Hello
Perhaps the greatest debt Western Civilisation owes to its past is
through the Arab and Islamic civilisation which acted as the "portal"
into Europe for all the accumulated knowledge of the past.
While Europe was still in the "Dark Ages" , Arab-Islamic culture was
at its highest, with its scholars contributing to the advancement of
science, medicine and philosophy. Will Durant said in his book, The
Age of Faith, "Moslems contributed effectively in all fields. Avicenna
was one of the greatest scientists in medicine, al-Razi a most eminent
physician, al-Bayruni a most distinguished geographer, Ibn al-Haitham
a most celebrated optics scientist, and Ibn Jabir a most famous
chemist."
The Arab culture was also the pioneer of education and teaching,
taking many of their ideas from the older cultures of the far east.
They had friendly relations with the Indian rulers of the south,
especially the Rashtrakutas. Many Arabs settled along the west coast
of India and built mosques in their settlements. Arab travellers and
traders visited various parts of India and Arab students came in large
numbers to the northern University of Takshasila or Taxila, which was
especially famous for medicine. ( It is said that in the days of
Harunal-Rashid Indian scholarship had a high place in Baghdad and
physicians from India went there to organize hospitals and medical
schools.) Many Sanskrit books on mathematics and astronomy were
translated into Arabic. Thus the Arabs took much from the old
Indo-Aryans culture. They took also much from the Aryan culture of
Persia, and also something from the Hellenic culture of Greece,
translating copies of the old Greek philosophers texts, and keeping
the knowledge safe while Europe was still in the "Dark Ages"
About the year 600 A.H. an Indian Muslim mathematician developed the
symbol "cipher" or zero and the system of placed notation. This
invention, first mentioned in a Syriac text written in 662 AD,
revolutionized the study of mathematics and made possible the great
achievements of Muslim mathematicians.
European Renaissance thinkers and scholars owed much of their progress
to the giants of the Islamic world, and Europeans came into contact
with Muslims in three areas:
- Palestine during the crusades was Europe's familiarization with
Islamic culture. It was there that Europeans effectively realized for
the first time that they were faced, not with barbarians, but with a
highly intelligent, cultured, civilisation.
- The Isle of Sicily - In the 18th Century, Frederik the Great
conquered Sicily and was personally interested in Islamic
civilization, At his behest dozens of Arabic volumes were translated
into Latin. Transition of Islamic ideology between Islamic scientists
and their European counterparts continued even after Frederick.
- Spain-. Muslim rulers conquered Spain in the first century of the
6th Century AD and ruled till the time of the discovery of America
when the last monarch of Grenada was defeated by the Spaniards and
ousted for ever. Spanish sciences were under the patronage of Muslims.
The oldest universities existing in Fez (a city in Morocco) was
founded 1100 years ago and provided models for European universities.
From Spain the influence of Arab philosophy spread to the other great
universities of Europe, in Paris, Oxford and the universities of
northern Italy. As an example of how this "cross-cultural" exchange
proceeded, Averroes or Ibn Rushd was a famous philosopher of Cordova
in the twelfth century. When he fell out with the Spanish Emir and was
banished, he went and settled in Paris!
It was from the Spanish flourishing of education that Arabic, and
other Eastern influences, began to spread in the "Western" culture.
The West owes a debt to the East in many areas of learning.
Mathematics and Astronomy
_______________________
Mathematical terms such as "algebra" and "algorithm" are taken from
Arabic words, and it was a Muslim mathematician who formulated the
trigonometric function explicitly. ( The word "sine" was actually the
direct translation of the arabic word "jayb") Al-Khwarizmi composed
the oldest book on mathematics, known only in translation. He
presented more than 800 examples of the calculation of integration and
equation used and expanded by Sir Isaac Newton.
Also in Spain, astronomical studies were cultivated after the middle
of the tenth century. They reproduced the Aristotelian system and were
taken from translations of the original Greek texts, kept safe by Arab
scholars in their translations. Abu-al-Qasim Maslamah al-Majriti (of
Madrid), the earliest Spanish Muslim astronomer edited and corrected
planetary tables of motion, the first tables composed by a Muslim.
About fourteen years later, his work was translated into Latin by
Plato of Tivoli, and was used extensively by Copernicus in his book De
revolutionibus orbium coelestium .
And not only are most of the star-names in European languages of
Arabic or Eastern origin but a number of technical term such as
"azimuth" (al- sumut), "nadir" (nazir), "zenith" (al-samt) are of
Arabic etymology.
Medicine
_______
The Islamic world has a great many "firsts" in this field, and passed
on much to Western Culture.
