Khwarzimic Science Society
Centre of Excellence in Solid State Physics
Punjab University | Quaid-e-Azam Campus | Lahore 54590
PAKISTAN

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Saadat Anwar Siddiqi

"Though all the trees on earth were Pens And the Sea was Ink Seven Seas, after, to replenish it, Yet would the Words of Lord be never spent, Thy Lord is Mighty and all Wise." (Al-Quran)

Introduction

Nearly a thousand years ago, the world saw a glory that was the Muslim Empire. The doctrine of precepts taking root in an arid desert, had been embraced by peoples who cut across all geographical barriers. From the lower cataracts of the Nile to the shores of the Aral Sea, the Bay of Biscay to the rich valley of the Indus and the confines of the Ming Dynasty, stretched the Caliphate of Islam. Within the borders of this Kingdom, thousands of mosques disseminated the names of the Lord and his Apostle, each day, five times a day. The vastness of this territory was rivaled by no monarchy that had existed on the face of earth. It excelled in greatness to even the splendid Roman Empire at its zenith. The glory that was Islam. Christians were conceding grounds in Europe. The crescent was ousting the cross. Sicily and Andalusia had also fallen into the hands of Muslim conquerors.

Muslim successes were so imposing that they amplify the geographical littleness of Europe. It appeared to be a meagre chunk of land buoying out of the blue Mediterranean waters and trying to avoid the great land masses of Afro-Asia. Not much different was its scientific and technological status too, uptil at least 1500 A.D. At a time when Muslims scholars were drenched in understanding, translating and refining the philosophies of Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, the cosmologies of Ptolemy and Aristarchus, the medicine of Galen and the geometries of Euclid and Diophantus; Charlamagne and his lords, is reported, were learning to write their names. The scientists, exegesists, philosophers, lexicologists and mathematicians of Cordova, with their 17 libraries and each one of them equipped with no less than 400,000 volumes, enjoyed their luxurious baths after their study and concurrently at the Oxford University - the highest seat of learning in Christian Europe - washing the body was considered a dangerous custom. Such conspicuous was the intellectual contrast between the enlightened followers of Islam, tracing the minutest profundities of science and faith and the benighted land of Europe, plunged in the lower abysses of complete darkness, ignorance and ignominy. Here I am refering to the days when the underdeveloped west turned eastwards to seek scientific stimuli. Muslims enjoyed an unprecedented supremacy in all the known branches of science and technology. This ascendancy lasted uptil 1500 A.D.. The universities in Baghdad, Cairo and Cordova were places to where thousands flocked. We were the producers of scientific knowledge and the west was at the receiving end. Today, the very idea of British and American students competing for admission into Pakistani universities, fills us with amusement.

Nevertheless history provides us an example of Michael who said goodbye to his native secluded glens in Scotland and reached the bureau of translation in the Umayyid capital of Toledo in 1217 A.D. He learnt Arabic and undertook the ambitious project of introducing Aristotle to Latin Europe, translating not from Greek, which he knew not, but from Arabic translations of Aristotle's works. The most momentous contribution of Muslims was transmitting Greco-Roman science to the medieval west. Had such a communication not taken place, the masterpieces of Greek literature would have been lost to oblivion; the translations were also supplied with commentaries. Sometimes the demarcation between the original and the translation becomes difficult. Therefore the meticulous efforts of the Muslims of preserving and improving upon the reproductions of their European predecessors is not less valuable than their original work. From Toledo, Michael reached Cordova and then Salerno in Sicily where he met his Scandinavian counterpart, Hendrick from Denmark, who was a student at Salerno's medical school. Inspired by Ibn-e-Sina's (Avicenna) Canon of Medicine and Ar-Razi's (Rhazes) treatises on physiology, he compiled a seven volume compendium on blood letting and surgery. The compilation is still kept with the National Library, Stockholm and the portrait of these two great clinicians of Islam adorn the medical hall at the Paris University.

Let me be more quantitative, rather semi-quantitative in showing the preponderance of Muslims in the field of science and technology. George Sarton, in his monumental five-volume History of Science presents a chronology divided into periods of fifty years. He allocates each one of them to a scientist who typifies that age. Thus, from 450 to 400 B.C., Sarton calls this the age of Plato. This is followed by half-centuries of Aristotle, of Euclid, of Archimedes and so on. From 600 to 700 A.D. is the Chinese century of Hsiian Tsang and I Ching. Then from 700 A.D. and the seven half-centuries to follow, there is an unbroken succession of genii from the Muslim world - Jabir (Gaber), Khwarizimi, Razi (Rhazes), Masoodi, Wafa, Beruni and Ibn-e-Sina (Avicenna), Ibn-ul-Haitham (AlHazen) and Omer Khayyam. Only after 1100 A.D., the first European names appeared - Gerard of Cremona, Roger Bacon and Jacob Anatoli, but the honours are still shared with the names Ibn-e-Rushd (Averroes), Musa Bin Maimoun (popularly remembered as the Second Moses), Tusi and Ibn-e-Nafis. The last mentioned was the scientist who anticipated William Harvey's discovery of circulation of blood by many years.

