A British boy of South Asian descent, about eight or nine years old, was pressing the buttons of an interactive display at a new exhibition in London. "Yassin, Zak, come over, you ought to check this out," he called out to his classmates.
The exhibition, "1001 Inventions: Discover the Muslim Heritage in Our World," was created with children in mind. The interactive displays are large and colourful, with cartoon-like characters guiding visitors as they explore the history behind some of Muslims' greatest inventions.
With the support of the Saudi Arabia-based Jameel Foundation, the "1001 Inventions" exhibition is being held at London's Science Museum until summer.
There are displays describing well-known Islamic contributions to science in the fields of mathematics and astronomy, but there are also interesting facts about a number of unsung heroines in the field. One example is Fatima al Fihri, a ninth-century Muslim woman who inherited a vast sum of money from her merchant father and spent it all on building al Qarawiyin, a university and mosque complex that still stands in Fez, Morocco. It is considered to be the oldest university in the world, not just the Islamic world.
How ironic, I thought to myself as I stood there looking at the display honouring her contributions to religious instruction as well as political and natural sciences education: more than a millennium later some ignorant souls who claim to share her religion want to deny women an education and employment. Have these individuals even heard about Fatima al Fihri?
The truth is that secularism played a large role in the advancement of science in Islam. Because religion was seen as a tool in life -- not the objective, as it is often preached today -- people were free to create, imagine, and dream without the imposition of artificial boundaries. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars conducted research side by side and thus both Islam and humanity were enriched.
The displays at "1001 Inventions" very much resemble the exhibition on the ground floor of the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilisation, where the interactive and child-friendly displays include buttons, screens, and levers. The idea is that children can combine entertainment and learning by pressing, pulling, and rotating the controls to create action in the displays. It is a model quite unlike the adult-orientated but equally fascinating Islamic Arts Museum in Qatar.
What a powerful tool education can be, especially at such a young age. It instils pride for one's culture, and understanding and respect for others. Imagine the magnitude of the message that such an exhibition would have in countries where Islam is wrongly used to justify crimes against women, which continues to happen in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, among others.
Allowing children to see the great deeds and creations of Muslims who dared to dream denies the evil and the ignorant the opportunity to indoctrinate them.
Inside the hall in London, a teacher called out to two pupils, Michael and Chelsea, telling them to hurry up before a short film began; the story of "1001 Inventions" and the Library of Secrets, starring the Oscar-award winning actor Ben Kingsley, unfolded.
After being approached by three children, the librarian, played by Kingsley, is transformed into Abu Alez al Jazari, the mathematician and inventor who is considered one of the fathers of modern mechanical engineering. The children ask him about the so-called Dark Ages, and al Jazari responds: "Never was a period of history so poorly named."
Al Jazari introduces them to characters such as Abbas Ibn Firnas, the Berber mathematician known for his early attempt at flight, and Abu al Qasim al Zahrawi, a tenth-century doctor who was one of the most prominent pioneers of surgery of his time. Al Zahrawi is credited with inventing numerous surgical tools as well as using catgut sutures to stitch internal wounds, a technique used in hospitals today.
His name, I thought to myself, is eerily similar to that of another doctor, Ayman al Zawahiri. But whereas the former contributed to the advancement of humanity and saved countless lives across the centuries, the second became a cave-dwelling terrorist. The movie concludes with al Jazari telling the students as they are about to leave the library: "Remember, spread the word."
No one, adolescent or adult, who has been educated about the scientific history of the Muslim world would be an easy target for the brainwashing of the doom mongers. I hope that the Jameel Foundation takes the "1001 Inventions" exhibition across the world, even to Kabul, where children and adults could learn about Islam away from the indoctrination of the ignorant.
This exhibition, unlike many others, does not include priceless or rare artefacts. Instead, it is made up of panels, projection screens, and child-friendly gadgets that resemble the original inventions. The show could be easily transported across the world and appeal to any child, regardless of background.
It is not only Zak, Yassin, Michael, and Chelsea in Britain who need enlightening about the many contributions of Muslim scientists. Spreading the word to the forsaken children of Kabul, Baghdad, and Quetta, who have a much greater need of this valuable knowledge, would arm them with moderation and protect their minds.
Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi is a non-resident fellow at the Dubai School of Government.
This article was published in The National on March 27th 2010.
