In its early phase of Islam,Quran’s teachings inspired Muslims to seek knowledge and observe nature for signs of Creator so much that they created a society that in the Middle ages was the Scientific Centre of the world.
It is a established fact that early Islamic period under ” Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphate’s” (786-1258)is considered “Golden age” due to scientific knowledge and researches in various fields.These activities produced brilliant Muslim scientists in Baghdad and Andalus (Spain). Therefore it can be conveniently said that centuries before “Renaissance and Scientific Revolution” in Europe, Muslim scholars in Arab world were quite familiar with the idea of making observations, experimentation, analysis of results and inductive reasoning and then arriving at conclusions.Many of them were also well versed with documentation of their scientific work and peer review process.Their documented works are still available in Arabic and also in other languages in the form of treatises and text books. Islamic scholars under the patronage of muslim rulers(Caliphs) translated many of Greek classics into Arabic and also added to them. The dissemination of knowledge was done by translation of the work of Islamic scholars into many languages including Arabic,Latin,Greek,Syriac, Indian dialect,Farsi and a range of other languages.
Some of the prominent Islamic scholars of this “Golden age” are:
Ibn-al-Haytham, Albiruni, Al-Rahwi, Abu-Jabir, Ibn Sina(Avicenna), Al- Zahrawi and host of others.
Subject of scientific researches included:
Medicine, Mathematics, Algebra, Geometry, Chemistry (Alchemia),Physics, Agronomy, Opthalmology, Geography, Pharmacology, Astronomy Zoology, Botany and cartography.
The status of Arabic was elevated so much during “Golden age” that it was considered anonymous with science and learning . Historians have noted and pointed out that basically this knowledge of Arab muslim world fueled Renaissance (1450-1630) and later scientific revolution in Europe and America and also served as precursor to modern global universities. This in turn led to Industrial Revolution which tremendously changed the socio-politico-economic conditions of Europe and America. It should be noted by Muslims that these changes occurred mainly due to the state of art researches in universities and scientific Institutes/Centres for researches.
Moot question is:
What the Muslims have learnt from the exellent performance of Europe, America and Australia (in terms of economy, military and political power) who took the basic lessons from us(Muslims).
My opinion is:
We Muslims are still struggling (all over the world) with opening new universities and upgrading the existing ones to transform them into world ranking universities.
By Professor Aqueel Khan
