Author: Abu Raef
The Role of Muslims in the Formation and Development of Science (Part 83)
Continuation of the Testimonies of Fair-Minded Scholars in the Field of Science
Professor Bier Bormann, a German scholar, says: “The achievements of Muslims in the fields of science and culture throughout the world are evident. Especially in medicine, no one can deny their contributions. This inspired me to write a book entitled ‘Islamic Medicine in the Middle Ages.’
My motivation for writing this work was that, as a German Christian, I consider part of my culture indebted to Islamic civilization; this is a truth I seek to explain and emphasize, despite the efforts of some to erase the great role Muslims played in Europe and the world. My colleague, the researcher Emily Savage-Smith, and I strived to document the achievements of Muslims in medieval medicine.”
He added: “Islamic hospitals were charitable (waqf-based) institutions that provided medical services to all people regardless of their religion. Jews, Christians, Sabeans, Zoroastrians, and others were treated there — a clear reflection of the broad spirit of Islamic tolerance toward non-Muslims.”
Regarding the diseases in which Muslims made scientific innovations, he said: “There were many, but the most significant was melancholia.” [1]
Will Durant states: “It can almost be said that the Muslims were the first to establish chemistry as a systematic science, for they introduced careful observation, scientific experimentation, and accuracy in recording results into a field where the Greeks had been content with industrial practices and vague hypotheses.” [2]
Donald R. Hill writes: “Al-Razi was truly one of the principal founders of modern chemistry because he emphasized systematic comparison and the necessity of experimental work.” [3]
In another place, he adds: “The Muslims tabulated the specific weights of substances before the Europeans did. In Europe, serious attention to this subject began only in the seventeenth century, reaching its height in the work of Robert Boyle. Boyle measured the specific weight of mercury by two methods and obtained values of 13.76 and 13.357, both of which were less accurate than those recorded by al-Khazini, whose results were nearly exact.” [4]
Gustave Le Bon writes: “The books of Jabir ibn Hayyan form an encyclopaedia of scientific knowledge, containing the essence of Arab chemistry in his time. They describe many chemical compounds that had not been mentioned before him, such as nitric acid (the solvent of silver), without which chemistry cannot be imagined.” [5]
Florian Cajori, a great historian of science, says: “One is astonished when observing what the Arabs and Muslims achieved in algebra. Al-Khwarizmi’s ‘Kitab al-Jabr wal-Muqabalah’ was a source from which both Muslim and European scholars benefited, borrowing many theories from it. Thus, it is justly said that al-Khwarizmi was the true founder of algebra on sound foundations.” [6]
Joan Vernet remarks: “If we look closely, the roots of mathematical development among Muslims go back to the Holy Qur’an — particularly to its complex inheritance laws. Al-Khwarizmi was the first Muslim mathematician, and we owe it to him that he systematically organized all scientific and calendrical knowledge in Arabic. The Spanish word Guarismi, meaning ‘numeration’ (numbers, their places, and zero), is derived from his name.
Algebra was the second field in which al-Khwarizmi worked — a branch of mathematics that had never before been studied in such an organized and serious way.” [7]
The Western orientalist John William Draper says: “It was the custom of the Arabs (Muslims) to observe and experiment. They regarded geometry and mathematics as tools for measurement. What they wrote in mechanics, hydrostatics, and optics was not based merely on theory, but also on observation and experimentation with instruments they possessed. This led them to develop chemistry and invent devices for purification, distillation, and elevation of substances, thus achieving great advances in geometry and trigonometry.” [8]
David Eugene Smith, in his History of Mathematics (Vol. 2), says: “It is said that the law of the pendulum was discovered by Galileo; however, Ibn Yunus had observed it long before him, for the Arab astronomers used the pendulum to measure intervals of time during observation.” [9]
George Sarton, in Introduction to the History of Science, writes: “Ibn Yunus was undoubtedly one of the giants of the eleventh century and the greatest astronomer of Egypt; he was the one who discovered the pendulum.” [10]
Gauthier states: “The Arabs taught us how to make books, manufacture gunpowder, and invent the ship’s compass. One should reflect on what our Renaissance would have been like if these elements of Arab civilization had not reached us.” [11]
Sinyobos says: “The Arabs gathered and united all the inventions and knowledge inherited from the ancient world — from the East, Greece, Persia, India, and China — and transmitted them to us. Many of our current words bear witness to this borrowing.
Through the Arabs, the barbaric and unrefined West entered the circle of civilization. If our thought and industry are connected to the past, the entire set of inventions that made life easier and more refined came from the Arabs.
Europeans learned from the Arabs the textile (woolen cloth) industry and many other crafts. The merchants of Pisa in Italy traded with the city of Bejaia in Algeria, where they learned candle-making and then brought it back to their own country and across Europe.” [12]
Risson remarks: “The spread of Arab civilization, along with the rapid expansion of their dominion in the world, revealed to us the significance of Arab culture. This brilliant medieval civilization was a synthesis of Byzantine and Persian traditions, achieved through two main factors: first, the Arabs’ passion for trade, and second, their devotion to development. Because of their sharp intelligence and inquisitive spirit, they delved deeply into the natural and mathematical sciences, surpassing all nations through Arabic numerals, the invention of algebra, and the refinement of geometry.”[13]
Finally, the Encyclopaedia Britannica states: “The truth is that many of the names of medicines and known pharmaceutical compounds today — indeed, the entire foundation of modern pharmacy (apart from recent chemical modifications) — all began with the Muslims.” [14]
Continues…
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References:
[1] Interview with Al-Akhbar newspaper, Egypt, 13/04/2007.
[2] Abu Zayd Shalabi, Tārīkh al-Ḥaḍārah al-Islāmiyyah wal-Fikr al-Islāmī, p. 312, Maktabat Wahbah, Cairo, Egypt.
[3] Donald R. Hill, Science and Engineering in the Islamic Civilization, p. 122, ʿĀlam al-Maʿrifah, Kuwait.
[4] Ibid., p. 98.
[5] La Civilisation des Arabes, p. 475.
[6] Rawāʾiʿ al-Ḥaḍārah al-ʿArabiyyah al-Islāmiyyah fī al-ʿUlūm, p. 93.
[7] Mādhā Qaddama al-Muslimūn lil-ʿĀlam?, p. 729.
[8] Al-Islām wal-Ḥaḍārah al-ʿArabiyyah, p. 203.
[9] Mādhā Qaddama al-Muslimūn lil-ʿĀlam?, p. 730.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Al-Islām wal-Ḥaḍārah al-ʿArabiyyah, p. 201.
[12] Ibid., p. 206.
[13] Ibid., p. 205.
[14] Mādhā Qaddama al-Muslimūn lil-ʿĀlam?, p. 730, quoted from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 18, p. 46, 11th Edition.
