Re-writing
the History of Science in the Islamic Civilization:
Report of George Saliba’s visit
to Lahore, November 2007
Dr Muhammad Sabieh Anwar
Prof. George Saliba is a Professor
of Arabic and Islamic Science at Columbia University,
New York. He is one of the leading historians
of science and is credited with the presentation
of a logically consistent and historically coherent
appraisal of the origins, flowering and eventual
decline of the scientific tradition in the Islamic
civilization. His most recent publication on this
thesis is the book “Islamic Science and the Making
of the European Renaissance” published by the
MIT Press earlier this year (2007). Dr. Saliba’s
viewpoint challenges the classical perspective
described in most textbooks and popular accounts
of the history of science. It will be useful to
first recount how the “classical narrative” reads.
The classical narrative reflects
apathy to the cultural, ideological and religious
context of the Islamic civilization that historically
accommodated a formidable scientific enterprise.
The narrative aims at creating a phantasmagoria
that even though scientists that were a part of
the Islamic civilization transcended in major
fields of scientific inquiry, their role remained,
at best, one of an intelligent postman. They took
the classic Greek sources and engaged in a massive
translation and commentary movement, mostly under
the patronage of the Abbasid Caliph Mamun-ur Rashid
in his bait-ul-hikmah (House of Wisdom).
As a result, Muslims inherited Greek logic and
Greek sciences and employed these newly learnt
skills in producing an impressive repertoire of
scientific knowledge, but only adding
to and complementing Greek sciences.
After this re-enactment and re-packaging, the
end product was bequeathed to the West at the
time of the so-called first Renaissance, around
the 12th century. Muslim science then became irrelevant.
It is this classical narrative Dr. Saliba critiques.
In early November, the Khwarizmic
Science Society (KSS), Pakistan’s most active
popular-science organization, invited Dr. Saliba
for a visit to Pakistan, thanks to a generous
sponsorship by Engro Chemical Pakistan. Planning
for Dr. Saliba’s visit started as early as 2006.
From the initial communication to the conclusion
of his visit in Lahore on November 5, a substantive
organizational and intellectual exercise was in
place. Headed by the President of the Society,
Dr. Saadat Anwar Siddiqi, Professor of Solid State
Physics at the Punjab University and Dr. Sabieh
Anwar, Joint Secretary of the KSS, a team of dedicated
students and teachers took up the task of organizing
a public symposium and laying out the schedule
of Prof. Saliba’s visit. This tested the meager
resources of the KSS, but thanks and praise to
Allah, the Society could be proud of its achievement.
When the KSS announced Dr. Saliba’s
coming to Pakistan and the organization of the
public symposium, it started receiving discouraging
responses from critics inside the country. It
was soon realized how emotionally charged individuals
can become when it comes to a joint mentioning
of religion, in our case, “Islam”, with “science”–especially
embodied in Dr. Saliba’s usage of terms like “Islamic
science”. The names and titles of the presentations
by our worthy speakers were announced and individuals
came up with responses like:
Some of the Muslims may derive
motivation to seek knowledge by listening to the
accounts of their ancestors' works. But then that's
only a political gimmick, nothing more than a
bait.
And also,
The good thing about such
is that you can get plenty of speakers who will
be experts in this philosophical debate, but no
real men or women of science.
And many more like these.
All of this criticism completely
ignored the Society’s motivation in organizing
this whole affair. The motivation was to unravel
certain aspects of the debate in the history of
science, paying special attention to the unique
cultural, social, political and economic contexts
of science in the Islamic civilization – a civilization
that at least we claim to be a part of. There
is little doubt that these debates are of extremely
relevant interest to the modern practitioners
and historians of science, especially when we
live as knowledge-starved nations. A historical
account of the relationship between religion,
culture and science will help us understand our
scientifically impoverished present and whether
we would like to continue living as a scientifically
dependent civilization in the years to come.
Furthermore, many of these debates
have always remained confined to specialist circles.
In keeping with the objectives and the major strengths
of the Khwarizmic Science Society, there was the
growing need to teleport these ideas and discussions
to the level of the public and to students, be
they students of science, history, philosophy,
religion, social sciences or the languages and
literary arts. It is this role the KSS has effectively
played.
Lecture on ‘Problems
in the Historiography of Science’ at the Government
College University, Lahore
The Government College University
(GCU) Debating Society, in partnership with the
KSS, organized a lecture on the ‘Problems in the
Historiography of Science’ on the morning of November
the 3rd. The GCU is one of Pakistan’s most prestigious
universities, established in 1874 and has produced
the likes of Allama Iqbal and Abdus Salam.
