HOW SCIENCE DEVELOPED IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD
Published in Borneo Bulletin, 13th November 1997
Before the first urban civilizations appeared, mankind had already brought into being a considerable array of scientific knowledge, perhaps, without being aware of it. The earliest civilizations, such as those in Mesopotamia and Egypt where there first appeared cities and literate civilizations, had made attempts at science, but their science, as evident from their cuneiform and hieroglyphic scripts, was indistinguishable from theology. Those who could read and write were mostly the priests and nobles.
It was the Greeks however who first tried to give natural explanations of cosmic complexities and “mysterious” events. It was also during the Greek civilizations that for the first time, men who were not priests sought and recorded knowledge and inquired into the mysteries of life and being. The ancient Greeks were, in fact, the first civilization who actively promoted science.
The capital of the Greeks, Athens, became the first seat of great learning in history with the establishment of the Athenian Academy by Plato around 387 B.C. and the Lyceum by Aristotle around 335 B.C. It was here in Athens that is seen the first example in history of government patronage and large-scale financing of science by public wealth. Throughout history and especially during the Muslim Middle Ages, this factor has shown to be one of the most important in the promotion of science.
After the conquests of Alexander the Great, the main centre of Greek science shifted from Athens to Alexandria. The Athenians had become either superstitious or cynical. Upon the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C., his empire fell apart. Egypt was taken over by one of his generals, Ptolemy. He founded the famous Museum at Alexandria, a research and teaching institute modeled on the Lyceum, but much smaller in scale.
As the Ptolemies became more Egyptianized, they favoured science less and less. They fell under the sway of Egyptian priests and developments ceased to follow the work that was done earlier. Their control shifted the spirit of inquiry altogether. The school of Alexandria declined in the second century B.C. Intellectual approach shifted from original research to compilation and criticism.
Unlike the Greeks, the Romans were an agro-warrior community. They did not add a great deal to science when they took over from the Greeks and established their empire in 27 B.C. Their contribution lay elsewhere, in the field of organization and formation of law to protect and regulate their organizations. The Romans failed to assimilate the limited degree of unity, which the Greeks had achieved between theory and experimentation in science. They took over the content of Greek science without the method, and their work therefore tended to be either primarily philosophical or largely empirical. The age gradually became less and less intellectual as the Roman Empire crumbled and fell apart. With the rise of Christianity came a revival of the bronze-age theories. By about 394 A.D. the Greek system of the world was declared atheistic. The decline of science began by Roman utilitarianism was in danger of being destroyed by later Christian piety under the first Christian empire, the Byzantine. The emergence of Christianity had little visible impact on the promotion or encouragement of scientific thought. Apart from religious intolerance, rivalry between the Byzantine Empire and the Sassanid dynasty of Persia (226-652 A.D.) also affected the scientific culture. By the end of fourth century, all ideas became suspect and science suffered an almost complete eclipse throughout this period of intolerance.
Religious bigotry and a growing obscurantism towards scientific endeavor also drove many Syriac-using scholars of the Nestorian heresy from the Byzantine Empire to Persia. In Persia these scholars were welcomed and as a consequence, science in Jundishapur, flourished. At the time of spread of Islam to Persia, around 640 A.D, science in Jundishapur was still in its prime. When the Arab Muslims ruled Persia, the Islamic political administration of the Caliphate recognized the Nestorians as a separate religious community and granted it legal protection. The Nestorians had brought with them to Persia a great deal of knowledge, especially in the sciences of mathematics, astronomy and medicine which were later cultivated by the Muslims with the help of the Nestorians.
Scientific learning which was at its lowest during this period of history, was revived and its development reached new heights when the Muslims came into power. The Muslim period in history from 8th to the 11th centuries A.D. left the world a legacy in science and knowledge that has been compared with that left by the Greek civilization. For one thing, the actual course of the early Muslim rule was from the beginning a conducive factor for the later development of scientific learning and knowledge. With their rule, social conditions favourable to intellectual development were set. The Muslims at once found themselves in contact with Syria and its Byzantine culture, with Egypt, heir to the ancient world of the Pharaohs and to the great Hellenistic culture, with Persia, India and North Africa and Spain. Various peoples (Persians, Turks, Berbers, Indians, Egyptians, Andalusians, etc.) embraced Islam; other elements, for example, People of the Book remained in the midst of the Muslim community, protected by the law and taking an active part in cultural life.
