EMBRYOLOGY IN THE QUR'AN

A SCIENTIST'S INTERPRETATION OF
REFERENCES TO EMBRYOLOGY IN THE QUR'AN

From: The Journal of the Islamic Medical Association, Vol.18, Jan-June 1986, pp.15-16 Keith L. Moore, Ph.D., F.I.A.C. The Department of Anatomy, University of Toronto, Canada

Statements referring to human reproduction and development are scattered throughout the Qur'an. It is only recently that the scientific meaning of some of these verses has been appreciated fully. The long delay in interpreting these verses correctly resulted mainly from inaccurate translations and commentaries and from a lack of awareness of scientific knowledge.

Interest in explanations of the verses of the Qur'an is not new. People used to ask the prophet Muhammad all sorts of questions about the meaning of verses referring to human reproduction. The Apostle's answers form the basis of the Hadith literature.

The translations (*) of the verses from the Qur'an which are interpreted in this paper were provided by Sheik Abdul Majid Zendani, a Professor of Islamic Studies in King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

"He makes you in the wombs of your mothers in stages, one after another, in three veils of darkness."

This statement is from Sura 39:6. We do not know when it was realized that human beings underwent development in the uterus (womb), but the first known illustration of a fetus in the uterus was drawn by Leonardo da Vinci in the 15th century. In the 2nd century A.D., Galen described the placenta and fetal membranes in his book "On The Formation of the Foetus." Consequently, doctors in the 7th century A.D. likely knew that the human embryo developed in the uterus. It is unlikely that they knew that it developed in stages, even though Aristotle had described the stages of development of the chick embryo in the 4th century B.C. The realization that the human embryo develops in stages was not discussed and illustrated until the 15th century.

After the microscope was discovered in the 17th century by Leeuwenhoek descriptions were made of the early stages of the chick embryo. The staging of human embryos was not described until the 20th century. Streeter (1941) developed the first system of staging which has now been replaced by a more accurate system proposed by O'Rahilly (1972).

"The three veils of darkness" may refer to: (1) the anterior abdominal wall; (2) the uterine wall; and (3) the amniochorionic membrane (Fig. 1). Although there are other interpretations of this statement, the one presented here seems the most logical from an embryological point of view.

Figure 1 from this Article is Not Available Online. See Similar Pictures of Fetus: 2 Months | 3 Months. (Editor)

Figure 1. Drawing of a sagittal section of a female's abdomen and pelvis showing a fetus in utero. The "veils of darkness" are: (1) the anterior abdominal wall; (2) the uterine wall, and (3) the amniochorionic membrane.

"Then We placed him as a drop in a place of rest."

Why Have Muslim Scholars Been Undervalued Throughout Western History?

Why Have Muslim Scholars Been Undervalued Throughout Western History?

Ahmad Bakir Tarabishy

One of history's greatest crimes is the almost complete omission of the debt the West owes to Islam and the Muslims.




The history books that fill our bookshelves are indispensable recollections of past civilizations’ glories and failures, achievements and abominations. Unfortunately, history can never be completely objective, since it is written by men, and men have a tendency to restrict their thoughts to a single point of view. While history has created in our minds many heroes from murderers, and criminals from saints, one of its greatest crimes is the almost complete omission of the debt the West owes to Islam and the Muslims. W. Montgomery Watt describes the problem:

Because Europe was reacting against Islam it belittled the influence of Saracens and exaggerated its dependence on its Greek and Roman heritage. So today an important task for us is to correct this false emphasis and to acknowledge fully our debt to the Arab and Islamic world.
(Ghazanfar, Islamic World and the Western Renaissance)

Students in Western Universities might have heard that Muslims were once leaders in science, but their accomplishments are often belittled, and their scientists are reduced to but borrowers who translated Greek and Persian works then assumedly hid them on a bookshelf so the West can later expand and build on them once it awakes from its sleep during the dark age. Donald Cardwell, in the Fontana History of Technology, claims that technologies imported into Europe during the Dark Ages "originated in China and India and were merely passed on by the Arabs." While cultural bigotry plays a major role in this distortion of the facts, the achievements of the Muslims have been left out of Western historical records as a result of the hatred of Islam embedded in the Judeo-Christian world, which shall be traced to many factors.



Before thoughtlessly calling out "conspiracy" as many Muslims today so often do, one must show that the Muslims actually did have an integral role in scientific development. Due to the wealth of achievements, however, this is not very hard to find.



The book of Allah and the example of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings upon him) set the basis for an intellectual tradition in the Islamic world which relied on reason and honesty. The purpose of knowing the natural world in Islam is to reveal the signs that Allah set in his creation. "We shall show them Our portents on the horizon and within themselves until it will be manifest unto them that it is the Truth" (The Holy Quran, 41:53). While Greek philosophy was based on the relativity of truth and change, in Islam, as Seyyed Hossein Nasr comments:

The arts and sciences came to possess instead a stability and a ‘crystallization’ based on the immutability of the principles from which they had issued forth; it is this stability that is too often mistaken in the West today for stagnation and sterility.
(http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/nasr.html)

The Muslims made numerous advances in many fields, one the most important being physics. They received the physics texts of the Greeks, then translated, corrected, and expanded on them greatly. The basis of the study of optics can be attributed directly to the Muslims. Al-Hassen bin Al-Haythem is considered the founder of this field. He and Al-Beirouni also logically came to the conclusion, in disagreement with Aristotle, that the speed of light is constant and that light is composed of extremely small particles moving at extremely high speeds, which is the basis of the quantum nature of light, an endlessly celebrated tribute to 20th century science
(Mahmoud 112-113; Davies 29).




