February 25, 2006

The history of science can be summed up thus: during the pre-Christian era science achieved glorious heights in Greece; the baton was then passed on to Muslims; and, after the Muslims’ decline, the torch went back to Europe.

Whatever material progress Europe enjoys today is due to science. It is mainly scientific progress which is described as European renaissance.

It appears that science in its entire history has been in the hands of three civilizations one after the other — the Greeks, the Muslims and the Europeans. No doubt, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, India and China also made some contributions, but these are far less important and therefore not worth mentioning.

If the treasure of scientific knowledge reached the Europeans, it did so after passing through the hands of Muslims. How did this transfer take place needs to be discussed in detail.

Most authors who wrote on the history of science were Europeans. Those who were less biased among them held that the Muslims acquired the knowledge of science from the Greeks, got the same translated into Arabic, and built on it. Thereafter, the torch was handed over to Europe, directly in the form of printed material and indirectly through the European scholars who graduated from the universities of Muslim Spain.

Biased and prejudiced historians, on the other hand, contend that the Muslims merely translated Greek scientific literature into Arabic and in this language it reached Europe where it was translated into Latin and other European languages. To them the Muslims played the role of translators only. On their own the Muslims did not make any addition to the existing body of knowledge.

There are many writers who don’t even want to credit the Muslims with preserving Greek knowledge. One such author wrote that science reached Europe through the hands of the immigrants who, after the fall of the Byzantine government of Constantinople in 1453, had fled the country and settled down in European countries. Those who make such claims appear to be ignorant of important facts.

Firstly, most people who migrated from Constantinople and settled in down Europe were not scientists. There were some individuals among them who were experts in handicraft and architecture, though.

This can be underlined by the fact that Muslims failed to capture Constantinople for a long time, only due to its strongly built fort — the palisade made of heavy chains of iron and the fleet of boats in the sea around it — rather than any advanced scientific weaponry.

Having said that, it is true that there were some people in the city who used to teach Greek science. These people were so fond of it that even after their immigration they continued this pursuit. But none of them was of a high calibre.

Moreover, much before the fall of Constantinople a large number of European students had completed their studies in the Muslim universities of Spain and returned to their homelands. Roger Bacon, who is considered to be the father of modern science, received his education in Spain, for instance.

If the claim that science was spread in Europe by the immigrants is true, then why some books by Muslim scholars — such as Ibn-i-Sina’s Qanoon-i-Tibb (Canon of medicine), Jabir Ibn-i-Hayyan’s Kitab-al-Mawazain (Book of balance), Ibn-al-Haitham’s Kitab-al-Manazir (Book of optics), and Zakaria Razi’s Kitab-al-Mansoor (Liber al-Mansoor) — were translated into Latin as they continued to be part of the curricula of western universities until the 16th century?

However, there are certain enlightened and unprejudiced European writers, who acknowledge that modern science is nothing but a legacy of the Muslims and that science in Europe owes a lot to Muslim scholars. The Greeks made science grope in the dark, while the Muslims developed it as a discipline that thrived on experiments. Whatever contributions the Muslims made were not based on conjectures and speculations.

Writers acknowledging the superiority of Muslim scholars in science include Robert Briffault, who, in his invaluable book The making of humanity, writes: “… The patient ways of investigation, the accumulation of positive knowledge and minute methods of science, detailed and prolonged observations and experimental enquiry were altogether alien to Greek temperament. What we call science arose in Europe as a result of new spirit of enquiry, of new methods of investigation, of the method of experiment, observation, measurement, of the development of mathematics in a form unknown to the Greeks. That spirit and those methods were introduced into the European World by the Arabs.”

In the same vein are remarks by Prof Philip Hitti in the History of Arabs, Dr William Draper in the History of intellectual development of Europe, and George Sarton in the Introduction to the history of science.

Regarding the Muslims’ contribution to science, one can draw some sound conclusions while keeping in mind that Muslim scientists based their laws and theories on scientific methodologies. In comparison, the Greeks’ methodologies had little to do with experimentation but a lot with deduction and conjecture.

Out of some admitted discovery about a particular material body, the Greeks used to deduce their laws and then they used to apply the same to similar bodies. For example, a law that Aristotle postulated held that if two balls having different weights were dropped on the ground from a particular height, the heavier one would fall earlier than the lighter one.

This law, as propounded by him, was not based on experiments. He never bothered to drop two balls on the ground from a particular height simultaneously. Rather, his law was based on deduction. He had deduced the law from the fact that a piece of stone when thrown upwards fell back earlier than a leaf broken off from a tree.

This deductive theory of Aristotle’s attained the value of a “scientific discovery” and continued to be viewed in this light until Galileo went up the Tower of Pisa with two balls of different weights and dropped them on the ground. Contrary to the view held by Aristotle, the two balls fell at the same time.

