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Of Muslims’ contribution
In the histories of philosophy and science written in the West, Greek contributions have been emphasized, with the authors quickly moving on to European contributions and devoting only a brief interlude to Arab and Muslim contributions
I t should be kept in mind that comprehensive and meticulously documented research in the sciences of mediaeval Islam is a relatively recent endeavo(u)r, generated largely in the twentieth century. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of manuscripts produced between five hundred and one thousand years ago remain in archives around the world, awaiting the resources that will allow scholars to fully study, translate, and publish them, thus helping to clarify and broaden today’s knowledge of historic scientific achievements. — Howard R. Turner in Science in mediaeval Islam (page 204).
Muslim contributions to science were numerous and spread over several centuries in the Middle Ages. Europe at that time was in relative intellectual darkness. The Muslim scientists had acquired and translated the pre-existing knowledge in science and philosophy into Arabic. The sources of this knowledge were largely Greek and Indian.
The Muslim scientists then built on this foundation and added to this knowledge substantially by theoretical and empirical research. When the West started building up its own science, it translated the Muslim works, written in Arabic, into Latin. When the lead eventually passed on to the West, its scientists and historians played down the role of Muslims in the development of science, yet ironically they also became the custodians and preservers of the Muslim works. In due time, when the subsequent generations looked into these sources of knowledge, they exposed the western historical hypocrisy and prejudice against Muslim scientists. New astonishing facts are coming to light now.
It is impossible to satisfactorily take stock of the Muslim contributions to science in this article. The focus of attention will, therefore, be on astronomy. It is also not my intention to write an encyclopaedic account; only those contributions that led the way to modern astronomy will be highlighted.
The western prejudice aimed at downplaying the Muslim contributions is historical in nature. In order to boost self-confidence, the westerners despised the dominant Muslim civilization for political reasons and belittled its contributions to science as much as they could. They generally referred to these contributions only en passant without explaining how they benefited from them in their own work. Sometimes, they even failed to make any reference.
However, the tide began to turn in the twentieth century, thanks again to the western scholars, who dug out the original sources and pointed out the significant contributions made by Muslims. This bias has still not disappeared completely and continues to linger with some recent authors.
It is particularly reflected in a recent book, The decline of eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, written by Prof Bat Ye’or in 1997. In a review of the book, Fr Richard John Neuhaus stated, “The dhimmi peoples made available to the culturally under-developed Arabs the knowledge that had once made their own cultures great.” (http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/NeuhausCentury1.php)
He quoted from the book: “Zoroastrians, Jacobites (Copts and Syrians), Nestorians, Melchites, and Jews translated into Arabic treatises on astronomy, medicine, alchemy, and philosophy, as well as literary narratives and stories…. Here are peoples, who, having integrated the Hellenistic heritage and biblical spirituality, spread the Judeo-Christian civilization as far as Europe and Russia. Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, conquered by nomadic bands, taught their oppressors, with the patience of centuries, the subtle skills of governing empires, the need for law and order, the management of finances,… the sciences, philosophy, literature and the arts…in short, the rudiments and foundations of civilization…. By this account, then, the classical heritage that was presumably preserved by Islam was in fact rescued from Islam by those who fled its oppressors.”
This shows either gross ignorance or deliberate deception on the part of the author. She has completely ignored the great and original contributions to science and philosophy made by such monumental scholars as Ibn-al-Haitham, al-Biruni, Ibn-al-Nafis, al-Battani, Ibn-al-Sina and al-Razi, to name only a few.
Toby E. Huff, professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts and author of The rise of early modern science: Islam, China and the West, responded to Neuhaus’s review (http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/HuffDialogue2.shtml). He wrote: “First, with regard to the hoary notion that the Islamic world did nothing but preserve and pass on philosophical and scientific learning from the Greeks and other ancient civilizations, Father Neuhaus has latched on to an outdated and faulty conception that he takes directly from the concluding pages of Prof Bat Ye’or’s Epilogue… not the main subject on which Bat Ye’or is a specialist. To put it boldly and bluntly, it is now widely recognized that from about the eighth century till the end of the thirteenth century, the Arabic-Islamic world had the most advanced science in the world. This was so in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, optics and medicine.”
Abdus Salam said in his Nobel lecture (Dec 8, 1979): “George Sarton, in his monumental five-volume History of Science chose to divide his story of achievement in science into ages, each age lasting half a century. With each half century he associated one central figure. Thus 450 BC-400 BC Sarton calls the Age of Plato, this is followed by half centuries of Aristotle, of Euclid, of Archimedes and so on. From 600 AD to 650 AD is the Chinese half century of Hsiian Tsang, from 650 to 700 AD that of I-Chang, and then from 750 AD to 1100 AD — 350 years continuously — it is the unbroken succession of the Ages of Jabir, Khwarizmi, Razi, Masudi, Wafa, Biruni and Avicenna, and then Omar Khayam…. After 1100 appear the first western names; Gerard of Cremona, Roger Bacon — but the honours are still shared with the names of Ibn-Rushd (Averroes), Moses Bin Maimoun, Tusi and Ibn-Nafis — the man who anticipated Harvey’s theory of circulation of blood.”
