Islam’s Role in Bringing About the Modern Civilization

through study and observation, their insights could not gain much momentum. They were obliterated when they came to the knowledge of the orthodoxy. Islam was the first to detach religion from science. This made possible free and independent enquiries into different branches of knowledge, which led to progress on many fronts. In the period prior to Islam, polytheism held sway. This was a creed which looked upon things and creatures as deities and encouraged their worship. In ancient times polytheism dominated the entire world. Humans considered the moon a deity, just as they held all kinds of other inanimate objects to be gods. The moon, with its brilliant silvery light, inspired people to bow before it rather than step foot on it. When the moon was accorded the status of divinity, the very thought of conquering it was sacrilegious. In the seventh century Islam presented the idea of monotheism, which soon became the dominant creed of the times. In the monotheistic belief, the Creator is divine while the everything else, including nature and the universe, is part of His creation. The view of the sanctity of all of nature’s phenomena had made studies in natural sciences forbidden territory. It was the revolution of monotheism, which opened the doors of research and exploration by displacing nature from