Arabs Once Dominated Science

The United Nations Development Program, in a report published last year, described in often painful detail some of the factors that have contributed to the decline of science and the rise of extremism in Arab societies. Among them are:

Increases in average income have been lower in the Arab world than anywhere else for 20 years, except for the poorest African countries. "If such trends continue...it will take the average Arab citizen 140 years to double his or her income, whole other regions are set to achieve that level in a matter of less than 10 years," the report noted. One in 5 Arabs lives on less than $2 a day.

--- Surveys show more than half of young Arabs want to leave their countries
and live in the United States or other industrialized countries where opportunities are better.

--- The Arab brain drain is the world's worst, with about 25 percent of new graduates
in science, medicine and engineering emigrating each year.

--- About 1 in 4 Arab adults can neither read nor write. This is a particular problem
among Arab women, 50 per cent of whom are illiterate. Many children do not attend school.

--- The quality of education has declined, with many schools teaching mainly
interpretations of the Koran, rather than other knowledge or skills.

--- Less than 0.6 per cent of Arabs use the Internet and barely 1.2 percent have access
to a personal computer. There are 18 computers per 1,000 Arabs, compared to the
global average of 78.3.

--- During the entire 20th century, fewer than 10,000 books were translated into Arabic --
equivalent to the number translated into Spanish in a single year. Religious books
account for 17 per cent of new publications in Arab countries, compared to a world
average of 5 per cent.

--- Censorship stifles ideas, information and innovation. Numerous censors review book
manuscripts, each with the power to edit text or demand revisions.

Islamic medicine and science led the world for centuries
while Europe stagnated in the Dark Ages.

From 800 AD to 1500, Arabic was the language of science, as English is today. Muslims occupied Spain, and Europeans flocked to Toledo and other Spanish cities, or traveled great distances to Baghdad or Damascus, to translate Islamic science and medical books into Latin.

Islamic medicine in the year 1000 was a marvel of sophistication, featuring competency tests for doctors, drug purity regulations, hospitals staffed by nurses and interns, advanced surgeries, and other practices beyond the dreams of medieval Europeans.

So why is much of today's Islamic world a "scientific desert," to use the stark language of a 2002 article in the journal Nature? Why do many predominantly Muslim countries, home to 1.3 billion people and 75 percent of the world's oil wealth, neglect science and technology? And how might they recapture their amazing scientific heritage?

These questions have resounded at international, Arab and Islamic scientific conferences and have made headlines in science journals. Here's how the Nature article summed up the situation in the Middle East, for instance:

"The region is, for the most part, a scientific desert. In some states, oil wealth has allowed the construction of fabulous cities, magnificent mosques and sumptuous shopping malls. But little scientific infrastructure has emerged. Collectively, the Arab nations spend only 0.15 per cent of their gross domestic product on research and development, well below the world average of 1.4 per cent."

Muslims account for 20 percent of the world's population, but less than one percent of its scientists. Scientists in Islamic countries now make barely 0.1 percent of the world's original research discoveries each year.

Authorities on Islamic science cite various reasons for this state of affairs, but the Koran is not among them.

"The Koran actually forms one of the cornerstones of science in Islam in a way unlike any other scripture of any other religion," said Glen M. Cooper, a professor of the history of science and Islam at Brigham Young University.

"The Koran enjoins the believer and the unbeliever alike to examine nature for signs of the creator's handiwork, evidence of his existence, and his goodness," Cooper said. "Reason is revered as one of the most important of God's gifts to men. The examination of nature led historically into a scientific perspective and program."

Farkhonda Hassan, a professor at the University of Cairo who has written about barriers to science careers for Islamic women, agreed.

"The teachings of the Holy Prophet of Islam emphasize the acquiring of knowledge as bounden duties of each Muslim from the cradle to the grave, and that the quest for knowledge and science is obligatory upon every Muslim man and woman," she said. "One eighth -- that is, 750 verses -- of the Koran exhort believers to study, to reflect, and to make the best use of reason in their search for the ultimate truth."

After Muhammad's death in 632, Muslim armies swept out of the Arabian Peninsula and expanded the borders of Islam east and west.

They absorbed not just land, but also scientific knowledge from India and Greek learning planted centuries earlier by the armies of Alexander the Great. Muslims translated into Arabic the treasures of Hippocrates, Aristotle, Archimedes and other great physicians, philosophers and scientists.

By 711, the Muslims had reached Spain, and they ended up dominating the region until Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella drove out the last of them in 1492.

