because they disdained the material world and work, preferring to speculate on nonmaterial things.

Isaac Newton, the founder of modern physics, was a committed Christian who considered his scientific theories to be evidence of a Creator. Indeed, Newton wrote more on Christian theology than on science. At `Īsāac Newton's time, many philosophers like Descartes saw the natural world and spiritual world as very separate, while others saw an immanent spirituality pervading the universe in a rather pantheistic sense. Newton, however, built his laws of physics on a Biblical view of the world, finding a middle way between a purely mechanical universe and a pantheistic universe. Newton was wholeheartedly committed to the teachings of the New Testament, accepting their authority and interpreting them literally; believing Jesus to be both Son of God and Lord.

Robert Boyle (1627-1691) was a deeply religious Christian who was the founder of modern chemistry and discovered Boyle's Law—that the pressure of a gas is inversely proportional to the volume it occupies. He wrote extensively on theology.

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) developed and popularized the heliocentric (‘sun-centered') model of the universe. Although heliocentric theories had previously been proposed by Greek, Indian and Muslim philosophers, Copernicus' scientific explanation became a landmark in the development of modern science. Copernicus was a Catholic cleric, and first shared his theories with Pope Clement VII and several Catholic cardinals who were enthusiastic and positive. Copernicus died of a stroke at the age of 70 and was buried in Frombork Cathedral.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was a key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution and wrote the first published defense of the heliocentric model (Mysterium Cosmographicum; The Cosmographic Mystery). In other words, Kepler reintroduced the ancient Greek concept of heliocentrism into Europe. His first manuscript of this argument contained an extensive chapter of Bible passages showing how heliocentrism is what the Bible teaches. Kepler was a deeply religious Protestant who had originally planned to be a cleric after graduation. His scientific notebooks are filled with prayers, praise, and theological musings.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), a devout Catholic throughout his life, popularized heliocentrism and improved telescopes. Many people mistakenly believe Galileo was imprisoned by the Catholic Church for contradicting the flat-earth idea, but the controversy was over the motion of the earth. It has been common knowledge in Europe for the past two thousand years that the Earth is round; the Catholics did not advocate a flat-earth cosmology at any time. The Catholic Papacy argued for geocentrism from passages which say that the sun "sets" and "rises"— just as the Qur'ān says in Al-Kahf 18:17. Furthermore, Galileo didn't argue that the Bible was wrong; in fact he wrote a book arguing that heliocentrism was not contrary to the Bible, appealing to the interpretations of early Church Fathers like Augustine. It is foolish to blame the Bible for this controversy, because the Catholic Church at the time was characterized by depending on their own traditions (sort of like Hadith) rather than the words of scripture.29 Kepler, another primary proponent of heliocentrism, was a committed Lutheran and argued for heliocentrism using the Bible.

Islamic history has had similar clerical problems. The twelfth-century Arabian scientist Ibn al-Haitham asserted that the earth was spherical, not flat, so clerics said that his work contradicted the Qur'ān. He was branded a heretic, his astronomical work burnt and he was largely forgotten for centuries because his delineation of the sphere of the earth was considered a symbol of impious atheism.30

Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) is the father of modern taxonomy and is also considered the father or modern ecology. Rousseau said of him, "I know no greater man on earth," and he was widely renowned throughout Europe as one of the most acclaimed scientists of the time. Linnaeus was a devout Lutheran Christian whose personal motto was "Live righteously- God is present." He saw botany and zoology as pursuits which glorify the Creator. No doubt he drew inspiration from the Biblical account of Solomon:

"He described plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon's wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom." - 1 Kings 4:33-34

Likewise, most naturalists of the time in Europe were pastors who pursued the study of nature as a hobby. The famous botanist John Ray (1627-1705) who offered the first modern biological definition of species, based his understanding on the Genesis creation account.

The Big Bang theory of creation was put forth by a Belgian priest, Georges Lemaitre (1894-1960) who wrote "it had to have begun with light" (as in the Biblical account). Pope Pius XII was an enthusiastic proponent of the Big Bang even before the theory was scientifically well-established. Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) was a committed Christian who concluded his scientific and mathematical career with writing a defense of the Christian faith.  The list goes on and on: Roger Bacon, Faraday, Herschel, J.C. Adams, van Helmont, Heisenberg, Planck, Huygens. The Bible does not oppose science. Rather, it provides a worldview that has encouraged investigation and experimentation which has produced many of the leading figures in the modern scientific revolution.

Who ‘Invented' Science?

Islam also had a golden age of science which preceded the European Scientific Revolution and contributed to it. From the eighth to the thirteenth century, the Islamic empire became a hub for scholarship, bringing together ideas from India, Greece, and China and improving on them. Renowned scholars like Ibn-Sina (Avicenna), Ibn-Rushd (Averroes), Farabi, Ibn al-Haytham (Al Hazen), Khayyam, al-Kindi, and al-Razi broke new ground in optics, medicine, chemistry, mathematics, and astronomy, paving the way for the European Renaissance. Muslim, Jewish and Christian scholars worked side by side in translating all the world's knowledge into Arabic and Persian, causing Baghdad, Córdoba and Cairo to become global intellectual hubs. Scholars dug into the works of Aristotle, Euclid, Plato, and the Indian and Chinese philosophers. Much of the European Renaissance was built on both Arab scholars like Avicenna and Averroes as well as ancient Greek texts regained via the Islamic world.