Muslim scholars also laid the foundations of mathematics. Muslims were the first to recognize the importance of and use the zero effectively, borrowed from the Indians, bringing to Europe what is now called "Arabic numerals". Otherwise, the scientists and mathematicians of Europe would probably still be counting on their fingers or fumbling with clumsy roman numerals when analyzing data. Muhammad bin Mousa Al-Khawarizmi is considered the founder of modern algebra, and the mathematicians that followed made ever more impressive contributions. Ghiath Edden Al-Kashi, approximated pi to 16 places past the decimal point. The system know as Pascal’s triangle, which assists in factoring equations in the form of (a + b)n, was developed by Al-Karkhi, and not Louis Pascal. Later Muslim mathematicians were able to factor equations as complex as fourth degree equations; fifth degree equations are impossible to factor. (Mahmoud 137-147) The contribution of Muslim mathematicians to algebra is integral to the development of all sciences as mathematics is frequently referred to as the language of science. Newton would have had quite a difficult time quantitatively describing his laws of motion without using the algebra first implemented by the Muslims.





The Muslims made monumental strides in the practice and study of medicine. Ibn Sina’s text the Canon of Medicine, was used as a text in Europe for centuries later, and its popularity dwarfed the books of Galen and Hippocrates. Physicians like Abul Qasim al-Zahrawi, Ibn Sina, and Ali Abbas, wrote texts on surgery that would form the foundations of Western Surgery (Shustery 152-153). A story by the Muslim physician Usamah bin al-Manqaz serves as a good example of the superiority of Muslims doctors over their European contemporaries:



Among the marvels of the medical affairs on incident is this that Sahib Munitrah wrote to his uncle that there was need of a doctor to treat his companions. My uncle sent a Christian doctor, Thabit, to them, but he came back within ten days. We asked him, "Have you been able to treat the patients in such a short period?" He said, "They had brought to me a soldier who had a boil on one of his feet. When a bandage dipped in the juice of Linjah (a plant) was applied, the abscess got burst. There was another patient, a woman whose dry and chapped skin had developed itch and was giving her trouble. I kept her on a restricted diet as a preventive and tried to make her dry skin moist. But suddenly an English doctor appeared on the scene and told the people there about me, "What does he know of medical science and treatment of patients?" Then he asked the soldier with the abscess on his foot whether he would like to live with one leg or die with both. The soldier said he would prefer to live with one leg only. So the soldier and a sharp axe were brought and I was witness to this scene. The English doctor straightened his leg on a wooden board and asked the soldier (executioner, Tr.) to chop off his leg with a single stroke of his axe. He made a stroke with the axe, and I was a witness to that, and found that it failed to sever the leg. So he made a second attempt. The bone marrow was thrown out and the patient died immediately.



The author then reveals how the English doctor poured water on the woman with dry skin, and she too died a sudden, painful death.
(http://www.erols.com/gmqm/sibai10.htm)




While historians have written many books on the high level of sophistication and learning of the Muslims compared to the Europeans during the dark ages, few have thought to make the connection between Muslim science and the scientific explosion that was to occur later in Europe. The dependence of the latter on the former, however, is immense. It would not be controversial to say that the scientific revolution that took place in 17th Europe could not have occurred without the help of the Muslims.



The maelstrom brought upon Europe by the intellectual tradition taken from the Muslim world had far-reaching consequences on European life. Slowly as education spread throughout Europe, with Universities arising in the major cities, the authority of science grew exponentially. Even the powerful Church of Rome would soon go down as it foolishly tried to challenge rationality and scientific proofs with superstitions and the fading doctrine of papal authority. The West would take this tradition and run amok with it, venturing in directions never before taken by humanity. Soon Europe, which was during Islam’s golden age dismissed by Ibn Khaldun as "those parts", had superseded the Muslim World in every way imaginable: scientifically, militarily, economically, and administratively.
(Eaton 32-33)



However, a perplexing relationship existed between the Muslim world and Europe. It was not one of mutual reverence and respect, nor was it one of a father-culture, daughter-culture nature. There was an overpowering sentiment of hate embedded in European culture that outweighed any benefit or advancement the Muslims would give to them.



For hundreds of years the Muslims would take a permanent place in the forefront of the European mind. Wave after wave of Muslim armies crashed into Europe, coming with superior military training, unseen technology, and a culture alien to all what the European knew. Gai Eaton explains:

The "menace of Islam" had remained the one constant factor amidst change and transformation and it had been branded on the European consciousness. The mark of that branding is still visible… "The fact remains", says the Tunisian writer Hichem Djaït, "that medieval prejudices insinuated themselves into the collective unconsciousness of the West at so profound a level that one may ask, in terror, whether they can ever be extirpated from it."
(30-31)

This fear would turn into hate and aggression as Europe regained its strength. The Muslims also would serve as a means for Europe to do so. These "pagans" as Europeans saw them, would be the perfect enemy for Europeans to rally together. They did so, quite pathetically, in the crusades. The crusades, in terms of human losses, were one of the most lopsided military campaigns in history, with the exception of the savage massacres of Muslim civilians by the Christian armies. However, the crusades, initially being a crushing defeat for the Christians, would introduce them to the enormity of the gap between them and the Muslims.



At the same time, Europeans scholars were learning at the hands of the Muslims in Spain. The translated Greek works would intoduce the Europeans to an indigenous intellectual tradition they never knew existed. This helped spark a new self-confidence among the scholars of Europe. Unfortunately, the scholars of Europe were torn between their intellectual loyalty and the strong hatred of their teachers present in their culture. Karen Armstrong explains:

The Arabs in particular were a light to the Christian West and yet this debt has rarely been fully acknowledged. As soon as the great translation work had been completed, scholars in Europe began to shrug off this complicating and schizophrenic relationship with Islam and became very vague indeed about who the Arabs really were… There is an unhealthy repression and doublethink about people who are at one and the same time guides, heroes, and deadly enemies. This is very clear in the scholarship about Islam.
(64-65, 225-226)

This hatred, however, was, for the most part of Islamic history, one-sided. The Muslims had little reason to hate, or even to be concerned about Europe. To them it was a land of barbarism and backwardness, of a foreign landscape and weather. The battle of Poiters, for example, is considered by the Europeans as one of the major turning points in history, where the French armies repelled a Muslim raid into southern France. However, rarely is the battle mentioned by Muslim historians, and when mentioned it has been described as but a trivial raid.
(Armstrong, p42)