The impact of Islam's discoveries during this period went far beyond individual innovations like algebra or the establishment of models for modern hospitals and universities. The spread of Islamic knowledge to Europe sparked, or at least helped to spark, the Renaissance and scientific revolution of the 17th century.

"It is highly probable that, but for the Arabs, modern European civilization would never have arisen at all," Sir Thomas Arnold and Alfred Guillaume wrote in their 1997 classic, "The Legacy of Islam."

Robert Briffault wrote in the "Making of Humanity" in 1938 that "Spain, not Italy, was the cradle of the rebirth of Europe. After steadily sinking lower and lower into barbarism, it had reached the darkest depths of ignorance and degradation when cities of the Saracenic world, Baghdad, Cairo, Cordoba, and Toledo, were growing centers of civilization and intellectual activity. It was there that the new life arose which was to grow into a new phase of human evolution."

Yet most Americans are completely unaware of Islam's rich scientific heritage, said George Saliba, a professor of Arabic and Islamic science at Columbia University, and more than a dozen other experts interviewed for this article.

"That is unfortunate," Cooper said. "Much of our modern science and philosophy owes a large debt to Islamic civilization during the Middle Ages for preserving the classical heritage in all intellectual fields, and for improving upon it in many of these fields. If the average American understood this, there would be fewer smug citizens looking down on 'backward Muslims' with hate and fear."

Two reasons Americans are relatively clueless on the subject are the Arabic-English language barrier and a long tradition of U.S. historians focusing on European scientific traditions, said Jeffrey Oaks of the University of Indianapolis.

"Anything not taught in high school is going to escape public consciousness," added Thomas F. Glick, an expert on Islamic history at Boston University.

"We believe that, for dishonorable purposes, there is in the West an intention to ignore the important scientific role played by Muslim scholars during the medieval age," said Abdul Nasser Kaadan, a professor with the Institute for the History of Arabic Science at the University of Aleppo in Syria. "This is to support the allegation that Muslim and Arabic mentality never in the past and not in the future can lead any scientific research."

So what happened to the once glorious scientific legacy of Islam and Arabia? Experts cite many things.

Universities were an Islamic invention later adopted in Europe, but Muslim universities did not shelter and preserve scientific knowledge during wars and other upheavals. Christian warriors carved up the Islamic empire and cut off contact between great scientific centers. Here in Spain, the Catholic reconquest of Ferdinand and Isabella deprived Islamic science of the great libraries and schools in Cordoba, Seville and Toledo.

Conflicts also cut off science's lifeblood -- cash for research and education. And the Ottomans, who took over much of the Islamic world in the early 1500s, used their resources to make war, not science.

In the 1700s, a puritanical form of Islam took root in Saudi Arabia, with a doctrine that rejected knowledge acquired after the first 300 years of Islam's existence.

Several scholars said one problem is the lack of awareness among Arabs and Muslims about their own scientific heritage.

"Muslims generally are unaware that their civilization had a high point of superiority in nearly every aspect," Cooper said. "Their current challenge is to face the fact that the Islamic edge has been completely lost.

"It would be a hard thing, I think, to be part of a religion and culture with such a glorious history as that of Islam, when that glory is all in the distant past, and an essentially godless civilization -- from their perspective -- enjoys the lead in power and science."

Eventually, in the United States and Europe, science began paying some of its own bills. Inventions like the telephone, radio, plastics and antibiotics led industry to pour billions into scientific research. In much of the Arab world, science remained dependent on handouts from sultans, kings or caliphs.

"Science and scientific research can flourish only when a country is affluent and has a sound and balanced economy," said Ahmad Y. al-Hassan, also a faculty member of the Arabic science institute at the University of Aleppo. "But when agriculture is the dominant sector, then a country will remain poor, and when petroleum is the only source of income, then this economy in the long run also is doomed."

Others also cited Arab oil wealth, and how rulers spend and invest their billions.

"They probably would have been better off without their mineral resources," said J. J. Witkam of Leiden University in The Netherlands. "It is a corrupting element in any society. But when societies are so unbalanced as most Islamic countries are, then it gets cancerous proportions."

The United Nations Development Program called oil wealth "a mixed blessing" in a 2003 report that called on Arab countries to reclaim their scientific heritage. It focused on the 22 members of the League of Arab States and their 280 million people.

UNDP pointed out that Arab rulers invest much of their oil money in the United States and other foreign countries, rather than using it to develop their own nations, and import technical know-how instead of educating ample numbers of their own citizens to be scientists and engineers. The report also cited "the pursuit of personal gain, the preference for the private over the public good, social and moral corruption, the absence of honesty and accountability and many other illnesses."

