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Why didn’t the Scientific Revolution happen in Islam?
By: Pervez Hoodbhoy on: 08.06.2005 [13:52 ] (3136 reads)
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Every great civilization writes its own history, selectively extracts data from the past, and then proves to its satisfaction that its greatness has no peer or rival. The dominant civilization of our times, the West, has also defined a vision of cultural and intellectual history wherein the development of science is presented as the unilinear and inexorable march of Greco-Roman ideas into the European Renaissance period.
Originally Published in the book Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality by Pervez Hoodbhoy. Published by Zed Books. January 1992
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Temporary offline
by Mike-Malaysia on 08.06.2005 [19:41 ]
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I'm all for intellectual discuouse and debate, but I'm in such disbelif at 'Islam made no progress in science' that I dont know where to start.
I have seen numerous books out there on Scientific achievemens under islam but am very very tired. I've posted monumental posts today as well as other stuff.
There are out there just google them or pop along to any Islamic bookstore where the shop owner, or even ask muslims outside a mosque and they will be only too happy to give you the info you require.
Yes I know I deserve criticism for saying its there but dont give links but I;m tired.
I will like to say this though. Science is built up on foundations. There is no way science today could have gotton where it is without the glorious achievements of science under Islam. There is masses of Islamically generated philosophy too, just not many people bother with them.
I get the feeling the article above is critical becasue Muslims from the 7th centuary wernt zooming around in spaceships with warp engines while addoning a cyber suit to proble the atomic nucleus while listening to some Jean-Michelle-Jar tracks. Dear oh deary me.
Why posted this blarney anyway?
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by cosmo on 08.06.2005 [21:07 ]
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Such commnets are coming form Imbeciles , if they knew history they would not open their mouths but again what to expect from brainwashed idiots that have had the Talmudist Zionists as MASTERS.!!!
Without the knowledge passed by the civilization in Andalusia the Resnaissance would never have happened in Europe.!!
The Universties were established in Andalusia by the Arabs among which was the last one in Granda which fell in 1472. Upon which the Europeans strted imitating and learning something other than being Butchers.!!
Just go and check how the Europeans were coming to study in such places and check the dates when all those so called univsesities in europe were established from Oxford to Cambrige to you name it. Imbecile or Talmudist Zionist.!! No body asks such questions among the enlightened!
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by stopwar on 09.06.2005 [00:28 ]
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Thanks for that... I had no idea. These were of course called "The Moors" in England in Shakespearian times. A lot happened between then and 1500:
Columbus discovered America
Henry VII sailed to England to start off the Tudors
William Caxton invented the Printing Press, which was used to illegally translate the bible into English.
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by Deathtodubya on 09.06.2005 [00:40 ]
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that Gutenberg invented the printing press! But then I guess every nation likes to make claims to have been the 'first' to do things. The US likes to claim all inventions from 19th to 20th centuries despite so many times they being overtaken by others or having stolen their idea from someone else.
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by Deathtodubya on 09.06.2005 [00:50 ]
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If you did then I don't understand the howls of derision! It doesn't say the Islamic nations didn't do anything in the past and mention is made of the fact that the Islamic nations were the most advanced in the world at one time!Mentions of the LEAD it had till the end of the 14th century!
So where's the problem?
I think it's perfectly logical question to ask why there was a decline in Islamic nations, a decline that no sane person can argue with!
Think of the 'sick man of Europe', the Ottoman Empire, and how it degenerated into an archaic irrelevance!
And why was it so laughably easy for the Europeans who got their arses kicked by the Islamic nation up until the 1500's and deyond, to then have such an easy victory in the 19th and 20th centuries?
All this shows that there WAS a DECLINE, and being politically correct or foolishly defensive at a perceived 'knocking' of Islam is a fatuous argument, an argument that actually helps the Zionists and the Imperialist/capitalists, for if people don't admit their failings and adress them, then they will never be able to 'fight the powers that be' to use a Public Enemy line!
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by adil_nazeem on 09.06.2005 [02:43 ]
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who discovered America.Name Tallahasee( dont know if I pronounced/spelled it right. name has something to do with Allah. and was named BEFORE Columbus set foot on America.
Remember
ALCHEMY,ALGEBRA.
Just like West has patents to EVERYTHING Modern we Muslims have rPatents to ALGEBRA AND ALCHEMY ETC.
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by G-Man on 09.06.2005 [02:59 ]
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You saved me the trouble of making the exact counter-point to the comments above. You correctly note that the essay above is about the scientific DECLINE in later-date Islam, which is historical fact.
Here's a question for you all to ponder:
Is the US civilization now suffering from the SAME ATTITUDINAL/PHILOSOPHICAL factors that Pervez Hoodbhoy believes led to a decline in Islamic science?
I think the answer is YES.
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by srang14 on 09.06.2005 [07:36 ]
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The truth of the matter is that islamic mullahs were never prepared to accept sceince and technology. This was exactly the reason for excommunication of Omar Khayyam, who preceded both Copernicus and Galileo in discovering that the Earth was round. His contribution to modern astrophysics has never been recognised.