Another factor that plays alongside the long-standing hatred of Islam in Europe is the phenomenon known as orientalism. This concept was first articulated by Edward Said in his landmark book Orientalism, which is now considered required reading for anyone studying Middle Eastern culture or history. Orientalism is the result of the elaboration of the imaginary distinction between East and West: geographically, culturally, morally, and intellectually. The result of orientalism are claims that go along the lines of " ‘We’ are like this, but ‘they’, for unexplainable reasons, are fundamentally different, and in due course, inferior." This in turn serves as justification for "Us" to rule "Them", to exploit "Them", to guide "Them" to our enlightened ways. Academic orientalism gave rise to arrogant, seemingly humanistic ideals which drove imperialism, whose effects are felt very painfully in the Muslim, as well as most of the third, world. As Said explains it:

It [orientalism] is… a distribution of geopolitical awareness into aesthetic, scholarly, economic, sociological, historical, and philological texts; it is an elaboration not only of a basic geographical distinction (the world is made up of two unequal halves, Orient and Occident) but also of a whole series of "interests" which, by such means as scholarly discovery, philological reconstruction, psychological analysis, landscape and sociological description, it not only creates but also maintains; it is rather than expresses, a certain will or intention to understand, in some cases to control, manipulate, even to incorporate, what is a manifestly different (or alternative and novel) world; it is, above all, a discourse that is by no means in direct, corresponding relationship with political power in the raw, but rather is produced and exists in an uneven exchange with various kinds of power, shaped to a degree by the exchange with power political (as with a colonial or imperial establishment), power intellectual (as with reigning sciences like comparative linguistics or anatomy, or any of the modern policy sciences), power cultural ( as with orthodoxies and canons of taste, texts, values), power moral (as with ideas about what "we" do and what "they" cannot do or understand as "we" do). Indeed, my real argument is that Orientalism is—and does not simply represent—a considerable dimension of modern political-intellectual culture, and as such has less to do with the Orient than it does with "our" [Western] world.
(12)
[Italics in original text]

One may ask after looking at the reasons why Muslim scholars are vastly undervalued in Western books is "Why should we care now?" The scholars are dead. The ink in the history books has dried. What good will it bring Muslims, besides a headache, to raise this issue now? It is done to restore confidence to the Muslim Ummah, to remind believers what is needed to be great again. The Muslims ruled from France to India, not only because of being blessed with the true message, but also of being superior to the conquered people in all other "worldly" ways. The Muslims would have never conquered the Persians without superior military planning and tactics. The people of the Roman Empire in greater Syria and North Africa would have never converted to Islam if the Muslims were not materially superior to the Romans. The Khatib who gives the Friday sermon, who believes that Muslims will become great again once they start using their miswaks more often, is missing the whole story. Islam does not spread through prayer and piety—people go to the Jannah through prayer and piety. Islam provides a system that allows individuals to reach their fullest potentials in this life, and to encourage worship that allows individuals to reach their fullest potentials in the next.



Studying the lives of the Muslim scholars also provides modern-day Muslims with a portrayal of the prototypical modern scientist. He is one who devotes his efforts to discovering Allah’s signs in this world and who tries to direct his or her discoveries those that produce social benefit.




For the Westerner, it is important to change these historical inaccuracies to help improve the relations between the West and the Muslim world by finally acknowledging the enormous debt owed to the Muslims. However, as the celeritous progress of Western science pushes on, it is more likely that the increasing arrogance and faith in Western science with its purely Western (Greek) origins will keep this overdue apology from occurring. While a historian may mention "Avicenna" or "Averroes" fleetingly in one of his or her books, the problem is that what is left out is far greater than what is told. The eminent historian George Sarton criticized those who "will glibly say ‘The Arabs simply translated Greek writings, they were industrious imitators…’ This is not absolutely untrue, but is such a small part of the truth, that when it is allowed to stand alone, it is worse than a lie."





References:



The Holy Qu'ran.

Armstrong, Karen. "Holy War: The Crusades and their Impact on Today’s World". Doubleday: New York, 1991.

Davies, Paul. "Superforce: The Search for a Grand Unified Theory of Nature". Penguin: London, 1995.

Eaton, Gai. "Islam and the Destiny of Man". The Islamic Texts Society: Cambridge, 1994.

Mahmoud, Yusuf. "Al-Injazat Al-Ilmiyya fil Hadara Al-Islamiyya". Dar Al-Bashir: Amman, 1996.

Reichmann, Felix. "The Sources of Western Literacy: The Middle Eastern Civilizations". Greenwood Press: Westport, Connecticut, 1980.

Said, Edward. "Orientalism". Routledge & Kegan Paul: London, 1978.

Shustery, A. M. A. "Outlines of Islamic Culture". Sh. Muhammad Ashraf: Lahore, 1976.





This page was done for my "Scientific Legacy in Islam" (Turath al-'Ilmi al-Arabi al-Islami) course that I took for the summer at the University of Jordan.



All good is from Allah, all misinformation is from me.


Source

Muslim Scientific Inventions

Muslim Scientific Inventions
The Muslim Scholar

Muslims distinguished themselves not only as theoretical scientists and scientific thinkers, but contributed through innumerable inventions to the growth of the modern sciences. Though the mediaeval Muslims had very meagre resources at their command as compared to those of the present age, they achieved a great deal. They replaced the old speculative method of the Greeks with an experimental method, which in later periods formed the basis of all scientific investigations.


The Inventions


The Telescope
Abul Hasan is distinguished as the inventor of the Telescope, which he described to be a “Tube, to the extremities of which were attached diopters".



The Pendulum
The Pendulum was invented by Ibn Yunus, a genius in science who lived in the reign of Aziz Billah and Hakim bi-Amr-illah, the Fatimid monarchs of Egypt. The invention of the Pendulum led to the measurement of time by its oscillations. His outstanding work Sijul Akbar al-Hakimi, named after his celebrated patron Hakim bi-Amr-illah, was acknowledged to be the masterpiece on the subject replacing the work of Ptolemy. It was translated into Persian by Omar Khayyam in 1079.



