God does not regret creating Arabs

9th October 2010

‘May you continue to lead your countrymen in majesty, courage and strength, for a lifetime and in peace.’ – Ovadia Yosef, an Israeli spiritual leader, wishing ailing Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak well in a surprising display of goodwill towards an Arab head of state. Yosef, known for acerbic [bitter] comments, has said that ‘God regrets creating Arabs”

Time Magazine dated “July 26 2010” Verbatim

“We wish for you best health and a lot of prosperity and happiness”

This is reply to Ovadia Yosef for saying best wishes for President Hosni Mubarak.

However following extracts from scholarly books are arranged in a sequence so that a large number of persons like Yosef Ovadia have a better perception about the Arabs and so that they will be a little more confident about the future.

If we do discover a complete [unified] theory [of the universe], it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it should be the ultimate triumph of human reason- for then we should know the mind of God.

Stephen Hawking (1942-). A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes,11, 1988

The Government never interfered with the worship of the tolerated subjects; in fact it looked with favour upon the frequently noisy celebration of Christian feasts…. About the year 200/815 the Caliph [King] Mamun wanted to give the protected subjects complete freedom regarding their faith and the management of their ecclesiastical affairs. Every community of whatever persuasion – even If it consisted of only ten souls- was to be permitted to choose its own spiritual chief and such a one was to receive the Caliph’s recognition.

The centres of Islamic civilization, Baghdad in the 9th and 10th centuries, Cairo and Granada in the 12th and 13th centuries, and Istanbul and Delhi in the 16th century were like Alexandria in the sense of accommodating different civilizational self-perceptions, entities and institutions. Because of the inclusiveness of Islamic civilization, it was called “Islamic universal state” by A.Toynbee and “medieval religious democracy” by S. Goitein. The concept of Ahl al Kitab [Nations having divine book(s) ], which was applied to Christians and Jews in the beginning were subsequently extended to Zoroastrian Iranians, and Hindu Indians, and served as a legal basis for civilizational coexistence.

Ahmet Davutoglu, “Civilizational Self-Perception and Pluralistic Coexistence: A Critical Examination of the Image of the ‘Other’”

Islamic thought in the Iberian Peninsula went through a unique development. The presence of three Abrahamic religions in close vicinity, contacts with the Islamic East and the Christian West, and a multi-racial, multi-cultural environment played key roles in these developments.

Al-Andalus [Arabic/Muslim Spain] produced a unique synthesis of Islamic thought in a multi-racial, multi-cultural setting. This synthesis occurred through a complex process involving travels, oral transmission, translation, re-interpretation, assimilation and transformation. Andalusian society, as it emerged, had a strong presence of Christians and Jews, some of whom were associated with the courts, rulers and other influential segments of the society.

Muzaffar Iqbal, “Islam and the West in the Emerging World Order”

For almost three centuries after Christ, the Jews and the Christians remained hostile to one another only because of difference in their religion beliefs. First the Jews persecuted [A campaign to exterminate or drive away or subjugate a people because of their religion, ethical or moral beliefs or practices] the Christians. When in the fourth century Christianity became the religion of the empire, Christian officials persecuted the Jews.

Christianity marked a progress in the history of religion: that is to say, in regard to the return of the repressed. From now on, the Jewish religion was, so to speak, a fossil [to change as if into mere lifeless remains or traces of the past].

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), “Moses and Monotheism”, 3.1.4, 1939, tr. Katherine Jones, 1955

Jewry [Judaism], in the form in which it collided with Western Christendom, was certainly an exceptional social phenomenon, but it was also certainly not unique. Jewry was exceptional in being fossilized relic [an object having interest by reason of its age or its association with the past] of a civilization that was extinct in every other shape.

Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975). "A Study of History", 8.274, 1954

Contributions of Arabs for advancement of Science Technology and Civilization

1. “No people in the Middle Ages contributed to human progress so much as did the Arabians and the Arabic-speaking peoples”

Philip Hitti, History of the Arabs

2. “It is the Arabs who should be regarded as the real founders of Physics”

Henri Pirenne, History of Western Europe (1970)

3. “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.”

“It is highly probable that but for the Arabs, modern industrial civilization would never have arisen at all”

Briffault, Making of Humanity.

