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Does Islam call for Backwardness, Part Two
The Holy Quran deems science so high as it is conductive to the belief in God and even the Holy Quran uses science to prove its divine source , God says in the Holy Quran what means
so the Holy Quran is replete with scientific facts that are compatible with modern science , for example we can read about : the Big Bang, the expansion of the universe, the Big Crunch , the magnetic columns that hold the universe , atom , pulsar , black hole , supernova , Solar Apex , rotation of the earth , death of the sun and other stars , the joining of the sun and the moon , the nature of the sun and the moon , relativity of time , the internal waves in the deep sea , the sea set on fire , the barrier between the two different water in density , the shape of the earth , nature of clouds , mountains , evolution of embryo and fetus in wombs(embryology) and many others .) So the early Moslems, being inspired by the spirit of the Holy Quran, started to work their minds and they did discover and invent what our modern civilization owe to. Cities like Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo and Cordoba were the centers of civilization. These cities were flourishing and Muslim scientists made tremendous progress in applied as well as theoretical Science and Technology.‘In the ninth century, the library of the monastery of St. Gall was the largest in Europe. It boasted 36 volumes. At the same time, that of Cordoba contained over 500,000!’. The idea of the college was a concept which was borrowed from Muslims. The first colleges appeared in the Muslim world in the late 600's and early 700's. In Europe, some of the earliest colleges are those under the University of Paris and Oxford they were founded around the thirteenth century. These early European colleges were also funded by trusts similar to the Islamic ones and legal historians have traced them back to the Islamic system. The internal organization of these European colleges was strikingly similar to the Islamic ones, for example the idea of Graduate (Sahib) and undergraduate (mutafaqqih) is derived directly from Islamic terms. C.H. Haskins said:
They are the ones who placed the fundamentals from which modern civilization advanced. Whoever reviews the 'Dictionary of Technical Terms for Aerospace' would certainly conclude that sixty percent of the known stars are given names that are derived from Arabic. The books and works of early Muslim scholars were the main resource texts which the West benefited from, especially the Europeans who used these works during the Renaissance period. Many of these texts were used in European universities. Marquis of Dufferin and Ava said:
Scientific knowledge that originated in India, China and the Hellenistic world was sought out by Muslim scholars and then translated, refined, synthesized and augmented at different centers of learning in the Islamic world from where the knowledge spread to Western Europe. (History of Medicine, Arab roots of European Medicine, David W. Tschanz, MSPH, PhD. Also see: http://www.hmc.org.qa/hmc/heartviews/H-V-v4%20N2/9.htm ) J.H. Denison said: 'In the fifth and sixth centuries the civilized world stood on the verge of chaos. The old emotional cultures that had made civilization possible, since they had given to men a sense of unity and of reverence for their rulers, had broken down and nothing had been found adequate to take their place. It seemed then the great civilization which it had taken four thousand years to construct was on the verge of disintegration, and that mankind was likely to return to that condition of barbarism where every tribe and sect was against the next, and law and order was unknown. The old tribal sanctions had lost their power. The new sanctions created by Christianity were working division and destruction instead of unity and order. It was a time fraught with tragedy. Civilization, like a gigantic tree whose foliage had overarched the world and whose branches had borne the golden fruits of art and science and literature, stood tottering rotted to the core. Was there any emotional culture that could be brought in to gather mankind once more into unity and to save civilization? It was among these people that the man (Muhammad) was born who was to unite the whole known world of the east and south. Muslims had advanced in all technical, scientific and intellectual fields. Here we will mention a few of the outstanding scholars in various fields. It is when Europe was still in its dark ages , that out of the womb of Islam budded into the world scientists that laid the foundation of many of sciences , for the sake of brevity we give these examples
The German Orientalist E. Sachau said about al-Biruni: 'He was the greatest intellectual known to man.'
· Al-Hasan b. al-Haitham (Alhazen 965- 1040AH) was a great mathematician. He was a pioneer in optics, engineering and astronomy. According to Giambattista della Porta, Al-Hasan was the first to explain the apparent increase in the size of the moon and sun when near the horizon. His seven volume treatise on optics Kitab al- Manadhir (Book of Optics) is possibly the earliest work to use the scientific method. He used the results of experiments to test theories. · Al-Mansoori and Abu Bakr ar-Razi were renowned, versatile physicians. They made fundamental and enduring contributions to the fields of medicine and philosophy. · Muwaf'faq al-Baghdadi and Abul-Qasim az-Zahrawi were renowned in dental practices. They wrote books concerning this, and put illustrative pictures of the tools used in surgical operations and how to use the tools. In the field of geography and geology many notable scholars can be mentioned, among whom are: · Shareef al-Idrisi (1100-1165H) was a cartographer, geographer and traveler. He was renowned for his excellent maps of the world. He also invented navigational instruments. There are many Muslim scholars who participated and took part in advancing civilization. Major Arthur Glyn Leonard said: " Do not we, who now consider ourselves on the topmost pinnacle ever reached by culture and civilization, recognize that, had it not been for the high culture, the civilization and intellectual, as the social splendors of the Arabs and soundness of their system, Europe would to this day have remained sunk in the darkness of ignorance?
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