The Watch
The first watch was made by Kutbi, a renowned watch-maker of his time. During the Abbasid reign the use of a watch became quite common and the famous Harun-ar-Rashid once despatched a watch as a gift to his celebrated contemporary, the French Emperor Charlemagne. At that time a watch was considered a novel thing in Europe and was regarded as an object of wonder.
Mustansariya, the well-known university of Baghdad had a unique clock with a dial blue like the sky and a sun which continually moved over its surface denoting the time. Maulana Shibli, the famous Urdu litterateur, has described a watch of Damascus in the following words:
"The watch was kept in the door of a wall. It contained copper plates and twelve doors. There was an Eagle (Bat) standing in the Ist and the last plate. At the end of each hour, these two eagles lay down on the copper plates and hence a sound was produced to show the time. At twelve all the doors were closed. This system was being repeated continuously".

The construction of water clocks was also common in Islamic Countries. "The Arabs were skilful in the construction of clepsydras and water clocks with automata," says a European writer.



The Mariners Compass
The invention of Mariners Compass, which revolutionised sea borne commerce and oceanic shipping and enabled the Arabs to roam over the stormy seas in quest of new lands and additional markets for their commodities, is essentially a contribution of the Muslims to the world of science.
Knowledge about the properties of the needle, can no doubt be traced to Chinese sources, but putting it into working shape, in the form of a mariners' compass, was the achievement of Muslim scientists. The compass was probably invented for the purpose of finding out the Qibla for Prayers.



Gunpowder
Mir Fatehullah Khan is known to history as the inventor of gun and gunpowder. The presumption that gunpowder was first made by the Chinese does not stand the test of historical research. Writing in his book Arab Civilization, the author says that "gunpowder was a great invention of the Arabs who were already using guns". Guns were used by Arabs in 1340 A.D. in the defence of Al-Bahsur, when Franzdol besieged it. The statement of Dr. Leabon about the invention of gunpowder by the Arabs is further corroborated by Mr. Scott in his well-known work, History of the Moorish Empire in Spain.

"It has been acknowledged by Joseph Hell in his book, Arab Civilization, that the distinction of inventing photography goes to Ibn al-Hashem, who is not only credited with its invention but also its development. Muhammad Musa, a great scholar of geography, has the unique distinction of being the inventor of an instrument by which the earth could be measured. He also invented the "Astrolabe". These novel instruments invented by him have been preserved in the Museum of Madrid (Spain)."



Shipping instrument
A unique instrument was invented by Abu Solet Umayyah in 1134 A.D. through which a sunken ship would be raised - which greatly helped in the salvage expeditions of mediaeval times.



Manufacturing Soap, Paper and Cloth
The credit for manufacturing soap goes to Arab chemists, who introduced it to the world.
The first paper in Islamic countries was manufactured in 794 A.D. in Baghdad by Yusuf Bin Omar. The paper manufactured in Arab countries was of superior quality than that made in Europe.
A paper mill was established in Baghdad, and soon paper replaced parchment (skin of animals) and papyrus ('paper' made from plants). the development of paper made knowledge and learning easier, for more people were able to have access to it.

In the manufacture of cloth, Muslims particularly in Spain exhibited marvellous skill and taste. Their woven cloth captured almost all the big markets of the world and was considered to be the finest as well as extremely durable.



The Windmill
Al-Masudi who died in Cairo in 957 A.D. may be called the "Pliny of the Arabs" In his celebrated work The Meadows of Gold, he has described an earthquake, and the first windmill which was also invented by a Muslim.



Astronomy and Navigation
Giralda or "The Tower of Seville", was the first observatory in Europe. It was built in 1190 A.D., in the Spanish town of Seville under the supervision of the celebrated Mathematician, Jabir Ibn Afiah. It was meant for the observation of heavenly bodies. It was later turned into a belfry by Christian conquerors, who, after the expulsion of the Moors, did not know how to use it.

The many references to astronomy in the Qur'an and hadith, and the injunctions to learn, inspired the early Muslim scholars to study the heavens. They integrated the earlier works of the Indians, Persians and Greeks into a new synthesis.
Ptolemy (a 2nd Century Greek writer)'s 'Almagest' (the title as we know it today is actually Arabic) was translated, studied and criticized. Muslims were inspired to investigate and study the Earth, the features of the land, methods of mapping and so on. Many new stars were discovered, as we see in their Arabic names - Algol, Deneb, Betelgeuse, Rigel, Aldebaran.
Astronomical tables were compiled, among them the Toledan tables, which were used by Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Kepler.
These works were used to determine the direction of Makkah from various locations, to improve navigation and surveying, and establishing correct time keeping and calanders.
Using longitude and latitude, calculating the circumference of the Earth within a few hundred miles, the Muslim geographers so greatly improved on Ptolemy's famous 'Almagest', that it is not certain how much of the work actually belongs to the famous Greek, and how much was added to successive copies.

Also compiled were almanacs - another Arabic term. Other terms from Arabic are zenith, nadir, Aledo, azimuth.

Muslim astronomers were the first to establish observatories, like the one built at Mugharah by Hulagu, the son of Genghis Khan, in Persia, and they invented instruments such as the quadrant and astrolabe, which led to advances not only in astronomy but in oceanic navigation, contributing to the European age of exploration.

Other instruments used by muslim astronomers and navigators were the quadrant and the planisphere, a large, complicated device for plotting stars. Observatories were set up in desert locations where the best observations could be made. Accurate measurement of time used very similar mathematical skills to those needed for navigation. Al-Biruni, for example, wrote a mathematical treatise on shadows that helped calibrate sundials accurately.


