ABSTRACT
The Muslim civilization dominated the known world from the eighth to the fourteenth century, and Islam remains a worldwide power. Together with Christianity, it is the only religion that seeks to bring the whole of mankind into its fold. At the height of its temporal power the Muslim civilization controlled a vast territory from the Pyrenees, through Spain and the coastal regions of North Africa, to Baghdad and beyond as far as the Pamirs. Muslim armies crossed the Pyrenees into France as far as Poitiers and in the East captured Constantinople, invaded the Balkans and reached the gates of Vienna. The literary heritage of ancient Greece first passed to the Byzantine Empire. There the Nestorian Church was established in the fifth century. The Nestorians were persecuted by the Byzantines and emigrated to Mesopotamia, where they founded a centre of intellectual activity at their capital Gondisapur (Jundishapur). There they translated many of the Greek works on philosophy, science and medicine into Syriac. This city became the scientific centre of the new Islamic Empire. From there many scholars came to their capital Damascus in the late seventh and early eighth century; they were mainly Jews and Nestorian Christians (O’Leary, 1949; Sabra, 1987). Through them the Muslim scholars inherited the works of the ancient Greeks and extended their knowledge, particularly in medicine, mathematics, astronomy and philosophy. Early in the ninth century, the caliphs Harun al-Rashid and al-Memun founded a school for translation and a library in Baghdad, and this soon surpassed Gondisapur as a scholarly centre. Means were provided for Christian scholars to travel to collect Greek manuscripts and bring them back for translation. The Nestorian Christian Ibn Masawagh headed an institute in Baghdad that translated ancient texts. His pupil Hunayn wrote many medical treatises and translated all the known Greek works into Arabic. Indian, Syriac and Persian texts were also translated (Singer, 1959). This willingness to learn from other civilizations was emphasized by the scientist and philosopher Ibn Ya’qub al-Kindi: ‘We ought not to be ashamed of appreciating truth and of acquiring it wherever it comes from, even if it comes from races different from us.’ In this way they learned Greek philosophy and science, Persian literature, Indian medicine and mathematics, and some aspects of Egyptian and Babylonian science (Hoodbhoy, 1991, p. 96). The diffusion of new knowledge throughout the Islamic Empire was greatly facilitated from the
end of the seventh century by the ready availability of paper, made by techniques learned from the Chinese. As a result of this scholarly activity, the Islamic Empire in its prime was far
more advanced than the Western powers. Unified by a well-developed language, extending over most of the civilized world, possessing numerous libraries and astronomical observatories, with a tradition of technical excellence and a respect for learning and many thinkers of high intelligence, it would seem to be well placed to become the cradle of modern science. And yet in the following centuries the lead was lost and the West surged ahead, eventually to reach heights far greater than the Muslims ever achieved. The writings of the Greeks arrived in the West around the end of the thirteenth century; Buridan made the critical breakthrough soon after. Copernicus followed in 150 years and Newton in 350 years and, based on his work, came the enormous technological achievements of the next 300 years. Although they had a start of 500 years, Muslim scholars never developed modern science themselves, and eventually had to learn it from the West. How and why this happened is one of the most momentous historical questions. Before discussing this, some of the achievements of Islamic scientists will be
briefly surveyed. More detailed accounts of this and related questions have been given by Nasr (1987) and by Iqbal (2002). It should be mentioned that our present knowledge of Islamic science is very incomplete as there are very many unpublished manuscripts that have not been analysed.