(Cited by Stone in Sardar & Davies: The Legacy of Islam: A Glimpse from a Glorious Past )

ARAB CONTRIBUTIONS TO CIVILIZATION

The years between the seventh and thirteenth centuries mark a period in history when culture and learning flourished in North Africa, Asia, Southern Europe, and the Middle East. When one sets aside the vagaries of politics, intrigue, mistrust, and suspicion which have plagues Man’s history, one finds that the Arab world continue to spin out the thread of earliest recorded civilization. It enhanced and developed the arts and sciences and preserved the libraries of the early centuries of the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine cultures. Indeed, during the Dark Ages of Europe, much learning was preserved for the world through the Arab libraries in the universities of Morocco (Fez), Mali (Timbuktu) and Egypt (al-Azhar). From this period of Arab influence, new words such as orange, sugar, coffee, sofa, satin, and algebra filtered into the languages of Europe and eventually into our own. New discoveries were made in the sciences and arts which improved the life and condition of Man, and thousands of Arab contributions have become an integral part of human civilization.

MATHEMATICS

In mathematics, the Arab sifr, or zero, provided new solutions for complicated mathematical problems. The Arabic numeral – an improvement on the original Hindu concept – and the Arab decimal system facilitated the course of science. The Arabs invented and developed algebra and made great strides in trigonometry. Al-Khwarizmi, credited with the founding of algebra, was inspired by the need to find a more accurate and comprehensive method of ensuring precise land divisions so that the Koran could be carefully obeyed in the laws of inheritance. The writings of Leonardo da Vinci, Leonardo Fibonacci of Pisa, and Master Jacob of Florence show the Arab influence on mathematical studies in European universities. The reformation of the calendar, with a margin of error of only one day in five thousand years, was also a contribution of Arab intellect.

ASTRONOMY

Like algebra, the astrolabe was improved with religion in mind. It was used to chart the precise time of sunrises and sunsets, and to determine the period for fasting during the month of Ramadan, Arab astronomers of the Middle Ages compiles astronomical charts and tables in observatories such as those at Palmyra and Maragha. Gradually, they were able to determine the length of a degree, to establish longitude and latitude, and to investigate the relative speeds of sound and light. Al-Biruni, considered one of the greatest scientists of all time, discussed the possibility of the earth’s rotation on its own axis – a theory proven by Galileo six centuries later. Arab astronomers such as al-Fezari, al-Farghani, and al-Zarqali added to the works of Ptolemy and the classic pioneers in the development of the magnetic compass and the charting of the zodiac. Distinguished astronomers from all over the world gathered to work at Maragha in the thirteenth century.

MEDICINE

In the field of medicine, the Arabs improved upon the healing arts of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Al-Razi, a medical encyclopedist of the ninth century, was an authority on contagion. Among his many volumes of medical surveys, perhaps the most famous is the Kitab al-Mansuri. It was used in Europe until the sixteenth century. Al-Razi was the first to diagnose smallpox and measles, to associate these diseases and others with human contamination and contagion, to introduce such remedies as mercurial ointment, and to use animal gut for sutures.

The famous scientist-philosopher known in Europe as Avicenna was Ibn Sina, an Arab. He was the greatest writer of medicine in the Middle Ages, and his Canon was required reading throughout Europe until the seventeenth century. Avicenna did pioneer work in mental health, and was a forerunner of today’s psychotherapists. He believed that some illnesses were psychosomatic, and he sometimes led patients back to a recollection of an incident buried in the subconscious in order to explain the present ailment.

In the fourteenth Century, when the Great Plague ravaged the world, Ibn Khatib and Ibn Khatima of Granada recognized that it was spread by contagion. In his book, Kitabu’l Maliki, al-Maglusi showed a rudimentary conception of the capillary system; an Arab from Syria, Ibn al-Nafis, discovered the fundamental principles of pulmonary circulation.

Camphor, cloves, myrrh, syrups, juleps, and rosewater were stocked in Arab sydaliyah (pharmacies) centuries ago. Herbal medicine was widely used in the Middle East, and basil, oregano, thyme, fennel, anise, licorice, coriander, rosemary, nutmeg, and cinnamon found their way through Arab pharmacies to European tables.

ARCHITECTURE

As with astronomy and mathematics, the great purpose of early Arab architecture was to glorify Islam. Architects devoted their skills primarily to the building of mosques and mausoleums. They borrowed the horseshow arch from the Romans, developed it into their own unique style, and made it an example for the architecture of Europe. The Great Mosque of Damascus, built in the 4early eighth century, is a beautiful demonstration of the use of the horseshoe arch. The mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo, with its pointed arches, was the inspiration behind the building of many magnificent cathedrals in Europe.

Arab cusp, tefoil, and ogee arches provided models for the Tudor arch such as those used in the cathedrals of Wells in England and Chartres in France. The Muslin minaret, itself inspired by the Greek lighthouse, became the campanile in Europe. One of the most famous examples of this can be seen in the San Marcos Square in Venice.

Designs from the Islamic mosques of Jerusalem, Mecca, Tripoli, Cairo, Damascus, and Constantinople were borrowed in the building of ribbed vaults in Europe. The Arab use of cubal transitional supports under domes was incorporated into the cathedrals and palaces of eleventh and twelfth century Palermo.

Arab styles were elegant and daring. Arabesque designs, calligraphy, and explosions of color can be seen today in such structures as the Lion Court of the Alhambra Palace in Granada, the Great Mosque of Cordoba, and many of the great medieval religious and civic buildings of Europe.

While we as Westerners are more familiar with the influence of Arab architecture of the Romance countries of Spain, Italy and France, we do not often remember that the Arab empires reached into Eastern Europe and Asia as well. Startling remnants of a once powerful conquest are particularly prevalent in Russia. The brilliant blue tiled done of the Mosque of Bibi Khanum, Timu’s (Tamerlane) favorite wife, catches the visitor’s eye in Samarkand. Here, as well as in the complex of tombs called Shah-I-Zinda (the Living Prince), much of the old beauty is being returned to its former elegance 

through restoration.

NAVIGATION AND GEOGRAPHY

The world’s earliest navigational and geographical charts were developed by Canaanites who, probably simultaneously with the Egyptians, discovered the Atlantic Ocean. The medieval Arabs improved upon ancient navigational practices with the development of the magnetic needle in the ninth century.