To be sure, Aristotle propounded various deductive laws. For instance, he claimed that women possessed fewer teeth than men did. This was the result of deduction, even though it was not at all difficult to subject this law to simple verification, as suggested by Bertrand Russell on page 16 of his book The impact of science on society.

Prof Russell pointed out that Aristotle could easily have counted his wife’s teeth. His law was perhaps based on the fact that some mammalian females have fewer teeth than their male counterparts.

Let’s now discuss conjecture, or speculation. This is made purely on the basis of wisdom, to the exclusion of even deduction. Through speculative research too, Aristotle unearthed ‘wonders’.

For instance, he claimed that many animals came into being spontaneously. He cited a number of examples in favour of his theory. He claimed that some fishes come into being from the mud of the Nile; putrefied meat gives rise to certain flies; if some pregnant mouse happens to swallow a piece of salt, all the female babies in its womb will automatically be conceived. This theory is called the theory of spontaneous generation.

People saw this theory in positive light for centuries until an Italian scientist by the name of Redi, in the 17th century, experimentally disproved it. Later, another Italian scientist — Spallanzani — also managed to do this. In the intervening period the Aristotalian theory of spontaneous generation dominated as a universally admitted fact.

Aristotle was not the only Greek scientist who used deductions and conjectures in research. Almost all of them depended on such methodologies. Galen, an outstanding scientist, too adopted these methods, though sometimes he used to carry out experiments too.

It was because of speculative methodology that Galen postulated that there were perforations in the wall between the two heart ventricles (called the interventricular septum). It should be pointed out here that postulating theories in matters in which experiments are not feasible have never been considered objectionable.

After a period of 2,000 years, Vesalius (1514-1564) dissected a human body in order to verify the truth of Galen’s postulate and ultimately found it to be wrong. People of the time had such deep impressions about the greatness of Greek scholars like Aristotle and Galen that they didn’t accept what Vesalius said.

Consequently Vesalius was dismissed from his position at the Padua University as punishment. In later years, when there appeared to be no other option than to accept his findings, it was postulated that in the period leading up to Vesalius’s experiment the human body must have undergone some changes.

Hippocrates propounded a theory in respect of the preparation of semen in the body of male persons. This theory held that the fluid was formed in the brain. The Greek medical science accepted this theory as part of its belief system, although it is absurd.

Another Greek scientist Empedocles (493-435 BC) came up with a theory which said that in the beginning came the animals’ organs, such as a head without its neck and an arm without its shoulder. Subsequently all such organs were assembled and full animal bodies came into being.

Such were the methods adopted by Aristotle, Galen, Hippocrates and Empedocles for research. Archimedes was perhaps the only one who depended on experiments. This has been acknowledged by Prof Russell who wrote: “Science ever since the time of the Arabs has had two functions: to enable us to know things, and; to enable us to do things.

“The Greeks, with the exception of Archimedes, were only interested in the first of these. They had much curiosity about the world, but since civilized people lived comfortably on slave labour, they had no interest in technique.”

This remark can well be judged in the light of the fact that with the exception of Archimedes no Greek scholar ever established a laboratory. Their only instrument of research was the brain.

In sharp contrast to Greek scholars, the Muslim scholars adopted a different methodology, as they based their findings on experimentation. Also, they postulated theories only in matters where experimentation was possible.

By adopting this methodology, they made tremendous progress in science. When the scientific literature reached the Europeans, they embraced not only the Muslims’ contribution but also borrowed their methodology which is in use till today.

Let’s now examine the Muslims scientists’ methodologies in some detail. For this let’s revert to the work of early Muslim scientists. The following examples have been selected because they relate to scientists who for the first time used experimental techniques in research.

Various instruments for carrying out the experiments were also devised. Among the early Muslim scholars, Ibn-al-Haitham, Jabir Ibn Hayyan, Zakaria Razi, Ibn Sina, Al-Biruni, and Umar Khayyam may be looked upon as representatives of Muslim scholarship.

Ibn-al-Haitham (965-1039) worked on optics. One of his laws — as stated in his book Kitabul Manazir, which is known to students of science today — is: “The incident ray and reflected ray make equal angles with the normal at the surface of reflection.”

Such a law could not be framed without going through experiments and it is a fact that Al-Haitham formulated the same after conducting several experiments. Similarly, all other laws that he framed and all other discoveries that he made were based on experiments.

He once remarked: “The vision takes place due to rays starting from the visible object and impinging upon the eye and not due to the visual rays starting from the eye in a cone and embracing the object.”

