A worthy research-based article which needs to be read and re-read. It was written at least 10 years ago but still seems fresh in approach...
OUR LOST HERITAGE
Abu Rayhan
al-Biruni was a great Muslim scientist, physicist, astronomer, sociologist,
linguist, historian and mathematician whose true worth may never be known. He
is considered the father of unified field theory by a Nobel Laureate. He lived
nearly a thousand years ago and was a contemporary of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and
Sultan Mahmoud of Ghazni.
When he was on his deathbed, Biruni was visited by
a jurisprudent neighbor of his. Abu Rayhan was still conscious, and on seeing
the jurisprudent, he asked him a question on inheritance law or some other
related issue. The jurisprudent was quite amazed that a dying man should show
interest in such matters. Abu Rayhan said, "I should like to ask you:
which is better, to die with knowledge or to die without it?" The man
said, "Of course, it is better to know and then die." Abu
Rayhan said, "That is why I asked my first question." Shortly
after the jurisprudent had reached his home, the cries of lamentation told him
that Abu Rayhan had died. (Murtaza Motahari: Spiritual Discourses) [This
narration does not undermine the fact that Muslims are required to recite ‘Kalma Tayyaba’ before death which can open doors to
salvation in afterlife].
That was then, nearly a millennium ago, when Muslims were the torchbearers of knowledge in a very dark world. They created an Islamic civilization, driven by inquiry and invention, which was the envy of the rest of the world for many centuries.
In the words of Carli Fiorina, the former highly
talented and visionary, CEO of Hewlett Packard, "Its architects
designed buildings that defied gravity. Its mathematicians created the algebra
and algorithms that would enable the building of computers, and the creation of
encryption. Its doctors examined the human body, and found new cures for
disease. Its astronomers looked into the heavens, named the stars, and paved
the way for space travel and exploration. Its writers created thousands of stories;
stories of courage, romance and magic. When other nations were afraid of ideas,
this civilization thrived on them, and kept them alive. When censors threatened
to wipe out knowledge from past civilizations, this civilization kept the
knowledge alive, and passed it on to others. While modern Western civilization
shares many of these traits, the civilization I'm talking about was the Islamic
world from the year 800 to 1600, which included the Ottoman Empire and the
courts of Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, and enlightened rulers like Suleiman the
Magnificent. Although we are often unaware of our indebtedness to this other
civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage. The technology
industry would not exist without the contributions of Arab mathematicians."
Truly, there is hardly a field that is not indebted
to these pioneering children of Islam. Here below is a short list, by no means
a comprehensive one, of Muslim scientists from the 8th to the 14th century CE: 1
701 (died) C.E. * Khalid Ibn Yazeed * Alchemy
721-803 * Jabir Ibn Haiyan (Geber) * Alchemy (Great Muslim Alchemist)
740 * Al-Asma'i * Zoology, Botany, Animal Husbandry
780 * Al-Khwarizmi (Algorizm) * Mathematics (Algebra, Calculus), Astronomy
776-868 * Amr ibn Bahr al-Jajiz * Zoology
787 * Al Balkhi, Ja'far Ibn Muhammas (Albumasar) * Astronomy
796 (died) * Al-Fazari,Ibrahim Ibn Habib * Astronomy
800 * Ibn Ishaq Al-Kindi - (Alkindus) * Medicine, Philosophy, Physics, Optics
815 * Al-Dinawari, Abu-Hanifa Ahmed Ibn Dawood * Mathematics, Linguistics
816 * Al Balkhi * Geography (World Map)
836 * Thabit Ibn Qurrah (Thebit) * Astronomy, Mechanics, Geometry, Anatomy
838-870 * Ali Ibn Rabban Al-Tabari * Medicine, Mathematics
852 * Al Battani Abu Abdillah * Mathematics, Astronomy, Engineering
857 * Ibn Masawaih You'hanna * Medicine
858-929 * Abu Abdullah Al-Battani (Albategnius) * Astronomy, Mathematics
860 * Al-Farghani, Abu al-Abbas (Al-Fraganus) * Astronomy, Civil Engineering
864-930 * Al-Razi (Rhazes) * Medicine, Ophthalmology, Chemistry
873 (died) * Al-Kindi * Physics, Optics, Metallurgy, Oceanography, Philosophy
888 (died) * Abbas ibn Firnas * Mechanics, Planetarium, Artificial Crystals
900 (died) * Abu Hamed Al-ustrulabi * Astronomy
903-986 * Al-Sufi (Azophi) * Astronomy
908 * Thabit Ibn Qurrah * Medicine, Engineering
912 (died) * Al-Tamimi Muhammad Ibn Amyal (Attmimi) * Alchemy
923 (died) * Al-Nirizi, AlFadl Ibn Ahmed (Altibrizi) * Mathematics, Astronomy
930 * Ibn Miskawayh, Ahmed Abu-Ali * Medicine, Alchemy
932 * Ahmed Al-Tabari * Medicine
934 * al Istakhr II * Geography (World Map)
936-1013 * Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahravi (Albucasis) * Surgery, Medicine
940-997 * Abu Wafa Muhammad Al-Buzjani * Mathematics, Astronomy, Geometry
943 * Ibn Hawqal * Geography (World Map)
950 * Al Majrett'ti Abu-al Qasim * Astronomy, Alchemy, Mathematics
958 (died) * Abul Hasan Ali al-Mas'udi * Geography, History
960 (died) * Ibn Wahshiyh, Abu Baker * Alchemy, Botany
965-1040 * Ibn Al-Haitham (Alhazen) * Physics, Optics, Mathematics
973-1048 * Abu Rayhan Al-Biruni * Astronomy, Mathematics, History, Linguistics
976 * Ibn Abil Ashath * Medicine
980-1037 * Ibn Sina (Avicenna) * Medicine, Philosophy, Mathematics, Astronomy
983 * Ikhwan A-Safa (Assafa) * (Group of Muslim Scientists)
1001 * Ibn Wardi * Geography (World Map)
1008 (died) * Ibn Yunus * Astronomy, Mathematics.