Thus the most single striking effect of the unification of lands stretching from Persia in the east to Spain in the west under Islamic rule was the opening of formerly closed frontiers – frontiers that had been closed politically, linguistically and intellectually since the death of Alexander the Great. An extraordinary cross-fertilization of once separate intellectual traditions occurred as a result of the Muslim rule in the 7th and early 8th centuries. The interaction of all these peoples and their cultures thus laid the unique foundation for the development of science and learning in the land now controlled by the Muslims.
Not only were the social conditions generated by the Muslim rule favourable to intellectual growth, the religious factor too played an important part. Unlike the Romans who were preoccupied with power and wealth, or the Byzantines who were suspicious of classical science and philosophy, the Muslims were actively encouraged by their Quran and Prophet to acquire and disseminate knowledge and wisdom. The first order in the Quran is an order to read, and hence to acquire knowledge. Religion and science are one in Islam because religion constitutes knowledge of both the spiritual and the material world.
The Quran attaches importance to the promotion of knowledge: “He granteth wisdom to whom He pleaseth; and He to whom wisdom is granted receiveth indeed a benefit overflowing” (2;269). Reference to the vital significance of knowledge occurs on almost every page of the Quran. The word “knowledge” occurs at least 750 times in the Quran and its derivatives much more than that, whilst the other attributes of mind such as “understanding”, “thinking”, “reasoning”, etc., and their derivatives are numerous. Indeed the status of knowledge is rated equal to that of the faith: “Allah will exalt those who believe and those who are given knowledge to high degrees”(58:11).
The Prophet laid special stress on the acquisition of knowledge. One of his favourite prayers was: “My lord, increase me in knowledge”(20:114). One of his directives was “to seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave”. That knowledge was to be acquired from all sources was emphasized: “the word of the wisdom is the lost property of the believer, so wherever he finds it he has a better right to it”. The Prophet also emphasized that “the seeking of knowledge is obligatory upon every Muslim”, and that “the ink of scholars is worth more than the blood of martyrs – more meritorious than standing up in prayers for a thousand nights”. The Prophet also laid particular emphasis on the spread of knowledge: “Knowledge is maintained only through teaching”. The Prophet made it incumbent on those who came to him to seek knowledge and to impart the same to others: “Go back to your people and teach them”(Bukhari 3:25); “Let him who is present impart knowledge to him who is absent”( Bukhari 3:37) and desired even those who were considered to be in the lowest stratum of society to be uplifted to the highest levels through education (Bukhari 3:31). Writing was encouraged and requisition of knowledge was made the standard of excellence where it was said that the superiority of any race is maintained only through attainment of knowledge and that if persons belonging to a superior race discarded knowledge they lose their superiority.
It was also warned that when a nation gives up the acquisition of knowledge, its downfall is sure. Finally, both wealth and knowledge are things which man desires naturally to seek and in which all men should try to emulate each other. Therefore, every Muslim according to his needs and means was under religious obligation to accept learning as a continuous process in his life. In obedience to these Islamic injunctions, the Muslim scholars had thus devoted themselves to making the language of the Quran a vehicle of expression of scientific ideas and knowledge.
In making Arabic the official of the vast empire, the first century Muslims thus laid the foundation on which the intellectual efflorescence took off during the second century of the Muslim period. Against this background of social and religious conditions favourable to intellectual growth, the flowering of science in Islam in the second century of the Muslims’ existence was due directly to the patronage and liberality of the caliphs and those in high positions. Built upon the ruins of an ancient town by the second Abbasid caliph Al-Mansur who reigned between 754 - 775 A.D., Baghdad became the intellectual centre of the Muslim world. The famous historian of science D.E. Smith describes Baghdad then as “a second Alexandria in its fostering of learning”.
In conclusion, the main factors for the unprecedented 350 years of scientific culture during the Muslim period in history were the cross-fertilization of civilizations and races brought about by the Muslim rule; the teachings of the Prophet and the Quran which emphasized on learning and the seeking of knowledge; the universalization of Arabic language in the lands governed by the Muslims; and finally, the open-mindedness and liberality of the rulers who accommodated all irregardless of religion, race or culture, giving importance only to professionalism, scholarship and merit.