ISLAM: THE LIBERATOR OF THE MIND

~ 67 ~ road to knowledge and wisdom that lies through disciplined enquiry into isolated aspects of the natural world. Indeed, when one considers how few have been the cultures in which science has flourished, one may reverse the question and consider Rome as the normal, and classical Greece as the surprising phenomenon to be explained.”28 The historians have failed to produce any convincing answer to this question. But the answer becomes obvious when we take into account the fact that the Romans were polytheists. It was actually polytheism and idol worship, which stood in the way of their carrying out research and investigation in the field of science. The concept of the sanctity of all natural objects prevented them from making a conquest of them. THE DAWN OF THE SCIENTIFIC AGE The Encyclopaedia Britannica states under the heading of “History of Science” that the present way of comprehending the natural world is a very recent development. It was possible for great civilizations of the past to achieve high levels of