The
Renaissance
The
influence of Islam on Europe is responsible for the rapid
advancement of Europe in the Dark Ages.
Briffault
in the "The Making of Humanity" book
states: "It was not science only
which brought Europe back to life. Other and manifold
influences from the civilization of Islam communicated
its first glow to European life.
The
debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist
in startling discoveries or revolutionary theories; science
owes a great deal more to Arab culture, it owes its existence.
The ancient world was, as we saw, pre-scientific.
The
astronomy and mathematics of Greeks were a foreign importation
never thoroughly acclimatized in Greek culture.
The
Greeks systematized, generalized and theorized, but the
patient ways of investigations, the accumulation of positive
knowledge, the minute methods of science, detailed and
prolonged observation and experimental enquiry were altogether
alien to the Greek temperament. Only in Hellenistic Alexandria
was any approach to scientific work conducted in the ancient
classical world. That spirit and those methods were introduced
into the European world by the Arabs."
The Greeks were primarily theorizers and contemplators.
Plato
juxtaposed the macro-world to the micro-world of the human
body.
Aristotle
classified the world we live in into four groups: fire,
air, water and earth.
According
to Durant these "elaborations
of 'vague theories' was the extent of the Grecian contribution."
Dr.
K Ajram in his book, "The Miracle of Islamic
Science" says, "Greek
interpretations failed to signify science because they
did not take actions to confirm their theories."
Hippocrates
is known as the father of modern medicine but the majority
of his medical theories were considered erroneous.
These
achievements during their age were tremendous but the
main influence of the Renaissance didn't come solely from
the Greeks. In-depth observation and experiments were
introduced to Europe by the Arabs (Muslims, Christians
and Jews).
The
Greek's accomplishments in the field of reason, philosophy
and art were vast but the precise sciences--physics, medicine,
geology, geography, botany, and others all came from the
rise of Islam."
In
Europe's "Dark Ages," the bond between faith
and reason was weak and there developed a deep gulf between
them. It was the Muslims who at the peak of their "Golden
Age" came to the assistance and bridged this gap.
Many
questions raised by the Christian gospel were awaiting
rational interpretations. Did God create the universe
out of nothing or had that universe existed eternally?
The
answers were found in the writings of the Arab and Islamic
literature. In the 8th through 13th centuries in Spain
under the Moors, some of Islam's greatest thinkers, revolutionized
Christian scholasticism.
Some
of those are al Farabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Hazm
(994-1064) and Ibn Rushd. Ibn Rushd (1126-1196), known
by the Latin as Averroes.
Ibn
Rushd was a philosopher, an Aristotelian and an author
of some of the most influential medical works. He provided
Europe with integral commentaries on understanding Aristotle,
who was a significant influence in Western scientific
development.
Christian thinkers relied more on Ibn Rushd (Averroism)
than on Aristotle in researching in the world of science.
Among
Ibn Rushd's followers were the Jewish thinkers who called
him "the soul and intelligence of Aristotle.
In
fact, Jewish philosophers such as Ibn Maymun, known as
Maimonides (d. 1204), Yahuda ben Solomo Cohen and Aveicebron
who were the main glory of intellect were students of
Ibn Rushd and Arabic philosophy.
It
is the Islamic philosophy that floats high above all racism
that gave freedom and protection to minority and the Jews
who translated the Arabic works into Hebrew (12th to 14th
century).
Rom
Landau stated in his book, "The
Arab Heritage of Western Civilization" that
"averroism became the chief doctrine of the philosophical
schools of Paris, Padua and Bologna. It helped lay the
foundation for the Renaissance"
Another branch of Arab learning was medicine. One of Europe's
best medical schools in France was founded by Arab doctors.
Around
1150 AD Europe learned the Arabic numerals, and the science
of algebra - a science invented by the Arabs. The Italian,
Leonardo Fibonacci, laid the foundations of Western mathematics
basing his approach on that of the Arabs.
It
is clear that "what the Arabs
transmitted to the West went far beyond the Greek legacy.
For it was the Arabs from whom Europe also learned that
there can be no exclusiveness in man's quest for truth,
and that truth itself knows no frontiers of race or religion.
These were in fact the principles that were to guide the
Renaissance and make Western progress and Western civilization
possible," Says Rom Landau, author of "The
Arab Heritage of Western Civilization."
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