The Influence Of Islamic Scholars On The Development Of Science In Western Civilization

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The Nobel Prize is the most eminent and coveted global honour bestowed for outstanding work in economics, chemistry, peace, literature, physics, or physiology and medicine. Since its first establishment in 1895 to acknowledge those who had an outstanding contribution to benefit mankind, western European countries have accomplished a disproportionate number of Novel prizes laureates. In fact, 82 percent of Nobel prizes have been awarded to laureates from western countries (The Washington Post 2013). However, as we delve into the historical origin of that great knowledge and the development of advanced modern science, it should be done through an eye of medieval Islamic scholars. In the Medieval age, Islamic scholars had a significant influence which in turn became the fundamental material for a scientific revolution in western civilisation. “In the broadest sense, the West’s borrowings from the Middle East form practically the whole basic fabric of civilisation” (Wickens 1976). The paper asserts that the Modem science emerged in Europe may not have occurred without adopting the fundamental concepts of the Greek scientific tradition that had been integrated and modified into the corpus Islamic tradition during its great period of mass scholarship known as Golden Age. Even though much of the Islamic contributions are unappreciated and credited, it had a vital role throughout the progression of the European transformation. Some argue that the influence of Islamic science and metaphysical works to Western culture was limited and the western scientific enterprise undertook a significant cleavage from the Islamic influence. The paper further argues against this by providing the evidence and vestigial traces of Islamic scientific tradition in various discipline of today’s science such as mathematics and medicine. 

The Islamic golden age is referred to the era in the history of Islam. This era is dated traditionally from the 8^th century to the 14^th century. In this mentioned era, the Islam world evidenced a commendable and flourishing enhancement in science, economic as well as cultural works.  According to the Muslim tradition, this period is considered to have began during the reign of the Abbasid Caliph, Harun al-Rashid. During his reign, scholars from different cultural background  are invited from different parts of the world in order to translate the classical knowledge of the world into Arabic language. During this period several new inventions associated with science and mathematics had taken place due to the glorious union of scholars from all over the word. According to the Islamic tradition in 1258 AD, this period had ended due to the death of the Abbasid Caliphate due to the Siege of Bagdad an Mughal invention (Bier 2004).

While the middle age of the Islamic word is considered to be highly glorifying and productive, in Europe the middle age was characterized by devastating phenomenon like war and population decline. According to the historians, the middle age lasted in the history of Europe from the 5^th century to the 15^th Century. It initiated with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged with the renaissance period (Iqbal 2000). The middle age of Europe can be segregated into three parts that includes the early, high and late middle age. The early middle age of Europe is characterized by population decline, invention and movements.  During the High Middle Ages, that began after 1000, the population of Europe got enhanced greatly as technological as well as agricultural innovations permitted trade to flourish. Along with that, the Medieval Warm Period climate change allowed crop yields to enhance (Hilgendorf 2003). The late Middle Age had evidenced a huge lot of difficulties as well as calamities including diseases like famine, war and plague.

Mathematics

Mathematics plays a major role when it comes to proving scientific laws. Scholars develop scientific laws that describes the scientific phenomenon. However, in order to prove the law, mathematics is used as an tool. Thus mathematics can be considered to be an essential tool for scientist whose purpose is to simplify science by quantification of the phenomenon. In a nutshell, science without mathematic can never exist. The development of these ten symbols and their use in a positional system entered the European World primarily from India.

When it comes to mathematics, the contribution of the islam-arabic word to the western mathematics is huge (Haque, 2004). The modern system of notation, using ten different numerals as well as a zero and using position to denote value, is the invention of Hindu mathematicians and astronomers, attaining its present form by the seventh century. The Western numeric system that i.e. 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 has its origin in the Hindu-Arabic System. This base-ten system was invented in India in the middle age period (Hehmeyer & Khan 2007). This system becomes well known in the Western Europe due to the works of Islamic commentators whose work were translated into Latin. The mentioned numeric system has highly facilitated the western arithmetic especially when it comes to multiplication and division. The concepts of the nine digit system had  allowed the scholars to perform the mathematical tables that are  required for surveying , navigation and maintenance of financial records (Forbes and Baker 2017). This rapid advancement in mathematics has greatly contributed to the extensive exploration as well as growth of capitalism that initiated the renaissance. According to researchers, the rapid financial growth that took place in the western world can be considered as the result of development of science. Without the contribution of the mentioned of the Hindu Arabic numerals was not possible. Researchers stated that, the development of the financial structure of the mentioned nation could have taken much longer in case, the nine digit system was not intended by the Islamic scholars. Thus, the role of Islamic scholars when it comes to the development of science and technology in the western world cannot be ignored.