1019 * Al-Hasib Alkarji * Mathematics
1029-1087 * Al-Zarqali (Arzachel) * Astronomy (Invented Astrolabe)
1044 * Omar Al-Khayyam * Mathematics, Astronomy, Poetry
1060 (died) * Ali Ibn Ridwan Abu'Hassan Ali * Medicine
1077 * Ibn Abi-Sadia Abul Qasim * Medicine
1090-1161 * Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) * Surgery, Medicine
1095 * Ibn Bajah, Mohammed Ibn Yahya (Avenpace) * Astronomy, Medicine
1097 * Ibn Al-Baitar Diauddin (Bitar) * Botany, Medicine, Pharmacology
1099 * Al-Idrisi (Dreses) * Geography, Zoology, World Map (First Globe)
1110-1185 * Ibn Tufayl, Abubacer Al-Qaysi * Philosophy, Medicine
1120 (died) * Al-Tuhra-ee, Al-Husain Ibn Ali * Alchemy, Poem
1128 * Ibn Rushd (Averroe's) * Philosophy, Medicine, Astronomy
1135 * Ibn Maymun, Musa (Maimonides) * Medicine, Philosophy
1140 * Al-Badee Al-Ustralabi * Astronomy, Mathematics
1155 (died) * Abdel-al Rahman Al Khazin * Astronomy
1162 * Al Baghdadi, Abdel-Lateef Muwaffaq * Medicine, Geography
1165 * Ibn A-Rumiyyah Abul'Abbas (Annabati) * Botany
1173 * Rasheed Al-Deen Al-Suri * Botany
1180 * Al-Samawal * Algebra
1184 * Al-Tifashi, Shihabud-Deen (Attifashi) * Metallurgy, Stones
1201-1274 * Nasir Al-Din Al-Tusi * Astronomy, Non-Euclidean Geometry
1203 * Ibn Abi-Usaibi'ah, Muwaffaq Al-Din * Medicine
1204 (died) * Al-Bitruji (Alpetragius) * Astronomy
1213-1288 * Ibn Al-Nafis Damishqui * Anatomy
1236 * Kutb Aldeen Al-Shirazi * Astronomy, Geography
1248 (died) * Ibn Al-Baitar * Pharmacy, Botany
1258 * Ibn Al-Banna (Al Murrakishi), Azdi * Medicine, Mathematics
1262 (died) * Al-Hassan Al-Murarakishi * Mathematics, Astronomy, Geography
1270 * Abu al-Fath Abd al-Rahman al-Khazini * Physics, Astronomy
1273-1331 * Al-Fida (Abdulfeda) * Astronomy, Geography
1306 * Ibn Al-Shater Al Dimashqi * Astronomy, Mathematics
1320 (died) * Al Farisi Kamalud-deen Abul-Hassan * Astronomy, Physics
1341 (died) * Al-Jildaki, Muhammad Ibn Aidamer * Alchemy
1351 * Ibn Al-Majdi, Abu Abbas Ibn Tanbugha * Mathematics, Astronomy
1359 * Ibn Al-Magdi, Shihab-Udden Ibn Tanbugha * Mathematic, Astronomy
1375 (died) * Ibn Shatir * Astronomy
1393-1449 * Ulugh Beg * Astronomy.
