3. MUSLIM CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE

~ 119 ~ do with reality. Whenever it comes to be supposed of a language that it is the language of the gods, it becomes an object of reverence in people’s eyes with the status of a sacred language. It can no longer remain an object of investigation. After this stage, making a critical analysis of it, or advocating a new method to develop it, or any other such progressive attitude towards it, are looked upon as heretical, and akin to being sacrilegious. All such efforts are seen by the people as presumptuousness, rather than as a sincere attempt to develop the language. This state of arrested development was typical not only of the ancient languages, but of all other departments of thought, innumerable kinds of superstitious beliefs having stemmed the tide of intellectual progress. It was the revolution based on monotheism, which broke down this barrier for the first time in history. This revolution originated in Arabia, and finally came to exert its influence all over the world. Human history then entered the age of realism, leaving behind the age of superstition. The very moment when the Qur’an announced that there was no god but the one God, the scientific way of thinking was set in motion. People began