Astrolobe
The Astrolobe is perhaps the most famous of 'Islamic inventions'. Primitive astrolobes were developed by the Greeks, but the refinements made by the Muslim Mathematicians, and craftsmen made them more accurate and versatile.
When the device entered Europe through Spain and Italy, it was the latest in high technology. In the storyteller of 'The Canterbury Tales', Geoffery Chaucer, wrote instructions on its use. The well-known romance of Heloise and Abelard resulted in a son they named - Astrolobe!
ther instruments used by Muslim astronomers and navigators were



Mathematics
Bold experiments and unique innovations in the field of mathematics were carried out by Muslim mathematicians who developed this science to an exceptionally high degree. Algebra may be said to have been invented by the Greeks, but according to Oelsner, "it was confined to furnishing amusement for the plays of the goblet" Muslims developed it and applied it to higher purposes.
Thus, The first great Muslim mathematician, Al-Khawarizmi, invented the subject of algebra (al-Jabr), which was further developed by others, most notably Umar Khayyam. Al-Khawarizmi's work, in Latin translation, brought the Arabic numerals along with the mathematics to Europe, through Spain. The word "algorithm" is derived from his name.

The Muslims invented the symbol for zero (The word "cipher" comes from Arabic sifr), and they organized the numbers into the decimal system - base 10. Additionally, they invented the symbol to express an unknown quantity, i.e. variables like x.

They invented spherical trigonometry, discovered the tangent and were first, "to introduce the sine of arc in Trigonometrical Calculations" Zero is an invaluable addition made to mathematical science by the Muslims. They have also shown remarkable progress in mathematical geography.



Medical Sciences
The Muslims have made a lasting contribution to the development of Medical Science. Razi (Rhazes), Ibn Sina (Avicenna), and Abu Ali al-Hasan (Alhazen) were the greatest medical scholars of mediaeval times.
Al-Razi, known in the West as Rhazes, the famous physician and scientist, (d. 932), was the inventor of "Seton" in Surgery and the author of 'Al-Judari wal Hasbak', an authentic book dealing with measles and small pox.
Seen as one of the greatest physicians in the world in the Middle Ages, Razi stressed empirical observation and clinical medicine and was unrivalled as a diagnostician. He also wrote a treatise on hygiene in hospitals.
Kahaf Abul-Qasim Al-Sahabi was a very famous surgeon in the eleventh century, known in Europe for his work, 'Kitab al-Tasrif' (Concessio).
Avicenna wrote 'Al-Qanun Jil Tib known as Cannon', which was the most widely studied medical work of mediaevel times and was reprinted more than twenty times during the last 30 years of the 15th century in many different languages. The book remained a standard textbook even in Europe, for over 700 years.
Alhazen was the world's greatest authority on "optics".
The contagious character of the plague and its remedies were discovered by Ibn Katina, a Moorish Physician.
Other significant contributions were made in pharmacology, such as Ibn Sina's 'Kitab al-Shifa' (Book of Healing), and in public health. Every major city in the Islamic world had a number of excellent hospitals, some of them teaching hospitals, and many of them were specialized for particular diseases, including mental and emotional. The Ottomans were particularly noted for their building of hospitals and for the high level of hygiene practiced in them.



Glass
Ibn Firnas is credited with making glass from stones. He had constructed his home as a sort df planetarium where one could see stars, clouds and even lightning.



Attempts at flight
According to Hitti, "Ibn Firnas was the first man in Arab history to make a scientific attempt at flight. His flying equipment consisted of a suit of feathers with wings, which, we are told carried him a long distance, in the air. When he alighted, however, he hurt himself because his suit was not provided with a tail."


Mutmainaa

Science conflicting with Religion? Not for Muslims!

Science conflicting with Religion? Not for Muslims!

Summarised extracts from a full article, see resources below, where end notes, references and bibliography are given.

by: Foundation for Science Technology and Civilisation. Info@fstc.co.uk

"Read: In the name of your Lord Who creates - creates man from a clot. Read: And your Lord is the Most Bounteous, Who teaches by the use of the pen, teaches man that which he knew not." Quran 96:105

Today, the separation is not just between Christianity and science, but between religion in general and science. The reason is that the science, which nations and people from the world over seek to acquire, is Western science.

Thats science, had risen in conflict with religion. The Muslim science, however, had risen in concert and harmony with religion. This fact, imposed by the dominant science, today's reality, and the absence of historical knowledge, easily drives people into believing that as a rule, science and religion live into conflict. Yet, as in the words of Ali Kettani `claiming that all religious experiences are the same and projecting the Western experience to the Muslim world results from a serious ignorance of historical realities.'(endnote 3)

The apparent conflict of science and religion, and their separation in `watertight compartments,' as put by Sadar.,(endnote 4) is a uniquely Western creation, the result of hostilities between those who claimed to be custodians of Christianity and those who challenged their power. And he adds that `to take an inductive leap from what was a particularly European experience and generalise it to an all embracing conflict between science and religion is not just Eurocentric but also poor scholarship.'(endnote 5)

Islam, unlike medieval Catholicism, it is observed, `did nothing to stifle the spirit of scientific enquiry.'(endnote 6) And one outcome was that, from `Basra to Cordoba, great universities arose centuries before the earliest studium generale in Christendom;' the library of Cordoba contained 600,000 books, and `the craftmanship of the Arab world was on a par with its scholarship.'(endnote 7)

It seems, though, that such preceding statements have little relation with reality. First and foremost, the picture offered of Islam, even that given by Muslims, runs against the preceding points. Muslims are depicted very unfavourably on television, magazines, films and daily media. There is a constant bombardment of opinion of well chosen articles, concocted facts, off-putting photographs of Muslims. It is not surprising that in any mind, just the idea that these people and that religion having any link, however faint, with civilisation and science is an impossible fact.