One of the most brilliant geographers of the medieval world was al-Idrisi, a twelfth century scientist living in Sicily. He was commissioned by the Norman King, roger II, to compile a world atlas, which contained seventy maps. Some of the areas were therefore uncharted. Called Kitabal-Rujari (Roger’s book), Idrisi’s work was considered the best geographical guide of its time.

Ibn Battuta, an Arab, must have been the hardiest traveler of his time. He was not a professional geographer, but in his travels by horse, camel and sailboat, he covered over seventy five thousand miles. His wanderings, over a period of decades at a time, took him to Turkey, Bulgaria, Russia, Persia, and central Asia. He spent several years in India, and from there was appointed ambassador to the emperor of China. After China, he toured all of North Africa and many places in western Africa. Ibn Battuta’s book, Rihla (journey), is filled with information on the politics, social conditions, and economics of the places he visited.

A twenty five year old Arab, captured by Italian pirates in 1520, has received much attention in the West. He was Hassan al-Wazzan, who became a protégé of Pope Leo X. Leo persuaded the young man to become a Christian, gave him his own name, and later convinced him to write an account of his travels on the them almost unknown African continent. Hassan became Leo Africanus and his book was translated into several European languages. For nearly two hundred year, Leo Africanus was read as the most authoritative source on Africa.  It should also be remembered that in the fifteenth century Vasco da Gama, exploring the east coast of Africa new Malindi, was guided by an Arab pilot who used maps never before seen by Europeans. The pilot’s name was Ahmed ibn Majid.

HORTICULTURE

The ancient Arabs loved the land, for in earth and water they saw the source of life and the greatest of God’s gifts. They were guided by the words attributed to the Prophet: “Whoever bringeth the dead land to life… for him is reward therein.” They were pioneers in botany. In the twelfth century an outstanding reference work, Al-Filahat by Ibn al-Awam, described more than five hundred different plants and methods of grafting, soil conditioning, and curing of diseased vines and trees.

The Arab contributions to food production are legion. They were able to graft a single vine so that it would bear grapes in different colors, and their vineyards were responsible for the future of wine industries of Europe. Peach, apricot, and loquat trees were transplanted in southern Europe by Arab soldiers. The hardy olive was encouraged to grow in the sandy soil of Greece, Spain, and Sicily. From India they introduced the cultivation of sugar, and from Egypt they brought cotton to European markets. “May there always be coffee at your house” was their expression, wishing prosperity and the joy of hospitality for their friends. Coffee was qahwah that which gives strength, and derivatives of that name are used today in almost every country of the world. They also perfected the storage of soft fruits to be eaten fresh throughout the year.

Arab horticulture gave the world the fragrant flowers and herbs from which perfumes were extracted. Their walled gardens were for the pleasure of the senses – a pine tree standing green and aromatic in the heart of a garden scented with jasmine; a fountain or artificial pool to delight the eye amidst lavender and laurel; a special rose garden blooming in riotous color, the roots injected with saffron to produce yellow, and indingo to produce blue; vines and trees injected with perfumes in the autumn flooding the air with fragrance in the spring; a weeping willow dripping gracefully into the middle of a clear lake; arbors and pergolas constructed where streams of water could bubble through them, cooling the air and giving relief from the heat of the desert. Mimosa and wild cherry lavished color against stonewalls, and cypress grew tall, close and straight bordering alleyways to obliterate from view all that was not pleasing.

Bulb flowers were already in a highly hybridized and cultivated state when the Crusaders carried them home from Palestine to western Europe toward the end of the centuries of Arab power. Rice, Sesame, pepper, ginger, cloves, melons and shallots, as well as dates, figs, oranges, lemons, and other citrus fruits, were introduced into European cuisine via the Crusaders and the trade caravans of Eastern merchants.

The women of Europe borrowed from the cosmetics first prepared by the Egyptians, Syrians, and Phoenicians. Some of these included lipsticks, nail polishes, eye shadow, eye liner (kohl), perfumes and powders, hair dyes (henna), body lotions and oils, and even wigs. A symbol of the vanity of the medieval ladies of European courts was the high peaked, pointed cap with its trailing veil of silk. This fashion of Jerusalem was called the tontour, and noble ladies of both the East and Europe vied with each other on the height of the tontour and the elegance of the fabrics used in the design of the face-framing millinery.

Much of our contemporary jewelry is a result of inspiration from adornments of the ancient and medieval Arabs, and the highly prized squash blossom design was once on the uniform bottle worn by Spanish Conquistadors.

OTHER SCIENCES

Concerning Arab contributions to engineering, one can look to the water wheel, cisterns, irrigation, water wells at fixed levels, and the water clock. In 860, the three sons of Musa ibn Shakir published the Book on Artifices, which described a hundred technical constructions. One of the earliest philosophers, al-Kindi, wrote on specific weight, tides, light reflection and optics.

Al-Haytham (known in Europe as Alhazen) wrote a book in the tenth century on optics, Kitab Al Manazir. He explored optical illusions, the rainbow, and the camera obscura (which led to the beginning of photographic instruments). He also made discoveries in atmospheric refractions (mirages and comets, for example), studied the eclipse, and laid the foundation for the later development of the microscope and the telescope. Al-Haytham did not limit himself to one branch of the sciences, but like many of the Arab scientists and thinkers, explored and made contributions to the fields of physics, anatomy and mathematics.

CRAFTS

Because the ancient Arabs believed that the arts served God, they raised small scale artistries to new levels of perfection. Glassware, ceramics, and textile weaves attest to their imagination and special skills. They covered walls and objects with intricately detailed mosaics, tiles, carvings, and paintings. Syrian beakers and rock crystals were in great demand in Renaissance Europe and the Azulejos. The iridescent luster pottery from the Moorish kilns in Valencia, also enjoyed great popularity. New glazing techniques were developed, and the brilliant blues took on many names. (The Chinese called them Muhammedan blues, and Dutch traders called them Chinese blues).