The Meaning of Experiment:

Some Machiavellists give the impression that modern science is a direct descendant of Greco-Roman tradition. According to them, Islamic Science was only an unintelligent continuation of Scythian theory. These expedients also allege that Muslims followed Greek tradition blindly. This is not true. Though Greeks generalized, hypothesized and theorized yet they were not experimentalists, even by the faintest definition of the word. They feared that observation would deprive them of their scientific accolades and challenge the finality of their so-called laws. For example, Aristotle believed that women had fewer teeth than man but he never hit upon the idea of opening his wife's mouth and counting her teeth. It was believed that on the 6th of January each year, all the water in the seas turned sweet. This conjecture was never tested. In fact, experiment was altogether Greek to Greek temperament. Muslims, for the first time, introduced the experimental spirit into the scientific enterprise. Religion had taught them patience. They exercised the same patient ways of meticulous and prolonged observation in their experiments and calculations. Note Al-Beruni's insistence on experiment, when he says:

The trouble with most people is their extravagance in respect of Aristotle's opinions. They believe that there is no possibility of mistake in his views, though they know, that he was only theorizing to the best of his capacity.

Al-Beruni's (973-1048) level of experimental maturity was again reached only in the sixteenth century with Johannes Kepler, Tyco Braho and Galileo Galilei (who was also persecuted in the same extravagance Al-Beruni has mentioned). This was the ethos of experiment, injected into the corpus of science by Muslim medievalists, that is now a part of the proud European methodology.

Technology:

Not only did scientific learning flourish in this epoch of history, but technology also burgeoned. Muslims knew how to apply knowledge in service of mankind. To quote Singer, from his epilogue to the second volume of the History of Technology:

Between 500 and 1500 A.D. the near east was superior to the west - for nearly all branches of technology, the best products available to the west were those of the east. Technologically, the west had little to bring to the east.

Muslims became the pioneers of pyrotechnic warfare. They used chemical weapons which were flagrating mixtures of petroleum, gunpowder, resin, calx and sulphur. They took over the Byzantinium technology of catapults and trebuchets. The Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) used a crossbow of the same family of weapons during the siege of the Fort of Khyber. The most famous example of the use of cannons was the cannonadic capture of Constantinpole in 1453 by Sultan Usman. A ball from a gun weighed 400 kilograms and cut a Venetian ship into two, when blasted from a range of 2.4 kilometers. Each pair of such guns were pulled by 70 oxen and a thousand men.

Another milestone in the intellectual-cum-technological course of history is the invention of paper. Again, Muslims mediated this Chinese skill to Europe. With the advent of paper-making in Islam, dawned a new revolution worldwide. Muslim had learnt this art from Chinese prisoners of war in 751 A.D.. From Samarkand, the craftsmanship spread to Baghdad, Damascus, Tiberias, Tripoli and Fez. There were floating paper mills in Jativa near Valencia, Spain. The first factory of this sort was established in Europe in Fabriano (Italy) in 1261 A.D.. After its instatement, Europe had to wait for another century before Nuremberg (Germany) could boast of another paper manufacturing center.

The scientific inventions of the Muslims interpenetrated Europe through the Iberian Peninsula and the Balkan outposts of the Muslim Empire. Leather and tanning industries boomed along the Moroccan shores; the art of glass-making reached Venice from Syria and in Spain agriculture, irrigation, horticulture and hydraulic engineering progressed exorbitantly. Even the Reconquisitra did not the impede the development of these technologies in the ensuing centuries. Illustrating the same transfer of technology from east to west, are the numerous words of Arabic origin that have passed into the vocabulary of English. To cite but a few examples: in textiles - sash, sarsanet, muslin, damask, taffeta, tabby; in naval matters - admiral, arsenal; in chemical technology - alcohol, alkali, alembic; in the paper industry - ream; in foodstuff - syrup, sherbet, alfalfa, sugar; in dyestuffs - saffron, kermes; in leather-working - Cordovan and Morocco. Spanish is interestingly rich in words of Arabic origin, especially in connection with irrigation and farming. We have for example, tahona for a mill, acena for water-wheel and acequia for an irrigation canal.