Historians, and other opinion makers also stress the dark moments of Islamic history with such skills and high competence that it is as if the Muslims, worse than the Mongols, left only death and destruction in their trail, besides enslaving every being falling under their grips.(endnote 8) The Muslim nation itself, lacking in order, power, and organisation, is partly responsible for that poor image, too.

by: FSTC Limited, Sun 01 September, 2002

MuslimHeritage.com

The superiority of amassing knowledge over wealth

The superiority of amassing knowledge over wealth is that the Pharaoh’s vast wealth caused him to say, “Truly I’m deserving of your worship.” Whereas the Prophet’s (peace and blessings be upon him) vast knowledge caused him to say, “Truly we have not worshipped You as You deserve to be worshipped. [Ali radi Allah anhu]

The Universe: Quran

The Universe in Light of the Quraan

• The spinning of the earth

"He (God) coils the night onto the day and coils the day onto the night."
[Qur'an-Zumar 39:5]

The use of the word "coils" was once thought to be a purely poetic one, but today's astronomical arabic word knowledge confirms that the word "coils" is scientifically very accurate in describing the spinning movement of the earth.

"And made the moon a light in their midst and made the sun as
a (Glorious) lamp." [Qur'an-Mursalat 77:16]

At the time of revelation of the Qur'an, it was a commonly held belief that the earth stood still and that the sun orbited around us. After all it seemed logical. Man's ego was bigger than the universe or so he thought. It was easier to believe that he lived in the centre of the Universe.

It was not until 1543, that the Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus publishes De Revolutionibus, in which he states that the earth and the other planets revolve around the sun. Just pause and look at the time interval when that piece of information was in the Holy Qur'an.

Hostility to science generally and astronomy particularly was the misfortune of the Catholic Church in the early 16th and 17th century. In 1633 Galileo was forced to kneel in front of the Inquisition and recant his belief in the Copernican planetary system. He was condemned to life imprisonment, ostensibly for having disobeyed "...not to defend or teach the Copernican doctrine...".

"Consider those (stars) that rise only to set. And move (in their orbits) with steady motion. And float (through space) with floating serene. And yet overtake (one another) with swift overtaking. And thus fulfill the (Creator's) behest!" [Qur'an-Nazi'at 79:1-5]

It is only on the scale of the galaxy that this verse comes to light! A galaxy is composed of millions and millions of stars. A galaxy like ours, the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy and rotates.

THE MILKY WAY GALAXY

The Milky Way Galaxy has three major components:

A thin disk consisting of young and intermediate age stars - this disk also contains gas and is actively forming new stars. Dust in the disk makes it appear orange in the picture. Dust absorbs blue light more than red light and thus makes stars appear reddish. Our Galaxy has spiral arms in its disk - these spiral arms are regions of active star formation.

A bar of older stars (white in the picture).

An extended dark halo whose composition is unknown. Since the matter in the halo does not consist of luminous stars, it does not show up in the image. The existence of the dark halo is inferred from its gravitational pull on the visible matter.

The stars do move in an orbit and with steady motion too as they float through space. They do overtake one another because in any spiral structure that is rotating, the outer arms will move at a faster rate than the inner sections and will thereby overtake the stars on the interior in their motion. The spiral nature of our galaxy was only discovered in this century since its spiral nature is not easily evident to us as we reside inside.

There is order, cosmos…not chaos in this tremendous universe. The moon and earth float in orbits and they are predictable in their behaviour. It has been shown that if one planet was removed from our system, our solar system is no longer stable. Comets are predictable and they return as expected bound by the laws of Physics, God's laws. Man can never truly invent, he can only discover. The Universe is predictable in its behavior because Allah has subjugated its constituents and they obey him scrupulously, unlike man who has been granted will.

• The eleven planets

Consisting of the Sun, a family of nine known planets, sixty seven (67) satellites (moons) of the planets, millions of asteroids, and billions of comets, our Solar System is an oasis of light, heat, and life.

The inner solar system contains the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.
The planets of the outer solar system are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.
When Joseph said unto his father:

"O my father! Lo! I saw in a dream eleven planets and the sun and the moon, I saw them prostrating themselves unto me."
[Qur'an-Yusuf 12:4]

What about the Tenth Planet and Eleventh Planet?

Astronomers may have found hints of a massive, distant, still unseen object at the edge of the solar system - perhaps a 10th planet, perhaps a failed companion star - that appears to be shoving comets toward the inner solar system.

Two teams of scientists - one in England, one at University of Louisiana at Lafayette - independently report this conclusion based on the highly elliptical orbits of so-called "long-period comets" that originate from an icy cloud of debris far, far beyond Pluto.

As the planet - estimated to have a mass between one and 10 Jupiter's - orbits, its gravitational wake disturbs the icy debris of the outer solar system, causing some of it to plunge toward the sun as comets.

No one has yet directly observed a 10th planet, and there could still be another cause for the cluster of comets.

What's surprising is just how far out there this supposed planet is. Both Murray and the University of Louisiana physicists put the planet in an orbit about 3 trillion miles - or half a light-year - from the sun. The nearest star is four light -years away.

To put this distance in perspective, consider a miniaturized version of the solar system in which Earth is one inch from the sun. On this scale, Pluto, the ninth planet would be a bit more than a yard from the sun. The new planet, by contrast, would be a half - mile distant.

At that great distance, the 10th planet would be too dim to see by current telescopes, although there is some hope that if it exists, the next generation of space-based infrared telescopes might be able to pick it up soon. As for the 11th planet, next generations will probably have the chance to discover it as well, as the Qur'an predicts it. And Allah knows best.

Astronomy

Discoveries of Muslim scholars

Expanding universe

Why is the Universe Expanding

"And the firmament (sky) We constructed with power and skill
and verily We are expanding it."
[Qur'an-Zariyat 51:47]

From the expansion of the Universe...

The ideas have emerged from over two thousand years of observation have had to be radically revised. In less than a hundred years, we have found a new way to think of ourselves. From sitting at the center of the Universe, we now find ourselves orbiting around an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. And our galaxy itself is just one of billions of galaxies, in a Universe that is limitless and expanding. This was discovered in 1926 by Edwin Hubble.But this is far from the end of a long history of inquiry. Huge questions remain to be answered, before we can hope to have a complete picture of the Universe we live in. The expansion of the Universe is one of the most imposing discoveries of modern science. Today it is a firmly established concept and the only debate centres around the way this is taking place.