In his lecture, Dr. Saliba presented
certain ‘myths’ about Islamic science and showed,
one by one, how these myths could not stand the
test of logical cohesion, preserved documentation
or historical evidences.
One myth dealt with the beginnings
of science in the Islamic world. The myth is that
a massive translation movement of rendering the
classic Greek texts started in the times
of the Mu’tazilite Abbasid Caliph, Mamun-ur Rashid,
who reached the helm of power in 813. In a short
while, all major Greek texts, such as Ptolemy’s
‘Almagest’, Euclid’s ‘Elements’
and Diophantus’s ‘Arithmetica’ were converted
into Arabic. According to the myth, this translation
movement marked the beginning and apex of science
in the Islamic civilization.
Dr. Saliba
showing the astrolabe drawn by Sangallo.
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Dr. Saliba answering
questions from the GCU Faculty.
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View from the audience.
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Another view from the
audience.
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However, Dr. Saliba showed that
this period was neither the beginning, nor the
apex of the scientific heydays. He presented a
large corpus of documented evidence to this effect.
For example, Al-Hajjaj bin Matar’s translation
of the Almagest, produced around 829,
and that is still preserved in the library of
Leiden University, reveals a phenomenal mastery
of the Arabic language. Remember that here we
are talking about a highly sophisticated mathematical
treatise, replete with mature Arabic terminology.
Who taught al-Hajjaj the necessary mathematics
and the necessary technical Arabic? Who taught
him the purely scientific skills to not only translate
the Almagest, but to also correct its
several errors? It must be the case that al-Hajjaj
was one individual in the several generations
of scientists and mathematicians who were participating
in an iterative process of translations and refinements
to translations, in parallel with a gradually
maturing expertise in geometry, trigonometry,
arithmetic, astronomical experimentation and the
Arabic language itself.
Dr. Saliba also showed that when
the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mansur was laying the foundation
stone of Baghdad in 762, a group of astrologers,
Masha’-Allah, al-Fazari and Nawbakht, cast a horoscope
advising the Caliph of a propitious day, July
the 23rd. Casting a horoscope is by no means trivial.
Who taught these scientists this sophisticated
mathematical exercise? Is it possible to consider
that these astronomers were inexperienced novices,
working in synchronous isolation, not backed up
by an earlier well-established tradition in mathematical
astronomy?
In fact, Dr. Saliba recounted
a story in a somewhat ignored text, the ‘Al-Fihrist’
by al-Nadim. He described that this story helps
us reach a more acceptable chronology for what
comprised the first major impetus for the mathematical
and scientific spirit in the Islamic civilization.
It also helps answer some of the questions we
outlined above.
Al-Nadim’s story establishes that there was an
emerging need for translating and Arabicizing
the ‘Diwan’ during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph,
Abdul-Malik bin Marwan (reigned 685-705). The
Diwan was a collection of texts, containing official
handbooks and elementary scientific texts describing
methods for computing and documenting revenues
of the government (diwan li-wujuh-al-amwal).
However, this component of the Diwan was either
in Persian or Greek and as the Islamic empire
expanded to engulf larger and larger areas, encompassing
Persian and Syriac speaking populations, Abdul-Malik
felt the need for greater administrative uniformity.
He ordered a translation of the Diwan into Arabic.
In fact, the expanding Islamic empire had imposed
new demands in science and mathematics. Land had
to be surveyed; irregular-shaped estates had to
be measured; the Islamic laws of inheritance had
to be established; revenue collection from, for
example, the rapidly advancing armies, the obligatory
zakat from the Muslim and the jizya
from the non-Muslim subjects had to be computed;
water distribution systems had to be laid down;
and bridges and arches had to be built. All of
these cultural, political and religious needs
helped devise new tools in arithmetic, geometry,
trigonometry and detailed fractional computations
– calculations that were far from being trivial
in an age without computers.
The Diwan officer also had to be proficient in
astronomy for conversion between the Hijri, Byzantine
and Persian calendars, for purposes of agriculture
and tax collection and for moon sighting. New
gold coins had to be minted replacing the Byzantine
and Sasanian coinage, all the more reasons for
studying metallurgy and chemistry (then known
as alchemy).