The Reasons of the Bygone Muslim Ascendancy in Science:

Let us now analyze the reasons which helped and urged Musims to acquire mastery of all known sciences and technologies and embark on a glorious journey of scientific quest and inventiveness at a frantic pace and with vigorous passion, so that they were unsurpassed by any other human civilization; an ascendancy that lasted for nearly a millenium. There must have been some driving force that actuated in them the desire, the zest, the zeal and the élan to conquer all classes of knowledge.

The Quran was the prime inspiration; the fountainhead of all Muslim science, arousing in its readers the irresistible lure for knowledge. The Revelation extolls the value of learning above every thing else. There are 750 verses in the Quran which exhort man to ponder upon the laws of nature, to delve into the mysterious universe and to make such reflections an integral part of the community's life. These 750 verses make up one-eighth of the Quranic text and are greater in number than the verses dealing with legislation, which account to 250.

The emphasis on science by Islam has been beautifully spelled out by a western writer, Huston Smith, in the "Religions of Man":

In an age changed with supernaturalism, when miracles were accepted as the stock-in-trade of the most ordinary saint, Prophet Muhammad (m.p.b.u.h.) refused to traffic with human weakness and credulity. To miracle-hungry idolaters seeking signs and portents, he cut the issue clean, 'God has not sent me to work wonders; He has sent me to preach to you. My Lord be praised. Am I more than a man sent as an Apostle?' From first to last he resisted every impulse to glamourize his own person. 'I never said that Allah's treasures are in my hands, that I knew the hidden things, or that I was an angel - I am only a preacher of God's words, the bringer of God's message to mankind. If signs be sought, let them not be of Muhammad's greatness but of God's and for these, one need only open one's eyes. The heavenly bodies holding their swift, silent course in the vault of heaven, the incredible order of the universe, the rain that falls to relieve the parched earth, palms bending with golden fruit, ships that glide across the sea laden with goodness for man - can these be the handiwork of gods of stone? What fools to cry for signs when creation harbours nothing else!' In an age of credulity, Prophet Muhammad (m.p.b.u.h.) taught respect for the world's incontrovertible order which was to awaken Muslim science before Christian".

The Quranic words tafakkur and taskheer respectively refer to science and technology. The Scripture enjoins the believers to meditate upon the spectacular imagery in our physical and biological world. In creation, a sublime beauty is evinced which evokes man's sense of wonder and excitement. A keen scientist is stirred with ovation and praise when he explores the latent harmony in the universe. Modern science enables us to jump between galaxies and has dissected even the hearts of sub-atomic particles. The geneticist has deciphered the code of life, DNA , and the technologist is tinkering with strange materials. Each dimension unravels a newer mystery, adding to our scientific inquisitiveness. No fissure can be found in the artifacts of nature. They are perfect, complete. This feeling of awe and wonder represents religiosity. The deeper we go, the greater is the dazzlement of our gaze.

'Moved by the mystery it evokes, many a time have I dissected the heart of the smallest particle. But this eye of wonder; its wonder-lust is never assuaged.'

The Quran says:

It is He who created the seven Heavens one above another. Thou seest not, in the creation of the All-Merciful any imperfection. Return thy gaze, seest thou any flaw? Then return thy gaze, again and again. Thy gaze comes back to thee, dazzled, aweary. (Quran 67-3,4)

The wonder I have described is the impulse of scientific pursuit. Science divulges the arcane mysteries of our surroundings, but for a scientist the thirst for more never allays or abates.

Faith and science are in harmonious complementarity with each other. There is basically no disaccord between them. Not even a single verse in the Holy Book contradicts a well-known scientific verity.

It should be mentioned that not everything is within the ken of mankind. Physics puts a limit to our understanding of the physical world - as postulated by Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. The metaphysical truths of our religion are such that we can not penetrate them physically. From here, starts the realm of spiritualism; where science is silent and religion predicates.

I would like to mention here that there is no difference between the science of an avowed Muslim and an avowed non-Muslim. Difference in religious beliefs does not affect the soundness of their scientific achievements. Diversionary slogans of Islamic science, Christian science and Semitic science have already done much harm to the spirit of learning. Why fight the battles of yesterday? Islam is universal anyway. Science is also a shared heritage for all mankind. The north, south, east and west have all contributed to laying the foundation of our scientific thought.

