Islam Creator of the Modern Age

Islam Creator of the Modern Age

1991 8 August 14-17 Islam: Creator of the Modern Age (1182) Physical Sciences Arnold Toynbee tells us that science is another name for the exploitation of nature. He then raises the question as to why man took so long to control and exploit it when it had existed in our world for millions of years. He himself gives us the answer:

“For ancient man nature was not just a treasure trove of ‘natural resources’, but a goddess, ‘Mother Earth’. And the vegetation that sprang from the earth, the animals that roamed the earth’s surface, and the minerals hiding in the earth’s bowels, all partook of nature’s divinity. So did all natural phenomena –springs and rivers and the sea; mountains; earthquakes and lighting and thunder. Such was the original religion of all mankind.”

When nature is regarded as an object of worship, it cannot, at the same time, be looked at as an object of exploitation, investigation and conquest. Referring to the historical fact mentioned above, Toynbee acknowledges that the age in which nature was sacrosanct was only brought to an end with the advent of monotheism. The concept of monotheism brought nature down from being a deity set upon a high pedestal to being just another part of God’s creation. Now, instead of the phenomena of nature being held as objects of worship, they came to be held as objects of subjugation and conquest.

This concept of monotheism had been propounded by all the Prophets in the past. However, it remained at the level of pronouncement on an individual level; it could not reach the stage of general revolution. The movement based on monotheism finally reached the stage of revolutions only through the struggle of the Prophet’ and his companions. After this, the tendency to regard nature as holy decreased to the point where it no longer existed as such; this was a necessary outcome of such a revolution. Now man started looking at nature with a view to exploring and exploiting it. This process developed in a positive way over the centuries, sometimes slowing, sometimes accelerating, but finally ushering in our modern scientific age.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica states in its article ‘History of Physical Sciences’, that Greek science fell into jeopardy after the second century A.D., because the Romans were not interested in it., “Social pressures, political persecution, and the anti-intellectual bias of the church Fathers drove the few remaining Greek scientists and philosophers to the East. There they ultimately found a welcome when the rise of Islam in the 7th century stimulated interest in scientific and philosophic subject. Most of the important Greek scientific texts were preserved in Arabic translations. Although the Arabs did not alter the foundations of Greek science, they made several important contributions within its general framework. When the interest in Greek learning revived in Western Europe during the 12th and 13th centuries, scholars turned to Islamic Spain for the scientific texts. A spate of translations (from Arabic into Latin) resulted in the revival of science in the west ... scientists of the Middle Ages reached high levels of sophistication and prepared the ground for the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries.” (14/385)

Mauseoleban asserts in his book, Arab Civilization, that Arab science reached Europe not through crusades, but by way of Andalusia, Sicily and Italy. In 1130, an institute for translation was established under the patronage of Remand of Taletala, through which famous books were rendered into Latin from Arabic. Through these translations, a whole new world was opened up to Europe. This work of translation continued right up to the 14th century. Not only the works of Razes, Avicena and Averroes, but also those of Galen, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Eucleides, Ptolemy, etc. were translated from Arabic into Latin. Dr. Guilkirk, in his book on the history of this period, mentions more than three hundred books translated from Arabic into Latin.

Other Western scholars have even more openly acknowledged this as a historical fact. Robert Briffault, for example, has written that the Greeks produced system, generalized it, formulated it, but that it was alien to their temperament to go into the labour of observation and experimental research. What came to be called science was the result of a new method of experiment, observation and calculation. And this was transmitted to Europe through the Arabs. Modern science is, indeed, the greatest legacy of the Islamic civilization.

Summing up the position, Briffault writes: “The debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist in startling discoveries of revolutionary theories; science owes a great deal more to Arab culture: it owes its existence.” (Making of Humanity, p. 190)

George Sarton, the famous chronicler of scientific advances, writes that the most fundamental and most distinctive success lay in fostering the spirit of experiment and observation. And this spirit, originally brought into being by the Muslims, continued to prevail until the twelfth century.

The Gift of Islam

The two most important contributions of Islam in this connection were, firstly, to remove the mental block which was an obstacle to progress, and secondly, to launch the new age of progress on a practical basis.

Removing the mental block meant displacing things from their pedestals of holiness. This task – undoubtedly the most difficult was successfully performed during the period of the Prophet and the pious Caliphs who succeeded him.

Although a practical beginning had been made in the first phase of Islam, its systematic development took place during the Abbasid era with the establishment of Bait-ar-Hikmah in 832. This work gained great momentum during the Arab rule in Spain and Sicily. Finally, it reached Europe, where it gave the first impetus to the industrial revolution.

It is generally accepted that modern progress and its ramifications are related to industrial revolution. In fact, it could be said that all progress has come in its wake. Industrial revolution itself is another name for the exploitation of the hidden resources of the earth. For example, man mined coal and then converted it into energy. He harnessed the power of flowing water and converted that into electricity. He extracted minerals from beneath the earth’s surface and transformed them into machines. And this is how the industrial revolution came into existence.

Now, why was it, that when all these resources had been available on the earth since time immemorial, man had not been able to utilize them in order to found a developed civilization prior to the advent of Islam? There is only one answer; polytheism had placed an insurmountable barrier in has path.

What is polytheism? It is the worship of the phenomena of nature. Before the time of the Prophet of Islam, in every period recorded in history, man had worshipped natural phenomena, holding them to be imbued with divinity. All ancient civilizations Greek, Egyptian, Roman and Persian – all were polytheistic in their persuasions. All the outstanding things of this world – earth, rivers, mountains, sun, moon or stars – all were objects of worship for man. Only Islam was able to displace them from the pedestal of worship. Only then could that new intellectual departure be made which is now known as the scientific revolution.