In short, all of these administrative, political,
religious and cultural requirements became the
main thrust behind the flowering of sciences.
How did then the non-Arabic speaking communities
respond to this campaign in Arabization? Dr. Saliba
argued that they were impelled into acquiring
a mastery of more advanced sciences in order to
regain their bureaucratic positions in the office
of the Diwan. This severe competition resulted
in many of them turning to the more developed
Greek texts such as the Almagest and
a major translation movement of the more advanced
scientific texts ensued. In the short term, this
enabled the translators’ possession of key government
posts, ensuring bureaucratic supremacy. In the
longer run, this nurtured the scientific enterprise
itself. As Dr. Saliba described, science by its
very nature, cannot be restricted to a class or
be monopolized by its very possessors. The scientific
movement hurled the Arabs back into the competition,
and the application of science to the growing
needs of the burgeoning Islamic civilization created
higher degrees of scientific specialization and
the cyclic process continued.
The American scholar went on to challenge even
some more myths permeating the classical narrative.
One such presumption is the ‘contact theory’ which
states that the Islamic civilization simply inherited
Greek and Persian sources from the Byzantine and
Sasanian empires, that were contemporaneous with
the early Abbasid times. Dr. Saliba showed that
this could not be true as we do not have historical
records or extant copies of any accomplished texts
that were produced in these empires, or were in
wide circulation when Islam came in contact with
these civilizations.
Another myth is the ‘pocket transmission’ of scientific
knowledge whereby it is assumed that the scientific
and translation activities were injected into
Islamic civilization through selective islands
of excellence. The most popular examples of these
oases in the wilderness were Harran and Jundishapur!
But this channel of transmission is also fraught
with shortcomings. How could, for example, isolated
cities preserve Greek texts for more than five
hundred years, with the precognition that the
Islamic empire would acquire these texts in its
strange unprovoked awakening in the beginning
of the 9th century? Why could these isolated cities
not influence neighbouring cities in the same
empires? Why do we not find records of any scientific
or philosophical luminaries coming from these
cities and even if they existed, why are all their
works lost to oblivion?
Several other important points were also raised
by the guest speaker. Many of these points were
also elaborated at greater lengths in the symposium
the following day. We will summarize these points
later in this report.
Here, the KSS also feels the important responsibility
of highlighting some inaccurate press reporting
of this lecture as it has appeared in the Daily
Times and Dawn (November 6th, editions).
These press reports grossly misquote Dr. Saliba
when they mention that ‘Muslim scientists have
made all discoveries of the modern age’. This
claim was, simply, never made and represents a
complete failure in understanding the guest speaker’s
central thesis. According to Dr. Saliba, modern
science is a magnificent edifice made up of several
building blocks. One of these many building blocks
is Islamic science. As Dr. Saliba exemplified
using images of actual Arabic and Latin texts,
Islamic science has played an important role in
shaping several important ideas contributing to
the scientific environment at the times of the
European Renaissance. Dr Saliba’s investigations
do not belittle the miracle of the European renaissance
but rather gives the Islamic civilization its
proper due in the making of that miracle. Nevertheless,
the claim that all modern inventions are made
by Muslim scientists is only a historical fallacy,
Dr. Saliba obviously never supported.
However, in his lecture, Dr. Saliba did mention
several examples of inventions made by scientists
working in the Islamic civilization. For example,
Al-Khwarizmi’s algebra was an altogether new invention,
since the very word algebra did not exist in Greek.
Ptolemy’s cosmological model of a sphere’s rotation,
in place, around an axis that did not pass through
the geometrical centre was challenged as being
physically unrealizable. New methods of astronomical
observation were devised and astronomical quantities
such as the angle of inclination between the ecliptic
and the equator, as reflected in the inclination
of the earth’s axis of rotation were measured
with greater accuracy, yielding a value of 23
1/2, extremely close to the value we use today.
Ibn al-Nafis predicted the circulation of the
blood through the lungs for it to be mixed with
rarified air as he said, in complete opposition
to the view held by Galen and all physicians and
anatomists who asserted that the blood flowed
directly from the right ventricle of the heart
to the left.
Dr. Saliba also mentioned the fact that the Islamic
civilization took up the Indian numerals and made
their use more widespread. Muslim mathematicians
also introduced the concept of the decimal point,
opening up new vistas in calculating with fractions.
