Read and reread...learn the names of
Arabic Scholars, their inventions...and how they changed the world...be proud
of our heritage.
There is a gap, a hole
in most Western’s students’ knowledge… they leap frog from the Greeks and Romans
to the Renaissance, ignoring a period of 500 years; the period of the glory of
the Moslem Arab civilization in Spain, Sicily, Sardinia and North Africa, a
civilization which far surpassed in every field anything existing in Western
Europe at the time.
The
majority of Europeans still are largely unaware of the immense debt they owe to
the translation era (which lasted 200 years) of the manuscripts & books in medicine, mathematics, chemistry,
architecture, town planning, botany, astronomy, philosophy and theology by Moslem
Arab Scholars (refer to the statements of modern historians – Arnold Toynbee,
Marguerite Yourcenar, others).
__________________________________
How Islamic inventors changed the world
From coffee to How Islamic inventors changed the world and the cheques
and the three-course meal, the Moslem world has given the WEST many innovations
that we take for granted in daily life. As a new exhibition opens, Paul Vallely nominates 20 of the most
influential- and identifies the men of genius behind it.
1.The story goes that a man named Khalid (though he may have been an Ethiopian Copt, one thing is certain he spoke Arabic) was tending his goats in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia, when he noticed his animals became livelier after eating a certain berry. He boiled the berries to make the first coffee. Certainly the first record of the drink is of beans exported from Ethiopia to Yemen where Sufis drank it to stay awake all night to pray on special occasions. By the late 15th century it had arrived in Mecca and Turkey from where it made its way to Venice in 1645. It was brought to England in 1650 by a Turk named Pasqua Rosee who opened the first coffee house in Lombard Street in the City of London. The Arabic qahwa became the Turkish kahve then the Italian caffé and then English coffee. عمدة الصفوة في حل القهوة
2. The ancient Greeks thought our eyes emitted rays, like a
laser, which enabled us to see. The first person to realise that light enters
the eye, rather than leaving it, was the 10th-century Moslem mathematician,
astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haitham. He invented the
first pin-hole camera after noticing the way light came through a hole
in window shutters. The smaller the hole, the better the picture, he worked
out, and set up the first Camera Obscura (from the Arab word qamara for a dark
or private room). He is also credited with being the first man to shift physics
from a philosophical activity to an experimental one.
3. A form of
chess was played in ancient India but the game was developed into the form we
know it today in Persia. From there it spread westward to Europe - where it was
introduced by the Moors in Spain in the 10th century - and eastward as far as
Japan. The word rook comes from the Persian rukh, which means chariot. Chess
passed from Persia to the Arab world, where its name changed to Arabic
shatranj. From there it passed to Western Europe. Shatranj made its way via the
expanding Islamic Arabian empire to Europe.
4. A thousand years before the Wright
brothers a Moslem poet, astronomer, musician and engineer named Abbas ibn
Firnas made several attempts to construct a flying machine. Abbas ibn
Firnas (810–887 A.D.), also known as
Abbas Abu al-Qasim ibn Firnas ibn Wirdas al-Takurini (Arabic: عباس بن فرناس), was an
Andalusian polymath In 852 he jumped from the minaret of the Grand Mosque in
Cordoba using a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts. He hoped to glide
like a bird. He didn't. But the cloak slowed his fall, creating what is thought
to be the first parachute, and leaving him with only minor injuries. In
875, aged 70, having perfected a machine of silk and eagles' feathers he tried
again, jumping from a mountain. He flew to a significant height and stayed
aloft for ten minutes but crashed on landing - concluding, correctly, that it
was because he had not given his device a tail so it would stall on landing.
Baghdad international airport and a crater on the Moon are named after him.
5. Washing and bathing are religious requirements
for Moslems, which is perhaps why they perfected the recipe for soap which we
still use today. The ancient Egyptians had soap of a kind, as did the
Romans who used it more as pomade. But it was the Arabs who combined
vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide and aromatics such as thyme oil. One
of the Crusaders' most striking characteristics, to Arab nostrils, was that
they did not wash. Shampoo was introduced to England by a Moslem who
opened Mahomed's Indian Vapour Baths on Brighton seafront in 1759 and
was appointed Shampooing Surgeon to Kings George IV and William IV.