Experts also link the stagnation of Islamic science to a movement that took root more than a century ago that contends all knowledge can be found in the Koran. Meanwhile, the industrialized world has been moving toward a "knowledge society" fueled by information and liberal education.

The UNDP report also described what's needed to re-energize scientific inquiry in Arab and Islamic societies.

It included relatively straightforward suggestions like spending more on scientific research and ordinary education rather than religious schools. Other recommendations would involve reinventing new systems of government in some countries. One called for "guaranteeing the key freedoms of opinion, speech, and assembly through good governance bounded by law." Some involved correcting tenacious problems like poverty and unemployment.

"Our civilization once supported a knowledge society that was the envy of the world," said Rima Khalaf Hunaidi, a U.N. assistant secretary general who helped prepare the report. "They will do so again if we clear away the defective social, economic and political structures we have piled upon them. We can free our minds to reason without fear; free our people's souls to breathe."

"What's needed to increase research in Islamic countries?," he asked. "The same thing that is needed in any other country: priority on education, funding, training of teachers, building better relations between school and home, educating the parents, allocating higher budgets for education than for defense -- a situation that is not too different from what we face in this country, as well."

In 2000, a group of leading scientists formed the Arab Science and Technology Foundation in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The emirates are among a handful of Arab countries -- which include Egypt, Pakistan, and Jordan -- that are investing more in science education and research.

Sheikh Sultan Bin Mohammed Al-Qassimi, the ruler of Sharjah, donated $1 million from his own pocket to start the science foundation and provided its $5-million headquarters building. The foundation hopes to raise $100 million so it can provide research grants and encourage Arab scientists in other countries to return home.

The emir of Qatar is backing the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, which is building a vast "Education City" featuring branch campuses of Carnegie Mellon and Cornell universities.

"The pendulum can swing back," wrote Ibrahim B. Syed of the University of Louisville in an article about Islamic medicine:

"One thousand years ago the Muslims were the great torchbearers of international scientific research. Every student and professional from each country outside the Islamic Empire aspired, yearned, and dreamed to go to Islamic universities to learn, to work, to live and to lead a comfortable life in an affluent and most advanced and civilized society.

"Islamic countries have the opportunity and resources to make Islamic science and medicine number one in their world once again."

Now if you want to talk about the marriage to Zaineb, prophet Muhammed's step son was Zaid, before prophet Muhammed was a prophet he was a slave and he adopted a boy named Zaid son of Harithah, and when Zaids father, uncle, and brother came to take him back, prophet Muhammed gave Zaid a choice, to either go with is family, or stay with him, and Zaid chose to stay with Prophet Muhammed. Later, Zaid was know known as Zaid son of Mohammed, and God wanted to make it clear that an adopted child isnt your REAL child. SO when Zaid was married to Zaineb, they had troubles and he was going to divorce her, God told Prophet Muhammed to marry Zaineb when they got divorced, Prophet Muhammed avoided this message from God. SO when Zaid got a divorce from Zaid, God sent a verse down in the Koran saying that I married you to Zaineb, to prove that your adopted son isnt known as YOUR son. SO prophet Muhammed was married to Zaineb by god, not by paper. He later changed Zaids name from Zaid son of Muhammed back to Zaid son of Harithah.

You said: "Prophet Muhammed didnt just wake up one day and decide to kill people, he was told by god, and he listened, which is the right thing to do(Not kill non believers but to listen to god). If someone attacks you are you not going to attack back?"

You are obviously a Muslim. According to the Haddiths, nobody attacked Muhammad at all. He started out by attacking camel caravans for booty. There is example after example of him attacking peaceful people in order to kill, rob, rape and enslave them. Study your own scriptures.

http://www.prophetofdoom.net/

I'm glad you're addressing the issue. I do not disagree that it is right to defend oneself. However, this is a very VERY large step from instructing your followers, and future generations, to kill non-believers. This is the inherent conflict I, and the West which is not Islamic, will always have with fundmentalist Islam. Your book may instruct you to kill us "pigs and monkeys", but we will not sit tight while you do so.

I'm not avoiding that, yes the koran says that, but do any of you have the slightest idea of why its in there?....i thought so.

Yes I do, it's because the Meccan traders were defending themselves against Mo's bandits and they were defending themselves tooo well, so your prophet told his followers that they should kill everyone. Your prophet then told his followers that in the future too, they should shun Jews and Christians and NOT take them as friends. Your prophet then told his followers that you should kill non-Book religion followers, so YOU are obliged, as per Mo's words to kill Hindus, Buddhists, etc. Your so called prophet then said that the followers of the Book religions should be treated as secondary citizens.