In the traditional histories of philosophy and science written in the West, Greek contributions have been emphasized, with the authors quickly moving on to European contributions and only a brief interlude devoted to Arab and Muslim contributions. Narrating the Muslim contributions, they don’t forget to emphasize that these were mainly translations of the Greek works.
They invariably imply that during the Muslim domination not much original work was accomplished. The result is that while whole chapters are devoted to various western scientists and philosophers, the Muslim contributions are lumped together and described in a chapter, or even a part of it.
For instance, Bertrand Russell’s A history of Western philosophy contains only one chapter discussing “Mohammedan culture and philosophy”; only nine pages in a book of nearly 900 pages are devoted to the issue.
Before Copernicus, it was a geocentric system that was used to describe the planetary motion. According to this concept, Earth was stationary and at the centre of the spherical universe. The planets, including the Sun (it was considered a planet then), went in circular orbits around Earth. It was also believed that they moved with uniform speeds. The model that was used for this purpose was given by Ptolemy in the second century in his book called Mathematical syntax.
This book was later translated into Arabic by Muslim astronomers, which was then translated into Latin and other European languages. The Arab translators called it Kitab-al-Mijisti which was later corrupted to Almagest by which name it is known to this day.
Ptolemy’s model was used by Muslim astronomers who made improvements upon it to make it more accurate. Several commentaries of Almagest were written by them.
One of such was written by Abul Wafa Muhammad-al-Buzjani (940-998) and was called Kitab-al-Kamil.
However, Ptolemy’s model had inherent weaknesses; it was unnecessarily tied to the concept that planetary orbits were circular and the speeds of planets were uniform. In order to overcome some of the weaknesses, Ptolemy had used epicycles. In spite of such artificial and intricate devices, Ptolemy’s model suffered from discrepancies that cast doubts in the minds of several Muslim astronomers. The great Muslim physicist Ibn-al-Haitham wrote a book Al-Shakuk-al-Batlamyus or Doubts concerning Ptolemy.
In his criticism, he wrote: “Ptolemy assumed an arrangement that cannot exist, and the fact that this arrangement produces in his imagination the motions that belong to the planets does not free him from the error he committed in his assumed arrangement, for the existing motions of the planets cannot be the result of an arrangement that is impossible to exist.” (Stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy, Nicolaus Copernicus
Similarly, Ibn-Rushd asserted, “… (T)he existence of an eccentric sphere is contrary to nature. The astronomy of our times offers no truth, but only agrees with the calculations and not with what exists,” (Owen Gingerich, Islamic Astronomy, Scientific American, April 1986).
Others who criticized Ptolemy included Jabir ibn Aflah and Nur-al-Din-al-Batruji. The Muslims continued using the geocentric system, making ingenious improvements in it. Such improvements culminated in what is popularly called the Tusi couple. It is an epicycle upon another epicycle.
Tusi had founded the famous Maragha observatory and one of his associates, Qutb-al-Din-al-Shirazi, “in his Nihayat-al-Idrak (The limits of comprehension) followed the suggestion of his teacher and applied the Tusi couple to Mercury,” (Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic science: An illustrated study).
Plato had suggested that the planets revolved around the stationary Earth in circular orbits and with constant speed. In Ptolemy’s theory, each planet appeared to move at a constant speed only when it was viewed from the equant which was a hypothetical point in the space not coincident with the Earth’s centre. Ibn-al-Shatir (1304-1375) got rid of this anomaly by using the Tusi couple.
Copernicus must have been aware of the criticism which the Muslim astronomers had levelled at Ptolemy’s system. He abandoned the geocentric system in favour of the heliocentric system, but practically used Ptolemy’s astronomy together with Ibn-al-Shatir’s model in his book De Revolutionibus.
He must be aware of the other Muslims’ work also because, according to Gingerich, he referred to al-Battani 23 times in his book. According to Nasr, “… (T)he Damascene Ibn-al-Shatir applied the new theory (Tusi’s couple) to the motion of the moon and produced a lunar model identical with that of Copernicus.” Ibn-al-Shatir’s work was in the Vatican library and Copernicus was in Rome around 1500.
It is unlikely that Copernicus independently developed exactly the same model as Ibn-al-Shatir’s, because we will have to assume then that he had developed Tusi’s couple also. It is more likely, however, that Copernicus had used Ibn-al-Shatir’s work without acknowledging it.
It is safely assumed, therefore, that some new insights might be gained into the still unknown contributions of the Muslim scientists when the numerous documents stocked in various libraries in different countries of the world are opened up and examined.
The writer