6. Distillation, the means of separating
liquids through differences in their boiling points, was invented around the
year 800 by Islam's foremost scientist, Jabir ibn Hayyan, who transformed
alchemy into chemistry, inventing many of the basic processes and
apparatus still in use today - liquefaction, crystallisation, distillation,
purification, oxidisation, evaporation and filtration. As well as discovering
sulphuric and nitric acid, he invented the alembic still, giving the world
intense rosewater and other perfumes and alcoholic spirits (although drinking
them is haram, or forbidden, in Islam). Ibn Hayyan emphasised systematic
experimentation and was the founder of modern chemistry. He is in fact
universally considered as the FATHER OF CHEMISTRY.
15th-century European portrait of "Geber", Codici Ashburnhamiani 1166, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence
Robotic musical box with players
8. Quilting is a method of sewing
or tying two layers of cloth with a layer of insulating material in between. It
is not clear whether it was invented in the Moslem world or whether it was
imported there from India or China. But it certainly came to the West via the
Crusaders. They saw it used by Saracen warriors, who wore straw-filled quilted
canvas shirts instead of armour. As well as a form of protection, it proved an
effective guard against the chafing of the Crusaders' metal armour and was an
effective form of insulation - so much so that it became a cottage industry
back home in colder climates such as Britain and Holland.
9. The pointed arch so
characteristic of Europe's Gothic cathedrals was an invention borrowed from
Islamic architecture. It was much stronger than the rounded arch used
by the Romans and Normans, thus allowing the building of bigger, higher, more
complex and grander buildings. Other borrowings from Moslem genius included
ribbed vaulting, rose windows and dome-building techniques. Europe's castles
were also adapted to copy the Islamic world's - with arrow slits, battlements,
a barbican and parapets. Square towers and keeps gave way to more easily
defended round ones. Henry V's castle architect was a Moslem.
10 Many modern surgical instruments are of
exactly the same design as those devised in the 10th century by a Moslem
surgeon called al-Zahrawi, Abu al-Qasim
al-Zahrawi (936-1013) known also by
his Latin name Albucasis. His scalpels, bone saws, forceps, fine scissors for
eye surgery and many of the 200 instruments he devised are recognisable to a
modern surgeon. It was he who discovered that catgut used for internal stitches
dissolves away naturally (a discovery he made when his monkey ate his lute
strings) and that it can be also used to make medicine capsules. In the 13th
century, another Moslem medic named Ibn Nafis described the circulation
of the blood, 300 years before William Harvey discovered it. Moslems doctors
also invented anaesthetics of opium and alcohol mixes and developed hollow
needles to suck cataracts from eyes in a technique still used today.
Abu Al-Qasim surgical instruments
Latin name ALBUCASIS
11. The windmill was invented in 634 by Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Farisi al Istakhri (aka Estakhri, Persian: استخری, i.e. from the Iranian city of Estakhr, 11. The windmill was invented in 634 by Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Farisi al Istakhri (aka Estakhri, Persian: استخری, i.e. from the Iranian city of Estakhrb. - d. 957 AD for a Persian caliph and was used to grind corn and draw up water for irrigation. In the vast deserts of Arabia, when the seasonal streams ran dry, the only source of power was the wind which blew steadily from one direction for months. Mills had six or 12 sails covered in fabric or palm leaves. It was 500 years before the first windmill was seen in Europe.
12. The technique of inoculation
was not invented by Jenner and Pasteur but was devised in the Moslem world and
brought to Europe from Turkey by the wife of the English ambassador to Istanbul
in 1724. The practice was introduced to England by Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu. Lady Montagu's husband, Edward Wortley Montagu, served as the
British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1716 to 1718. She witnessed
firsthand the Turkish use of inoculation in Istanbul and was greatly impressed.
