I usually write about poverty and project management-related issues but thanks to Donald Trump tirade against Muslims I thought it appropriate to share the details about the glorious culture and civilisation Muslims produced and how the elements of this great civilisation helped the West to touch the pinnacle of science, medicine, philosophy and education. In today's troubled times, when the religion and culture of Islam are being perpetually attacked and the relationships between Muslims and the West are defined by a profound misunderstanding, it is essential to dive in the past to see how much wealth of shared heritage the Islamic world shares with the rest of the world, especially the West, and how much modern Europe owes in its development to the contribution of the Islamic culture. This is a well acknowledged fact that religious tolerance, zeal for learning, the concepts of chivalry and brotherhood were brought by Muslims of the Andalusia who, by transmitting their knowledge to medieval Europe, acted as "beacons of light". They did not hesitate to provide Europe a wealth of knowledge in all areas that produced renaissance and reformation. Hence, in science, medicine, architecture, etc, entire treatises were translated from Arabic into Latin in Spain, Sicily, France and Italy, during several centuries, until that the European tradition became strong enough to fly by its own wings. This great fermentation movement allowed the transfer of Arabic numerals and a full system of computation, and a whole body of mathematical knowledge in Algebra and geometry, on the basis of which teaching, architecture, commerce and economy prospered throughout Europe. Similarly, these were the institutes of Muslim Andalusia and North Africa where Jewish doctors were trained who later on founded the first effective medical school in Europe.
These were the elements whereupon, a dynamic civilisation was built. Islam emerged early in the 7th century in a little part of Arabia, before it spawned a highly sophisticated civilisation that was bound to have a great influence on the development of universal history.
Islam, from its very inception, was a bastion of tolerance and social justice. While Europe was being crushed and brutalised by the Dark Ages, Islam bloomed. P. K. Hitti has aptly said in his book 'The History of Arabs', "When Haroon was delving into the art of philosophy and art and strongly macadamised roads were being built, Charlemagne and his contemporaries in the West were learning the numbers." This happened because the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) enjoined followers to study and to revere wisdom. Many Greek sciences were protected and investigated by Muslim scholars. But perhaps more tellingly, under the Islamic rule and especially in the Andalusia, the three great monotheistic faiths co-existed in the relative harmony, enjoying a high degree of religious tolerance in a flourishing intellectual and artistic milieu.
It is interesting to know that Malala's quest for universal education was the continuation of Muslims' long and proud history in the field of education. Two great Muslim women, Fatima and Miriam al-Firhi, founded the world's first university, Al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco, in 859AD. For many years, students were enrolled here in a plethora of secular and religious subjects. After completion of their education, teachers evaluated their pupils and awarded degrees based on satisfactory performances. The concept of awarding degrees thus spread from Fez to Andalucía, Spain, and later to the Universities of Bologna in Italy and Oxford in England.
The greatest Muslim contributions to Western civilisation began in the 8th century when Muslim scholars obtained volumes of Greek philosophy. The wisdom in ancient Greece texts, which had been lost, was translated from Latin to Arabic by Muslim scholars, thus creating one of the greatest transmissions of knowledge in the world history. Muslim scholars were able to bring the ideas of great ancient Greek minds such as Socrates, Aristotle and Plato into Europe, where their philosophy was translated into other European languages. This is why Muslims are considered the main force behind the European Renaissance and the Enlightenment, two movements that resurrected Greek philosophy and gave new life into a European continent that was bogged down with religious dogma and bloody internal feuds in Europe.
Al-Ghazali, a Sufi Muslim revolutionised early Islamic philosophy by helping develop Neo-Platonism, which is often described as the "mystical" or "religious" interpretation of Greek philosophy. At the time of Al-Ghazali's writing, Muslim philosophers had read about the ideas of ancient Greece, but these ideas were generally perceived to be in conflict with Islamic teachings. Al-Ghazali made contributions to synthesise these elements by adopting the techniques of Aristotelian logic and the Neo-Platonism ways to mitigate the negative influence of excessive Islamic rationalism.
Ibn Khaldun is another most important Muslim thinker in the history. He is recognised as one of the greatest historians ever and the founder of sociological sciences in the 14th and 15th centuries, Khaldunis credited to have created one of the earliest non-religious philosophies in the history in his work, the Muqaddimah. He also paved the way for our expectations of modern-day presidents and prime ministers by creating an academic discipline for evaluating the rulers.
Medicine is another important contribution to civilisation made by Muslims in addition to education and the university system. In 872 in Cairo, Egypt, the Ahmad Ibn Tulun hospital was created and equipped with an elaborate institution and a range of functions. Like other Islamic hospitals that soon followed, Tulun was a secular institution open to men and women, adults and children, the rich and poor, as well as Muslims and non-Muslims. Tulun is also the earliest hospital to cure the mentally retarded people.
It is also heartening to note that almost one hundred years after the founding of Tulun, a surgeon named Al-Zahrawi, also called the "father of surgery," wrote an illustrated encyclopaedia that served as a guide to European surgeons for the next 500 years. Al-Zahrawi made surgical instruments, such as scalpels, bone saws, and forceps are still used by modern surgeons. Al-Zahrawi is also said to be the first surgeon to perform a caesarean operation.
Another significant discovery was made in the 13th century, when the Muslim Medic Ibn Nafis described the pulmonary circulation almost 300 years before William Harvey, the English physician who is believed by many Westerners to have "discovered" it. Muslims also designed the technique of inoculation, or the introduction of an antigenic substance or vaccine into the body to induce immunity to a disease. This step though rudimentary at that time gave impetus to Europeans to evolve it further.
It is religious obligation for the Muslims to protect and clean the body. Perhaps Muslim scientists combined vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide and aromatics such as thyme oil to create a recipe for soap, which is still used today. Many would surprise to know that shampoo was also introduced to England on the Brighton seafront in 1759 at Muslim Indian Vapour Baths.
We have been debating the compatibility of Hellenic Philosophy with Islam since the 8th century. The Europe accepted Ibn Rushd and experienced Renaissance and Enlightenment. The rise and fall of civilisations has been the law of nature. After the fall of Roman Empire, Muslim culture and civilisation flourished and made progress in almost every walk of life. However, Europe realised this and was open to receive what offered by Muslim advancement at that time. Roger Bacon and his name sack Francis Bacon wore Arabic dress to show themselves as educated and modern. Today, Muslims also need to realise and ponder to see what went wrong that they lost that glory and should follow the European strategy to bring back that lost glory.
(The writer is a certified professional in Monitoring and Evaluation, Additional Commissioner, Inland Revenue Service and presently posted as Director MIS Benazir Income Support Programme)