Posted on 12/17/2004 9:42:37 AM PST by bondserv
Did Early Islam Promote Science? 12/16/2004
Nature published a news feature this week crediting a religion, Islam, with advancing science, but saying nothing about the Christian roots of science.1 It begins,
Western science owes much to Islam’s golden age – a debt that is often forgotten. To help redress the balance, Fuat Sezgin has reconstructed a host of scientific treasures using ancient Arabic texts. Alison Abbott reports. (Emphasis added in all quotes.)Sezgin (professor emeritus on the history of science at the University of Frankfurt) is given very positive press. His mission is to help Westerners realize that “the Arab world was the guardian of the ancient Greeks’ scientific knowledge during the Middle Ages, before the European Renaissance rediscovered and extended it.” He has opened a museum in Germany with 800 machines built from descriptions in medieval Arab texts.
The history of science is a complex subject involving centuries of political and ideological trends, thousands of players, and multitudes of documents, but two things are clear: true modern science was born in countries that had a Christian world view, and the greatest scientists of the scientific revolution came from a Christian background. Without slighting the contributions of the Greeks and Arabs, to portray otherwise is to distort history.
Half truths are deadly because they contain some truth. It is true that medieval European scholars were in debt to the Arabs for Greek texts, machinery, medicine, mathematics and more. It is true that Arab scholars made significant advances in medicine, astronomy, and mathematics before the European Reformation and Renaissance. But it is also true that Islam conquered countries mercilessly with the sword (as it does now) and would have overrun Europe had not the Europeans resisted. Would their complete domination of Europe ushered in a golden age? Would the rise of science had been as meteoric under the caliphs as it was under the Reformers? Why is Nature so quick to praise the religion of Islam, and so silent about the Christian faith of most of the founders of modern science?
Any scholar, including Sezgin, who brings historical facts to light is deserving of credit. If he is helping correct some imbalances in the history of science, that is good. Displaying devices that Arab inventors made, including complex astrolabes, surgical devices, water clocks and anesthetics, is as worthwhile as displaying those made by the Chinese, the Egyptians or the Mayans. But to suggest that Europe stole science from the Muslims is a distortion. Despite centuries of opportunity, a true self-sustaining scientific enterprise did not arise in Islamic countries, and Islamic countries today are some of the most scientifically backward of all (see 11/21/2004 headline).
Science involves not just making inventions but striving to understand the working of the world. Most cultures, in spite of their religions, have shown skill at architecture and invention, often due to necessity (war, sanitation, healing sickness or injury, providing water supply and food), or for artistic purposes. All societies, additionally, have innately intelligent or skilled people who can achieve greatness and satisfaction in their works. But that is not the same thing as science. Only in Christian Europe did a true scientific revolution take place, largely because Christian philosophers saw nature as a handwork of God that operated under His law. Abbott mentions many inventions in her article, but not any Arab search after scientific principles; yet she uses the phrase “Islamic science” repeatedly when Islamic technology would be more appropriate. It is odd that Nature would have so much good to say about the Greeks whose works the Arabs translated, but whose scientific ideas were so often wrong, based not on the scientific method but usually on the reasonings of their fallible minds. Yet much of Islamic “science” included a slavish devotion to the wisdom of the Greeks, especially Aristotle. It took a long time for the Europeans to wean themselves off Aristotle and learn by experiment, like the work of Robert Boyle and Johannes Kepler (both devout Bible-believing Christians) that nature operates primarily through God-ordained natural laws. These scientists, like many other Christians, explored nature not for gain or fame or pragmatism, but sheerly for the joy of discovering the workings of God.
Abbott grossly whitewashes the Islamic sword of terror. Notice this sentence: “As the reach of the Islamic world spread, stretching from northern India to Spain, they absorbed as much knowledge as they could from each conquest.” Listen, people: the Islamic world did not “spread” like soft margarine on a butter knife, with the bread of humanity eager to soak it up. The knife was a butcher knife, sharp and red with blood. The caliphs Abbott speaks so well of promoted learning as much for personal fame and national fortune than for understanding. Here is another whitewash:In the fifteenth century, the Islamic world shrank under military pressure from western Europe – the last Muslim forces were forced out of Spain in 1492, the year Christopher Columbus reached America. By this time, the European Renaissance was under way and Islamic knowledge was sucked up by powers on the rise, such as Spain and France.Oh, those nasty Europeans, with their military and political ambitions trying to suppress the wisdom of the peace-loving Muslims, but taking their knowledge as booty. Abbott should thank God that the Europeans finally had the guts to oust a religious empire that wanted to take over the world by the sword.
This is the same religion terrorizing our world today. Cry about separation of church and state in America? There is none in Islamic countries. This is the same religion holding its populace hostage to a seventh-century culture, impoverishing its citizens, denying its women of basic human rights and teaching a distorted history of the world (i.e., Jews were the Nazis, and there is no Israel). Tell the truth, Nature – the whole truth. Anthony Flew, the former atheist philosopher (see 12/09/2004 headline), said, “Islam has neither suffered nor enjoyed either a Reformation or an Enlightenment.” He added, “As for Islam, it is, I think, best described in a Marxian way as the uniting and justifying ideology of Arab imperialism” —I would never regard Islam with anything but horror and fear because it is fundamentally committed to conquering the world for Islam. It was because the whole of Palestine was part of the land of Islam that Muslim Arab armies moved in to try to destroy Israel at birth, and why the struggle for the return of the still surviving refugees and their numerous descendents continue to this day.He also described reading the Quran as “a penance more than a pleasure,” and compared Jesus and Muhammed thus: “for goodness sake, Jesus is an enormously attractive charismatic figure, which the Prophet of Islam most emphatically is not.” Muhammed was no scientist. He was a superstitious, impetuous, conceited, philandering, bloodthirsty tyrant.