In this age of technological development, Europe being a developed nation is highly advanced in medicine. The European Medicine Agency has been created by the European government in order to determine whether the medicine scientists are developing can be considered as advanced therapy medical product or not. Currently the healthcare system of Europe is considerd to be oe of the best medical systems across the world.  During the medial period, Western Europe was composed of a mixture of existing ideas from spiritual influences, antiquity, social consensus and shamanistic complex (Knysh 2016). During the early middle age the medical knowledge of the Western Roman empire was based completely on the text of foreign scholars of Greece, India and Rome. The western medical system was not at all well developed and as a result individuals suffering from fatal diseases used to place their hopes simply at church with the expectation that God will heal their sickness. The medicine of the nation  gained development during the renaissance period. The chief reason behind the development of the medicine of the mentioned nation is the translation of Islamic and Greek texts from Arabic (Turner and Nasir 2016). Some of the mentionworthy Arabic texts associated with medicine which have greatly changed the healthcare sector of Europe includes  De Gradibus by Alkindus and Al-Tasrif by Abulcasis.

The early middle period is considered to be the Dark age in the eastern period off history. The period is called dark age due to the demographic, cultural, and economic deterioration occurred in Western Europe following the decline of the Roman Empire. While there was utter turbulence in the Western World, during the same period the world evidenced great advancement in medicine by the Islamic scholars. Islamic medicine preserved, systematized as well as developed the medical knowledge of classical antiquity, that incorporate the major traditions of Hippocrates, Galen and Dioscorides. Name of some of the major contributors to the advancement of Islamic medicine includes Muhammad al-Bukhari, Ali ibn Mousa al-Ridha,  Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari and Muhammad bin Sa’id al-Tamimi (Lee 2018). The cannon of Medicine written by Islamic author Avicenna is still considered as a crucial resource for medicine in Europe and is taught in majority of medical schools.

Conclusion

The paper asserts that the Modem science emerged in Europe may not have occurred without adopting the fundamental concepts of the Greek scientific tradition that had been integrated and modified into the corpus Islamic tradition during its great period of mass scholarship known as Golden Age. From the above discussion it can be concluded that the western world woes a lot to the Islamic scholars. The efficient science and technologies that are being enjoyed by the western population can be considered as the result of the knowledge that had been borrowed from the Eastern world. Considering the fact that Mathematics is an integral part of science, the knowledge of mathematics gained from the Islamic scholar has highly contributed to the development of science and technology. The chief reason behind the development of the medicine of the mentioned nation is the translation of Islamic and Greek texts from Arabic. Thus we must appreciate the scholars who have given great influence in development in western science 

Reference list

Bier, C 2004, ‘Patterns in Time and Space: Technologies of Transfer and the Cultural Transmission of Mathematical Knowledge across the Indian Ocean’, Ars Orientalis, vol. 34, pp. 172-94.

Forbes, M. and Baker, W., 2017. Moral Values and Market Attitudes. In Markets, Morals, and Religion (pp. 43-50). Routledge.

Haque, A 2004, ‘Psychology from Islamic Perspective: Contributions of Early Muslim Scholars and Challenges to Contemporary Muslim Psychologists’, Journal of Religion and Health, vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 357-77.

Hehmeyer, I & Khan, A 2007, ‘Islam’s forgotten contributions to medical science’, Canadian Medical Association Journal, vol. 176, no. 10, p. 1467.

Hilgendorf, E 2003, ‘Islamic Education: History and Tendency’, Peabody Journal of Education, vol. 78, no. 2, pp. 63-75.

Iqbal, M 2000, ‘Islam and Modern Science: Formulating the Questions’, Islamic Studies, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 517-70.

Knysh, A., 2016. Islam in historical perspective. Routledge.

Lee, R.D., 2018. Overcoming tradition and modernity: The search for Islamic authenticity. Routledge.

Turner, B.S. and Nasir, K.M., 2016. State, science and economy in traditional societies: some problems in Weberian sociology of science. In The Sociology of Islam (pp. 65-86). Routledge.