The Turkish practice was presented to the Royal Society in 1714 and 1716, when the
physicians Emanuel Timoni and Giacomo Pylarini independently sent letters from
Constantinople. Children in Turkey were vaccinated with cowpox to fight the
deadly smallpox at least 50 years before the West discovered it.
13. The first fountain pen was made in In
953, Ma'Äd al-Mu'izz, the caliph of Egypt, demanded a pen which
would not stain his hands or clothes, and was provided with a pen which held
ink in a reservoir and delivered it to the nib via gravity and capillary
action. The fountain pen was invented for the Sultan of Egypt in 953. It
held ink in a reservoir and, as with modern pens, fed ink to the nib by a
combination of gravity and capillary action.
18. By the 9th century, many Moslem scholars took it for granted that the Earth was a sphere. The proof, said astronomer Ibn Hazm, "is that the Sun is always vertical to a particular spot on Earth". Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd ibn Ḥazm (Arabic: أبو محمد علي بن احمد بن سعيد بن حزم; also sometimes known as al-Andalusī aẓ-Ẓāhirī; November 7, 994 – August 15, 1064 was an Andalusian polymath born in Córdoba, present-day Spain. He was a leading proponent and codifier of the Zahiri School of Islamic thought, and produced a reported 400 works of which only 40 still survive, covering a range of topics such as Islamic jurisprudence, history, ethics, comparative religion, and theology, as well as The Ring of the Dove, on the art of love. The Encyclopaedia of Islam refers to him as having been one of the leading thinkers of the Moslem world, and he is widely acknowledged as the father of comparative religious studies. It was 500 years before that realisation dawned on Galileo. The calculations of Moslem astronomers were so accurate that in the 9th century they reckoned the Earth's circumference to be 40,253.4km - less than 200km out. The scholar al-Idrisi took a globe depicting the world to the court of King Roger of Sicily in 1139.
19. Though the
Chinese invented saltpetre gunpowder, and used it in their fireworks, it was the
Arabs who worked out that it could be purified using potassium nitrate for
military use. In the 13th century a Syrian scholar, Hassan Al-Rammah (d. 1294-1295), wrote
a remarkable book on military technology, which became very famous in the west.
The first documented rocket is included in the book, a model of which is
exhibited at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. Hasan al-Rammah included 107 gunpowder recipes
in his al-furusiyyah wa al-manasib al-harbiyya (The Book of Military
Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices), 22 of which are for rockets. If one
takes the median of 17 of these 22 compositions for rockets (75% nitrates,
9.06% sulphur and 15.94% carbon), it is almost identical with the reported
ideal recipe (75% potassium nitrate, 10% sulphur, and 15% carbon).
Hasan al-Rammah also describes the purifying of saltpeter using the chemical processes of solution and crystallization. This was the first clear method for the purification of saltpeter. The earliest torpedo was also first described in 1270 by Hasan al-Rammah in The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices, which illustrated a torpedo running with a rocket system filled with explosive materials and having three firing points Moslem incendiary devices terrified the Crusaders. By the 15th century they had invented both a rocket, which they called a "self-moving and combusting egg", and a torpedo - a self-propelled pear-shaped bomb with a spear at the front which impaled itself in enemy ships and then blew up. Guns were being used by Arabs in 1340AD in the defence of Al-Bashur, when under siege by Franzdol. In Khans book Arab Civilization, he writes
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https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=&oq=1001+inventions&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4LENN_en___CA509&q=1001+inventions+that+changed+the+world&gs_l=hp..3.0l5.0.0.11.1259692...........0._7SJFdx3iww
http://en.1001izum.si/_cache/rsklan/tiger-A-9A/thumb/980x300/upload_1001_www_header_podaljsano_ang.jpg
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Think of the
origins of camera of modern life, the cup of coffee, and Oxford university of
England to mind. But in fact, Yemen is where the coffee was first brewed has
its true origins. Even the toothbrush is among the surprising Moslem inventions
that have shaped the world we live in today.
