Under
Rating
the
Islamic Achievements
Unfortunately, the West has persistently endeavored to underrate
the achievements of Islam and Muslims.
According to Dr. K. Ajram in his book, "The Miracle
of Islamic Science,"
"few if any of the original contribution
of the Arabs are mentioned in the books of history and encyclopedias."
In his book, "History of the Intellectual Development
of Europe," John William Draper stated,
"I
have to deplore the systematic manner in which the literature
of Europe has contrived to put out of sight our scientific obligations
to the Mohammadans (misnomer for Muslims).
Surely they cannot be much longer hidden. Injustice founded on
religious rancor and national conceit cannot be perpetuated forever.
What should the modern astronomer say, when, remembering the contemporary
barbarism of Europe, he finds the Arab Abul Hassan speaking of
turbes, to the extremities of which ocular and object diopters,
perhaps sights, were attached, as used at Meragha?
What when he reads of the attempts of Abdur Rahman Sufi at improving
the photometry of stars?
Are the astronomical tables of Ibn Junis (A.D. 1008) called the
Hakemite tables, or the Ilkanic tables of Nasir-ud-din Toosi,
constructed at the great observatory just mentioned, Meragha near
Tauris (1259 A.D.), or the measurement of time by pendulum oscillations,
and the method of correcting astronomical tables by systematic
observations are such things worthless indications of the mental
state?
The Arab has left his intellectual impress on Europe, as before
long Christendom will have to confess --- he has indelibly written
it on the heavens, as any one may see who reads the names of the
stars on a common celestial globe."
It is not only deplorable to underrate the discoveries of the
early Muslims, but it is far worse to ignore the mere existence
of science as a whole to the Muslims. Here is what Robert Briffault
in his book, "The Making of Humanity"
states:
"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 Astronomy and Mathematics of the Greeks were
a foreign importation never thoroughly acclimatized in Greek culture.
The Greeks systematized, generalized and theorized, but the patient
ways of investigation, the accumulation of positive knowledge,
the minute method of science, detailed and prolonged observation
and experimental inquiry were altogether alien to the Greek temperament.
Only in Hellenistic Alexandria was any approach to scientific
work conducted in the ancient classical world. What we call science
arose in Europe as a result of new spirit of enquiry, of new methods
of experiment, observation, measurement, of the development of
mathematics, in a form unknown to the Greeks. That spirit and
those methods were introduced into the European world by the Arabs.
"It is highly probable that but for the
Arabs, modern European civilization would never have arisen at
all; it is absolutely certain that but for them, it would not
have assumed that character which has enabled it to transcend
all previous phases of evolution."
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