Secondly the Prophet never wrote the Quoran. The Quoran was written 400 years after the Prophet died. It is therefore not necessary that the this version contains what the Prophet actually preached. This version of the unrevised Quoran continues to propogate that the Earth is flat !! This belief continues to this day. That is the reason for islam's continuance as medieval bigotry. The amercicans have taken full advantage of this ignorance and ensured it continued to steal oil and resources from the Arab lands. In fact, few arabs are prepared to accept that Iraq is a war of liberation. Arabs in fact could never accept Saddam Hussain's modernism. Since Iraq is a modern society not shackled by Islam, they will go on to fight the Americans and win this war. When Iraq wins this battle, the next stop will be Saudi Arabia and of course Israel will also be swallowed.
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by Q' on 09.06.2005 [08:29 ]
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Columbus discovered America
Wrong. This is the common mistake many people often made. If you have read a book called "They came before Columbus", you will find out the Portuguese through Africans knew the existance of America before him. here is one of key quote:
according to Columbus's own writings, the people living on the island of Hispaniola (later Haiti and the Dominican Republic) told him that "black-skinned people had come from the south and southeast trading in gold-tipped metal spears. Columbus sent samples of these spears back to Spain to be tested, and they were found to be identical in their proportions of gold, silver and copper alloys to spears then being forged in African Guinea. Columbus' son, Ferdinand, said his father told him that he had seen black people north of what is now Honduras."
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by Q' on 09.06.2005 [08:39 ]
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Columbus alone would never be able to discover America without following advice from someone who already travelled to "New World" before:
Christopher Columbus is believed to have discovered the New World, his route was not a straight westerly route as one might expect. His route consisted of four legs. The first leg took him southwest to the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa. After arriving at the Islands he changed sails from a lateen sail to a square sail. The lateen sail was designed to tack against the wind. The square sail could only sail with a following or side wind, but it was stronger and faster with less wind. This change would only have been performed if you knew you had a following or a side wind. This indicates that Columbus received feedback from someone who traveled this route before. The second leg of Columbus's route had a following or side wind twelve months out of the year. If he had gone west from Spain he would have encountered head winds the entire trip. The third and fourth leg returned him along a northern route home. So why did he travel to Africa? Other previous expeditions led by Europeans and or Vikings, traveled northwest. These facts are a strong indication that Columbus was aware of the winds and the currents off the coast of Africa.
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by stopwar on 09.06.2005 [09:21 ]
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What you say is fascinating. The christian church held a similar view of the earth of course, and Coernicus was put to death; Galileo was imprisoned, for daring to spout such heresy.
How did the culture of Europe force its religion to change and embrace science in the 1600s whereas islam did not?
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by Mike-Malaysia on 09.06.2005 [10:19 ]
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i'm guilty, too often these days, of jumping the gun and posting replies to headlines and Introductions to articles. I was tired and dont have 48hrs in the day to read such long articles, do research, ponder issues, post responses here etc, as I am sure others may do also.
I'd like people to stop using misleading headlines and into's. In rushing through mirror-world imagine reading a story full of amazing successes o the IR and that *NEWSFLASH an assassination on bush by a true American partiot has left him critically permanently wounded and so on then at the bottom of the article it says: NOT!
So I ask for your understanding If for when I wrongly jump the gun, but please, set the tone early on in the article.
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by Mike-Malaysia on 09.06.2005 [10:22 ]
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Why didn`t the Scientific Revolution happen in Islam? supposed to imply?. The obvious initial impression is that this article is going to be critical of Islam and that there is some conflict between science and Islam.
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by paul pawlowski on 09.06.2005 [10:33 ]
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by spartacus11 on 09.06.2005 [10:42 ]
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You are wrong to say 1) Koran was written 400 years after Mohammad,2) That islam held same vies with the western world on earth being circle.
Othman was the one to put the Koran into One, few years after Mohammads death, while it was before that written on camel bones palm leaves papirus wood stone etc etc. And ofcourse, the memorization by the muslims, which where dying at that time made Othman to put it all in one book,
Muslims didn't have a view on earth being circle or not, and was not even a subject of that time, like the article says muslims failed to wonder beyond, While it was a subject in the Wester World given the blatant views of the church that earth was flat or it was being held on large animals sent by God.
Despite this the Koran has a word when describing earth's form ( egg shapped i think in arabic is daha )
Also describes the movement of earth etc etc.
This are facts that are easly found on museums or librarys of today.
The article states that muslims didn't ponder much about this, and gave more time to philosophies related to their beilief system such as the nature of GOD or the "Throne of authority" or the existence of GOD etc etc. ( By the way is one of the most fascinating philosohies that i have studied so far ).
I have gonne through beutiful pics of muslims in Spain and have found that the first Celestial Modern Map was made by them, I think NASA was showing some of these pics, but also are easly found on libraries.
