Response to AllDanes

Submitted by M'Hamed CHETTALI (Belgium), Feb 15, 2006 at 04:36

Dear Dane,

I am familiar with the work of some negationists who seek to minimize or negate the scientific contribution of Islam. Fortunately, Western scientists call a spade a spade. The very name chemistry is derived from the Arabic word al-Kimy. In the words of Max Mayerhaff, the development of chemistry in Europe can be traced directly to Jabir Ibn Haiyan. The works of Al-Kindi led to further development of various subjects for centuries, notably physics, mathematics, medicine and music. Thabit Ibn Qurra Ibn Marwan al-Sabi al-Harrani had a major contribution in mathematics and astronomy. Abu Abdallah Muhammad Ibn Jabir Ibn Sinan al-Battani al-Harrani was a famous astronomer, mathematician and astrologer. His well-known discovery is the remarkably accurate determination of the solar year as being 365 days, 5 hours, 46 minutes and 24 seconds, which is very close to the latest estimates.
His treatise on astronomy was extremely influential in Europe till the Renaissance.

A major contribution of Ibn Sina, known as Avicenna to the West, to medical science was his famous book al-Qanun, known as the "Canon" in the West. The Qanun fi al-Tibb is an immense encyclo- paedia of medicine. Avicenna devised the concept of anesthetics. As recently as the early nineteenth century, students at the Sorbonne had to read the Cannon of Avicenna as a condition to graduating. According to Philip Hitti, Ibn Rushd, known as Averroes in the West, influenced Western thought from the 12th to the 16th centuries. His books were included in the syllabi of Paris and other universities till the advent of modern experimental sciences.

I have given just few examples to illustrate my point that you can't fool the scientific community, because science is universal and the contribution of Islam to it is well established. By the way, Baghdad was for centuries the vanguard centre of scientific progress. Muslims can't live within the bastion of the past. It's gone anyway. I am more concerned about the present and the future.

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