They were masters of silk weaving, and the Arab cape worn by Sicily's King Robert II on his coronation is one of the best examples of this delicate art. Cotton muslin, Damask linen and Shiraz wool became watchwords for quality in textiles in Europe.

One considers Moroccan leather to be of particularly fine quality. The Moroccan tanners of the Middle Ages developed methods for tanning hides almost to the softness of silk, and they used vegetable dyes that retained color indefinitely. These leathers were used for bookbindings, and the gold tooling and colored panels of the Arab style are still being produced, particularly in Venice and Florence to the present day.

The Arabs further developed the art of crucible steel forging. They hardened the steel, polished and decorated it with etchings, and produced tempered Damascene swords. Other works in metal included intricately cut brass chandeliers, ewers, salvers, jewel cases inlaid with gold and silver, and, of course, the beautifully decorated astrolabe.

LANGUAGE AND CALLIGRAPHY

Because God spoke to Muhammed in Arabic, Muslims venerated the Arabic language. Thus, to Muslims, Arabic calligraphy itself became an art form. It was the chief form of embellishment on all the mosques of the Arab world, and the religious and public buildings of Palermo, Cordoba, Lisbon and Malaga are resplendent with it.

The Arabic language is rich and pliant, and poetry, literature, and drama have left their mark on both East and West. Among the earliest publications of the Arabs were the translations into Arabic of the Greek and Roman classics – the works of Aristotle, Plato, Hippocrates, Ptolemy, Dioscorides and Galen. Some note that the poet Nizami’s translations of the twelfth century romance, Layla and Majnun, may have been an inspiration for the later work, Romeo and Juliet. Ibn Tufail’s Hayy ibn Yaqzan (Alive, Son of Awake), considered by many to be the first real novel, was translated by Pocock into Latin in 1671 and by Simon Ockley into English in 1708. It bears many similarities to Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. A Thousand and One Nights and Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat are among the best loved and most widely read of Arab literature. The fascination with Arabic, following the Hellenistic period of Louis XIV, is particularly evident in Shakespeare’s characterizations of the Moors (Othello and the Price of Morocco), in Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great, and in George Peel’s The Battle of Alcazar.

Besides influencing belles letters, the Arabs developed a system of historiography called isnad. This procedure documents all reliable sources and it provides the modern historian with accurate and comprehensive materials. Foremost among these historiographers was Ibn Khaldun, of whose Book of Examples Arnold Toynbee writes: “Ibn Khaldun, has conceived and formulated a philosophy of history which is undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time.”

MUSIC

The harp, lyre, zither, drum, tambourine, flute, oboe and reed instruments are today either exactly as they were used from earliest Arab civilization or variations of the Arabs’ early musical instruments. The guitar and mandolin are sisters to that plaintive, pear-shaped stringed instrument, the oud.

The bagpipe was first introduced into Europe by Crusaders returning from the wars in Palestine. It quickly became identified with the British Isles. Once the entertainment of the lonely Arab shepherds, the bagpipe returned to Palestine with the British Army. This lost musical art was relearned during the period of Sir John Glubb’s reorganization and command of Jordan’s colorful Bedouin Corps.

Arab poetry was put to music the subtle delicacy of minor key sequences and rhythm. The modes continue to influence our ballads and folk songs today. Extempore poetry was perfected into musical expression, and Arab wedding and other occasions are still celebrated with extempore versing and musical composition.

PHILOSOPHY

Arab philosophers effectively integrated faith and scientific fact, letting one exit within the framework of the other. The Arab philosophers after Byzantium re-discovered the classic philosophy of Aristotle, Plotinus, and Plato in attempting to find answers to the fundamental questions concerning God’s creation of the universe, the nature and destiny of the human soul, and the true existence of the seen as the unseen.

Among the well-known philosophers of the medieval world were al-Kindi, who contributed to the work of Plato and Aristotle; al-Farabi, who made a model of Man’s community; Avicenna (Ibn Sina), who developed theories on form and matter that were incorporated into medieval Christian Scholasticism; Ibn Khaldun, who expounded the cycles of a state in his Muqqadimah (Introduction).

In discussing contributions to human civilizations of some of the medieval Arab scientists, artists, educators, philosophers, poets and musicians, one must remember that their thought was molded and shaped by many ancient cultures – Greek, Roman, Chinese, Indian, Byzantine, Canaanite and Egyptian, for example. Arab culture, from its ancient beginnings to the present, has given us three great monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In government and law, one refers to Hammurabi (Babylonian), Ulpian and Papinian (Phoenicians). Perhaps the greatest contribution of the Arabs to human civilization has been the phonetic alphabet.

In all aspects of our daily lives, then – in our homes, offices and universities; in religion, philosophy, science and the arts – we are indebted to Arab creativity, insight and scientific perseverance.

World Zionism constitutes the last racist ideology still surviving and israhell the last outpost of "Apartheid" in the World. Israel constitutes by its mere existence a complete defiance to all laws, rules and principles, and the open racism manifested in the Jewish State is a violation of all ethics and morals known to Man.

How Islamic inventors changed the world

From coffee to cheques and the three-course meal, the Muslim world has given us many innovations that we take for granted in daily life. As a new exhibition opens, Paul Vallely nominates 20 of the most influential- and identifies the men of genius behind them

The story goes that an Arab named Khalid was tending his goats in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia, when he noticed his animals became livelier after eating a certain berry. He boiled the berries to make the first coffee. Certainly the first record of the drink is of beans exported from Ethiopia to Yemen where Sufis drank it to stay awake all night to pray on special occasions. By the late 15th century it had arrived in Mecca and Turkey from where it made its way to Venice in 1645. It was brought to England in 1650 by a Turk named Pasqua Rosee who opened the first coffee house in Lombard Street in the City of London. The Arabic qahwa became the Turkish kahve then the Italian caffé and then English coffee.