4. “In 830 Al-Mamun established in Baghdad his famous Bayt al Hikmah [House of Wisdom], a combination library, academy and translation bureau, and an astronomical observatory. The work of translation continued with such speed and on such a vast scale that, within eighty years after the establishment of Baghdad, most of the books in Greek had already been rendered into Arabic.

During the Abbasid era, paper was being manufactured on a large scale, so there was no dearth of paper for writing books. There were more than 400,000 books in the library of Cordova (Spain) in the tenth century, whereas in Europe at that time, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the library of Canterbury was at the top of the list of Christian libraries with 1800 books in the 13th century.”

5. There is a tendency to belittle the work of the Arabs and to regard them as no more than transmitters of Greek Ideas. Arabs were much more than transmitters and that Arab science and philosophy contributed greatly to developments in Europe.

Montgomery Watt, “The Majesty that Was Islam”.

6. “Science, ever since the time of the Arabs, has had two functions: (I) to enable us to know things and (2) to enable us to do things. The Greeks, with the exception of Archimedes, were only interested in the first of these… interest in the practical uses of science came first through superstition and magic”

“To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventh century. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives mouths”

Bertrand Russell, “The Impact of Science on Society”

7. An environment truly conductive to free enquiry emerged only after the monotheistic revolution of Islam. The whole atmosphere was instantly changed by it, paving the way for the work of investigation to go on unhampered. This scientific way of thinking had its beginnings in Mecca. Then it spread to Medina and Damascus, from where it went on to make Baghdad a great centre of innovative thought. From Baghdad, it found its way to Spain, Sicily and Italy, finally spreading all over Europe. It went on spreading, ultimately changing the universal mind.

8. In the history of Europe the period from the sixth to the tenth century A.D. is known as the Dark Ages. This is a period when Europe was far from being civilized. “For Europe it was a period of intellectual darkness and barbarity”….. The term ‘Dark Ages' was applicable, however only to Europe; when Europe was enveloped in the murk of the Dark Ages, the light of civilization shone brightly through-out the world of Islam. As Bertrand Russell puts it in his History of Western Philosophy, “From India to Spain, the brilliant civilization of Islam flourished.”

9. The Encyclopedia Britannica says: “Most of the classical literature that spurred the European Renaissance was obtained from translations of Arabic manuscripts in Muslim libraries”… In modern times, a large number of scholars, for instance, Gustav Liban, Robert Briffault, J.M. Robert, Montgomery Watt, and so on, have clearly acknowledged that it was the investigations and discoveries of the Arabs that paved the way for modern science in Europe.

10. “Medicine was probably the first Greek science to attract the Arabs because of its obvious practical importance. Then they developed it to the extent of establishing medical colleges and hospitals, which did not exist in Greece. Not merely was it taught in the colleges of Iraq, but the teaching was accompanied by a flourishing medical service. The first hospital in Baghdad was founded about the year 800 on the initiative of the Caliph Harun al Rashid, and records have been preserved of the founding of four other hospitals there in the first quarter of the tenth century. A thirteenth century hospital in Cairo is to have had accommodation for 8,000 persons. It had separate wards for male and female patients, as well as for different categories of ailments. The staff included physicians and surgeons, pharmacists, attendants of both sexes and administrative officers and, besides store-rooms and a chapel, there were facilities for lecturing and a library.”

Montgomery Watt, "Majesty that was Islam".

11. The Arabs thus made extraordinary advances in medicine through their research. The first important physician was Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya ar-Razi (d. 923), known in Europe as Rhazes. He wrote voluminously on many scientific and philosophic subjects, and over fifty of his works are extant [still existing]. His greatest work, Al-Havi, was translated into Latin as the Continens (the comprehensive book). It was the first encyclopedia of all medical science up to that time, and had to be completed by his disciples after his death. For each disease he gave the views of Greek, Syrian, Indian, Persian and Arabic authors, and then added notes on his clinical observations and expressed a final opinion.

12. Abdullah ibn Baytar (d. 1248) was the best known botanist and pharmacist of Spain, in fact, of the Muslim world. He travelled as a herbalist in Spain and throughout North Africa, and later entered the service of the Ayyubid al-Malik al-Kamil in Cairo as chief herbalist. From Egypt he made extensive trips throughout Syria and Asia Minor. One of his two celebrated works, Al Mughni fi al Adwiyah al-Mufradah, is a collection of “simple remedies from the animal, vegetable and mineral worlds embodying Greek and Arabic data supplemented by the author’s own experiments and researches.” It stands out as the foremost medieval treatise of its kinds. Some 1400 items are considered, of which 300, including about 200 plants, were novelties. The number of authors quoted is about one hundred and fifty, of whom twenty were Greek. Parts of the Latin version of Ibn al Baytar’s Simplica were printed as late as 1758 at Cremona.