Avicenna was given the title 'the Prince of Medicine'. He classified
efficient causes and symptoms of diseases. He said that diseases are
caused by the imbalance of the four elementary qualities of hot, wet
cold and dry in the body. Those caused by the faulty composition or
conformation of bodily parts, and those caused by trauma. The cause of
disease is categorize as either connected by the environment, regimen,
and psychology. Among them are the traditional scheme of "non
naturals" from air, food and drink, repletion and inanition, to the
passions of the soul. His book also discuss concerns for the
conservation of health: separate sections on pediatric, adult, and
geriatric regimen. Avicenna provide details on ailments distinctive to
each of the major organs of the body-arranged from head to toe and
developed a systematic approach to medicine that is still echoed in
modern practices.
The "Black Death", in the middle of the fourteenth century ravaged
Europe. Ibn-al- Khatib, a physician of Granada composed a treaties in
defence of the contagion theory, realising that diseases were spread
by a contagious element, a theory that was widely ridiculed at the
time in the West. As a result of this work, the circulation of blood
and the idea of quarantine was discovered by Ibn al- Nafis.
Ibn-Masawayh wrote the oldest systematic treaties on opthamology.
In the curative use of drugs, some amazing advances were made by the
Muslims. They established the first apothecary shops, and founded the
earliest school of pharmacy
Al-Rhazes is one of the most famous Doctors and writers of Islamic
History. Every major city had an hospital, the hospital at Cairo had
over 8000 beds, with separate wards for fevers, ophthalmic, dysentery
and surgical cases. He discovered the origin of smallpox and showed
that one could only acquire it once in one's life, thus showing the
existence of the immune system and how it worked
Scientific Method
______________
The Muslims observed, measured and carried out experiments, fully
documenting them as they did so. They must be credited with having
developed what came to be known later as the experimental method in
the West
Natural History
____________
Such major natural historians as al-Mas'udi intertwined natural and
human history. Al-Biruni likewise in his study of India turned to the
natural history and even geology of the region, describing correctly
the sedimentary nature of the Ganges basin. He also wrote the most
outstanding Muslim work on mineralogy.
The Muslims also showed much interest in zoology especially in horses
as witnessed by the classical text of al-Jawaliqi, and in falcons and
other hunting birds. The works of al-Jahiz and al-Damiri are
especially famous in the field of zoology. This is also true of a
whole class of writings on the "wonders of creation" of which the book
of Abu Yahya al-Qazwini, the 'Aja'ih al-makhluqat (The Wonders of
Creation) is perhaps the most famous.
In geography, Muslims were able to extend their horizons far beyond
the world of the ancient Greeks. A vast amount of knowledge of areas
from the Pacific to the Atlantic was assembled.
Heres a quote from "Islam, Knowledge, and Science"
"The Muslim geographers starting with al-Khwarazmi, began to study
the geography of practically the whole globe minus the Americas,
dividing the earth into the traditional seven climes each of which
they studied carefully from both a geographical and climactic point of
view. They also began to draw maps some of which reveal with
remarkable accuracy many features such as the origin of the Nile, not
discovered in the West until much later. The foremost among Muslim
geographers was Abu 'Abdallah al-Idrisi, who worked at the court of
Roger II in Sicily and who dedicated his famous book, Kitab al-rujari
(The Book of Roger) to him. His maps are among the great achievements
of Islamic science. It was in fact with the help of Muslim geographers
and navigators that Magellan crossed the Cape of Good Hope into the
Indian Ocean. Even Columbus made use of their knowledge in his
discovery of America. "
Chemistry
________
The name alchemy and its derivative chemistry come from the Arabic
al-kimiya'.
Arabian and Eastern alchemy led to much experimentation with various
materials and in the hands of Muhammad ibn Zakariyya' al-Razi was
converted into the science of chemistry.
Again, quoting from "Islam, Knowledge, and Science"
"To this day the mercury-sulphur theory of Islamic alchemy remains as
the foundation of the acid-base theory of chemistry. Al-Razi's
division of materials into animal, vegetable and mineral is still
prevalent and a vast body of knowledge of materials accumulated by
Islamic alchemists and chemists has survived over the centuries in
both East and West. For example the use of dyes in objects of Islamic
art ranging from carpets to miniatures or the making of glass have
much to do with this branch of learning which the West learned
completely from Islamic sources since alchemy was not studied and
practiced in the West before the translation of Arabic texts into
Latin in the 11th century ."
Technology
_________
The Arabian world inherited a wide range of technological knowledge,
from the building of water wheels by the Romans to the underground
water system by the Persians. Muslims also imported certain kinds of
technology from the Far East such as paper which they brought from
China and whose technology they later transmitted to the West.
They also developed many forms of technology on the basis of earlier
existing knowledge such as sword-making and steel-working techniques
developed in India and the Far Ease.
And on top of all the above, they experimented and improved on older
systems, developed new architectural techniques of vaulting, methods
of ventilation, preparations of dyes, techniques of weaving,
technologies related to irrigation and numerous other forms of
technology, some of which survive to this day.
Architecture
__________
The medieval European architectural tradition is one of the elements
of Western civilization most directly linked with the Islamic world,
while the presence of Islamic architecture can also be directly
experienced in the Moorish style found not only in Spain and Latin
America, but in the southwestern United States as well.