The expansion was first suggested by the General Theory of Relativity and is backed up by physics in the examination of the galactic spectrum. The regular movement towards the red section of the spectrum may be explained by the distancing of one galaxy from another. Thus the size of the Universe is probably constantly increasing and this increase will become bigger the further away the galaxies are from us. The speeds at which these celestial bodies are moving may, in the course of this perpetual expansion, go from fractions of the speed of light to speeds faster than this. Besides indicating that the Universe is expanding much faster than in the past, the chance discovery of the most distant supernova has revived a discarded theory of Albert Einstein suggesting the pervasive existence of mysterious "dark energy". Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope found the exploding star about 10 billion light-years from Earth. The discovery bolsters the startling notion that the Universe has recently begun speeding up its expansion, which scientists first speculated three years ago based on the unusually dim light from other distant supernovas. "It shows that the expanding of the Universe is really speeding up and not slowing down as conventional astronomers had thought for 70 years," said University of Chicago astronomer Michael Turner. The new stellar explosion has helped astronomers understand how the Universe expands, "much the same way a parent follows a child's growth spurts by marking a doorway," said Hubble scientist Adam Riess, lead researcher in the new study.The Universe slowed down its expansion for a time and then began a period of accelerated growth, Riess said.

" Do the unbelievers not realize that the heavens and the earth used to be one solid mass that we exploded into existence? And from water we made all living things. Would they believe? "
[Qur'an-Anbiyaa 21:30]

...to the Big Bang

Now if all these galaxies are moving away from each other, where did they come from?

In 1927, the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître was the first to propose that the Universe began with the explosion of a primeval atom. His proposal came after observing the red shift in distant nebulas by astronomers to a model of the Universe based on relativity. Years later, Edwin Hubble found experimental evidence to help justify Lemaître's theory. He found that distant galaxies in every direction are going away from us with speeds proportional to their distance.

The theory of Big Bang states that the Universe came into being as an extremely small volume full of energy which gave the Universe a very high temperature. As the Universe expanded so the fundamental atomic particles were formed as a mixture dominated by hydrogen with some helium and almost nothing else.

According to the big bang, the Universe was created sometime between 10 billion and 20 billion years ago from a cosmic explosion that hurled matter and in all directions.

Astronomy

Muslim Navigators

Muslim Navigators

" And His are the ships sailing smoothly through the seas, lofty as mountains." [Qur'an-Rahman 55:24]

Muslim civilization always has been moving. Both the Arabs and the conquerors from Central Asia were originally nomadic and inherited a tradition of travel. Students and scholars went on long journeys to sit at the feet of famous teachers, for the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him); himself encouraged travel even "as far as China" for learning. The wealth of cities depended upon trade. And the Faith of Islam asked of the faithful the most powerful of all reasons for travel, the Pilgrimage. So Muslims traveled the length and width of the vast Islamic Empires and beyond, especially for trade purposes. Muslims traveled by land and by sea and through their trips they began an "Age of Travel and Exploration" far beyond their homelands.

• Equipement of sea travel

" We have honoured the sons of Adam, provided them with transport on land and sea..."[Qur'an-Al 'Isrâ 17:70]

Muslim sailors used equipment to help them on their journeys. The astrolabe was used to read the position of the stars and planets. In this way, they could read their position on the sea in terms of latitude. These astrolabes were a great scientific achievement of the Muslims. In the fourteenth century the Muslims also used the compass which was first invented by the Chinese. This also helped them travel even without the sun or stars to guide them. And of course the Muslims made maps of the safest journeys. These maps were often kept secret from others by the ship captains who were competing for trade routes.

The dhow is a sailing vessel that is still used in the Indian Ocean today. It utilized the winds of the monsoons to go north in the summer and south in the winter. Dhows went up and down the coast of East Africa, and from the Red Sea to the "Spice Islands" of Indonesia, and to Southeast Asia. The dhow shown here is a small one and is still used along the coast. The Muslims built large "oceangoing dhows" that could carry a crew of twenty or more and a lot of cargo and supplies. The oceangoing dhow called the "baghlah" is no longer built. It was the traditional deep-sea dhow; it had a high cabin in the back, with five windows and a poop deck like European galleons (former large trading ship).

• Muslim explorers and mapmakers influenced Christopher Columbus

The Muslims were masters of the sea. They had maps, equipment and experience that were far beyond what was available in Europe.One of the most famous gegrapher is Al-Idrisi who made a globe or sphere of silver weighing 400 kilograms for the Christian King Roger II of Sicily. Some scholars regard him as the greatest geographer and mapmaker of the Middle Ages. He put together a geographical encyclopedia with many maps.

Furthermore, the Muslims controlled most of the trade routes from the Eastern Mediterranean to China, India and the Spice Islands of Southeast Asia. Because of these factors, European traders had to look for new ways of competing in trade. Moreover, Muslim geographers had proposed that the earth was round, and even estimated fairly accurately its size, and measured its longitude and latitude hundreds of years before. It is also even claimed that they had discovered America before Columbus. Christopher Columbus would have known about this from living among sailors in Spanish and Italian ports. Perhaps he even heard stories of earlier adventures across the Sea of Darkness.In one of his letters, Columbus named Averroes who helped him guess the existence of the new world.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail on three small ships from Spain with a Muslim navigator (a person who has skills in getting from place to place), an Arab translator, maps, and equipment. His goal was to sail across the Atlantic and reach China and India. Of course he was mistaken about the size of the earth and the existence of the Americas to block his way. But his trip was the beginning of new ways for Europeans to look at the world.