As for the rest of the comments I agree with DeathtoDubya. The article doesn't say that muslims where backwards but rather they didn't finish what they first started.
Ofcourse without their work modern science and medicine would not have existed today. That is for sure, but as history shows, they started to loose ground as soon as fanatic sects started emerging, and they became proud, arrogant, and gave to much time to personal pleasure, just like today Saudis, that was their downfall, but who knows, perhaps Iraqi muslims are the ones to revive the muslims civilization once more.
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by Yasis on 09.06.2005 [14:45 ]
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So what? Everyone has their highs and lows. If the ottoman empire had the industrial revolution, all of europe would probably be muslims by now.
Muslim Arabs brought the arabic numerical system to europe and european traders began to use it. Without the 0s and 1s, which led to the binary system, would there be a computerised society today?
When the european colonialists went to enslave people all over the world, they came in ships and navigated the sea using the compass. Who invented the compass? It was the chinese.
Gutenberg invented the printing press? But the chinese were already printing books on religion and philosophy in the 3rd century.
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by a_family_member_of_adam_and_eve on 09.06.2005 [16:04 ]
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What Shape is the Earth?
Today we can look at a globe and know that the earth is somewhat like a ball, a sphere. The Qur'an makes certain statements that led Muslim scientists to understand long before their European counterparts that the earth is spherical. When Europe was in the dark ages thinking that the earth was flat, Muslim students were using globes for studying the earth in Islamic universities.
Since it was not the purpose of the Qur'an to teach science, the Qur'an did not need to state explicitly that the earth is spherical in shape (or more precisely, a geoid). But some of what the Qur'an says stimulates you to think of the world as a globe. Take, for example, the following verse:
"Have you not seen how God merges the night into the day and merges the day into the night?" (Qur'an 31:29).
Another verse tells us that God coils the day and night around: "He coils the night upon the day and He coils the day upon the night" (Qur'an 39:5).
The word `coils' in the verse above is a translation of the Arabic verb kawwara which is used in describing the action of coiling a turban around the head. To understand this statement fully, readers of the Qur'an had to think of the earth as a sphere.
To fully appreciate the above two statements in the Qur'an, try this experiment at home:
You need a flashlight and a globe. Take these items into a dark room. Using the flashlight to simulate the light of the sun, shine the light upon the globe. Notice that only one half of the globe is lighted up. The other half is in darkness. Half the world is having day, the other half is having night. Now, recall that the earth is continuously rotating on its axis and will go around completely in twenty four hours. Slowly turn the globe around to simulate this rotation. Notice that as the globe turns, the day is going around the globe to light up the other half of the world. The night is also going around the globe to give rest to the other half of the world.
The day and night are perpetually coiling around the earth with some degree of interpenetration. This is exactly how it appears to astronauts during their space flights.
Dr. Bucaille makes the following remark: "This process of perpetual coiling, including the interpenetration of one sector by another, is expressed in the Qur'an just as if the concept of the earth's roundness had already been conceived at the time — which was obviously not the case." (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science, p. 165).
This obviously did not reflect the level of learning of the time, but was helpful in stimulating Muslim scientists to conceive of the earth in its real shape. How could this knowledge get into the Qur'an?
Soon will We show them Our Signs in the furthest regions of the earth and in their own souls, until it becomes manifest to them that this is the truth. (Qur'an 41:53)
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by adil_nazeem on 10.06.2005 [01:14 ]
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The richest person in India is Azim Premji who is a MUSLIM and runs IT FIRM WIPRO.
The reasons the present day muslim find their self in this horrible mess is deviation from Islam and Sunnat.Following Babari masjid destruction,Chechen war 1,2,Gulf war1 Iraq sanctions and Gulf war 2,Afghan war has united oung generation muslims and Islam will prevail.
across europe and russia and asia non muslims are producing fewer and fewer choldren.I t means the creativity of the nation will not be there( without young people).
who is going to look after the old in the WEST.
the govt? once you are past 65 years the govt prefers you are betterof dead.
The demise of Muslims was for 100 years and they brought it on themselves.
Muslims should ask themselves what would have happened if Hypocrites in Middle-east and other places who are power hungry did not attack Ottoman Caliphate.
What would happen if East and West Pakistan(Bangladesh) never partitioned from India.
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by jangikedi on 10.06.2005 [09:47 ]
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by aimatti on 29.07.2005 [05:27 ]
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As usual, you muslims are full of shit. To you adil_nazeeeeemmmm, it was the Chaldeans that invented Algebra, got it. And that was during B.C. times. As for the rest of you claiming everything that muslims created, you all are full of shit. I know exactly how you muslims think.
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by brixi on 11.08.2005 [22:54 ]
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The muslims did't invent anything, they'v only copied things from much older source... The knowledge of Alexandria library. But there were few wise man that kept the knowledge. If it was it left to Caliphs, all old knowlege would burn as a fuel in bath houses
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by Mike-Malaysia on 28.09.2005 [02:27 ]
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