To sum up, I’ll use a quote from "How Islam Influenced Science" (see
link below)
"All of this knowledge transferred from the Muslims to the Europeans
was the vital raw material for the Scientific Revolution. Muslims not
only passed on Greek classical works but also introduced new
scientific theories, without which the European Renaissance could not
have occurred. Thus even though many of the Islamic contributions go
unacknowledged, they played an integral role in the European
transformation. "
You’ll find links to full discussions of many of the works mentioned
at Islamic Philosophy, Scientific Thought, and History
( http://www.arches.uga.edu/~godlas/history.html )
There’s a long list of links and articles on Islamic Scientific
advances in the section "Science" at the
The Internet Islamic History Sourcebook
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/islam/islamsbook.html
Hope that’s what you were looking for
Willie-ga
The impact of the Arab Culture on European Renaissance
http://www.isesco.org.ma/pub/Eng/Arabiculture/page4.htm
Islamic Culture in Western Civilisations
http://www.netiran.com/Htdocs/Clippings/Social/950300XXSO02.html
ISLAMIC CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE
http://web.umr.edu/~msaumr/reference/articles/science/contribution.html
How Islam Influenced Science
http://www.ais.org/~bsb/Herald/Previous/95/science.html
Islam, Knowledge and Science
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/introduction/woi_knowledge.html |
Clarification of Answer by
willie-ga
on
24 Oct 2002 10:29 PDT
Hi there
Glad you liked it. And thanks for the tip. Here's some more.
Although Islam was the prime provider of knowledge and
cross-fertilization of ideas, and was the portal through which Europe
learned about the rest of the "Old World", some of the things we take
for granted in Western Culture also came from further afield.
Here's a quote from Donald F. Lach, from his book Asia in the Making
of Europe, 2 vols., Book 3, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1977)
"When trade routes with China were opened) ....the twelfth century was
the first to see a significant cluster of borrowings from China: the
traction trebuchet, the magnetic needle for navigation, and paper.
Gunpowder, known in China by 1040, did not appear in Europe until the
mid-thirteenth century. Along with these importations the Europeans
of the late thirteenth century became increasingly conscious of their
ability through invention to make nature work for human
ends......While Europe remained inferior to the East in subtle
handicrafts – sericulture, textile weaving, and porcelain production –
it began to run ahead during the early Renaissance in methods of basic
production."
And here's a quote from Printing: History and Roots : China
( http://www.digitalcentury.com/encyclo/update/print.html#china )
"The invention of the printing press depended on the invention and
refinement of paper in China over several centuries. The Chinese had
developed "rag" paper, a cheap cloth-scrap and plant-fiber substitute
for cumbersome bark and bamboo strips and for precious silk paper, by
A.D. 105. Chinese prisoners passed a mature technology on to their
Arab captors in the eighth century. The secrets of the craft that were
revealed to Europeans in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were
substantially the same techniques the Chinese had passed to the Arabs
several centuries earlier.
"Long before the Gutenberg press, Chinese innovations in ink, block
printing and movable clay type all fed the technological push toward
expanding the written word's range of influence. Althought the
European innovations came much later, European culture certainly felt
the impact of print more dramatically than the Chinese did. Because
their alphabet employs thousands of visually specific ideograms, the
use of movable type was much more labor-intensive for the Chinese.
Consequently, it did not change production efficiency as dramatically
as it did for Europeans. Some historians will also assert that the
sequential, linear and standardized character of the printed word
especially suited Western impulses toward progress and conquest-- a
disposition that favors quick and intense change."
As for Russia and the far North....Peter the Great, and Catherine the
Great, the founders of Russian Culture, were both very much influenzed
by Western European Culture, and the flow of knowledge to Russia
tended to come from China in the East and Europe in the West, rather
than Russia contributing directly to Western Culture.
In the far North the Nordic peoples became an integral part of Europe
as early as the Eighth century. They brought with them their knowledge
of shipbuilding and domestication of animals, but they grew alongside
Western Culture after then.
More influences come in during the great period of exploration, with
perhaps the most spectacular coming in agriculture with the coming of
such items as potatoes and coffee to the West. As European culture
developed, the demand for spices was a key to expanding world trade.
Many of the world's most valuable spices came from China, India, and
the Indonesian islands, including the Moluccas (or Spice Islands).
Europeans dealt directly with these Eastern cultures for spices, and
explorers sought new worlds in their quest for exclusive trade routes.
In such a way the world opened up rapidly to European influence.
There is a huge resource of European (and Russian) history pages
dealing with the time you are interested in at this link
"Russia"
http://my.execpc.com/~dboals/russia.html
Google searches used
"European Culture" history China
"Western Culture" history China
"Western Culture" history Russia
"European Culture" history Russia
"Western Culture" history exploration
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