Science and Islam: Lost and Found

History shows that the Muslims increased in civilization and progressed in relation to the strength of the truths of Islam; that is, to the degree that they acted in accordance with that strength. And history also shows that they fell into savagery and decline, and disaster and defeat amidst utter confusion to the degree of their weakness in adhering to the truths of Islam.



The hidden history of science, the gap between Greeks&Roman and modern times, has been revealed in an exhibition shown at the Museum of Science in London. Many people named it as dark ages which has now been turned out to be The Golden Age of the Muslim world. Visitors will have the opportunity to see the Muslim inventors of the basics of camera as well as of the first engines, Astrolabes (forefathers of GPS), the founder of the first university in the world, the father of optics, the master of modern architecture the pioneering surgeon who invented the first catgut which is stil in use in operations, the first man who flew 1000 years before Wright brothers, the developer of mathematics and the founder of algebra and modern trigonometry, the best ever experts of pharmacy and so on and so forth can be observed in this exhibition or can be read through the book named “1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in Our World” by Salim T S Al-Hassani.

Interview: Science Vs Islam?

Swan, 56, Engineer, English

It’s nice to be here in such an informative exhibition. I’m impressed by it. I’m an engineer and knew many things about Muslim scientists already, however, I didn’t see some of the interesting ones before. Of course all of the items exhibited here are attractive, but, to me, the most attractive one is the elephant clock of Al-Jazari. Here I have seen that the period that people of Europe call the dark ages were only dark for us. We were poor. There were many diseases and people were dying out of hunger as well as epidemics and surely was in a bad situation.

But, when I look back at the history here in this exhibition, they were not even busy with those which we dealt with. They were inventing robots, founding hospitals and universities, they were having good life styles, inventing coffee and musical instruments which were all luxurious in those ages for us. There is only one thing that I cannot understand, howcome such a sophisticated and developed culture leant back?
(To get the answer, please refer to the quotation in the headline, which was extracted from Ustad Bediuzzaman’s faourite work, Damascus Sermon, at the very beginning of the article).