exterior of al-Karaouine University (Arabic: جامعة القرويين) AL KARAOUN in Fez), founded in 859
________________________________________________
EPILOGUE 1
The
question is: What happened to the brilliant Moslem Arab civilization? Answer: Two
things happened, 2 catastrophes:
2. OTTOMANS’ CONQUEST
_______________________________
No
matter how much ignorant & indoctrinated Westerners may try to belittle
modern Arabs and have them feel inferiors, such attempt will fail... Why? Because
most Arab university graduates KNOW how much indebted the Western world owes to
the innovations and contributions of the once great & brilliant Moslem Arab
civilization during the Middle Age. In fact the historian Arnold Toynbee and
Marguerite Yourcenar (Marguerite de Grayencour), winner of the Prix Femina and
the Erasmus Prize, who was the first woman elected to the Académie Française,
in 1980 stated officially: (here, I am paraphrasing)
"where it not for the translation in Moslem Spain in the 11-12th centuries of the Arabic manuscripts & books of the immense contributions & innovations made by the Moslem Arab civilization in medicine, mathematics, astrology, town planning, architecture, philosophy and theology; the Middle Age in Europe would have lasted a further 300 years, most probably until the 16th century”.
In short, they both said that the RENAISSANCE – Il RINASCIMENTO - was in great part due to the translation of Arabic manuscripts.
__________________________
Let's take one example of misinformation:
The Father of Medicine was the Egyptian IMHOTEP not Hyppocrates
Imhotep was the first known physician, medical professor and a prodigious writer of medical books. As the first medical professor, Imhotep is believed to have been the author of the Edwin Smith Papyrus in which more than 90 anatomical terms and 48 injuries are described. He also founded a school of medicine in Memphis, possibly known as “Asklepion, which remained famous for two thousand years. All of this occurred some 2,200 years before the Western Father of Medicine Hippocrates was born.
The Egyptian Imhotep (2667 - 2648 BCE) is the first
physician in history known by name. The earliest known surgery in Egypt was
performed in Egypt around 2750 BCE. The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus treats
women's complaints, including problems with conception. Thirty four cases
detailing diagnosis and treatment survive, some of them fragmentarily. Dating
to 1800 BCE, it is the oldest surviving medical text of any kind. Imhotep lived
during the Third Dynasty at the court of King Zoser. Imhotep was a known
scribe, chief lector, priest, architect, astronomer and magician (medicine and
magic fell under this category.) For 3000 YEARS HE WAS WORSHIPPED AS A GOD IN
GREECE AND ROME. WHEN THE GREEKS
CONQUERED EGYPT THEY RECOGNIZED IN HIS CONTRIBUTIONS AND ADOPTED HIS
METHODOLOGIES IN THEIR MEDICINE, AND CONTINUED TO BUILD TEMPLES TO HIM.
P.S.
Cases in point showing both ignorance and indoctrination among modern faculty members.
IBN SINNA
Ibn Sina the greatest Universalist.
ANOTHER CASE OF WESTERN IGNORANCE BY UNIVERSITY TENURED PROFESSORS -- I WAS VERY BRUTAL ( I CALLED SOME CRETINS)
IBN RUSHD
Averroës,
medieval Latin Averrhoës, also called Ibn Rushd, Arabic in full Abū al-Walīd Muḥammad
ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Rushd (born
1126, Córdoba [Spain]—died 1198, Marrakech, influential Islamic religious
philosopher who integrated Islamic traditions with ancient Greek thought. At
the request of the Almohad caliph Abu Yaʿqub Yusuf, he produced a series of
summaries and commentaries on most of Aristotle’s works (1169–95) and on
Plato’s Republic, which exerted considerable
influence in both the Islamic world and Europe for centuries. He wrote the
Decisive Treatise on the Agreement Between Religious Law and Philosophy (Faṣl
al-Maḳāl), Examination of the Methods of Proof Concerning the Doctrines of
Religion (Kashf al-Manāhij), and The Incoherence of the Incoherence (Tahāfut
al-Tahāfut), all in defense of the philosophical study of religion against the
theologians (1179–80). Regarding his studies in astronomy, Averroes argued for
a strictly concentric model of the universe, and explained sunspots and
scientific reasoning regarding the occasional opaque colors of the moon. He
also worked on the description of the spheres, and movement of the spheres.