1424 * Ghiyath al-Din al Kashani * Numerical Analysis, Computation
With such a train of Muslim scholars, it is not difficult to understand why George Sarton said, "The main task of mankind was accomplished by Muslims. The greatest philosopher, Al-Farabi was a Muslim; the greatest mathematicians Abul Kamil and Ibrahim Ibn Sinan were Muslims; the greatest geographer and encyclopaedist Al-Masudi was a Muslim; the greatest historian, Al-Tabari was still a Muslim."
History before Islam was a jumble of conjectures,
myths and rumors. It was left to the Muslim historians who introduced for the
first time the method of matn and sanad tracing the authenticity and integrity
of the transmitted reports back to eyewitness accounts. According to the
historian Buckla "this practice was not adopted in Europe
before 1597 AD." Another method: that of historical research and
criticism - originated with the celebrated historian Ibn Khaldun. The author of
Kashfuz Zunun gives a list of 1300 history books written in Arabic during the
first few centuries of Islam. That is no small contribution!
Now look at today's Muslim world. When was the last
time you heard of a Muslim winning the Nobel Prize in science or medicine? How
about scientific publications? Unfortunately, you won't find too many Muslim
names in scientific and engineering journals either. Why such a paucity? What
excuses do we have?
A
recently published UN report on Arab development noted that the Arab world
comprising of 22 countries translated about 330 books annually. That is a
pitiful number, only a fifth of the number of the books that (tiny) Greece Spain
Why is
the literacy rate low among Muslims when the first revealed message in the
Qur'an is 'Iqra (meaning: Read)?
Muslims
today seek wealth more than they know how to even spend it. Such a mentality is
silly, if not risky.
Knowledge is superior to wealth for ten reasons
|
Ali (RA)
was once asked what was better: wealth or knowledge. He said, Knowledge is
superior to wealth for ten reasons:
(1)
Knowledge is the legacy of the prophets. Wealth is the inheritance of the
Pharaohs. Therefore, knowledge is better than wealth.
(2) You have to guard your wealth but knowledge guards you. So knowledge is better.
(3) A man of wealth has many enemies while a man of knowledge has many friends. Hence knowledge is better.
(2) You have to guard your wealth but knowledge guards you. So knowledge is better.
(3) A man of wealth has many enemies while a man of knowledge has many friends. Hence knowledge is better.
(4) Knowledge is better because it increases with distribution, while wealth decreases by that act.
(5) Knowledge is better because a learned man is apt to be generous while a wealthy person is apt to be miserly.
(6) Knowledge is better because it cannot be stolen while wealth can be stolen.
(7) Knowledge is better because time cannot harm knowledge, but wealth rusts in course of time and wears away.
(8)
Knowledge is better because it is boundless while wealth is limited and you can
keep account of it.
(9)
Knowledge is better because it illuminates the mind while wealth is apt to
blacken it.
(10)
Knowledge is better because knowledge induced the humanity in our Prophet to
say to Allah, "We worship Thee as we are Your servant," while
wealth engendered in Pharaoh and Nimrod the vanity which made them claim
Godhead.
What
wisdom! Yet today our people are dispassionate about seeking knowledge. Why? Do
they know what Imam Ibn Hazm (RA) - the great Spanish Muslim
theologian, jurist and poet - said? "If knowledge had no other merit
than to make the ignorant fear and respect you, and scholars love and honor
you, this would be good enough reason to seek after it... If ignorance had no
other fault than to make the ignorant man jealous of knowledgeable men and
jubilant at seeing more people like himself, this by itself would be reason
enough to oblige us to feel it... If knowledge and the action of devoting
oneself to it had no purpose except to free the man who seeks it from the
exhausting anxieties and many worries which afflict the mind, that alone would
certainly be enough to drive us to seek knowledge." I only wish that
his remarks would wake our people to seeking and mastering knowledge.
Solutions
to our present-day predicament:
While
there are many solutions that I can point out to get us out of our current
predicament, I choose to discuss three major ones below, of which the first two
relates to personal and community/social obligations.
1.
Seeking knowledge:
The
main reason behind the success of early Muslims rested in their seeking
knowledge where it was evident and also from places where it was hidden. They
did not shy away from translating and learning from others in the best of the
Prophetic Traditions:
"The
word of wisdom is [like] the lost property of a wise man. So wherever he finds
it, he is entitled to it."
[Tirmizi: Abu Hurayrah (RA)]
When
others were hesitant to do experiments to check their hypotheses, they
courageously filled the vacuum. In that they were true to the Prophetic
dictate:
"Knowledge
is a treasure house whose keys are queries." [Mishkat and Abu Na'im: Ali (RA)]
Sharafuddin
Maneri (RA) said, "Knowledge is the fountainhead of all
happiness, just as ignorance is the starting point of all wretchedness.
Salvation comes from knowledge, destruction from ignorance."
[Maktubat-i Sadi]
2.