As an example, Dr. Saliba depicted a folio from
Uqlidisi’s manuscript completed in Damascus in
952 showing the use of decimal fractions. These
Indian-Arabic numerals were already a part of
the decimal number system and were mentioned by
Dr Saliba, but contrary to the erroneous press
reports cited above, Dr. Saliba did not make the
claim that the binary number system on which modern
computers are based was developed by these mathematicians.
Interview at the Wazir
Khan Mosque
In the afternoon, Dr. Saliba
visited the famous Wazir Khan Mosque in the heart
of the Kashmiri Bazaar, itself the heart of inner
Lahore. The route between the Delhi Gate and the
entrance of the mosque was an apt reminder of
Forster’s ‘Passage to India’ where he describes
that in India things seem to be moving in a direct
course of collision until they come closer and
dissipate. Lahore’s Kashmiri bazaar was no different.
The mosque itself, often called the ‘mole on the
cheek of Lahore’ was built in 1642 by the Wazir
Khan, Governor of Lahore to the Moghul emperor
Shah Jehan. The purple and burgundy tile work
on the façade and the minarets, inlaid with meticulous
craving for artistic and calligraphic perfection,
presented a splendid contrast against the backdrop
of the splendid blue sky, suffused with the yellow
of the sun.
Shots from the interview
at the Wazir Khan Mosque. |
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Video cameras, sound and light
technicians and a busy direction team were assembled
in the courtyard for a longish interview recording
of the visiting scholar. Shahrukh Hameed from
the Iqbal Academy Pakistan was the host and he
kept Dr. Saliba engaged for a solid four hours.
They sat on a ‘throne’ surrounded by an urn delivering
Green tea, a pile of books and some bottles of
mineral water hidden from the watchful eyes of
the camera. The details of the interview will
be left for the interview itself when it has been
edited and approved.
Symposium on ‘Science and the Muslim
Civilization’
The Khwarzimic Science Society
organized the symposium on Sunday, 4 November
with the partnership of the Iqbal Academy Pakistan.
This event was a very successful example of resource
sharing, whereby a relatively smaller non-profit
science association with strong roots in the local
academia and students, collaborated with a government
owned scholarly research organization having access
to infrastructure, contacts with the media and
an active publication facility. The KSS thanks
the Academy and especially the Director Suheyl
Umer for this very fruitful collaboration.
The splendid auditorium, the
large number of audience (approaching about 400),
the elegant backdrop and the impeccable organization
by the KSS volunteers, led by Shahab Ahmed Joint
Secretary KSS and Rafiullah Executive Member KSS,
all bespoke of a very high caliber event. The
audience came from different disciplines, ages
and institutional affiliations, the biggest groups
coming from the Solid State Physics and Philosophy
Departments and the Sheikh Zayed Islamic Centre
of the Punjab University.
Hafiz Ahmad Hashmi started the
proceedings with a heart-touching rendition from
the Chapter of Luqman from the Holy Quran. The
opening address was made by the President of the
KSS, Dr. Saadat Anwar Siddiqi, outlining the Society’s
motivation and introducing the theme of the lectures
to follow. The sessions were moderated by the
Joint secretary of the KSS, Dr. Sabieh Anwar.
Dr. George Saliba’s lectures
were split into two parts. The first was ‘Islam
and the transformation of Greek science’ and the
second was ‘Islamic science and the making of
the European Renaissance’. Both of these lectures
were brought to life by stunning viewgraphs depicting
original manuscripts in the Arabic and Latin.
It was clear that the material was a fruit of
decades of the Professor’s labour of love, his
never-ceasing journeys to the libraries in Europe
and Asia and his digging out of resplendent pearls
from the stockpiles of manuscripts. His presentations
also manifested a complete mastery of the Arabic,
Greek and Latin texts of these highly mathematical
treatises. An important point we would like to
emphasize is that all of this material was presented
in a refreshing and welcoming manner, fulfilling
the Society’s very purpose of inspiring young
minds who might not be specialists in the history
of science.
Dr. Saliba lecturing
at the Symposium on Science and Muslim Civilization.
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In the first lecture, Dr. Saliba
discussed the role the Islamic religion and culture
played in the importation, naturalization and
advancement of sciences imported from Greek sources.
The thesis was that the interaction of the Islamic
civilization with the Greek intellectual movement
went beyond a mere adoption and translation of
Greek texts and was rather a process of transformation
and metamorphosis. Once again, Dr. Saliba rejected
the ‘refrigerator hypothesis’ that attempts at
claiming that the role of scientists in the Islamic
domain was simply to preserve the Greek body of
knowledge and passing it on to the Europeans at
the time of the Middle Ages or the European Renaissance.