Follow Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SultanAlQassemi
1001 Inventions - Visit the museum - Science Museum
YouTube - 1001 Inventions and The Library of Secrets - starring Sir Ben Kingsley as Al-Jazari
YouTube - 1001 Inventions Exhibition - BBC London News
Science in medieval Islam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ex qalib. Removed from a/the mold.
Exqaliber - Excaliber. A sword removed from a mold. As if from a rock.
The Arabic contribution to English is subtle but pervasive. Linguistic trivia worth remembering.
Algebra < Al jibra
Alembic (a device used for distillation of water) is still unchanged.
And also "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10." We got that from them, too. Before arabic numerals, we were using clumsy symbolic numeration, i.e. MCMDXII, with no ability to make columnar figures.
Encoraging Pride in past accomplishments can lead to future accomplishments as well
The same way that Christian community has let Neo-Cons to represent them too much and Jews community has let Zionism dis-proportionally represent them, Muslims have let Wahabism to hijack Islam and represent them. West has facilitate this takeover by Wahabis and Al-Queda to justify imperialism and colonialism missions in ME.
The world population regardless of faith have seen through this conspiracy and will reject any notation to use force to induce economical, cultural, religious change in the world.
1. True. And in many cases, those conquered by Islamic imperialism were really responsible for many of the inventions claimed to be somehow Muslim:"
2. Many of the inventors living in Islamic empires got their knowledge from the conquered peoples like Hindu mathematicians ( inventors of zero) and Brahmins, Christian Middle East or got it from Ancient Roman Greek sources: And this is it should've been. Every imperial endeavor creates an influx of material t and knowledge of the conquered people.
3. One of the reasons Muslim world fell behind so badly is because Muslims empires, rich and bloated with conquest became complacent, insular and lost interest in achievement of other peoples. With predicable results: closed systems become unstable and weak.
Positive role models are very important for children and can lead to development of scientific thinking separated from the religious dogma.
Small correction:
"Al Qarawiyin... considered to be the oldest university in the world, not just the Islamic world."
Much older universities include:
China: University of Nanjing -- est.258 BCE
India: Nalanda University, es.t Est. in 450 CE. This university had dorms and 10,000 students centuries before Al Qarawiyin.
Next subject...
wrong. though not considered as "Universities", centres for learning various subjects, centres for higher learning are founded in India. Taxila is supposed to be founded BC while Nalanda is founded in 5th century and existed for about 700 years.
Frankly, it is how presumptions for Arabs to make any claims of intellectual superiority.
Considering that both Arabs and Europeans still eked out a living on hunting-and-gathering when Chinese and Indians already had a highly evolved civilization.
P.S. One cam also make a reasonable claim for the Platonic Academy.
I was gonna say. Perhaps a case can be made for al Qarawiyin if one means the oldest university in continuous operation up to the present day. I don't know. I don't particularly care either which university is the oldest in the world. It depends in large part upon how one defines one's terms. But it is pretty silly to speak of this or that Western university as being the "world's oldest," when so many of the oldest Western universities at their inceptions were staffed with so many Moslem instructors.
And the term "Rennaissance" is pretty silly too. Ancient Greek culture wasn't "reborn," it never died in the Greek-speaking world, and it was very alive in the Moslem world for centuries before Arabs and Greeks passed it on to the West.
Westnocentrism: the World Series, the NBA World Championships, the NASCAR World Championship...
Bottom line is that *does* qualify as the longest *continually running* university in the world.
Of course other universities existed before and there were centers of learning elsewhere.
There's no reason to assume that these things are mutually exclusive.
But MORE important is the point that has been totally lost -- that it was a WOMAN who founded that university. And the author points out the irony of Taliban-like mentality of denying education to women.
And I would hazard a guess that it is correct to say that Al Qarawiyian is the oldest existing university founded by a woman.
Just because Rom and Catholics were against science and Europe had to separate church and goverment to fully exit from dark age, it does not mean the same recipe is going to work in East.
The most anti-progress governments in Islamic world, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, preach secularism. West has supported these anti-science governments to show that even with secular governments, Islam cannot progress in science and technology.
We have to hold Iran as evidence, that Islamic countries left on their own can still contribute to science. The problem is not Islam. The problem is West trying to show their medicine of secularism is good for East. West is afraid that Muslims and East once again become leaders in science and technologies.