" When distress seizes you at sea, those that ye call upon, besides Himself, leave you in lurch! But when He brings you back safe to land, ye turn away (from Him). Most ungrateful man!" [Qur'an-Al 'Isrâ 17:67]

• Muslim Navigators

Ibn Battuta (1305 - 1369?) was perhaps the greatest traveler of the Middle Ages, having traveled about 75,000 miles in 29 years! He is especially important to history because of his written reports of his travels. From these records we can learn about the cultures that he visited. The book about his travels is the only historical source of information about many of the places he visited which included the East African coast, the Empire of Mali in West Africa, Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, India, China, Spain, and many, many more! As a Muslim, he took advantage of the generosity shown to pilgrims and travelers in the Empire. He was often given gifts (of horses, gold, and even slaves) and stayed for free in dormitories, private homes, and even in the palaces of Muslim rulers. For seven years he worked for the Sultan in Delhi, India. On his travels he met several Sultans who welcomed him into their company. His descriptions are filled with adventures and stories.

Leo Africanus (Hasan a-Wazan) was a traveler and mapmaker who lived from 1485-1554. He was captured by Christian pirates and presented to the Pope as a slave. He later was commissioned to write about and make maps of his travels in West Africa. His description of Timbuktu (now in the country of Mali) tells of the city famous for trade of African products and for scholarship with a thriving trade in books. (source:"Leo Africanus: Description of Timbuktu" Washington State University.)

Prominent Arab figures who excelled in philosophy, arts and sciences played a substantial role in enriching civilization and Ibn al-Haitham is one of those outstanding characters who thought he can control the geography of Egypt by controling the Nile river floods. He worked as a clerk for some caliphs. Working in a governmental job did not suit his bent, so he devoted his time and efforts to his own scientific studies. He was renowned for his knowledge of the sciences and philosophy, even when he was still young.

Oceanography

THE WORLD OCEAN

THE WORLD OCEAN

"How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean." Arthur C. Clarke

For centuries, people have been challenged by the mysteries that lie beneath the blue depths of our ocean planet. Very little was known about the ocean until late in the nineteenth century. Myths and misconceptions abounded. We thought that the seafloor was flat and that it was the same age as the continents. How different a picture we now have of the ocean as the sea has begun to yield its secrets!

Today's scientists have overcome many of the challenges of the deep by using more sophisticated tools. They can send manned submersibles and sampling devices to plumb the ocean depths, taking photographs and samples of animal life and sediment to bring back to the surface for further study. Even space technology enters the picture.

" Why am I doing this? Only the tiny sea of my cells replies, reminding me that I am the sea and the sea is in me." Jacques-Yves Cousteau

The world ocean contains about 97 percent of all the water on the earth. Most of the remaining water is frozen in glaciers and icecaps. The rest is in lakes and rivers, underground, and in the air. Each of the oceans, Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, makes a contribution to the entire global system and cover 71 percent of the earth's surface. The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean by far covering about 70 million square miles (181 million square kilometers), nearly a third of the earth's surface. Also, the world ocean has an average depth of 12,200 feet (3,730 meters), but parts of the ocean plunge much deeper. The deepest areas occur in trenches, long narrow valleys on the sea floor. The deepest known spot is in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, near the island of Guam. It lies 36,198 feet (11,033 meters) below sea level. If the world's highest mountain, 29,035-foot (8,850-meter) Mount Everest, were placed in that spot, more than 1 mile (1.6 kms) of water would cover the mountaintop.

• The wealth of ocean

" Nor are the two bodies of flowing water alike,the one palatable, sweet, and pleasant to drink, and the other, salt and bitter.Yet from each (kind of water) do ye eat flesh fresh and tender, and ye extract ornaments to wear ;and thou seest the ships therein that plough the waves, that ye may seek (thus) of the bounty of God that ye may be grateful."

Indeed God provides through the ocean many major resources. They include food, medicines, energy ,and minerals.

Food from the ocean consists mainly of fish and shellfish. The worldwide commercial fish and shellfish catch from the ocean totals about 200 billion pounds (90 billion kilograms) annually. Most of the catch comes from coastal waters. People eat about 60 percent of the fish and shellfish directly. Processors use the rest of the catch to make such products as fish oil and fish meal, which is added to livestock feed and pet food.

Medicines have been produced from many forms of marine life. For example, plantlike organisms called red algae provide an anticoagulant, a drug that keeps blood from clotting. A species of marine snail produces a substance that relaxes muscles. Sea life has also been valuable in medical research. The blood of horseshoe crabs contains a substance used to test for various infections. The substance can also be used to determine the purity of many drugs. Researchers study giant nerve cells from lobsters, squids, and marine worms to learn more about nerve functions in people.

Energy from the ocean has several forms. Petroleum and natural gas are the ocean's most valuable energy resources. Offshore wells tap deposits of oil and gas beneath the sea floor. In the late 1990's, offshore wells produced about 30 percent of the world's oil and gas. Scientists estimate that from 63 billion barrels to as much as 530 billion barrels of oil lie undiscovered beneath the ocean. Equally huge amounts of untapped gas accompany the oil. As gas and oil reserves on land are used up or become too difficult and expensive to obtain, finding and recovering undersea deposits will become increasingly important.
The ocean tides also provide energy. Tidal power facilities use the energy in the rise and fall of the tides to produce electricity. The first tidal power plant opened in 1966 on the Rance River near St.-Malo, France.

Minerals recovered from the ocean include sand and gravel mined from the sea floor and used to make construction materials. Some sands also have value because they are rich in phosphorite and other chemicals. Seawater itself contains such important minerals as bromide, manganese, and salt. The minerals can be removed by letting the seawater evaporate in large shallow basins under sunlight. The evaporation leaves the minerals behind. Other methods to remove minerals from seawater include chemical and electrochemical processes.
The mineral wealth of the ocean extends to the deep-sea floor. Deposits near undersea hot springs contain copper, iron, and zinc. Manganese deposits lie on the ocean bottom in lumps called nodules. The nodules also contain cobalt, copper, and nickel. Scientists are trying to develop ways to gather the nodules and bring them to the surface. Possible gathering techniques include using buckets that run on conveyor belts between a ship and the sea floor and operating a device that works like a giant vacuum cleaner.

Oceanography