Most of the time in the first
lecture was devoted to showing that the unique
cultural and juridical requirements of the Islamic
‘Fiqh’ provided the impetus to scientific and
mathematical expertise in many domains. Dr. Saliba
took up several examples from the template of
astronomy to prove this point.
The Quranic statement that ‘verily
the salat is to be performed by believers
at prescribed times’ naturally translated into
the highly scientific problem of precisely determining
prayer times around the clock and through the
year. Fasting also required a careful computation
of the times for dawn and dusk. These ritualistic
requirements gave birth to a highly sophisticated
astronomical discipline called ilm-al-miqat
(the knowledge dealing with the times [of prayers]
among others). The religious aversion to the use
of astrology for purposes of precognition also
helped liberate the science of astronomy from
its purely predictive role and transformed it
into to a more theoretical and mathematical discipline,
that was even given a new name, ilm-al-hay’a
(the science of configuration [of celestial bodies]),
a term that had no Greek equivalent.
Sections from the audience.
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Similarly, the requirement to
face Makkah during prayer also opened up the famous
‘Qibla’ problem. Finding the direction of the
qibla on the surface of the earth was a highly
mathematical problem in spherical trigonometry
– a problem that had not been addressed before
the advent of Islam. The sine and cosine functions,
unknown to the Greeks were used in the Indian
tradition, and the geometers and astronomers in
the Islamic lands began using these functions
with increasing facility, and also introduced
new functions such as the tangent and the cotangent.
These functions gradually supplanted Ptolemy’s
clever but tedious use of chord tables. Importantly,
the sine and cosine laws were also invented in
context of the qibla problem. How can one imagine
doing trigonometry today without recourse to these
basic functions, trigonometric laws and identities?
The religious motivation also
enabled the astronomers in the Islamic domains
to revisit Ptolemy with a freshly critical approach.
Anything coming from Greek sources was considered
foreign and belonging to the ulum-al-awail
(ancient sciences) and was subject to the closest
scrutiny. In fact, the critical approach became
a prerequisite for social and intellectual acceptability,
especially within religious circles. As a result,
there were three kinds of revisions or transformations
to Greek astronomy, especially Ptolemaic astronomy,
carried out by a long line of illustrious astronomers
from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries.
First, there was the correction
of observational and parametric errors. Dr. Saliba
explained that very early on in the history of
Islamic astronomy, several astronomical parameters
were corrected and refined. For example, the value
of the inclination of the ecliptic with the earth’s
rotational axis was determined to be 23 1/2 degrees,
exceptionally close to the modern accepted value.
The rates of stellar precession, the motion of
the solar apogee (supposed to be fixed in the
Greek sources), and the length of the lunar month
were all remarkably refined. New accurate methods
of astronomical observation were set in place
such as the fusul method aimed at determining
the solar apogee by observing solar declination
at the mid-points of seasons rather than at the
start of the seasons (equinoxes) and solstices
as was done in the Greek sources. New astronomical
instruments were also constructed all aimed at
refining the observations.
Second, there were problems with
Ptolemy’s mathematical constructions of the motions
of heavenly bodies. For example, his lunar model
predicted that the quarter moon appears twice
as big as the full moon. This was clearly absurd
and as the Damascene time keeper and astronomer
Ibn al-Shatir (died: 1375) boldly remarked, “it
was never seen as such”. Ibn al-Shatir therefore
presented an alternative model which removed this
error. Then there was the famous equant problem.
The gist of this problem was that Ptolemy’s astronomy
used rotations of spheres around a hypothetical
point (called the equant) that did not coincide
with the geometrical centre. With a simple animation,
Dr. Saliba showed that such a model was physically
impossible. He then went on to describe that the
equant problem was not only identified by the
Muslim astronomers, but also solved. The alternative
models of the sun, the upper planets and mercury,
proposed by astronomers of the calibers of Ibn
al-Shatir, Nasir-ud-Din Tusi (d: 1274), Mo’ayyad-Din
Urdi (d: 1266), Qutb-al-Din Shirazi (d: 1311),
Shams-ud-Din Khafri (d: 1550) used new mathematical
theorems, unknown to Ptolemy or the Greeks. In
this respect, Urdi’s lemma and the Tusi’s couple
stand out as the brightest achievements in the
field of mathematical astronomy. These results
were invariably used by most astronomers after
Tusi, including Copernicus (d: 1543).