When I asked some acquaintances or part-time colleagues (university lecturers & assistant professors) if they knew who AVERROES was, the reply was that he was an Italian/French medieval scientist!! I confess that my reaction was very brutally worded (it usually is when confronted by the ignorance of Faculty members) … In truth, a few took the trouble to go to the main library …then returned & apologized by saying “You were right Michael, but we were never taught this” … which is precisely the shameful gap, the hole about non-Western civilization I mentioned in my preamble. I have no doubt in my mind that the main culprit for neglecting, omitting and dismissing purposely the Moslem Arab immense contributions was the Catholic Church who during the 2 centuries of translation instructed the translators monks to choose the Greek words when they existed … Arabic words were used only when there were no equivalent e.g. (alcohol, algebra, camphor, compass, admiral, alcove, apricot, giraffe, caliber, zero, etc.)
AND
ANOTHER
IBN BATUTAH
14. The system
of numbering in use all round the world is probably Indian in origin but the
style of the numerals is Arabic and first appears in print in the work of the Moslem
mathematicians’ al-Khwarizmi and al-Kindi around 825. Algebra was named after al-Khwarizmi's
book, Al-Jabr
wa-al-Muqabilah, much of whose contents are still in use. Al-Khwārizmī's
contributions to mathematics, geography, astronomy, and cartography established
the basis for innovation in algebra and trigonometry. His systematic approach
to solving linear and quadratic equations led to algebra, a word derived from
the title of his 830 book on the subject, "The Compendious Book on
Calculation by Completion and Balancing".
A stamp issued September 6, 1983 in the Soviet Union, commemorating
al-Khwārizmī's (approximate) 1200th birthday.
On the
Calculation with Hindu Numerals written about 825, was principally responsible
for spreading the Hindu–Arabic numeral system throughout the Middle East and
Europe. It was translated into Latin as Algoritmi de numero Indorum. Al-Khwārizmī, rendered as (Latin)
Algoritmi, led to the term "algorithm".The work of Moslem maths
scholars was imported into Europe 300 years later by the Italian mathematician
Fibonacci. Algorithms and much of the theory of trigonometry came from the Moslem
world. And Al-Kindi's discovery of frequency analysis rendered all the
codes of the ancient world soluble and created the basis of modern cryptology.
The original Arabic print manuscript of the Book of Algebra by
Al-Khwārizmī.
15. Abu
l-Hasan ‘Ali Ibn Nafi‘ (789-857), Kurdish:
Abu'l Hesen 'Elî ibn Nafî (Ziryab), Arabic: أبو الحسن علي ابن نافع, Persian: زریاب)
was a Kurdish musician, singer, oud player, composer, poet and teacher, who
lived and worked in Iran, Iraq, Northern Africa and during more than 30 years,
in Andalus of the medieval Islamic period. He was also known as a polymath,
with knowledge in astronomy, geography, meteorology, botanics, cosmetics,
culinary art and fashion. Ali ibn
Nafi,
known by his nickname of Ziryab (Blackbird) came from Iraq to Cordoba in
the 9th century and brought with him the concept of the three-course meal -
soup, followed by fish or meat, then fruit and nuts. He also introduced crystal
glasses (which had been invented after experiments with rock crystal by Abbas
ibn Firnas) as a container for drinks, which was more effective than metal.
16. Carpets were
regarded as part of Paradise by medieval Moslems, thanks to their advanced weaving
techniques, new tinctures from Islamic chemistry and highly developed sense of
pattern and arabesque which were the basis of Islam's non-representational art.
In contrast, Europe's floors were distinctly earthly, not to say earthy, until
Arabian and Persian carpets were introduced. In England, as Erasmus recorded,
floors were "covered in rushes, occasionally renewed, but so imperfectly
that the bottom layer is left undisturbed, sometimes for 20 years, harbouring
expectoration, vomiting, the leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings, scraps of
fish, and other abominations not fit to be mentioned". Carpets,
unsurprisingly, caught on quickly.