The ancient Greeks thought our eyes emitted rays, like a laser, which enabled us to see. The first person to realise that light enters the eye, rather than leaving it, was the 10th-century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haitham. He invented the first pin-hole camera after noticing the way light came through a hole in window shutters. The smaller the hole, the better the picture, he worked out, and set up the first Camera Obscura (from the Arab word qamara for a dark or private room). He is also credited with being the first man to shift physics from a philosophical activity to an experimental one.

A form of chess was played in ancient India but the game was developed into the form we know it today in Persia. From there it spread westward to Europe - where it was introduced by the Moors in Spain in the 10th century - and eastward as far as Japan. The word rook comes from the Persian rukh, which means chariot.

A thousand years before the Wright brothers a Muslim poet, astronomer, musician and engineer named Abbas ibn Firnas made several attempts to construct a flying machine. In 852 he jumped from the minaret of the Grand Mosque in Cordoba using a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts. He hoped to glide like a bird. He didn't. But the cloak slowed his fall, creating what is thought to be the first parachute, and leaving him with only minor injuries. In 875, aged 70, having perfected a machine of silk and eagles' feathers he tried again, jumping from a mountain. He flew to a significant height and stayed aloft for ten minutes but crashed on landing - concluding, correctly, that it was because he had not given his device a tail so it would stall on landing. Baghdad international airport and a crater on the Moon are named after him.

Washing and bathing are religious requirements for Muslims, which is perhaps why they perfected the recipe for soap which we still use today. The ancient Egyptians had soap of a kind, as did the Romans who used it more as a pomade. But it was the Arabs who combined vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide and aromatics such as thyme oil. One of the Crusaders' most striking characteristics, to Arab nostrils, was that they did not wash. Shampoo was introduced to England by a Muslim who opened Mahomed's Indian Vapour Baths on Brighton seafront in 1759 and was appointed Shampooing Surgeon to Kings George IV and William IV.

Distillation, the means of separating liquids through differences in their boiling points, was invented around the year 800 by Islam's foremost scientist, Jabir ibn Hayyan, who transformed alchemy into chemistry, inventing many of the basic processes and apparatus still in use today - liquefaction, crystallisation, distillation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation and filtration. As well as discovering sulphuric and nitric acid, he invented the alembic still, giving the world intense rosewater and other perfumes and alcoholic spirits (although drinking them is haram, or forbidden, in Islam). Ibn Hayyan emphasised systematic experimentation and was the founder of modern chemistry.

The crank-shaft is a device which translates rotary into linear motion and is central to much of the machinery in the modern world, not least the internal combustion engine. One of the most important mechanical inventions in the history of humankind, it was created by an ingenious Muslim engineer called al-Jazari to raise water for irrigation. His 1206 Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices shows he also invented or refined the use of valves and pistons, devised some of the first mechanical clocks driven by water and weights, and was the father of robotics. Among his 50 other inventions was the combination lock.

Quilting is a method of sewing or tying two layers of cloth with a layer of insulating material in between. It is not clear whether it was invented in the Muslim world or whether it was imported there from India or China. But it certainly came to the West via the Crusaders. They saw it used by Saracen warriors, who wore straw-filled quilted canvas shirts instead of armour. As well as a form of protection, it proved an effective guard against the chafing of the Crusaders' metal armour and was an effective form of insulation - so much so that it became a cottage industry back home in colder climates such as Britain and Holland.

 The pointed arch so characteristic of Europe's Gothic cathedrals was an invention borrowed from Islamic architecture. It was much stronger than the rounded arch used by the Romans and Normans, thus allowing the building of bigger, higher, more complex and grander buildings. Other borrowings from Muslim genius included ribbed vaulting, rose windows and dome-building techniques. Europe's castles were also adapted to copy the Islamic world's - with arrow slits, battlements, a barbican and parapets. Square towers and keeps gave way to more easily defended round ones. Henry V's castle architect was a Muslim.

Many modern surgical instruments are of exactly the same design as those devised in the 10th century by a Muslim surgeon called al-Zahrawi. His scalpels, bone saws, forceps, fine scissors for eye surgery and many of the 200 instruments he devised are recognisable to a modern surgeon. It was he who discovered that catgut used for internal stitches dissolves away naturally (a discovery he made when his monkey ate his lute strings) and that it can be also used to make medicine capsules. In the 13th century, another Muslim medic named Ibn Nafis described the circulation of the blood, 300 years before William Harvey discovered it. Muslims doctors also invented anaesthetics of opium and alcohol mixes and developed hollow needles to suck cataracts from eyes in a technique still used today.

The windmill was invented in 634 for a Persian caliph and was used to grind corn and draw up water for irrigation. In the vast deserts of Arabia, when the seasonal streams ran dry, the only source of power was the wind which blew steadily from one direction for months. Mills had six or 12 sails covered in fabric or palm leaves. It was 500 years before the first windmill was seen in Europe.

The technique of inoculation was not invented by Jenner and Pasteur but was devised in the Muslim world and brought to Europe from Turkey by the wife of the English ambassador to Istanbul in 1724. Children in Turkey were vaccinated with cowpox to fight the deadly smallpox at least 50 years before the West discovered it.

The fountain pen was invented for the Sultan of Egypt in 953 after he demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes. It held ink in a reservoir and, as with modern pens, fed ink to the nib by a combination of gravity and capillary action.

 The system of numbering in use all round the world is probably Indian in origin but the style of the numerals is Arabic and first appears in print in the work of the Muslim mathematicians al-Khwarizmi and al-Kindi around 825. Algebra was named after al-Khwarizmi's book, Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah, much of whose contents are still in use. The work of Muslim maths scholars was imported into Europe 300 years later by the Italian mathematician Fibonacci. Algorithms and much of the theory of trigonometry came from the Muslim world. And Al-Kindi's discovery of frequency analysis rendered all the codes of the ancient world soluble and created the basis of modern cryptology.