The third kind of objections
raised against Ptolemy was of a more fundamental
nature. For example, the nature of the ether was
subject to criticism. The role of mathematics
was appreciated as a language used to describe
physics. The internal consistency of science,
including the compatibility between mathematical
models and physical possibility was thoroughly
researched. The importance of experimental observation
was highlighted and the ingredients of the scientific
method were beginning to be established.
Dr. Saliba demonstrated through
examples that this spirit of innovation and liberation
from Greek sources was not only confined to the
field of astronomy. He described that implementing
Islam’s laws of inheritance requires complicated
computations and these computations necessitated
the development of new arithmetic tools and eventually
the new discipline of algebra by Al-Khwarizmi.
As a result a new discipline, ilm-al-faraid
(the science of inheritance) came into being,
once again thanks to Islam’s unique juridical
requirements. The concept of the decimal fraction
was introduced, toppling the cumbersome use of
Greek numerals. Dr. Saliba also showed several
Latin manuscripts produced in the Middle ages
that in fact wrote numerals from right to left
(in keeping with the Arabic tradition) while the
remainder of the text was in the usual direction
from left to right. Ibn-al-Haitham (d: 1039) overthrew
the old Greek model explaining how the eye sees
and conjectured a model of vision that we still
use today. Abu Bakr al-Razi (Latin Rhazes d: 925)
had the intellectual courage of challenging the
Greek master Galen and describing the clinical
differences between smallpox and measles. These
examples served to demonstrate that science in
the Islamic world was far from being a preservation
exercise, rather we glean that the incoming Greek
sciences were approached with utmost criticism,
were comprehensively attacked and most of the
sciences, especially astronomy, were established
on new footings.
In the second lecture, Dr. Saliba
described the intellectual and cultural environment
inside Europe around the sixteenth century and
onwards, the culture that gave birth to the Renaissance.
The special focus was on the works of Copernicus,
whose heliocentric viewpoint is considered to
be a milepost in the intellectual history of mankind.
Dr. Saliba conceded that achievement to Copernicus
but demonstrated how the mathematical theorems
and planetary models that were developed in the
Islamic world were incorporated by Copernicus
into his mathematical astronomy. He thoroughly
discussed the organic relationship between sciences
produced in the Islamic dominion and the Renaissance
sciences and argued that at the time of the Renaissance,
Europe had no reason to completely depend on Greek
scientific literature that had by then become
obsolete and had been superseded by the more advanced
scientific literature that had been produced by
Muslim scientists.
Dr. Saliba described Neugebauer’s
work from the 1950’s revealing how the lunar model
used by Copernicus was exactly similar to the
model developed by Ibn al-Shatir about two centuries
earlier.
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The second example
taken up by Dr. Saliba was Copernicus's
proof of the working of the Tusi couple.
Copernicus’s proof is once again, completely
identical to the proof furnished by Nasir-ud-Din
Tusi in 1260.Even the alphabetic designators
of geometric points used in the Arabic and
Latin renderings are congruent, an “A” for
“alif, “B” for “ba”, “G” for “jim” and “H”
for “ha’”. In the third example illustrated
by Dr. Saliba, Copernicus’s model for the
planet Mercury was identical to a model
developed by Ibn al-Shatir, but the details
show that Copernicus did not fully understand
the model he was copying.
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Despite all these similarities,
as Dr. Saliba rushed to point out, there was no
evidence that Copernicus knew Arabic. How could
he then read Ibn al-Shatir’s or Tusi’s texts even
if we assume that he did have access to their
manuscripts? It was also known that neither the
works of Urdi, or Tusi or Ibn al-Shatir had been
translated into Latin nor Greek at the time Copernicus
was employing his ingenuity at modeling the solar
system. How did the cultural contacts between
Islam and Europe then take place?
The scholar went on to provide convincing clues
of possible routes of this cultural transmission.