17. The modern
cheque comes from the Arabic saqq, a written vow to pay for goods when
they were delivered, to avoid money having to be transported across dangerous
terrain. Moslem traders are known to have used the cheque or ṣakk system since
the time of Harun al-Rashid (9th century) of the Abbasid Caliphate.
Transporting a paper saqq was more secure than transporting money. In the 9th
century, a merchant in country A could cash a saqq drawn on his bank in country
B.[9] In the 9th century, a Moslem businessman could cash a cheque in
China drawn on his bank in Baghdad.
18. By the 9th century, many Moslem scholars took it for granted that the Earth was a sphere. The proof, said astronomer Ibn Hazm, "is that the Sun is always vertical to a particular spot on Earth". Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd ibn Ḥazm (Arabic: أبو محمد علي بن احمد بن سعيد بن حزم; also sometimes known as al-Andalusī aẓ-Ẓāhirī; November 7, 994 – August 15, 1064 was an Andalusian polymath born in Córdoba, present-day Spain. He was a leading proponent and codifier of the Zahiri School of Islamic thought, and produced a reported 400 works of which only 40 still survive, covering a range of topics such as Islamic jurisprudence, history, ethics, comparative religion, and theology, as well as The Ring of the Dove, on the art of love. The Encyclopaedia of Islam refers to him as having been one of the leading thinkers of the Moslem world, and he is widely acknowledged as the father of comparative religious studies. It was 500 years before that realisation dawned on Galileo. The calculations of Moslem astronomers were so accurate that in the 9th century they reckoned the Earth's circumference to be 40,253.4km - less than 200km out. The scholar al-Idrisi took a globe depicting the world to the court of King Roger of Sicily in 1139.
Hasan al-Rammah also describes the purifying of saltpeter using the chemical processes of solution and crystallization. This was the first clear method for the purification of saltpeter. The earliest torpedo was also first described in 1270 by Hasan al-Rammah in The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices, which illustrated a torpedo running with a rocket system filled with explosive materials and having three firing points Moslem incendiary devices terrified the Crusaders. By the 15th century they had invented both a rocket, which they called a "self-moving and combusting egg", and a torpedo - a self-propelled pear-shaped bomb with a spear at the front which impaled itself in enemy ships and then blew up. Guns were being used by Arabs in 1340AD in the defence of Al-Bashur, when under siege by Franzdol. In Khans book Arab Civilization, he writes
“Gunpowder
was a great invention of the Arabs, who were already using guns”.
20. Medieval Europe had kitchen and herb
gardens, but it was the Arabs who developed the idea of the garden as a place
of beauty and meditation. The first royal pleasure gardens in Europe were
opened in 11th-century Moslem Spain. Flowers which originated in Moslem gardens
include the carnation and the tulip.
"1001 Inventions: Discover the Moslem
Heritage in Our World" is a new exhibition which began a nationwide tour
this week. It is currently at the Science Museum in Manchester. For more
information, go to
(Put cursor, Press control and Click) AND
exterior of al-Karaouine University (Arabic: جامعة القرويين) AL KARAOUN in Fez), founded in 859
Along with the first university al-Qarawiyyin or al-Karaouine (Arabic: جامعة القرويين) AL KARAOUN in Fez), founded in 859, according to UNESCO and Guinness World Records and is sometimes referred to as the oldest university in the world. The Famous Al Azhar university in Cairo was founded in 970. By contrast the first university in the Western world was the university of Paris (1250) founded 400 years later.
________________________________
The origins of
these fundamental ideas and objects – the basis of everything from the bicycle
to musical scales – are the focus of “1001 Inventions,” a book celebrating “the
forgotten” history of 1,000 years of Moslem heritage.
“1001 Inventions”
is now an exhibition at London’s Science Museum. It is hoped that the
exhibition will highlight the contributions of non-Western cultures – like the Moslem
empire that once covered Spain and Portugal, Southern Italy and stretched as
far as parts of China – to present day civilization.