Quality of leadership and Government patronage:
In the
early days of Islam, Muslim rulers were not only the great patrons of learning
they were great scholars themselves. They surrounded themselves with learned
men: philosophers, legal experts, traditionalists, theologians, lexicographers,
annalists, poets, mathematicians, scientists, engineers, architects and
doctors. Scholars held high ranks in their courts. They built libraries, academies,
universities, research centers, observatories and astrolabes. They invited
scholars of all races and religions to flock to their capitals. Thus the cities
they built became intellectual metropolises in every sense of the term. Like
today's MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Yale and Princeton ,
their universities were then the most sought after academies.
And
what do we have today? Most of the rulers in Muslim countries are half-educated
individuals, who are surrounded (with very few exceptions) by cronies whose
most important qualification is not competence or education but
"connections" with the ruler or his/her family.
Our
rulers (with very few exceptions) are utterly corrupt and self-serving. Not
surprisingly, they are surrounded by equally corrupt people who have been put
into positions of authority to fatten the coffer of their patrons and peers.
Thus, while the number of palaces and mansions increase exponentially, not a
single university has been built by most of these rulers. Only a token fraction
of the state budget is spent today on education and research. So, it is all too
natural to witness the dismal record of invention from Muslim countries. Not a
single university in the Muslim world ranks within the top 100 universities of
the world. The brightest minds naturally are draining out of their respective
countries, only to settle (with very few exceptions) in more prosperous western
countries, where they can apply their talents and skills appositely.
Our
society remains so much entrenched in a system of patronage and clientage that
government contracts are almost always doled out on the basis of personal and
professional relationships rather than what is good for our people. So a new
breed of half-literate billionaires has emerged who sees no value in education
or its patronizing.
Why
this behavior, when Islam teaches that anyone who is seeking after virtue
should keep company with the virtuous and should take no companion with him on
his way except the noblest friend - one of those people who is learned,
sympathetic, charitable, truthful, sociable, patient, trustworthy, magnanimous,
pure in conscience and a true friend?
So if
Muslim countries want to regain their lost heritage in knowledge, they must
retrace their path that once made them successful and discard the current
aberrant methodology that only leads to doom and gloom.
Let me
again quote here from Carli Fiorina, who said, "Leaders like Suleiman
contributed to our notions of tolerance and civic leadership. And perhaps we
can learn a lesson from his example: It was leadership based on meritocracy,
not inheritance. It was leadership that harnessed the full capabilities of a
very diverse population-that included Christianity, Islamic, and Jewish
traditions. This kind of enlightened leadership - leadership that nurtured
culture, sustainability, diversity and courage - led to 800 years of invention
and prosperity."
Would
our leaders take heed and amend their actions?
3.
Going beyond the expected:
As I hinted above, Muslims are far behind in every field of learning. Simply going with the flow or doing just the bare minimum is simply not sufficient to close this widening gap. Our strategy ought to be - going beyond the normal call of duty, doing extra things. To elucidate this point, let me here close with a story from our Prophet's time.
Talha
bin 'Ubaidullah narrated that a man from Najd with unkempt hair came to Allah's
Apostle and we heard his loud voice but could not understand what he was
saying, till he came near and then we came to know that he was asking about
Islam. Allah's Apostle said, "You have to offer prayers perfectly five
times in a day and night (24 hours)." The man asked, "Is there
any more (praying)?" Allah's Apostle replied, "No, but if you
want to offer the Nawafil prayers (you can)." Allah's Apostle further
said to him: "You have to observe fasts during the month of Ramad,
an." The man asked, "Is there any more fasting?"
Allah's Apostle replied, "No, but if you want to observe the Nawafil
fasts (you can.)" Then Allah's Apostle further said to him, "You
have to pay the Zakat (obligatory charity)." The man asked, "Is
there any thing other than the Zakat for me to pay?" Allah's Apostle
replied, "No, unless you want to give alms of your own." And
then that man retreated saying, "By Allah! I will neither do less nor
more than this." Allah's Apostle said, "If what he said is
true, then he will be successful (i.e. he will be granted Paradise )."
Here in
this hadith lies the formula for rejuvenating the Muslim nation. May we be
guided to reclaim our lost heritage!
References
1.
Hamed Abdel-Reheem Ead, Professor of Chemistry at Faculty of Science-University
of Cairo Giza-Egypt and director of Science Heritage Center, http://www.frcu.eun.eg See also the books: 100 Muslim
Scientists by Abdur Rahman Sharif, Al-Khoui Pub., N.Y; Muslim Contribution to
Science by Muhammad R. Mirza and Muhammad Iqbal Siddiqi, Chicago: Kazi
Publications, 1986.
Dr.
Habib Siddiqui lives in suburban Philadelphia, PA, and is the author of the
book Islamic Wisdom. He
can be reached at saeva@aol.com
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