Oh, I know very well why Mo put those verses in. He didn't get his way with Meccans unless he used violence, so he used violence and he started out on his mission of forced conversion and slaughter.

seems thats the only reason you guys hate the koran, hate prophet Muhammed, and hate the religion of islam

Ok, how then do you accoutn for the fact that the majority of terrorists around the world, the majority of trouble makers, the majority of killers are muslimsm who believe that the Koran told then to do it. AND they are RIGHT, the Korn DOES tell them to murder and kill

Prophet Muhammed was told by god

Quite interesting that you put God in small case. Mo was NOT told by God, he was told so by Shaitan, Satan, the Devil. Proof: the story of Isaac and Ishmael for one. Do you seriously think God would have got his own story wrong? No. God is infallible. Mo was an illiterate person who was influenced by thedevil and it's apparent when you read the Korn and the Hadiths

Prophet muhammed's marriage to ayesha was because when Prophet Muhammed was aging, angel gabrielle showed him his wife in heaven, and she was similiar to Ayesha, god told prophet Muhammed to marry Ayesha and teach her everything you know. We all know the learning age for a person is age 6-18, when he first got together with ayesha she was 6-7, they lived together for about 15 years, and they never had sex

Your very own Hadiths state that he consummmated his marriage with her when she was 9. And the Injil Gabrielle must have shown Mo a lot of wives in heaven because he had more than 4/5. He even married his daughter in law. Which was his "wife"?

He taught her everything he knew so when he'd pass away she would be the person everyone would go to if they had questions. when he died she was known as the "mother of believers" she was the person that would carry on the religion of islam. He didnt marry her for his pleasure, get a grip.

If he didn't marry a 7 year old and havesex with her when she was 9 for his please, then why did he do that? It's all written down in the Hadiths, so go read them and disprove that to the Imams.

SO when Zaid was married to Zaineb, they had troubles and he was going to divorce her, God told Prophet Muhammed to marry Zaineb when they got divorced, Prophet Muhammed avoided this message from God. SO when Zaid got a divorce from Zaid, God sent a verse down in the Koran saying that I married you to Zaineb, to prove that your adopted son isnt known as YOUR son. SO prophet Muhammed was married to Zaineb by god, not by paper. He later changed Zaids name from Zaid son of Muhammed back to Zaid son of Harithah

Errr,, your Hadiths say that Mo asked Z to divorce his wife and then Mo married his daughter in law -- go argue the point with your mullahs, or better still, read your Korn and Hadiths and I mean actually READ it, don't just shout it out aloud while rocking back and forward. IslamBRAINWASHES its followers, you, like other slammies are told NOT to ask questions, NOT to read your supposedly holy books, just to memorise them and then quote this sura, this page, etc. You slammies don't take time to understand the Korn, because Mo realised that if any of his followers actually read the Korn and read the Bible they would see the sham that is the Koran.

You are obviously a Muslim. According to the Haddiths, nobody attacked Muhammad at all. He started out by attacking camel caravans for booty. There is example after example of him attacking peaceful people in order to kill, rob, rape and enslave them. Study your own scriptures.

Thank you OK. Amanda, realise this, we don't hate people because they'reMuslims, we, as Christians don't hate the sinners, we hate the sin, we can differentiate between the two.

According to the organization the Voice of the Martyrs (website http://www.vom.org or search for Voice of the Martyrs) 160,000 Christians are killed annually because of their faith— the vast majority being killed by Muslims. If Islam claims to be a religion of peace, why is there so much oppression in every Muslim country?

Yeah right, they forget that the reason for this was that the Islamics had conquered the part of the world that was scientifically adept -- India, Persia, Byzantium, Egypt, Greece. In actuality, slam had a negative effect -- these countries were irrevocably affected by this conquest and the societies decayed -- Persia for example which was once the noblest civilization in the world, was savaged by slam.

You NAILED it to the wall, my friend. The Islamic world is a festering, non-productive cesspool of murder, terror, oppression, seventh-century stagnation and misery PRECISELY because of the deleterious effects of Islam.

"Arabs Once Dominated Science"

I once had sex with a redhead...

And the point being...?

How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science
The New York Times | October 30, 2001 | DENNIS OVERBYE
Posted on 10/29/2001 4:27:41 PM EST by sarcasm
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/559274/posts

Why Have Muslim Scholars Been Undervalued Throughout Western History?
Bakir Tarabishy's Muslim Reading Room | Article not dated | Bakir Tarabishy
Posted on 10/01/2001 4:22:50 PM EDT by Benoit Baldwin
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/537101/posts

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