 Ali ibn Nafi, known by his nickname of Ziryab (Blackbird) came from Iraq to Cordoba in the 9th century and brought with him the concept of the three-course meal - soup, followed by fish or meat, then fruit and nuts. He also introduced crystal glasses (which had been invented after experiments with rock crystal by Abbas ibn Firnas - see No 4).

Carpets were regarded as part of Paradise by medieval Muslims, thanks to their advanced weaving techniques, new tinctures from Islamic chemistry and highly developed sense of pattern and arabesque which were the basis of Islam's non-representational art. In contrast, Europe's floors were distinctly earthly, not to say earthy, until Arabian and Persian carpets were introduced. In England, as Erasmus recorded, floors were "covered in rushes, occasionally renewed, but so imperfectly that the bottom layer is left undisturbed, sometimes for 20 years, harbouring expectoration, vomiting, the leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings, scraps of fish, and other abominations not fit to be mentioned". Carpets, unsurprisingly, caught on quickly.

The modern cheque comes from the Arabic saqq, a written vow to pay for goods when they were delivered, to avoid money having to be transported across dangerous terrain. In the 9th century, a Muslim businessman could cash a cheque in China drawn on his bank in Baghdad.

By the 9th century, many Muslim scholars took it for granted that the Earth was a sphere. The proof, said astronomer Ibn Hazm, "is that the Sun is always vertical to a particular spot on Earth". It was 500 years before that realisation dawned on Galileo. The calculations of Muslim astronomers were so accurate that in the 9th century they reckoned the Earth's circumference to be 40,253.4km - less than 200km out. The scholar al-Idrisi took a globe depicting the world to the court of King Roger of Sicily in 1139.

 Though the Chinese invented saltpetre gunpowder, and used it in their fireworks, it was the Arabs who worked out that it could be purified using potassium nitrate for military use. Muslim incendiary devices terrified the Crusaders. By the 15th century they had invented both a rocket, which they called a "self-moving and combusting egg", and a torpedo - a self-propelled pear-shaped bomb with a spear at the front which impaled itself in enemy ships and then blew up.

Medieval Europe had kitchen and herb gardens, but it was the Arabs who developed the idea of the garden as a place of beauty and meditation. The first royal pleasure gardens in Europe were opened in 11th-century Muslim Spain. Flowers which originated in Muslim gardens include the carnation and the tulip.

"1001 Inventions: Discover the Muslim Heritage in Our World" is a new exhibition which began a nationwide tour this week. It is currently at the Science Museum in Manchester. For more 

information, go to www.1001inventions.com.

The Importance of Books to the Muslims

Adapted from: Sardar & Davies: The Legacy of Islam: A Glimpse from a Glorious Past

"Within two hundred years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the book industry was to be found in almost every corner of the Muslim world. Indeed, the whole of Muslim civilization revolved around the book. Libraries (royal, public, specialized, and private) had become common. Bookshops were found almost everywhere and book authors, translators, copiers, illuminators, librarians, sellers, and collectors from all classes and sections of society, of all nationalities and ethnic backgrounds, competed with each other in the making and selling of books.

"There were many libraries from which to borrow books in the Muslim civilization. Historians list thirty-six libraries in Baghdad alone around the middle of the thirteenth century, and that does not include the House of Wisdom!   "There were similar libraries in Cairo (Egypt), Aleppo (Syria) and the major or cities of Iran, Central Asia and Mesopotamia. In addition to the central government libraries, there was a huge network of public libraries in most big cities, and prestigious private collections which attracted scholars from all parts of the Muslim world.

"Of course, one could always buy books. A manuscript ... was about the size of the modern book, containing good quality paper with writing on both sides, and bound in leather covers. An average bookshop contained several hundred titles, but larger bookshops had many more ... The list of books sold in one bookstore was more than sixty thousand titles in many subjects: language and calligraphy, Christian and Jewish scriptures, the Qur'an and commentaries on the Qur'an, language books, histories, government works, court accounts, pre-Islamic and Islamic poetry, works by various schools of Muslim thought, biographies of numerous men of learning, Greek and Islamic philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, Greek and Islamic medicine, literature, popular fiction, travel (to India, China, Indochina), magic, other subjects and fables!"

From another historian/traveler Al-Wazan (also known as Leo Africanus) we learn that in the city of Timbuktu, Mali in West Africa, books were very precious. At the height of the city's golden age in the mid-16th century, Timbuktu boasted not only the impressive public libraries, but also private ones which included many of the rarest books ever written in Arabic. The libraries of Timbuktu grew through a regular process of hand-copying manuscripts. Al-Wazan commented that "hither are brought divers manuscripts or written books, which are sold for more money than any other merchandise." [See The Islamic Legacy of Timbuktu, Erols site.]

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Above: The Public Library of Hulwan, Baghdad from a scene in Maqamat al-Hariri. The leather-bound books were stacked into niches cut into the wall. The last line in the Arabic text above is a common proverb still in use: "During an exam, a person is either honored or disgraced."

D. Optics - Study of Light and Vision

1. Egyptians were already making glass in 3500 BCE, although it was not perfectly transparent. A number of Greek and Roman references from about 200 BCE cite the usefulness of curved glass lenses in starting fires.

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The Islamic Empire, through its massive work of translating Greek and Roman texts into Arabic, learned about the manufacture of glass lenses. Islamic scientist Ibn Sahl (984) developed the first accurate theory of refraction of light. He gave Islamic science the understanding needed to develop all the optical tools and theories later developed in 17th century Europe.

2. Abu Ali Hasan Ibn al-Haitham (965 - 1040 C.E.) was known in Europe as Alhazen. He studied the human eye and describe how we see. His Book of Optics recognized that sight is visual images entering the eye, made perceptible by adequate light.