1. BAGHDAD BURNED FOR 7 DAYS.
The destruction & burning of Baghdad
by Khan Houlagu (whose name is the origin of the word Hooligan).
The Mongols sacked the city in 1258. After
a 6 months siege, the Mongols captured the city, put to the sword ½ the estimated
1 million population and burned ½ the manuscripts & books in the great Library
of Baghdad …, (Though Houlagu was a grandson of Genghis Khan, the irony is that
3 of Genghis Khan’s sons & their descendants embraced ISLAM: a) TAMERLAN –
Timur ling - whose real name was Emir Hassan ibn Muhammad Taraghai and b)
Abdullah II the last King of Mongolia who abdicated in 1920).
2. OTTOMANS’ CONQUEST
The Ottoman’s conquest in 1515 of the
entire Middle East (from Tunis to Baghdad) by the Ottoman Sultan Selim II was a
death sentence. When he retreated to Istanbul, Sultan Selim II took with him an
estimated 30,000 Arab Scientists, Calligraphers, Doctors, Astrologists, Town
Planners, Mathematicians, Craftsmen from Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus, leaving
behind only the 12-13 year olds
apprentices. After that, the voice of Moslem Arab was silenced for more
than 4 centuries (until 1918); though the official language of the Ottoman
Empire was formal Arabic, neither the occupying troops nor the common Turks
spoke Arabic. In addition, the ruling vassal dynasties in Tunisia, Libya and
Egypt were foreign dynasties (Turco-Albanians).
EPILOGUE 2
"where it not for the translation in Moslem Spain in the 11-12th centuries of the Arabic manuscripts & books of the immense contributions & innovations made by the Moslem Arab civilization in medicine, mathematics, astrology, town planning, architecture, philosophy and theology; the Middle Age in Europe would have lasted a further 300 years, most probably until the 16th century”.
In short, they both said that the RENAISSANCE – Il RINASCIMENTO - was in great part due to the translation of Arabic manuscripts.
Remark:
After the fall of the kingdom of Grenada, the last Arab Moorish possession in
Spain in 1492, the dreaded and horrific Catholic Inquisition started whose
purpose was to eradicate Islam & Judaism in Spain … but a little known
reason is the fact that thousands of Spanish families at the time were teaching
their children ARABIC secretly as they considered ARABIC the language of
SCIENCE.
In the year 1000 CE
(Common Era), the Arab University of Cordoba had more than 400,000 manuscripts
& books (more than the combined books existing in UK, France &
Italy)…and there were 19 other Arabic universities in Andalusia (Salamanca,
Coimbra, Valencia, Alhambra, etc.).
NOTE 2
I
have always maintained that Greece is mostly an invention of 19th
century romantic historians who covertly wished that the beginning of
European history would start geographically and philosophically in an area
located in WESTERN EUROPE. The truth is that the Greeks invented
quasi-nothing … everything had been already discovered by the ancient Egyptians
and Persians... and the Greeks knew it through their contact with the CRETAN (isle of
Crete) civilization.
Let's take one example of misinformation:
The Father of Medicine was the Egyptian IMHOTEP not Hyppocrates
Imhotep was the first known physician, medical professor and a prodigious writer of medical books. As the first medical professor, Imhotep is believed to have been the author of the Edwin Smith Papyrus in which more than 90 anatomical terms and 48 injuries are described. He also founded a school of medicine in Memphis, possibly known as “Asklepion, which remained famous for two thousand years. All of this occurred some 2,200 years before the Western Father of Medicine Hippocrates was born.
The medical history books will have
to be revised, says Roger Highfield
The Edwin Smith papyrus, the world’s oldest surviving
surgical document. Written in hieratic script in ancient Egypt around 1600
B.C., the text describes anatomical observations and the examination,
diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of 48 types of medical problems in
exquisite detail.
______________________________
P.S.
Cases in point showing both ignorance and indoctrination among modern faculty members.