Look when Bush made stem cell research illegal in US, In Iran, a sectarian Islamic country, created an institution with 2 billion dollar budget to advance stem cell research.
Common words in Spanish are of Arab origin: Azucar (sugar), almohada (pillow), alfombra (carpet), divan (couch) and names of cities like Guadalajara.
if it hadn't been for Islam . . the Dark Ages in Europe . . would have been much darker . . if not for Islam no universities, no medical advances, no algebra, our number system . . . we owe a great deal to Islam . . .
We didnt recite scriptures only, but talked about the readings and related it to the world around us. During the time when I was a young teen, our neighbouring countrymen were going through political upheavel, and many people were being killed every day.
This is what we talked about most often during my course in religious school.
Our spiritual guides told us that the very first command that Muhammed recieved from Jibriel was to read. Islam flourished under that command because the leaders then promoted reading and studying everything, science, the religion of other peoples, philosophy, literature, poetry...everything.
When the spiritual leaders started to push that only Islamic reading was what was ment, Islam began it's ideological decline. So, I agree with the writer of this blog post, but, 'secularism' is not why Islam prospered...it is the religious duty of Muslims to educate themselves, and we have failed to honour that as a group.
This is the difference between Islam, and the Islam of the Taliben sect.. (amonst those Muslims who are allowed to make choices without 'outside influence") When the spiritual leaders began to go back to the origianl interpretation of the command...to be knowledgeable in everything, Islam will prosper again...as a group, and use the knowledge for the common good.
When a group of people have a 'mandate' to seek knowledge, and innovation, diversity and new ideas are welcomed, that group flourishes. This was once the mandate of Islam, and at that time, as a group was 'the light of the world' (your words). When ideology takes over, it surpresses learning. Diversity and new ideas are seen as 'anti ideology' and are not encouraged or even forbidden. The meaning of unity becomes uniformity, and anyone not fitting the mold is deemed an enemy of the ideology, and soon censored by the society.
We can see the progress of societies, and the decline of societies in history following this model. Even in our own time, we see ideology creeping in, eroding the moral and ethical charater, diversity and new ideas vilified as 'anti ideology' and unity confused with unifority.
Unfortunatly, the last desperate act of a failing society is to blame someone else, and set out to destroy anyone assoicated with that someone else, whatever it takes not to look in the mirror, and into history.
Just joking......
I applaud the article and the writer. Great stuff! Science is exciting. For the average world dweller economics and human rights is even more urgent. It is hunger, lack of rights, discrimination, lack of housing and opportunities - and that even applies after someone manages to get that university degree, which drives people to act out. It is a matter of simple survival. A similar exhibition on how economics work, why employment is necessary, and human responsibility as well would also be a good subject. Modern technology can already now be used to educate and those who are wealthy can make a start by giving microloans for purchase of iphones, etc. used for learning and small business start-ups. No landlines needed!! Direct loans to populations are important, rather than via intermediaries. Thanks for the blog, Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi!
Of course, in the past this was not always so. With the advent of science, however, it became apparent that the ancient religious explanations, methods and practices were flawed. Science advanced the cause of truth by providing a method by which anyone could test and confirm things that in the past had simply been accepted on authority.
Books written many centuries ago have ever less relevance in our rapidly changing world. Prohibitions on eating shellfish or pork, for example, are today obviously only superstition, although there may in the past have been a rational justification. All of the things you list as subsumed under religion are today better handled using reason and science.
The rest of the world has accepted that this is the case, having established governments, laws and rules with no reference to or only vestiges of religion. A culture independent of religion has been established.
Science is only a tool. It is dangerous only when used without consideration of the possible consequences. If reason and foresight are applied, however, the only danger is to superstition.
Religion is, in fact, a superstition. It is belief or practice resulting from blind trust, fear or ignorance and without a rational basis. It is only the superstitious who are vulnerable to being misguided.
Your understanding and learning are limited by your anti-religious bias, and your attachment to Scientism.
Religion and culture are continuously intertwined, because each has and does influence the other, whether you are a "believer" in one, another, or none. Before travelling to a truly "foreign" country, teach yourself words of politeness in their language (greetings, farewells, please, thank you) and read up on the religion and culture. You will learn much - especially as your see how the religion and culture intertwine and explain each other.