This discovery removed the 1,500-year-old misunderstanding about the visibility of objects. The view that light emerges from the interior of one’s eyes and causes him to see some object had attained the status of a universally admitted fact.

Let’s now discuss some examples of research in chemistry. In the early days, when the Muslims turned their attention towards their naval fleet they found out that the Romans already had a magnificent one. This fleet possessed a chemical called “Greek Fire” which was used to put the enemy boats and ships on fire.

The Muslims seemed helpless before this chemical. Muslim scientists then took up the challenge and ultimately found out about the main ingredient of the chemical, which was named “Nafit”. With the help of this ingredient they then formulated a chemical which matched the “Greek fire”. As a result of the research, the Muslims were in a position to counter the threat posed by the Roman fleet.

Likewise, the large number of chemicals produced by Jabir Ibn Hayyan (737-812 AD) were the products of various experiments. In order to carry out his experiments he used the methods of distillation, evaporation, sublimation, calcination, crystallization, fusion and reduction.

Although such methods had been in use since the time of the Romans, he made improvements in all of them. He was also fully aware of the chemical reactions which produced different compounds. He was the first man who prepared mineral acids such as nitric acid and sulphuric acid.

In matters in which Jabir adopted speculative method, he met with failure. For example, he hypothesized that all kinds of metals could be made out of a combination of mercury and sulphur. Since this was merely a hypothetical idea, Jabir’s efforts for transmuting various metals into gold proved to be a failure.

In astronomy too the Muslim scientists adopted experimental methodology and made valuable contributions. In order to enable the Muslims spread all over the world to locate the direction of Qibla, the Muslim scholars devised ways. They regulated the timing of their prayers and determined the time limit of sehri. It was for these reasons that they took a keen interest in astronomy and ultimately resolved all the important issues accurately.

The Muslim scholars eventually registered some notable achievements in this area. For example, AI-Biruni worked out the method of finding out the latitudes and longitudes of particular places. On the basis of his methods he also determined the latitudes and longitudes of some cities very accurately. Moreover, he pointed towards the possibility of the existence of a new continent, which was ultimately discovered in 1492.

All such contributions were made because of the experimental method of research. In order to conduct astronomical studies, the Muslim scholars established observatories at various places. The first observatory was set up in Jandeshapur. Soon, a second one was established, during the reign of Caliph Mamoon, in Baghdad.

These observatories were equipped with astrolabes. Through this apparatus the astronomers used to calculate the distance between stars, the rotation of the Earth, and the total area of the planet. This apparatus was also used for calculating the altitude of the Sun and other stars.

During the Abbasid period, in order to construct a public hospital a suitable site in the vicinity of Baghdad needed to be identified. The renowned physician of the time, Zakaria Razi (865-925), deployed an experimental method in order to select such a place.

He installed poles in various localities of the city, and hanged pieces of fresh flesh on each of them. After a number of days, all the pieces were taken down simultaneously. The locality where the piece of flesh was least putrefied, was selected for the construction of the hospital because its locality was comparatively healthier.

Razi had established a laboratory that was equipped with costly and necessary equipment to carry out different experiments. He also dissected animals which were closely related to human beings, in order to understand and diagnose human diseases.

It was perhaps because of this practice that he succeeded in discovering the causes of cataract for which he suggested an eye operation. He was also the first person to discover the epithelial oedema of the cornea.

Ibn Sina (980-1037), Qasim Zahravi (936-1013) and Ibn Bitar (1190-1248) also achieved great successes through adopting experimental methods of research. The translation of Kitabul Shifa and Qanoon-i-Tibb of Ibn Sina, Al-Havi of Razi and Tasreef of Zahravi into Latin and other European languages, and their inclusion in the curricula of European universities until the 16th and 17th centuries, bear ample testimony to the supremacy of the experimental research conducted by Muslims.

This is why the progress made by Muslim scholars in various disciplines of science within a period of 600 years — from the seventh to the 13th century — is so magnificent that the contributions made by Greek and Roman scientists are easily eclipsed.

One who is competent to appreciate the difference between the effectiveness of the deductive and speculative methods, as employed by the Greeks, and the experimental methodologies used by the Muslims, will reach the same conclusion as a distinguished western scholar John W. Campbell, who said: “Islam invented science. Neither Greeks nor Romans started modern science. Islam has achieved what no other civilization had developed and had been able to do.

“The Muslim scholars were the torch-bearers of civilization and culture. Their activities in studying science and arts exceeded those of any other nation. The Christian West was therefore compelled to seek training from the only source available at the time for illuminating their minds — that is, the works of the Arab writers and the Muslim world.”

The writer is a former principal of the Federal Government Urdu Science College, Karachi.
Email: farrukhhafeez4@hotmail.com and Saimarahman_5@hotmail.com

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