3. MUSLIM CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE

~ 115 ~ was announced by the UN that for the first time in history, smallpox had been eradicated. Now the question arises as to why such a long time had elapsed between the initial discovery of the disease and the first attempts to investigate it medically with a view to finding a remedy. The reason was the prevalence of shirk, that is, the holding of something to be sacred when it is not, or the attribution of divinity to the non-divine. Dr. David Werner writes, ‘In most places in India, people believe that these diseases are caused because the goddess is angry with their family or their community. The goddess expresses her anger through the diseases. The people believe that the only hope of a cure for these diseases is to make offerings to her in order to please her. They do not feed the sick child or care for him because they fear this will annoy the goddess more. So the sick child becomes very weak and either dies or takes a long time to get cured. These diseases are caused by virus infection. It is essential that the child be given plenty of food to keep up his strength so that he can fight the infection.’