Anyway science has flourished in Islam because of the tolerance that was promulgated in the Islamic community. Ibn-e-Haitham was born in Basra but he left for the court of the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakeem in Egypt. There he was accorded all the respect and privileges that were his rightful due. We know that the Fatimid Caliphate and the Abassids in Asian mainland were at daggers drawn, but scientists formed a special sub-stratum or a cadré within the Islamic society, enjoying a protected status. The tradition of immunity to political adversity has now been taken up by the modern west where science transcends national differences. The Royal Society in London was verifying the general relativity of a German national, Einstein, in the midst of the first world war. An Italian, Enrico Fermi migrated to USA to carry out research on nuclear physics, but the intelligence of the Axial powers could not do anything in this regard. Muslims were forebears of such a tolerance. Early Islamic history provides us with no example of a Galileo being persecuted or a Copernicus being declared a heretic. I admit that men of knowledge have been excommunicated on the basis of doctrinal differences, some were even sentenced to death like Hallaj, Sarmad and Suharwardi, but never on purely scientific grounds, has a scientist been castigated as a kafir.

Moreover, the spread of science in Islam was also subject to the liberality and generous patronage of kings, princes, ministers and men of affluence and influence. Many scientists were esteemed courtiers of Caliphs and Kings. Al-Beruni adorned the court of Mahmood Ghaznavi, Al-Haitham of Al-Hakeem, Tusi worked with the observatory set up by Halagu Khan at Maragha and Omer Khayyam was invited by Sultan Baalbuk. Sometimes Kings indulged over-passionately in their scientific enterprise. Al-Haitham's eyes were bulged out by Caliph Al-Hakeem because the poor scientist had suggested the construction of a dam at the site of present Aswan, but could not capitalized his suggestion by actually building it. Mamoon-ur-Rashid in Baghdad built the famous Bait-ul-Hikma (House of Learning) and Shamsiyyas were instituted in Egypt.

It is highly contrasting to see the Arab princes of today busy building palaces, but no palace for learning.

The Darker Side of the Picture:

Uptil so far, we have been recounting the achelons of past. This is not enough. Let us do justice and confess that after 1350 A.D., started a period of Muslim decadence in science. We lost out in the race of technology. There are only occasional flashes of light when Nasir-ud-Din Tusi worked at Maragha's observatory and with Maharaja Jai Singh (1720) of Jaipur on the funeral pyre, expired all science in the east.

Superficially, the collapse of science in the Islamic east was due to foreign invasions. The Mongols asundered Baghdad in 1258 A.D., but these are only trivial causes. The major devastation came from inside as the tradition of innovation froze and science ossified. Tolerance was on the decline. Political strife and economical disparity sparked religious fanaticism. This imposed a suicidal quarantine on our scientific edifice. Religious narrow-mindedness retarded the growth of science ina drastic manner. For example, Al-Beruni was declared a heretic for making a time-table showing Muslim prayers based on the Byzantinium calendar.

Resurrection:

The question that now rises is whether the candle of learning has extinguished forever. Can we resurrect our phoenix of science? Is it possible to revitalize our scientific enterprise? Can we foresee ourselves once again occupying the vanguard of science and technology?

First of all, we have to graciously confess that the west is scientifically superior to us and then we should have no reservation, reluctance or hesitation to learn what they offer to teach us. We apprehend wrongly that such a scientific interaction cannot take place precluding the transfer of western ideas, morals and values but this means that we are implying the fragility of our own ideas, morals and values. Let it not be so! Learning science and mastering technology is a cyclic process.

Scientific learning is universal. The source and medium of this learning is not important; what is significant is knowledge itself. Yaqub Kindi had the same to say, eleven hundred years ago:

It is fitting then for us not to be ashamed to acknowledge truth and to assimilate it from whatever source it comes to us. For him who seeks the truth, there is nothing of a nobler value than truth itself. It never cheapens, nor abases him who seeks.

Therefore let us relight the torch that burnt so brightly, with such a clear light and dazzling luminosity in Baghdad, Cairo and Cordova, a thousand years ago and which one thought had been extinguished forever. The Club may be a small candle which will glare up into chadelier or from which other candles can be lighted.

A Nobel Laureate once asked Abdus Salam an extremely deep and through-provoking question that, at least, left me in deep thought - he asked:

Salam, do you really think we are obliged to aid, succour and keep alive those nations who have never added an iota to man's stock of knowledge?

May Allah be with us all, always! Amen!

Acknowledgement:

Muhammad El Rashidy for corrections in a historical fact.

Of Interest: http://www.muslimheritage.com