ISLAM—CREATOR OF THE MODERN AGE
Beginning of Modern Science
THE American astronaut, Neil Armstrong, was the first man to set foot on the moon after a four-day space voyage on July 21, 1969. Setting foot on the moon, he uttered these words which are now a part of history: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Armstrong, along with his colleagues, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins, undertook this journey on a special spacecraft, the Apollo 11. In the final stage they boarded a lunar vehicle named Eagle to land on the surface of the moon.
The Apollo spacecraft was not as fanciful as some of us might imagine a magic flying chariot. It was a scientifically designed machine made in accordance with our observation of the unchanging laws of nature. The ability to traverse such immense distances in space on such spacecraft is entirely due to man’s correct application of his empirical knowledge.
Monotheism opened the doors of research and
investigation by displacing nature from its sacred pedestal.
These laws, the application of which has enabled man to reach the moon, have existed throughout the universe since time immemorial, yet it took man centuries to discover them. Why did it take so many thousands of years in the course of man’s development to launch himself into space?
The answer is the prevalence of polytheism, a creed which looked upon things and creatures as deities, and encouraged their worship. In ancient times polytheism dominated the world. Man considered the moon a deity, just as he held all kinds of other inanimate objects to be gods. The moon, with its brilliant silvery light, inspired man to bow before it rather than try to conquer it. Holding the moon to be sacred was a major obstacle to even thinking of conquering it.
Then, for the first time, in the seventh century, the supremacy of nature worship was brought to an end by the Islamic revolution. Nature worship was replaced by monotheism making it the dominant creed of the times. This revolution, initially brought about in Arabia, soon spread through Asia, Africa and Europe. In more recent times, it has crossed the Atlantic to gain a foothold in America.
In the Muslim world this revolution was brought about through the influence of religion. The western world, with its own particular circumstances, developed this revolution along different lines, separating secular science from religion. The moon journey is an obvious illustration.
Just as nationalisation is an economic part of Marxist philosophy, modern science is a part of Islamic revolution which has been separated from its whole.
This is true of all natural sciences. They were forbidden territory because of the polytheistic view of the sanctity of nature's phenomena. Monotheism opened the doors of research and investigation by displacing nature from its sacred pedestal.
Thus began a new era of freedom to investigate nature. The slow, thousand-year process culminated (towards the end at an ever-accelerating pace) in modern science and technology. Modern science is wholly the gift of the Islamic revolution—directly in its initial stages and indirectly in its later stages.
The history of science can no longer extol the achievements of
just one nation, but shows science as a gift of the religion sent
by God Almighty for the eternal guidance of all mankind.
This truth has been generally acknowledged in one way or another. A number of books —The Scientific Achievement of the Arabs, The Muslim Contribution to Civilization, testify to its general acceptance.
Scholars agree that modern industrial progress owes its existence to Arab-Muslim influences. A. Humboldt writes: “It is the Arabs who should be regarded as the real founders of physics.”
Philip Hitti writes in his book, History of the Arabs (1970): “No people in the Middle Ages contributed to human progress so much as did the Arabians and the Arabic speaking peoples.”Historians generally accept that it was the science which reached Europe through the Arabs (who were of course Muslims) which finally brought about the renaissance (or the first awakening, to be more precise). Original works in Arabic written after the establishment of Bait al Hikmah in Baghdad in 832 CE, were translated into Latin. “This stream was diverted into Europe by the Arabs in Spain and Sicily which helped create the European Renaissance,” writes Professor Hitti.
What brought about this thinking in the Arabs in the first place, considering that they had been submerged in the same backwardness as the rest of the world of that time? There can be only one answer: the creed of monotheism. The Arabs, after the advent of Islam, were imbued with the spirit of monotheism, while others practiced polytheism. This difference caused the divergence in their histories, one shaped by the course of events, the other shaping history itself.
Henri Pirenne acknowledged this as a historical fact: “Islam changed the face of the globe. The traditional order of history was overthrown.”
There is no doubt that the scientific revolution was set in motion by the Arab Muslims. But the initial stimulus came from the new way of thinking which had been made possible by Islam. Logically, the history of science can no longer extol the achievements of just one nation, but shows science as a gift of the religion sent by God Almighty for the eternal guidance of mankind. o
Law of Nature
Man can exercise his freedom but he
cannot change the course of nature.
Dutifulness
A rights-based ideology is focused upon
what has to come from others, whereas a
duty-based ideology starts with the self