Read more about Ali Hasan Ibn al-Haitham who is considered the father of modern

E. Advances in Medicine: Another important area of translation was medicine. One of its most famous scholars was Hunayn ibn Ishaq (Joanitius) who eventually translated the entire set of Greek medical books into Arabic, including the Hippocratic Oath. Later as a director of the House of Wisdom, he also wrote at least twenty-nine original works of his own on medicine and a collection of ten essays on ophthalmology (the study of the eye) which covered the anatomy and physiology of the eye and the treatment of various diseases which affect vision. His book was the first known medical work to include anatomical drawings (pictures showing parts of the body), the book was translated into Latin and for centuries was used in both European and Middle Eastern universities.

Other important medical scientists were al-Razi (Rhazes) who was a giant of medical wisdom during the Islamic era.

1. Hospitals:

While European "hospitals" at this time were usually simply monasteries where the sick were told they would live or die according to God's will, not human intervention, Muslim hospitals pioneered the practices of diagnosis, cure, and future prevention.

The first hospital in the Islamic world was built in Damascus in 707, and soon most major Islamic cities had hospitals, in which hygiene was emphasized and healing was a priority. Hospitals were open 24 hours a day, and many doctors did not charge for their services. Later, a central hospital was established in Baghdad by order of the Abbasid ruler, the first of thirty-four hospitals throughout the Muslim world, many of them with special wards for women.

Traveling clinics with adequate supplies of drugs toured the countryside, and others paid regular visits to the jails.

2. Medical Schools:

The medical school at the University of Jundishapur, once the capital of Sassanid Persia, became the largest in the Islamic world by the 9th century. Its location in Central Asia allowed it to incorporate medical practices from Greece, China, and India, as well as developing new techniques and theories.

3. Famous Doctors

a.) Al-Razi, a 9th century Persian physician, made the first major Muslim contribution to medicine when he developed treatments for smallpox and measles. He also made significant observations about hay fever, kidney stones, and scabies, and first used opium as an anesthetic.

b.) Ibn Sina was one of the greatest physicians in the world, with his most famous book used in European medical schools for centuries. He is credited with discovering the contagious nature of diseases like tuberculosis, which he correctly concluded could be transmitted through the air, and led to the introduction of quarantine as a means of limiting the spread of such infectious diseases.

c.) In the 10th century, Al-Zahravi first conducted surgery for the eye, ear, and throat, as well as performing amputations and cauterizations. He also invented several surgical instruments, including those for the inner ear and the throat.

d.) Other Muslim physicians accurately diagnosed the plague, diphtheria, leprosy, rabies, diabetes, gout, epilepsy, and hemophilia long before the rest of the world.

4. Muslims also made advancements

in the field of pharmacology (the study of drugs and medicines). They experimented with the medical effects of various herbs and other drugs, and familiarized themselves with anesthetics (germ killers) used in India. The Arabs established the first drugstores and wrote the first encyclopedias of drugs and medicines. Baghdad had at one time as many as eight hundred sixty two registered pharmacists, all of whom had passed formal examinations.

E. Technology:

For centuries, the dry and harsh environment of much of the Muslim lands made the collection, transportation, and storage of water important. It is hardly surprising that the most important progress in medieval Muslim technology and engineering was achieved in relation to water.

In the tenth century al-Kindi proposed a plan to dam the Nile. Many of the dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts constructed at this time throughout the Islamic world still survive.  : At Hama in Syria, antique wooden wheels still lift the waters of the Orontes to gardens, baths, and fountains.

Syrian waterwheel still working. (Islam.org)

Muslim engineers also perfected the waterwheel and built underground water channels some fifty feet underground. The underground channels had manholes (openings from the street) so that they could be cleaned and repaired.

What were some other Muslim inventions and technological achievements?

Water raising equipment for irrigation are shown and described, including techniques included the waterwheel.  A type of windmill, a horizontal mill with sails that revolve in a horizontal plane around a vertical axis. Such mills are known from the 7th century AD in the region around modern Iran and Afganistan.  The heavy plow helped many farmers.

Steel made from iron after heating and pounding was improved upon by skilled steelworkers in Damascus and Toledo (Spain); they were famous for making fine steel weapons.  Paper making (first invented by the Chinese) was adapted by Middle Eastern workers and later introduced into Europe. See the process of early paper making.

The astrolabe (an instrument used for measuring the positions on the earth). For two student projects, see "Building an Astrolabe" and "Building an Astrolabe" from Singapore's Virtual Science Center. Photo: Muslim scientists developed the astrolabe, an instrument used long before the invention of the sextant to observe the position of celestial (heavenly) bodies.  See "Islamic History in Arabia and the Middle East", especially section on "The Golden Age" for inventions.

Medieval Inventions are listed on a timeline at "Medieval Technology Pages". See which ones had their origins in the Middle East and were brought to Europe.

F. Agriculture

Agricultural advances are also part of the Muslim legacy. Important books were written on soil, water, and what kinds of crops were suited to (fit best with) what soil. Many new plants were introduced into all parts of the Muslim empire from Africa, Europe, and from as far away as India and China. Farmers made advances in these areas of agriculture:

1. grafting (cutting of a branch from one plant and putting it onto another)

2. fertilizers (used to make the fields more fertile and grow more)

3. new plant varieties

 Arabic words are still used as English scientific terms:

Examples of Arabic words that are now part of scientific English include algebra, algorithm, chemistry, alchemy, zircon, atlas, almanac, earth, monsoon, alcohol, elixir, aorta, pancreas, colon, cornea, diaphragm, and many more!

Mathematics Advancements by Muslims:

Introduction: Just as with science, the Muslims learned from the Greeks, Egyptians, Indians, and Babylonians. Many translations took place in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Empire. The Muslim scholars there translated the works of the Greeks who loved mathematics and geometry, including Euclid's work on geometry. They borrowed from India a number system that had a zero and rewrote it as their own. They borrowed from the Babylonians whose number system was based on 60 (just like the minutes in an hour), and from the ancient Egyptians who had the math and geometry skills to build incredible pyramids. So from the beginning, "Arabic math" was a mixing of international knowledge. But the Muslims made additional contributions of their own, and through their study and written work, they preserved the knowledge of mathematics that otherwise might have been lost to the world.