Twenty
five years ago, I was sitting at a table in the university library doing some
research, when Dr. … (name withheld, though he is probably dead now) came and
sat down facing me. He was an establish author, a medievalist and Professor
Emeritus at U of T. I recognized him and saw that he was reading a book on
AVICENNA. “Hi Dr., I am sure you know the full name of AVICENNA, the greatest
medieval Universalist” … he replied “I don’t remember his name, but he was a
Jewish scholar”!!
I was astonished by his ignorance and indoctrination, however, in deference to his age, I choose irony “well, he must have been a very unusual Jew, since his name is Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā … Avicenna is his latinized name, Dr. Professor Emeritus”.
Shortly after, he got up and sat at another table ... THE CRETIN !!
I was astonished by his ignorance and indoctrination, however, in deference to his age, I choose irony “well, he must have been a very unusual Jew, since his name is Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā … Avicenna is his latinized name, Dr. Professor Emeritus”.
Shortly after, he got up and sat at another table ... THE CRETIN !!
Arabic: أبو علي الحسين
ابن عبد الله ابن سينا; c. 980 – June
1037 was a Persian polymath and jurist who is regarded as one of the most
significant thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age. Of the 450 works he
is known to have written, around 240 have survived, including 150 on philosophy
and 40 on medicine.
His most famous works are THE BOOK OF HEALING – a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and THE CANON OF MEDICINE – a medical encyclopedia, which became a standard medical text at many medieval universities and remained in use as late as 1650. His description & graphics of the disease of the eye remained the standard reference book at the school of medicine in VIENNA as late as 1790.
His most famous works are THE BOOK OF HEALING – a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and THE CANON OF MEDICINE – a medical encyclopedia, which became a standard medical text at many medieval universities and remained in use as late as 1650. His description & graphics of the disease of the eye remained the standard reference book at the school of medicine in VIENNA as late as 1790.
Ibn Sina the greatest Universalist.
ANOTHER CASE OF WESTERN IGNORANCE BY UNIVERSITY TENURED PROFESSORS -- I WAS VERY BRUTAL ( I CALLED SOME CRETINS)
When I asked some acquaintances or part-time colleagues (university lecturers & assistant professors) if they knew who AVERROES was, the reply was that he was an Italian/French medieval scientist!! I confess that my reaction was very brutally worded (it usually is when confronted by the ignorance of Faculty members) … In truth, a few took the trouble to go to the main library …then returned & apologized by saying “You were right Michael, but we were never taught this” … which is precisely the shameful gap, the hole about non-Western civilization I mentioned in my preamble. I have no doubt in my mind that the main culprit for neglecting, omitting and dismissing purposely the Moslem Arab immense contributions was the Catholic Church who during the 2 centuries of translation instructed the translators monks to choose the Greek words when they existed … Arabic words were used only when there were no equivalent e.g. (alcohol, algebra, camphor, compass, admiral, alcove, apricot, giraffe, caliber, zero, etc.)
IBN BATUTAH
Ibn
Baṭūṭah (/ˌɪbənbætˈtuːtɑː/ Arabic: أبو
عبد الله محمد بن عبد الله اللواتي الطنجي بن بطوطة, ʾAbū ʿAbd al-Lāh Muḥammad
ibn ʿAbd al-Lāh l-Lawātī ṭ-Ṭanǧī ibn Baṭūṭah), or simply Muhammad Ibn Battuta (ابن
بطوطة) (February 25, 1304 – 1368 or 1369),
was a Moroccan explorer of Berber descent, who is widely recognised as one of the greatest travelers of all time.
He is known for his extensive travels, accounts of which were published in the
Rihla (lit. "Journey"). Over a period of thirty years, Ibn Battuta
visited most of the known Islamic world as well as many non-Moslem lands. His
journeys included trips to North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Africa and
Eastern Europe, and to the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast
Asia and China.
Ibn Battutta covered 120,000 klm, that is 3 times the earth’s circumference; compared to his periple,
Marco Polo's trip to China and back to Venice could be described as a mere Sunday Stroll.