13. After material medica, astronomy and mathematics, the Arabs made their greatest scientific contribution in chemistry. This brought chemistry out of the sphere of alchemy and gave it the status of a regular science based on observation. In the study of chemistry and other physical sciences the Arabs introduced the objective experiment, a decided improvement over the hazy speculations of the Greeks. It was through them that the world was first introduced to the scientific method.

14. After Al-Razi, Jabir bin Hayyan (721-815) is ranked greatest in the field of medieval chemical science. He more clearly recognized and stated the importance of experimentation than any other early alchemist, and made noteworthy advances in both the theory and practice of chemistry.

Jabir’s books were held as the final authority in chemistry in Europe uptill the fifteenth century. The initial ladder to the modern western chemistry of the eighteenth century was produced by Jabir. It is believed that Jabir wrote two thousand books on different sciences. So many scholarly books had never been written before the Muslim epoch by any single writer.

15. In ancient times Roman numerals were in general use in Europe, In this system, letters were used to express numbers, a method adopted by the Greeks and some other ancient nations, and later by the Romans, who used the seven letters – M.D.C.L.X.V.I- in various combinations. For instance the figure 88 would be written as LXXXVIII. This was a cumbersome method and made calculations extremely difficult. The Europeans, however, regarded the Roman numerals as holy-a gift from the gods. As a result, they failed to revise their thinking in this matter. Regarding non-holy numerals as holy was the reason they failed to make any progress in science and mathematics for several hundred years. It was the Islamic revolution which for the first time dispelled the aura of sanctity surrounding the numeral and ushered in the era of scientific progress in Europe.

16. Al Khwarizmi, writing in the first half of the ninth century, was the exponent of the use of numerals, including the zero, in preference to letters. These numerals he called Hindi, indicating their Indian origin. His work on the Hindu method of calculations was translated into Latin by Adelard of Bath in the twelfth century and as De numero indico has survived, whereas the Arabic original has been lost.

Philip K. Hitti, “History of the Arabs”

17. Leonardo of Pisa was the most distinguished mathematician of the Middle Ages. He helped introduce into mathematics the Hindu-Arabic numerals and the number sequence that bears his name.

Little is known about Leonardo’s life beyond the few facts given in his mathematical writing. It is probable that he was born in Pisa, Italy. During Leonardo’s boyhood, his father, Guglielmo, a Pisan merchant, was appointed consul, or chief magistrate, over the community of Pisan merchants in the North African port of Bugia (now Bejara, Algeria). Leonardo soon joined him. With a view to future usefulness the father sent his son to study calculation with an Arab master. Leonardo later described his enjoyment in learning the art of the nine Indian figures. Leonardo also travelled to Egypt, Syria, Greece, and Sicily, etc., where he studied different numerical systems and methods of calculation but never found one as satisfactory as the Arabic numerals.

When Leonardo’s Liber abaci first appeared, Arabic numerals were known to only a few European intellectuals though translation of the writings of the ninth century Arab mathematician and astronomer Al-Khwarizmi. Leonardo began his explanation of the notation by observing: “The nine Arabic figures are; 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. With these nine figures and with the sign 0… any number may be written, as is demonstrated below.’ The first seven chapters dealt with the notation, explaining the principle of place value, by which the position of a figure determines whether it is a unit, ten, hundred and so forth, and demonstrating the use of the numerals in arithmetical operations. The techniques were then applied to such practical commercial problems as profit margin, barter, money changing, conversion of weights, partnerships, and interest.

The Liber abaci, which was widely copied and imitated, drew the attention of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, who was patron of science. In the year 1220, Leonardo was invited to appear before the emperor at Pisa, and there he propounded [proposed] a series of problems, three of which Leonardo presented in his books. The first two belonged to a favorite Arabic type.

Paragraph number 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 17 are extracts from the book “Islam; Creator of the Modern Age” written by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

To Be Continued