Arithmetic:

12 + 10 =                                           5 x 4 =

14 - 8 =                                              6 : 2 =

Algebra:

2x = 14             x = ?                                     3x + 6 = 18

x = ?            x2 + xy = 10                               x = 5             y = ?

Geometry:

A = r2

a2 + b2 = c2

Trigonometry:

Top image from Hyperion Cultural Academy.

Arab contributions:

- the numbers we use are called Arabic numbers (numerals) which is a system of tens, with place values, and a zero to show an empty place: 1,302,005

- fractions: 1/2

- decimal fractions: 1.5

Arab contributions:

Algebra was first fully developed by Al Khwarism, the "father of algebra".

Arab contributions:

Al-Tusi, a Muslim, is the "father of trigonometry".

The decimal (tens place) system first came from India.

Al Khwarismi reworked these numbers and gave us Arabic numerals. Much later Europeans changed the Arabic numerals into the numerals we use today.

Al-Khwarizmi wrote about squares and square roots

- squares 32 = 9 (3 X 3)

- square roots = 3

Al-Khashi (from Persia, 15th century) invented decimal fractions: 5.25

In Khwarizmi's own words what he wanted to teach:

"...what is easiest and most useful in arithmetic, such as men constantly require in cases of inheritance, legacies, partition, lawsuits, and trade, and in all their dealings with one another, or where the measuring of lands, the digging of canals, geometrical computations, and other objects of various sorts and kinds are concerned..."

The Egyptians were very advanced in geometry and could build great pyramids.

The Muslims further developed trigonometry from their work in astronomy.

Today astronomers use trigonometry for calculating distances to stars, and for measuring distances and heights of buildings, trees, etc.

A. Arabic Numerals

One of the greatest advances was the introduction of "Arabic" numerals. The "Arabic" numerals were influenced by India's mathematics. It is a system based on place values and a decimal system of tens. This system had a zero to hold a place. These numbers were much easier to use for calculation than the Roman system which used numbers, like I, V, X, L, C, M, etc. Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division now became easy.

Below: Modern Arabic numerals which developed from them

With Arabic numerals, simple fractions and decimal fractions were also possible. Fractions and decimal fractions were also described by Muslim mathematicians during the Middle Ages.

B. The Development of Algebra.

Al Khwarizmi wrote the first book on algebra. (The name "algebra" was first used by him.)  Al Khwarizmi was born about 790 in Baghdad (now in Iraq) and died about 850.

The word for "Algebra" comes from the Arabic word for "al-jabr" which means "restoration of balance" in both sides of an equation.. Algebra was based on previous work from Greeks, Alexandrians in Egypt, and Hindus who had preserved the work from ancient Egyptians and Babylonians.

In the ninth century, al-Khwarizmi wrote one of the first Arabic algebras with both proofs and examples. Because of his work, he is called "the Father of Algebra." Al-Khwarizmi was a Persian born in the eighth century. He converted (changed) Babylonian and Hindu numerals into a workable system that almost anyone could use. He gave the name to his math as "al-jabr" which we know as "algebra".

A Latin translation of al-Khwarizmi's book on algebra appeared in Europe in the 12th century. In the early 13th century the new algebra appeared in the writings of the famous Italian mathematician, Leonardo Fibonacci. So, algebra was brought into Europe from ancient Babylon, Egypt and India by the Arabs and then into Italy.

C. Geometry

The scholars at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad and at universities in Cairo, Egypt also contributed to geometry. Geometry was highly developed by the Greeks, and the Muslims translated such great Greek thinkers as Euclid. Muslims used their understanding of geometry into designing wheels of all kinds, especially waterwheels and other systems for drawing up water, in improving farming equipment, and in designing devices of war such as catapults and crossbows. Geometry was also put to work in art, with beautiful geometric designs. Muslims further defined Euclidian geometry, and pointed the way toward the discovery of independent, non-Euclidean geometry developed in the most recent centuries.

D. Trigonometry

is also mostly a Muslim creation. It is a branch of mathematics which studies plane and spherical triangles. It developed from the need of astronomers to map points in the sky on a heavenly sphere. Trigonometry's functions, involving ratios such as sine and cosine, tangent and cotangent, were greatly developed and refined in the Islamic lands

Dari Catatan di atas kita memahami bahwa Ilmuwan Muslim banyak mewarnai Dunia sejak Tahun 700 Sampai 1600, namun perannya  dan kontyribusinya  sengaja dikaburkan oleh kaum-kaum yang tidak menyukai  islam. Namun suatu kebenaran tak bisa disembunyikan kendati ditutup serapih mungkin .  Masa waktu di atas merupakan jaman keemasan islam memberikan sharing pada dunia, namun orientalis barat menyebutnya jaman kegelapan.  Memang cukup logis tatkala ilmuwan muslim pada akhir abad ke 7 sudah mampu membuat rumahsakit di Bagdad ,  sudah mampu menemukan bubuk  mesiu dan di berbagai daerah mendirikan  perguruan tinggi  diwilayah  yang termasuk di dalamnya  saat Dinasti Ottoman , Baghdad, Damaskus dan Kairo, untuk dibetahui  mungkin  kala itu  Ibu kota  Inggris  London masa itu hanyalah sebuah dusun  yang masyarakatnya masih belum jelas peradabannya  dan masih mempraktekkan ilmu sihir . Seandainya Jabir Ibn Hayyan tidak mencoba berbagai formulasi kimia, mungkin  raja2 di Eropa hingga kini belum mengetahui cara berbilas memakai sabun sebagai mana muslim diajarkan berbilas oleh Rasulullah