Yet Nature seems to be on a new campaign to whitewash the very religion that is responsible for the most terror, the most tyranny, the most genocide and the most unenlightenment in the world today. Imagine schools of the future slighting or ignoring Newton or Galileo, but paying homage to Avicenna and Muhammed as the fathers of science. Imagine Christianity and Judaism being ignored or condemned as anti-intellectual. Visualize the educational laws of the future forbidding the teaching of both atheistic Darwinism and Christian (European/American) science in the science class, but extolling the work of Arab scholars. Imagine them recounting for students selective horrors committed by Europe and Israel in their conflicts with Muslims, but sweeping under the rug centuries of atrocities committed with the sword of Allah. Would this be an improvement on the current tyranny of naturalistic science in the schools? Is this the kind of new politically-correct philosophy of science that Nature will promote after the fall of the current idol, Charles Darwin? Will Sagan, the popularizer of atheistic science, be eclipsed by Sezgin, the popularizer of Islamic science? Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, you find the devil is clever.
Ping!
Back in Europe's Dark Age (while under siege from Vkiking Raids), several Islamic scholars were noted for the transmission and interpretation of Aristotle's work.
Al gebra (the stones) was the basis of much of our higher mathematics, and the concept of "zero" came down to us through Arabic scholars. This period of learned erudition probably occurred BEFORE the Islam revolution that drove out Zoroastrianism from the Middle East.
Time to restore Ahura Mazda as the monotheistic diety of the region. MUCH more compatible with the Judaic tradition.
WRONG! The concept of zero came from India a thousand years before Mad Mo terrorised his neighborhood.
Zero came from the Mayans
Stolen from Hindus.
It's true that some of the basic Aristotelian texts came into the West via Islamic editions. Most important, that's how some of the major Aristotelian texts reached Thomas Aquinas, who brought Aristotle back into the mainstream of western philosophy and theology.
On the other hand, if not for the Muslim invasions of North Africa and the Middle East, it's likely enough that this knowledge would have reached the West via other channels. Islam itself invented little or nothing. It destroyed several very ancient civilizations, including Egypt and Mesopatamia, which at the time was Persia. A little of the ancient knowledge came dribbling through. I don't know whether the Arabs should be praised for that, or blamed for destroying a great deal of other knowledge that might otherwise have survived.
In any case, the advancement of science and technology was a uniquely Christian achievement. There were deep scientific thinkers in China, Greece, and the ancient world, but they did very little with that knowledge. It was the Middle Ages (see Lynn Thorndike's histories of science) and the Renaissance that transformed thinking about science. This rested on at least two basic Christian principles that are not found elsewhere:
1) The Logos. The universe has a basic rationality built into it because it was created by and through the Logos, God's Word, the Second Person of the Trinity.
2) Free will. We are free to discover, invent, and change our lives.
Neither of these principles can be found in Islam, which stresses that Allah is totally arbitrary and that he governs the universe without extending any freedom of choice to men.
Nope,the value of zero was first concieved in Ancient India.From there it went to Greece & unfortunately,by the 6th century wound up in the hands of the Slammics.Now it's called Arabic numerals.
Vedic Civilisation existed before the Mayans, and India is where the concept of zero originated. Ask any Mathematics department. Interestingly enough, I maintain two websites, one on Vedic philosophy and the other on Maya Glyphs!
i think i may have missed the point of this artical. Do we owe a debt to greece because of their philosphical break throughs? the chinese for gunpowder the europeans for naviagational skills?
are they trying to say knowledge is built on previous knowledge? yeah no duh!
so i wonder when the greeks are going to point out with out us there'd be no rome. Then africa will say. Ha but wait greece, you owe us for being the cradle of civilization. But then the great apes will rise up and say ha ha! but all humans owe us for evolving into humans. Then god himslef will chime in and say you all owe me for turning on the lights
i'm gonna file this one is along with: "this just in: man sues other man to reconcile his great great great great great great grandfathers debt"
Thats what I like about religion...Its unites people so well.
Same old story. They take stuff over than claim they built it, invented it or conceived it.
Is Lynn Thorndike considered truthful with the history?
I don't know where it(zero)was concieved, but at this time of the year it is reflected in my checking account.
Most of Islamic science was destroyed by the Mongol invasion. The economic destruction was widespread at the same time, comparable to that of the South during the Civil War or that wrought by WWII. Additionally, Islamic society turned more conservative and fundamentalist as a response to the Mongols. (Sort of a "God is punishing us so lets get conservative" view.) Currently, Islamic philosophy is mostly fundamentalist conservative and very anti-science, particularly anti-evolutionary theory.
A religion that agrees with John Kerry and his ilk, is not going to get my unity. The beliefs of the religion need to be treated with intellectual honesty.
This is why so many great thinkers throughout history are Christian. Consider our founding fathers as an example. There has not, to this day, been a better grouping of brilliant thinkers than during the birth of our nation.
Have you ever read Louis L'Amour's "Walking Drum". I highly recommend it. It is a book set in the peak of the Muslim rule in Southern Europe and Northern Africa.
I will give neither the early muslims nor the modern ones any credit whatsoever.
As this introductory paragraph summarizes perfectly, I will give the golden age of islam credit as superb librarians. That's it.
Note, however that the knowledge conveyed is Greek, or Oriental, or the fruits of other conquered empires.
There is no uniquely arab or muslim contribution of any kind whatsoever. Completely devoid of original thought.
As for the modern muslims?
I won't even recognize them as human!
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