Many of the western foundations, early developments and or greatest works of science, art, mathematics, music, astronomy,medicine, etc., were developed in temples, synagogues, churches or under the auspices of religious leaders. That was where educated people were to be found.
After the decline of Rome, during the so-called "Dark Ages", the "store" of knowledge, and the continuation of learning and development shifted to the Muslim world - for which we must be eternally grateful, because it was substantially lost from Europe. And they wove their understanding and culture into the mix, working in their mosques/teaching centres.
One does not have to look far to see the influence of those times. Many Fixed Stars carry Arabic names; and in the tipple which many of us enjoy is alcohol - derived from another Arabic word. arabic people gave us our modern day alphabet and numbers.
The Mosaic Laws, the Ten Commandments, Roman Laws, etc., provided the foundations of law.
Science: you underestimate the effects of bad science, and in believing that science and logic can explain all things. Science says that a Bumble Bee cannot fly. The Bumble Bee believes that it can.
Science is perfect when recognised as a tool, and blends in perfectly happily with religion except in the hands of extremists. Modern religious scholars recognise, "Adam & Eve" as archetypes which served to explain an unknown at the time. So with much else.
You do not give consideration to the limitations of your attitude to science. Applying foresight and reason in advance of exploration limits discovery of things which are viewed as "impossible" because they are literally "un-reasonable". It falls into the same category of thinking as C.G Jung's concept of the "irrational mind" - that which cannot be rationalised, (because it is entirely experiential). It is "unreasonable" people who invent new things and cause progress: people who go beyond the bounds of logic and reason. Horseless carriage anyone?
In defence of other "People of the Book": read the Old Testament with an open mind. You will certainly find myth. You will find history in sometimes exaggerated form. You will find stories which try to explain life and its experience - bizarre by today's standards, as many of our current beliefs will be bizarre to those living 2000 years from now. But you will also find practical guidance on every aspect of life for people of those times, exemplified in the laws concerning foods.
Religion is antithetical to science. Religion teaches belief without question. Science stands for questioning everything.
What this article and the exhibit should be about is scientific discoveries by Muslims, not Islamic scientific discoveries.
Nope.
The fundamental basis of religion is the existence of supernatural, which is superstition.
Ethics, laws and institutions not just exist but thrive independent of religion.
A good argument can be made that morality exists despite religion, not because of it.
Learning did take place in some religious institutions (as I acknowledged in my post), but learning of science and scientific discoveries were not driven by religion.
I agree that science does not give us impetus for progress, but, currently, it is the only rational approach to progress.
Enjoy!
Early Islamic scientists, such as Al-Zahrwai, who invented over 200 of the surgical insturments used today, were inspired by the Quranic verses that state that those who pursue knowledge and sciences will be of those who are successful in the hereafter.
There are many authentic narrations of Muhammad (saws) that instruct the same... to seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave. Muslim physicians are inspired by the verses that say that every disease has a cure.
The reason that the advancement of Islamic contributions to science has declined is because Western Imperialism has stripped Islam from its resources and put puppet dictators in Muslim countries, thwarting the development of those countries.
Read Paul Vallely's article "How Islamic Inventors Changed the World".
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-islamic-inventors-changed-the-world-469452.html
At the end of your post, you give another, different reason for the scientific decline: it was the puppet dictators put in place by the west. If that were the case, Iran should have experienced new scientific development after the the overthrow of the Shah and the selection of Ruhollah Khomeini as the country's Supreme Leader. The financial resources were there (oil). Did science experience a renaissance in Iran under its form of non-secular Islam?
The author also addresses the fact that women made significant contributions in the past. Islam as it is practiced in Iran, and many other places as well, makes it exceedingly difficult for women to contribute today.
As for the inspirational qualities of the Koranic verses calling for the pursuit of knowledge, this is hardly an earth-shaking idea. I am sure that any intelligent person recognizes the inherent desirability of greater knowledge.
The real question is whether any religion is actually conducive to scientific advancement. Since the principles of religion (acceptance of the claims of religious texts without evidence, the rejection of evidence that contradicts religious texts etc.) are antithetical to scientific principles, it seems far more likely that religion is a hindrance rather than a help.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18546-iran-showing-fastest-scientific-growth-of-any-country.html
Iran showing fastest scientific growth of any country
(Check the date of the article. It's very recent.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfByvw_jomo