He mentioned an Arabic manuscript of Tusi’s ‘Tadhkira’
compiled in 1260 that is still kept in the Vatican
library. The manuscript contains a proof of the
Tusi’s couple used by Copernicus. The possessor
of this manuscript is identified as Guillaume
Postel (1510-1581). The astounding feature of
the manuscript is that it has annotations in Latin
indicating that Postel not only understood the
Arabic but was also mathematically competent to
supply his own remarks. The conjecture is that
Postel, a contemporary of Copernicus, or someone
like him could have updated the latter about the
Arabic text and its contents. Dr. Saliba described
that Postel’s own stature, such as his being part
of a delegation sent by the French King Francois
I to the Ottoman emperor Suleiman the Magnificent
and his frequent tours to the Islamic world, all
indicate his skills of the Arabic language. And
he was not alone among Copernicus’s contemporaries
and predecessors. Dr. Saliba also established
that these strong ties also existed in the field
of scientific instrumentation. He exemplified
this with the famous Italian and Renaissance architect
Sangallo who was commissioned to design nothing
less than the famous St. Peter’s cathedral in
Rome. Sangallo copied an astrolabe produced in
Baghdad in around 850, reproducing the same front,
back and rete and even the name of the maker,
Khafif student (ghulam) of Ali bin Isa.
An accomplished architect reproducing an instrument
constructed in Baghdad more than 700 years earlier
demonstrate the prestige and the reputation for
accuracy, Muslim scientific instrumentation enjoyed
in Europe at the time of the Renaissance.
Suheyl Umer presenting
the welcome note and thematic introduction
to the symposium |
The historiography so masterfully
articulated by Dr. Saliba naturally led to many
philosophical digressions such as the role of
religion in fostering or hampering science, the
paradigm of the conflict between science and the
church in the Christian Europe and the nature
of science itself. In an interim summary presented
in Urdu by the Director of the Iqbal Academy,
Suheyl Umer, these very points were carefully
touched upon. Using simple analogies, Umer introduced
the trends of philosophical modernism and post-modernism
and highlighted their relationship with the science
and religion debate.
The second invited speaker was
Prof. Dr. Noman-ul Haq, Professor at the School
of Social Sciences and Humanities at LUMS. Dr.
Haq’s paper was titled “Double incoherence and
double jeopardy: the story of attitudes to sciences
in Muslim societies”. Dr. Haq discussed three
myths that were prevalent in historiographical
literature. First, modern science is a linear
progression of Greek thought. Second, the religious
orthodoxy stultified the progress of science in
the days of Muslim glory. Third, scientists working
in the Muslim societies were not a part of the
mainstream; they lived on the marginal fringes.
He took these myths one by one and showed that
they were only myths, far removed from the historical,
intellectual and social evidence.
Dr. Noman-ul-Haq (left)
and Dr. Basit Bilal Koshul delivering their
lectures. |
In the very healthy discussion
that ensued after Dr. Haq’s presentation, several
interesting points were raised by the audience
and skillfully handled by the speaker. Especially
the role of Imam al-Ghazali in the question of
the religious orthodoxy and scientific attitudes
was repeatedly mentioned. Dr. Haq showed that
it is wrong to squarely blame al-Ghazali for the
decline in the scientific spirit. Far from being
a conservative in matters of scientific inquiry,
his writings encouraged an undertaking of scientific
knowledge, especially medicine and mathematics.
Dr. Haq also described the difference between
science and scientism and presented a critique
of scientism, the conception that science is the
elixir of life that can address and solve most
of the problems humanity faces today. He also
described his views on the difference between
science and technology and lamented that in the
Pakistani society of today, we have more technicians
than scientists and it is all the more important
to produce a society that is hospitable to a culture
of science rather than a society that merely imports
technological gadgetry from the west.
The Chief Guest, Dr.
Khalid Hameed Sheikh giving away momentos
to Dr. Saadat Anwar Siddiqi (left) and Engr.
Shahab Ahmed. |
The last speaker of the evening
was Dr. Basit Bilal Koshul, also from the School
of Social Sciences and Humanities at LUMS. Dr.
Koshul’s talk was titled “With friends like these
who needs enemies: supporting science by attacking
religion?” Dr. Koshul attacked the writings of
leading scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher
Hitchens and Daniel Dennett for what he perceived
to be their ignorant remarks about religion. The
argument championed by these scientists is that
science equals rationality and religion equals
irrationality. In this context, Dr. Koshul quoted
from the twentieth century social scientist Max
Weber who demonstrated that science cannot grasp
all of reality. It is limited in its scope and
many modern scientists in fact, do a disservice
to science itself by claiming that whatever science
can grasp, is all there is in reality to begin
with. In other words, as the speaker claimed,
the view that science presents a complete picture
of reality is false. Dr. Koshul also described
that the same Cartesian and reductionist attitude
prevails within the folds of science itself. For
example, there is the constant thrust to reduce
sociology to psychology; psychology to biology
and biology to ultimately physics. This intellectual
desire presupposes that such a reduction is indeed
possible, a presupposition Dr. Koshul confidently
rejected.
The second session of the symposium
was chaired by Dr. Khalid Hameed Sheikh, former
Vice Chancellor of the Punjab University, Advisor
to the Babar Ali Foundation and a Life Member
of the Khwarizmic Science Society. He applauded
the efforts of the KSS, thanked the speakers,
Engro Chemical Pakistan for financial support
and invited the audience to join the Society.
Visit to Jamia Ashrafia
Jamia Ashrafia, established in
1947 is one of the country’s premier centres of
religious learning. Associated with a mosque,
the Umm-ul-Qura University imparts religious education
teaching, most notably, the Dars-e-Nizami
curriculum and offering specializations in religious
concentrations such as Quran, Hadith and Fiqh.
Dr. Saliba’s visit to the Jamia on the morning
of the 5th of November, was made possible by the
efforts of Mufti Kamal-ud-Din (LUMS) and Dr. Abubakr
(McGill University and Life Member KSS). The guest
was warmly welcomed by Molana Fazl-e-Rahim who
also gave a brief introduction to the history
and functioning of the Jamia.
Dr. Saliba then summarized his
work in eloquent Arabic, followed by a lively
question and answer session. One particularly
interesting remark made by the speaker was when
he was asked about the main motivation behind
Abd-ul-Malik bin Marwan’s initiative of translating
the Diwan and the overall impetus behind the ascension
of sciences in the Islamic civilization. To this
the guest speaker succinctly responded, “iqamat-ul-adl
bain al-ra’iyyah” (i.e., to establish justice
and balance among the subjects of the Islamic
empire). Dr. Saliba was also shown the texts in
theoretical astronomy (hay’a) that were
taught at the Jamia and all other madrasa institutions
inside the country.
Dr. Saliba’s visit to
Jamia Ashrafia. |
Visit to Lahore University of Management
Sciences (LUMS)
The last item on Dr. Saliba’s
packed schedule was Dr. Saliba’s visit to Lahore
University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in the
afternoon of the 5th of November. Dr. Noman-ul-Haq
was the host. Dr. Saliba addressed a packed auditorium
of students and Faculty Members and was engaged
in an animated discussion with Dr. Noman-ul-Haq
and the students.
This time, Dr. Saliba talked
at length about the theory of decline. He remarked
that decline was a relative term and the decline
of sciences in the Muslim world must be understood
in light of global socio-economic and political
currents. Not only was science in Islam on relative
decline, but also the Chinese and Indian scientific
traditions were on the descent in comparison to
the ascent of science in Europe. The exception
was Europe. Dr. Saliba explained how the discovery
of the New World, read America, in 1492 was to
change the course and geographical concentration
of the scientific enterprise, giving birth to
what we call modern science. After the discovery
of America, huge payloads of gold, silver and
cheap slave labour were continually brought into
the Europeans lands. This created immense wealth,
sufficient to establish and maintain scientific
capacity of the highest magnitude. The ‘Age of
Discovery’ and the colonial onslaught on much
of the rest of the world added to the economic
strength necessary to support capital creation
through science and scientific creation through
capital. The Islamic world was totally by-passed,
trade routes shifted from the Indian to the Atlantic
oceans and a colonial mindset soon permeated the
Islamic Empire. It is not a mere coincidence that
between 1500 and 1550, three new Muslim empires
appeared on the world map – the Ottomans, the
Safavids and the Moghuls. Dr. Saliba argued that
is in this wider economic, social and political
context that the decline of science in the Islamic
world must be searched for.
Dr. Saliba addressing
Dr. Noman-ul-Haq’s class at LUMS.
|
Mufti Kamal-ud-Din then presented
a heart touching tribute to Dr. Saliba admitting
that his two encounters with George, one recently
and the other more than a decade ago at the University
of Chicago, had changed his outlook on life.
At this point, the KSS also thanks
the efforts of its Life Member and cardiac surgeon
Dr. Faisal Habib Cheema in New York for his splendid
help in the coordination with Dr. Saliba.
Dr. Saliba’s gracious mentorship,
his humbleness, his deep respect for knowledge
and his inspiration would leave an indelible mark
on the minds and hearts of all of those who listened
to him in his brief trip to Pakistan.
|
